The City & the City China Miéville Del Rey Release Date: May 26, 2009 ISBN 978-0-345-49751-2 I enjoy exploring literary works whose titles have been short-listed for awards in my preferred genre; the Hugos and the Nebulas, the World Fantasy Awards. Doing so has led me to many talented authors and dozens of entertaining novels [….]
After Atlas Emma Newman Roc Release Date: November 8, 2016 ISBN 978-0-425282-40-3 Last year, Emma Newman’s novel, Planetfall, chronicled the aftermath of an interstellar expedition whose participants thought they had found the resting place of God. Led by the unshakable faith of the genius scientist known as the Pathfinder, a thousand people left behind their [….]
Career of Evil Robert Galbraith Mulholland Books Release Date: October 20, 2015 ISBN 978-0-316-34993-2 Career of Evil, the third book in the crime thriller series starring private detective Cormoran Strike, is the grittiest one yet. It’s no wonder that author J.K. Rowling stuck to her non de plume of Robert Galbraith long after news of [….]
The Severed Streets Paul Cornell Tor Books Publication Date: May 20, 2014 ISBN 978-0-7653-3028-4 It’s modern day, London, summer, hot. The city is in the grips of social unrest: masked mobs march in protest of funding and service cuts while perceived graft and waste in government flows on unabated, the police are tired of seeing [….]
I am currently reading The Severed Streets, sequel to Paul Cornell’s exemplary supernatural crime novel, London Falling, and the concept of ostentation came up for discussion (with author Neil Gaiman – who is a rather fateful fictional iteration of himself in the book – as the literary provocateur). Not the notion of ostentation as “a [….]
Leaving Time Jodi Picoult Ballantine Books Release Date: October 14, 2014 ISBN 978-0-345-54492-6 Jodi Picoult is one of our greatest storytellers. She is able to conjure up characters that not only feel real, but who move about in their scripted days as though they were real, rather than some kind of deeply entrenched literary flim-flammery [….]
The Cuckoo’s Calling Robert Galbraith Mulholland Books Release Date: April 30, 2013 ISBN 978-0-316-20684-6 I’ll admit it – I’m one of those superficial ne’r-do-wells who would not have read The Cuckoo’s Calling if word hadn’t gotten out that author Robert Galbraith was really J.K. Rowling (of the “Harry Potter” books franchise) using a pseudonym. Due [….]
London Falling Paul Cornell Tor Books First Edition: April 13, 2013 ISBN: 978-0765330277 Two undercover officers, one a veteran, the other a rookie, at odds, suspicious of the other as far as techniques, motivations, loyalties. Add to that their abrasive, hard-nosed commander, who will battle for every inch even as he feels the war slipping [….]
