A decade in the future, humanity thrives in the absence of sickness and disease. We owe our good health to a humble parasite – a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the tapeworm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system – even secretes designer drugs. It’s been successful beyond the scientists’ wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them. But these parasites are getting restless. They want their own lives . . . and will do anything to get them. Sally ‘Sal’ Mitchell owes her life to an Intestinal Bodyguard™, a parasite that has allowed her to recover from a massively traumatic car accident. Without this medical miracle there is no way that Sal would have survived the severe injuries she sustained. Six years after the event and Sally has had to re-learn everything. Her life before the accident is gone, her memories a total blank. I was surprised how much this particular element of the story struck a chord with me. I’ve been in a very similar situation to Sal, minus the tapeworm I’m pleased to say, and I often ponder the person I was…

Ecko Burning is a direct sequel to Ecko Rising. Beware! If you haven’t read the first book this review may contain potential spoilers. Just sayin. The Bard is gone, and with him Ecko’s only possible way home. Told the grasslands are diseased and the blight is spreading, his companions demand his help. Together they seek weapons in a ruined city where both nightmare and hideous truth await them.  Ruthless and ambitious, Lord Phylos has control over Fhaveon city, and is using its forces to bring the plains under his command. Back in London, the Bard is offered the opportunity to realise everything he has ever wanted – if he will give up his soul. As the blight spreads, Phylos’s brutality escalates. When the people’s anger finally erupts, the force of the violence threatens to destroy everything.  At the tail end of 2012 I read Danie Ware’s debut, Ecko Rising. I’d heard lots of good buzz surrounding the novel but nothing could have adequately prepared me for the marvellous mash up of science fiction and high fantasy that it turned out to be. The sequel is now upon us and the good news is that it’s just as good, if not better,…

Nineteenth century London is the centre of a vast British Empire. Airships ply the skies and Queen Victoria presides over three-quarters of the known world – including the East Coast of America, following the failed revolution of 1775. London might as well be a world away from Sandsend, a tiny village on the Yorkshire coast. Gideon Smith dreams of the adventure promised him by the lurid tales of Captain Lucian Trigger, the Hero of the Empire, told in Gideon’s favourite “penny dreadful.” When Gideon’s father is lost at sea in highly mysterious circumstances Gideon is convinced that supernatural forces are at work. Deciding only Captain Lucian Trigger himself can aid him, Gideon sets off for London. On the way he rescues the mysterious mechanical girl Maria from a tumbledown house of shadows and iniquities. Together they make for London, where Gideon finally meets Captain Trigger. But Trigger is little more than an aging fraud, providing cover for the covert activities of his lover, Dr. John Reed, a privateer and sometime agent of the British Crown. Looking for heroes but finding only frauds and crooks, it falls to Gideon to step up to the plate and attempt to save the day…

Control is the direct sequel to Shift. If you haven’t read that first then it is possible, in this reality, that there may be minor spoilers ahead in this review.  Scott Tyler is not like other teenagers. With a single thought he can alter reality around him. And he can stop anyone else from doing the same. That’s why he’s so important to ARES, the secret government agency that regulates other kids like him: Shifters. They’ve sent him on a mission. To track down the enigmatic Frank Anderson. An ex-Shifter who runs a project for unusual kids – as if the ability to change your every decision wasn’t unusual enough. But Anderson and the kids have a dark secret. One that Scott is determined to discover. As his obsession with discovering the truth takes him further away from anyone he cares about, his grip on reality starts to weaken. Scott realises if he can’t control his choices, they’ll control him. When Scott Tyler discovers he has the power to undo any decision he’s ever made he thinks it’s going to be really cool. But as his world starts to unravel he realises it’s going to get him killed. In a world that…

