The fourth volume of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles is quite a departure from the last instalment. Unlike The Queen of the Damned, which became an aimless mass of multiple plot strands and apocalyptic excess, The Tale of the Body Thief re-establishes a sense of intimacy with the series’ most interesting character, and its natural star, Lestat de Lioncourt. Read the rest of this entry »

How can I convey in a few pithy paragraphs the wonder, the fascination, the emotional turmoil, the sheer artistry to be found within the covers of this truly amazing novel? Perdido Street Station is a masterpiece – pure and simple. Read the rest of this entry »

Remind me never to go to the North Pole. If the conditions that Dan Simmons describes so meticulously in his latest novel are in any way accurate, it really doesn’t sound like a pleasant place to visit. Extreme cold, hazardous ice floes, frostbite, starvation, scurvy, mutiny, cannibalism: as if that wasn’t enough for these poor sailors to go through, Dan Simmons decides to throw an enormous ice monster into the mix to pick them off one by one. Read the rest of this entry »

I knew Mieville was a great writer, but little did I know on picking up this volume of short stories for a casual read while enduring some economy-class air hell that I was about to embark on an almost religious experience. Read the rest of this entry »