Author Archive: PaulineMorgan
If Pigs Could Fly (West Kensington Paranormal Detective Agency Book 1) by Jonny Nexus (book review).
Any book, whatever the genre needs humour. In life, there is rarely unremitting bleakness, there is often something to lighten a mood, however small and fleeting. So in fiction, for a character to be rounded, humour is necessary, if only to give the reader a chance to appreciate the dire peril the author has put […]
Defender: Hive Mind 2 by Janet Edwards (book review).
One of the biggest problems in creating a future society is to balance the need to tell an exciting story and the desire to expound the benefits and doubts that the society offers. A perceived utopia is a bigger problem than a tyranny. There is also a need to balance the constraints of the type […]
Fantasycon 2018 – a report by Pauline Morgan (convention report).
It is suggested that it is best to start a review of anything with positive and factual things. Fantasycon 2018 was held in Chester over the weekend of 19th–21st October. The city is always worth a visit for a variety of reasons. It has an almost intact Roman wall around it as well as other […]
The Brightest Fell (October Daye book 13) by Seanan McGuire (book review).
Once a series of books has gone well past the trilogy that the author probably originally envisaged there is an issue with finding ways for the new reader to find out what is happening and what relevant aspects there are from previous novels that the reader needs to know. ‘The Brightest Fell’ is the thirteenth […]
By The Light Of My Skull by Ramsey Campbell (book review).
There is immense pleasure to be gained from reading stories by an author who knows how to shape words in to images, who can bring to life settings and characters and imbue them with a sense of menace. Ramsey Campbell is one such author. With his ‘By The Light Of My Skull’ anthology, he takes […]
The Way Of The Worm by Ramsey Campbell (book review).
Some authors have a very distinctive voice. Whatever they write the reader instinctively knows whose imagination has produced the text. Ramsey Campbell is one such. For anyone who has ever heard him read his work, the text of any of his novels will immediately conjure the dry wit and the voice of Liverpool. ‘The Way […]
Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy book 1) by Robert Jackson Bennett (book review).
When the whole genre of fantasy took off, mostly due the success of Tolkien’s ‘Lord Of The Rings’, we were deluged by trilogies of quest novels set in low tech societies which used some kind of magic. Some were excellent but, as time passed, the originality deteriorated. While this kind of fantasy is still popular […]
The Private Life Of Elder Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Keris McDonald & Adam Gauntlett
When H.P. Lovecraft write his first story, ‘The Call Of Chthulu’ in 1928, he was unaware of what he was unleashing onto the world of literature. His stories about the Old Ones, the Elder Gods, caught the imagination of horror writers the world over. Three are featured in this volume and their stories are the […]
Girl With Cat (Blue) by Sam Hawksmoor (book review).
In the early days of creating alternative world scenarios, the protagonist entered the other world through some strange happening. Often, it turned out to be a coma. As scientific theories advanced with the idea of string theory somehow postulating branching timelines, parallel universe became more ‘explainable’ though getting there was still a problem. Sometimes, the […]
Brief Cases (The Dresden Files anthology book 2) by Jim Butcher (book review)
Immersion in a world that is the background for a successful series of novels is often the penalty a writer pays. There is a demand for more novels from fans, there are also the requests from editors to contribute to anthology and the danger of coming out of the mindset needed for the next novel. […]