In the mid-23rd century, Darwin, Australia, stands as the last human city on Earth. The world has succumbed to an alien plague, with most of the population transformed into mindless, savage creatures. The planet’s refugees flock to Darwin, where a space elevator—created by the architects of this apocalypse, the Builders—emits a plague-suppressing aura. Skyler Luiken has a rare immunity to the plague. Backed by an international crew of fellow “immunes,” he leads missions into the dangerous wasteland beyond the aura’s edge to find the resources Darwin needs to stave off collapse. But when the Elevator starts to malfunction, Skyler is tapped—along with the brilliant scientist, Dr. Tania Sharma—to solve the mystery of the failing alien technology and save the ragged remnants of humanity The arrival of mysterious technology has managed, in a short period of time, to move humanity forward and then stop it almost dead in its tracks. Briefly, the Earth experienced a golden age and then suddenly a disease has put pay to all that. Society has effectively split, becoming two distinct groups – the haves and the have-nots. Those that live off planet in a series of space stations that connect via the elevator to Earth. Meanwhile, those…

Please note Countdown City is the direct sequel to The Last Policeman. If you haven’t read the first book in this series then this review will likely contain spoilers. Got it? Good, now forward to the end of the world.  There are just 77 days before a deadly asteroid collides with Earth, and Detective Palace is out of a job. With the Concord police force operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, Hank’s days of solving crimes are over…until a woman from his past begs for help finding her missing husband.  Brett Cavatone disappeared without a trace—an easy feat in a world with no phones, no cars, and no way to tell whether someone’s gone “bucket list” or just gone. With society falling to shambles, Hank pieces together what few clues he can, on a search that leads him from a college-campus-turned-anarchist-encampment to a crumbling coastal landscape where anti-immigrant militia fend off “impact zone” refugees.  Countdown City presents another fascinating mystery set on brink of an apocalypse–and once again, Hank Palace confronts questions way beyond “whodunit.” What do we as human beings owe to one another? And what does it mean to be civilized when civilization is collapsing…

This is the story of M. Francisco Fabrigas, philosopher, heretical physicist, and perhaps the greatest human explorer of all ages, who took a shipful of children on a frightening voyage through dimensions filled with deadly surprises, assisted by a teenaged Captain, a brave deaf boy, a cunning blind girl, and a sultry botanist, all the while pursued by the Pope of the universe and a well-dressed mesmerist. Dark plots, cannibal cults, demonic creatures, madness, mayhem, murderous jungles, the birth of creation, the death of time, and a creature called the Sweety: all this and more waits beyond the veil of reality. It’s the eternal question isn’t it, should we judge a book by its cover? Well, the book blurb for Theatre of the Gods does make some outrageous claims. I’m paraphrasing, but essentially we’re talking a surreal, mind-bending journey to the furthest reaches of the known universe and beyond. Sounds like a winner to me…oh go on then, let’s give it a shot. This novel features quite a large cast of characters, all revolving around the quiet island of calm that is M. Fransisco Fabrigas. What can I say about Mr Fabrigas that hasn’t already been said? Joining other such curiously…

Mercurio D Rivera has been tipped as ‘the next big thing’ by critics and readers alike.  He first burst onto the scene in 2006 with “Longing for Langalana”. Featured in Interzone, “Langalana” won the magazine’s readers’ poll for best story of that year and became the first of many pieces to gain honourable mention in Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best anthology.  Since then, Mercurio’s work has appeared regularly in Interzone, as well as such venues as Asimov’s, Nature, Black Static, and Solaris Rising 2.  In 2010, his story “Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us” was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award and gained honourable mention in Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best Horror.  Across the Event Horizon contains the very best of Mercurio’s work to date; fourteen stories selected by the author himself, including “Langalana” and “Tu Sufrimiento”. I don’t read a massive amount of science fiction but when Newcon Press got in touch and offered me the opportunity to check out this collection of short stories by Mercurio D Rivera I had to admit I was intrigued. I thought I’d give it a go. Fourteen stories, there was bound to be something that piqued my interest… Turns out I may have under-estimated just a little, this is an utterly splendid collection from beginning to end….

