Category Archives: Reviews

The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow – Katherine Woodfine

Tapping into a rich history of mystery and adventure stories, Katherine Woodfine’s debut novel – The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow – is a fast paced, exciting children’s book with plenty to capture the imagination of both younger and older readers. Set in Edwardian London, the story takes place in and around Sinclair’s department store, a sort of cross between Selfridges and Willy Wonka’s factory, full of wonders and intrigue, cubby holes and grand staircases, and as exotic to its customers as to the book’s readers. Into this steps Sophie Taylor, 14 and recently orphaned, trying to adjust to a new world and determined to stand on her own two feet.

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Warhammer Age of Sigmar : The Gates of Azyr – Chris Wraight

Warhammer is dead, long live Warhammer! That’s right, the old Warhammer is gone and in its place is Age of Sigmar, and Black Library have got straight in on the action with Chris Wraight’s latest novella, The Gates of Azyr. This is a whole new chapter for Warhammer, set thousands of years after the events of the End Times, with endless scope for brand new storytelling. Running to the usual 120-ish pages, the book introduces the new Stormcast Eternals led by Vandus Hammerhand and the Khorne forces of Khorgos Khul, as Sigmar’s forces make their first strike into the Realm of Fire and finally strike back against the armies of Chaos.

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The Cuckoo’s Calling – Robert Galbraith

What do you do if you’re one of the most famous authors on the planet, but want to try something different, and for people to judge your writing purely on its merits? You write under a pseudonym, that’s what – and that’s exactly what JK Rowling did when she quietly released her first crime novel under the name of Robert Galbraith. It didn’t take long for the secret to be revealed, at which point sales went through the roof as expected, but the question remains – can Rowling come out from under Harry Potter’s shadow and cut it in the crime genre? The answer is that yes, she certainly can. Keep reading…

The Gospel of Loki – Joanne M. Harris

While best known for ‘literary fiction’, Joanne Harris has written across a range of genres, and The Gospel of Loki is her third book to heavily feature Norse mythology. Previous novels Runemarks and Runelight are straight-up fantasy with a Norse flavour, while here she sets out to retell the sagas of the Norse gods from the perspective of Loki, the trickster, offering a reversal of the usual viewpoint. Covering the whole story, from the Nine Worlds’ creation through to Ragnarok, Loki tells his own version of events, showing Odin and the rest of the gods in a totally different light.

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Ancillary Justice – Ann Leckie

As debut novels go they don’t come much more ambitious than Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, a complex, politically-themed science fiction epic. Heavily reminiscent of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels, from the huge scale of its setting to the use of powerful ship-based artificial intelligences, it nonetheless feels fresh and characterful, distinct enough to stand proudly within the space opera genre. The story follows Breq, an ancillary – a ship’s once-human avatar – previously one of many, but now separate and alone. We meet her nineteen years into a mission that she is pursuing with single-minded determination, and which might be finally drawing to a close.

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Deathfire – Nick Kyme

Please note – if you haven’t read Vulkan Lives and The Unremembered Empire, this review will contain spoilers.

Twelve months after the release of the last full Horus Heresy novel (Damnation of Pythos), book 32 in the series is finally here, in the form of Deathfire by Nick Kyme. Following on directly from The Unremembered Empire, and bringing back characters from Vulkan Lives and Know No Fear, it sees the few Salamanders involved in Imperium Secundus choose brave the Ruinstorm, risking everything in order to return the body of their primarch to their home world of Nocturne.

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Q&A – Vikas Swarup

Published in 2005, Q&A was Vikas Swarup’s debut novel, and went on to be adapted into the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire. Hopping between Delhi and Mumbai, it features Ram, a young orphan who finds himself the unexpected winner of Who Will Win a Billion? – India’s version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Arrested on suspicion of cheating by the show’s organisers, Ram finds himself telling much of his life story in order to explain how a poor, uneducated orphan could know the answers to the quiz show’s questions. Keep reading…

The Illustrated Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett

With the final Discworld book confirmed to be the fifth Tiffany Aching novel, the time seems right to go back to where her story started, in Terry Pratchett’s second Discworld book for young readers, The Wee Free Men. Taking place on the Chalk, a quiet part of the Disc populated by no-nonsense sheep farmers, it introduces nine-year-old Tiffany as a sort of proto-witch, already equipped with the tools she will need to protect her land, but not yet fully aware of what it will mean to be a witch. When her little brother is kidnapped by the Queen of the Fairies, it’s up to her to bring him back safely, armed with a frying pan and a little help from some unusual friends.

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The Hunt for Magnus – Chris Wraight

Part of the ever-growing Space Marine Battles series, The Hunt For Magnus is the latest novella to be released as a companion piece to a previous novel, in this case Chris Wraight’s excellent The Battle of the Fang. Available either as a standalone novella or packaged with its accompanying novel into a collection called War of the Fang, it takes the form of a prequel following Great Wolf Harek Ironhelm as he searches far and wide for signs of his chapter’s old enemy, determined to finish what Russ started and finally kill Magnus the Red.

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Adeptus Mechanicus : Tech-Priest – Rob Sanders

The second in Rob Sanders’ mini-series of short Adeptus Mechanicus novels, Tech-Priest continues the story started in Skitarius, as the forces of Archmagos Omnid Torquora battle to take the Dark Mechanicum forge world of Velchanos Magna. Where Skitarius showed the world of the Adeptus Mechanicus from the front lines, seen through the eyes of Haldron-44 Stroika, this time the perspective switches to Stroka’s master, the ancient Tech-Priest overseeing the battle remotely from orbit. Locked in a stalemate but with enemies on all sides, Torquora’s options appear to be limited.

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