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The Whisper of Stars is an ambitious work of fantasy fiction that lays its fantasy elements onto real-life history and even real-life historical figures. That's not entirely new of course, but what is impressive is in how convincing Cristin Williams makes it, building a folk-like legend around a particularly dark moment in world history without making light of the horrors surrounding it. The events of the novel are set in 1923 in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, where the Bolshevik forces under Lenin are hoping to use the skills of a select group of citizens to serve the needs of the state: those with the ability of witchcraft. There are three individuals in particular in the novel with striking and different abilities. Yekaterina Efremova, comes from a family of anarchists, Katya the daughter of the famous Svetlana Efremova. Katya is volshevniki , born with magic powers, her speciality as a charovniki is in the casting of spells. After some experiments to try to control ...

Alastair Reynolds has been known to dip his toes into other genres besides the space opera science fiction he is known for. When I say dip into, that means literally just flirting with the conventions of crime fiction and historical adventure, but always within the science-fiction world. Sometimes more obviously than others - Eversion had me confused for a while - although to my mind those have all been successful ventures. Although Halcyon Years flirts with noir then - more parodies than flirts with really - it's clear nonetheless right from the outset, when we find out that we are dealing with private investigator called Yuri Gagarin, that this is another genre-with-genre exercise - and again a fairly entertaining one, very much on the pulp side of his SF writing. Future noir is nothing new either, but it needs to work hard not to fall into parody. Reynolds doesn't seem like he is too concerned with that, creating Gagarin Investigative Enterprises, a small time operation wi...

Although she is known for her work is the SF/Fantasy genre (and has lately taken to Greek mythology), Slow Gods is the Claire North's first genuine work in the space-opera SF genre. Her approach however is familiar, drawing from the world around us now, finding a different perspective or way to express all the things humanity is getting wrong and where it might lead. 84K , an updating of 1984, was a good example of that. Similarly, the concerns in Slow Gods can be seen to critique authoritarianism and the failure of capitalism, as well as contemporary concerns and attitudes towards nationality, racism, gender politics and asylum seekers. In space of course. Unfortunately, while its heart is in the right place, this time the treatment feels rather heavy-handed and mired in tired prose and invented SF terminology that never seems to get to grips with the scope and scale of the issues that the novel attempts to raise. The characteristics and experiences of the central figure in the ...

Behind all the unfamiliar science-fiction technological terms associated with its Martian setting and a sense of being thrown into the deep end, what happens at the start of R.T. Ester's  The Ganymedan is clear enough and sets the ball rolling in a thrilling style. The short version is that Verden Dotnet, or V-Dot as he is known, has just assassinated perhaps the most important man in the system, Archer Lenox-Pileser - known to all as LP - but while trying to make his escape on a spacecraft leaving Mars, he has been identified and killed while trying to evade the authorities. The longer version of what actually happened inevitably is a little more complicated. As indeed is the nature of 'death'. For some wealthy individuals - of which LP was definitely one - the technology that LP helped develop means that you can take frequent backups that can be restored to a new body. Indeed he has been assassinated several times already and used this technology before, but this time hi...

If it were any other writer, you would consider Tom’s Version a follow up to the author's last book, The Runes Have Been Cast , but Robert Irwin is an unusual case. His books, from The Arabian Nightmare onward, are intrigued with the idea of life as a story: as the book before the last made explicit in its title, My Life is like a Fairy Tale . Seen in that light, The Runes Have Been Cast , which was by no means straightforward itself (although less convoluted than some of Irwin's work) almost becomes enfolded within Tom's Version , a story within a story. Or maybe I'm just over-thinking it. Nonetheless the clues and references are scattered throughout Tom's Version . Now in 1970, following the late 1960s' story of the two Oxford academics in The Runes Have Been Cast , at the end of chapter one here, the narrator observes that " London was so full of stories " and the encounter group that Tom joins sounds promising of new experiences “ in the City of ...

I hadn't heard the term campus novel until on the same day I started reading The Runes Have Been Cast by coincidence I also read a review that used the term in respect of RF Kuang’s latest book Katabasis - but coincidences seem to abound when you enter the mysterious worlds of Robert Irwin. The Oxford academic setting and the search to understand the workings and secrets of the world here also reminds me of Javier Marías’ Tu rostro mañana trilogy, which also has an old master with a history in the war who pulls strings, but although Le Carré is also referenced here as with Marías, it's more JRR Tolkien and runes that hint at more esoteric knowledge in The Runes Have Been Cast . It's fascinating to see the differing approaches that these two writers take, showing that there is much to be explored in this subject. There are also two ways of acquiring knowledge and absorbing it in Robert Irwin's book, leading to two different fates. Set in the late 1950s/early 60s, frie...

You've got to hand it to Michael Mackenzie; he can script a scene of high drama with a cinematic quality, as in the scene of furore and pandemonium that erupts in the prologue of Woman Who Kill during the reading of a verdict of a notorious case that convicts a woman of the brutal killing of her family. That sets the tone for a subject that interests the main character of his running series, Professor of Criminology Anna Scavolini: how society views women who kill much more harshly or to a different standard than men. The high drama doesn't end there, or course. Mackenzie is also a dab hand at plotting, pacing, has a terrific ear for dialogue and, well, you get the whole package in this one. At this stage a 'but' or 'however' might be expected and I do have one minor personal misgiving that I'll come to later. For most readers however, the only condition worth mentioning is that it would be better if you had read the earlier books in the Anna Scavolini seri...