vN by Madeline Ashby
Angry Robot , Madeline Ashby , Sci-Fi / July 31, 2012

Amy Peterson is a von Neumann machine, a self-replicating humanoid robot. For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks her mother, little Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive. Now she carries her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive, and she’s learning impossible things about her clade’s history – like the fact that Read more […]

Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis
Ian Tregillis , Orbit , Sci-Fi / July 9, 2012

The year is 1939. Raybould Marsh and other members of British Intelligence have gathered to watch a damaged reel of film in a darkened room. It appears to show German troops walking through walls, bursting into flames and hurling tanks into the air from afar. If the British are to believe their eyes, a twisted Nazi scientist has been endowing German troops with unnatural, unstoppable powers. And Raybould will be forced to resort to dark methods to hold the impending invasion at bay. But dealing Read more […]

Dinosaur Jazz by Michael Panush

Acheron Island is a world lost to time, home to prehistoric creatures from earth’s savage past. The island’s occupants range from ferocious, man-eating dinosaurs and savage Ape Man tribes to strange ruins from a lost civilization. It is also home to Sir Edwin Crowe, son of the Victorian explorer who discovered Acheron Island, renowned big game hunter, scarred Great War veteran, and last of the world’s Gentleman Adventurers. But now Acheron Island has some new residents – ruthless American Read more […]

Stories of The Smoke edited by Anne C Perry & Jared Shurin

Pandemonium: Stories of the Smoke brings you London as you’ve never seen it before – science fiction and fantasy in the great tradition of Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens lived and breathed London in a way few authors ever have, before or since. In his fiction, his non-fiction, and even his own life, Dickens cast an extraordinary shadow over the city he so loved – so much so, indeed, that his name has become synonymous with a certain image of London. A London of terrible social inequality and Read more […]

Empire State by Adam Christopher
Adam Christopher , Angry Robot , Crime , News , Sci-Fi / June 15, 2012

The Empire State is the other New York It’s a parallel-universe, Prohibition-era world of mooks and shamuses that is a twisted magic mirror to our own bustling Big Apple. It’s a city where sinister characters lurk around every corner, while the great superheroes who once kept the streets safe have fallen into deadly rivalries and feuds. Not that its colorful residents know anything about real New York…until detective Rad Bradley makes a discovery that will change the lives of all its inhabitants. There Read more […]

Time’s Arrow: Black Swan by Jonathan Green
Abaddon Books , Jonathan Green , Sci-Fi / May 7, 2012

Ulysses Quicksilver: agent of the throne, dandy and hero. Heart-broken, battered, mutilated and shot, he’s been driven backwards and forwards in time, and his latest adventure is taking him across Steampunk Paris… Time’s Arrow: Black Swan continues to offer readers a unique opportunity – to decide the course of this latest Pax Britannia adventure will take in the next part! In the tradition of Charles Dickens himself, Abaddon Books will be publishing Time’s Arrow in three ebook instalments. Read more […]

The Mayan Destiny by Steve Alten

Please note this is novel is a direct sequel to The Mayan Resurrection and third in an on-going series. This review may contain potential spoilers for those who have not read books one and two. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Fate comes full circle… It is 2047: fourteen years since Jacob Gabriel descended into the Mayan netherworld, while his twin brother turned from their chosen path, opting to remain behind.   Immanuel Gabriel – still running from the forces that hunt his bloodline Read more […]

I Have Waited, And You Have Come by Martine McDonagh
Martine McDonagh , Myriad Editions , Sci-Fi / February 12, 2012

A story of survival and obsession in a world brought to its knees. When Jez White disturbs Rachel’s solitary existence she finds herself being drawn into a murky territory somewhere between stalking and being stalked. This powerful is by turns sensual and sinister, and conjures up an all-too-believable near future – of isolated communities, wild weather and strange allegiances. I Have Waited, and You Have Come is a character study that follows the life of a woman who shuts herself away from Read more […]

Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith
Kim Lakin-Smith , NewCon Press , Sci-Fi / February 3, 2012

Hellequin, last of the HawkEye military elite, is desperate to escape the legacy of Soul Food, the miraculous plant food that leeched the soil, destroyed his family, and instigated a bloody civil war. For a man awaiting the inevitable madness brought on by his enforced biomorph implant, there’s only one choice. Run away with the circus…  Drifting above a poisoned landscape, Cyber Circus and her exotic acrobats and bioengineered freaks bring a welcome splash of colour into folk’s drab lives. Read more […]

Death Drop by Sean Allen
Sci-Fi , Sean Allen , Vintage Six Media / January 13, 2012

400,000 years have passed since the last known Human was exterminated, and Dezmara Strykar can’t remember anything before the moment, eight years ago, when she woke up in an abandoned space freighter. But in that time, she has come to realize three things: she’s the best pilot and smuggler in the universe, she can handle herself in a fight, and she’s Human. A race of creatures called the Durax rule the universe using their savage mind powers, and the remaining free people have two choices: Read more […]

Snake Eyes by Joseph D’Lacey
Fantasy , Joseph D'Lacey , Sci-Fi / January 10, 2012

Last year I had the good fortune to read The Kill Crew and then Meat by Joseph D’Lacey. Each were superb examples of the horror genre, both are darkly bleak but utterly compelling. D’Lacey’s latest publication is Snake Eyes, a single volume split into two separate novellas. This is a slight departure for the author as the first story moves into the realms of science fiction while the second has a more fantastical tone. A Man of Will and Experience – Robert Johnson dreams of spiders, thousands Read more […]

Vivisepulture edited by Andy Remic
Anarchy Books , Andy Remic , Fantasy , Horror , Sci-Fi / January 6, 2012

Zombie gunfighters, insane cherubs, government sanctioned torturers, bright orange snot and steam-punk thugs are just a few of the delights you’ll find amongst the pages of the latest short story anthology from Anarchy Books. It contains twenty-two, yes you read that correctly twenty two, short stories that range from the sublimely horrific to the ridiculously evil. At the princely sum of just eighty-nine pence that works out at roughly four pence per story, damn good value in these trying economic Read more […]