Category: Books
Cthulhu: Dark Fantasy, Horror & Supernatural Movies by Gordon Kerr (book review).
From the striking front cover painting of Cthulhu literally eating the world through to the mind-flayer smoking a pipe on page 89, ‘Cthulhu: Dark Fantasy, Horror & Supernatural Movies’ is a richly and sometimes bizarrely illustrated guide to the most famous godlike entity in popular culture. It really is popular culture we’re focusing on here, […]
Three Moments Of An Explosion by China Miéville (book review).
‘Three Moments Of An Explosion’ by China Miéville is an anthology of his 28 short Science Fiction, fantasy and horror stories. China Miéville is considered a main author of the New Weird genre. Although there is no single definition, there is some agreement about its facets. One is that it tends to break down barriers […]
Heath Robinson: Masterpieces Of Art by Susan Grange (book review).
I’ve reviewed several books about William Health Robinson (1872-1944) before but not in a long while. He came from an artistic family and joined his two brothers as professional illustrators, although better remembered than they were simply because of his ingenious cartoons although capable of much more. What this book presents is showing Heath Robinson […]
A Monster Of Voices: Speaking for H.P. Lovecraft by Robert H. Waugh (book review).
When it comes to the deeper criticism of HP Lovecraft, there’s little out there to match Robert H. Waugh. What sets Waugh apart from, say, S T Joshi, is his willingness to explore what Lovecraft’s stories mean, not simply where they came from. It’s this that makes this collection of Waugh’s essays so enjoyable. Take, […]
The Immunity Index by Sue Burke (book review).
In an America, not far from the one we know, The Prez is calling for calm. The cold that’s going around is not the deadly Sino virus. Just wave your flag and everything will be fine. Berenike puts out the flags like her boss ordered and counts down the days ‘til revolution. Avril was nearly […]
The Mighty One: Life Inside The Nerve Centre by Steve MacManus (book review).
In 1973, young Steve MacManus applied to IPC for a job at a football magazine. It was already filled but someone told him there was a vacancy for a sub-editor in the comics department. They took him and he first worked on ‘Valiant’, a British comic where most strips were about World War II or […]
Mythanimus by Storm Constantine (book review).
An issue that many writers of short stories have is that their output is likely to appear in many disparate publications such as anthologies and magazines, including, these days, on-line magazines with no print version. No reader can reasonably follow all the sources if they wish to read the entire output of a favourite author. […]
King’s Reach: John Sanders’ Twenty-Five Years At The Top Of Comics by John Sanders (book review).
The first thing to clarify about‘King’s Reach: John Sanders’ Twenty-Five Years At The Top Of Comics’ is what the title means. ‘At The Top’ refers to him being the managing editor of the comics division of IPC. He was more of a businessman than anything else but he did see the direction of cultural trends […]
Midas World by Frederick Pohl (book review).
Another book I wanted to read after investigating books about SF was Frederick Pohl’s ‘Midas World’. After the discovery of a cheap energy source, the human population of Earth have different levels of wealth and the ration books aren’t to conserve money but to spend at least so much a month. Excessive wealth in other […]
A Pictorial History Of Science Fiction by David Kyle (book review).
One thing you can say about David Kyle(1919-2016), he was an expert on SF. Quite why I didn’t buy his 1977 book ‘A Pictorial History Of Science Fiction’ at the time, I’m less sure about. My home town is a sleepy place and although he shows several books about SF in his introduction that I’ve […]
