Decades after an alien virus changed the course of history, the surviving population of Manhattan still struggles to understand the new world left in its wake. Natural humans share the rough city with those given extraordinary—and sometimes terrifying—traits. While most manage to coexist in an uneasy peace, not everyone is willing to adapt. Down in the seedy underbelly of Jokertown, residents are going missing. The authorities are unwilling to investigate, except for a fresh lieutenant looking to prove himself and a collection of unlikely jokers forced to take matters into their own hands—or tentacles. The deeper into the kidnapping case these misfits and miscreants get, the higher the stakes are raised. There is little denying that Game of Thrones has made George R R Martin a household name. The books and the television show are massively, insanely popular and rightly so.  I’ll admit that though I thoroughly enjoy my visits to Westeros, and all of its political machinations, I have always had more of a soft spot for Martin’s other magnum opus, the Wild Cards books. Since the late nineteen eighties, this ongoing series of mosaic novels, that Martin edits with Melinda M Snodgrass, has cleverly reinvented the superhero genre…

Your Servants and Your People is a direct sequel to Your Brother’s Blood. With that in mind it is entirely possible that this review may contain some minor spoilers if you haven’t read book one in the series. Warning done, onwards… Seven years after Thomas returned as a Walkin’, the McDermott family are looking for a new life and Thomas has set his heart on starting a farmstead near the remote outpost of Fort Wilson. But the teachings of J.S. Barkley are not so easily forsaken – there are those who would see the sinners dead, and they are slowly closing in. Your Brother’s Blood, David Towsey’s début novel, was something of a revelation. I’ve read a fair number of zombie novels in my time, and it’s always a pleasure to discover a book that so successfully injects new life into the undead hordes. Pulling together elements of the traditional western and mashing it together with zombie horror, Towsey has created a unique and engrossing novel. I’m a great believer that you can’t beat a bit of zombie action. Turns out things can be even more entertaining when the undead aren’t focussed on brain munching. I’ve been looking forward to…

Two disfigured siblings are torn from their beds at night by The Government and transported into an isolated stronghold, hidden in the deepest and most hostile parts of Siberia. Friendships will be formed and loyalties tested as the siblings struggle to locate one another, but tragedy lurks within the stronghold and blood relation does not always mean family. Last year I read Moribund Tales by Erik Hofstatter, and there were a couple of standout stories in the collection. When the opportunity arose for me to read more of this author’s work, a novella in this case, I was more than happy to do so. I was particularly keen to see how this would compare with his short fiction. Demyan and his sister, Akilina, have been different since birth. They were born victims of radiation and have had to live with their disfigurements for the whole of their short lives. Without warning, they are taken from their home and placed in a remote facility deep in the heart of Siberia. Their story is split into three separate parts and each part focuses on the perspective of a different character. The first part follows Demyan, the second on Akilina and the final…

Alex Locke is a reformed ex-con forced into London’s criminal underworld for one more job. He agrees to steal a priceless artefact – a human heart carved from the blackest obsidian – but when the burglary goes horribly wrong, Alex is plunged into the nightmarish world of the Wolves of London, unearthly assassins who will stop at nothing to reclaim the heart. As he races to unlock the secrets of the mysterious object, Alex must learn to wield its dark power – or be destroyed by it. I’m incredibly lucky that from time to time, publisher see fit to send me books and I get to read them and waffle a bit about my opinions of their contents. That said, there is little I love more than a good rummage around in a book shop. Last week I was doing that very thing and I suddenly found The Wolves of London by Mark Morris in my hands. I can’t really tell you how it got there, all I can confirm is that as soon as it was in my hands I knew I was going to read it. My cleverly monitored review spreadsheet was immediately ignored and my previous commitments…

Two years ago, a series of horrific murders shocked the city of Bristol. These were killings so in their planning, and so outrageous in their execution, that they made national headlines for weeks. Now the journalists who wrote the stories behind those headlines are beginning to die, in even more gruesome, even more flamboyant, and even more unbelievable than the murders they themselves wrote about at such length in the national dailies all those months ago. Dr Edward Valentine, brilliant surgeon and the maniac responsible for the Nine Deaths, has not been seen since he escaped the police following a final confrontation. Has he returned? Is he now intent on punishing the British tabloid press that he feels has misrepresented him? Has he chosen as the most appropriate method of punishment that most British of institutions, The Hammer Horror film? And how many times will the Hammer of Dr Valentine strike before he can be stopped? Of course, there’s only one way to find out… Back in 2012 I was lucky enough to read The Nine Deaths of Dr Valentine. It was a wonderfully ghoulish, blacker-than-black tale from the deranged mind of John Llewellyn Probert. What could be better than…