When out-of-shape IT technician Roen woke up and started hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumed he was losing it. He wasn’t  He now has a passenger in his brain – an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Now split into two opposing factions – the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix – the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries. Both sides are searching for a way off-planet, and the Genjix will sacrifice the entire human race, if that’s what it takes. Meanwhile, Roen is having to train to be the ultimate secret agent. Like that’s going to end up well… Any book that begins with a tense rooftop standoff swiftly followed by an unexpectedly dramatic escape has got to be worth a shot as far as I’m concerned. Spy type thrills and escapades are always a great deal of fun. The trickiest question though is how exactly do you make spies more exciting? Let’s be honest, they are quite exciting already. The answer, which The Lives of Tao successfully confirms, is to add two groups of ancient…

Chicago 1931. Harper Curtis, a violent drifter, stumbles on a house with a secret as shocking as his own twisted nature – it opens onto other times. He uses it to stalk his carefully chosen ‘shining girls’ through the decades – and cut the spark out of them. He’s the perfect killer. Unstoppable. Untraceable. He thinks… Chicago, 1992. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Tell that to Kirby Mazrachi, whose life was shattered after a brutal attempt to murder her. Still struggling to find her attacker, her only ally is Dan, an ex-homicide reporter who covered her case and now might be falling in love with her. As Kirby investigates, she finds the other girls – the ones who didn’t make it. The evidence is … impossible. But for a girl who should be dead, impossible doesn’t mean it didn’t happen… Seems it’s time for another one of those book related confessions. I’ve heard good things about Moxy Land, and apparently Zoo City is a bit special as well, but with the exception of a single short story I’ve never actually read any of Lauren Beukes work before. This embarrassing admission leads me to the following question – why…

When dirigible pilot Elle Chance accepts an unusual cargo in Paris she finds herself in the middle of the deadly war between the Alchemists and the Warlocks. The Alchemists will stop at nothing to acquire the coveted carmot stone and its key, and Elle must do everything in her power to thwart their diabolical plans.  Embarking on a perilous cross-continental adventure with the mysterious Mr Marsh, Elle is forced to question everything she ever knew about herself to fulfil her destiny and prevent a magical apocalypse… The first thought that struck me when I finished reading A Conspiracy of Alchemists is that there is a wonderful sense of fun on every page.  Liesel Schwarz is certainly skilled when it comes to putting the reader right in the midst of the frenetic, fast placed world she has created. Though things rattle along at breakneck speed, the good news is that for the most part, the character development doesn’t suffer because of this (more on that a bit later). There are reverential nods to many classic adventure stories and I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to describe this succinctly. The best comparison I can come up with is – imagine a…

Time for a cheeky little guest review. Over to friend of The Eloquent Page @MrSamStrong. Today he’ll be casting his beady eye over Fortress Frontier by Myke Cole. The Great Reawakening did not come quietly. Suddenly people from all corners of the globe began to develop terrifying powers – summoning fire, manipulating earth, opening portals and decimating flesh. Overnight the rules had changed… but not for everyone. Alan Bookbinder might be a Colonel in the US Army, but in his heart he knows he’s just a desk jockey, a clerk with a silver eagle on his jacket. But one morning he is woken by a terrible nightmare and overcome by an ominous drowning sensation. Something is very, very wrong. Forced into working for the Supernatural Operations Corps in a new and dangerous world, Bookbinder’s only hope of finding a way back to his family will mean teaming up with former SOC operator and public enemy number one: Oscar Britton. They will have to put everything on the line if they are to save thousands of soldiers trapped inside a frontier fortress on the brink of destruction, and show the people back home the stark realities of a war that threatens…

A man without faith. A woman without hope. My name is Aiden Fleischer. I was forced from my home, moved among the victims of Jack the Ripper, was tortured by a witch doctor, and awoke on another planet. Throughout it all, my assistant, Clarissa Stark, remained at my side. On Ptallaya, we were welcomed by the Yatsill. The creatures transformed their society into a bizarre version of our own, and we found a new home beneath the world’s twin suns. But there was darkness in my soul, and as the two yellow globes set, I was forced to confront it, for on Ptallaya … A RED SUN ALSO RISES … and with it comes an evil more horrifying than any on Earth. Upon their arrival on Ptallya, Aiden and Clarissa meet a strange race called the Yatsill. These enigmatic creatures have the power to telepathically mine thoughts. They use Clarissa as a subject for their powers, and very quickly begin to establish a new order based on her memories of home. A slightly surreal parody of London society springs up almost overnight. This new regime is made up of Aristocrats and the Working Class. Everything initially seems quite idyllic, but as…