T Novel
An uplifted monkey used as cheap labour, an AI rights activist and a prince get involved in a nasty plot. As does a brain-damaged cyborg journalist investigating the death of a husband who had been working on advanced technology. And hardcore massive multiplayer games with ninja plagues. Quarterstaves, giant nuclear airships, fascist interplanetary plots and [...]
It is always annoying when your genetic forebear wants to take over the world. Especially with a dinosaur army controlled by psychic lizardmen from another world. Such a dastardly plan takes most of the Century Club out…and captive. It is left to a few to try and do something about it: Mack Silver, Sally Slick, [...]
Rapscallion, scoundrel, knave, reprobate. Really dodgy bloke will do for dos Hellespont. Despite the name, he actually isn’t a supervillain megalomaniac, just a garden variety lowlife gambler and crook. Fails to be a general, noble or vampire, either, given his name is Marius. Pretending to be not alive draws the attention of those actually not [...]
An introduction to the story as the 21st Phantom deals with the passing of his father and inherits the mantle. Also the story of growing up, including the time Julie became the Phantom. So some interesting bits here. 3 out of 5
Even stuck in hospital Lamont Cranston finds death. 3 out of 5
SF author gets involved in time travel experiment…alternate Australia has a rebel Ned Kelly having revolutionary success, complete with multinational and German socialist plotting. Backwards and forwards it goes from the present day President Kelly – in the Vietnam war area. Dirigibles and cannons, Kate Kelly as time tracks shift as Grimes decides what to [...]
New gym employee has competition for boss orders. 3 out of 5
Quickly the world is overrun by mutant ratpeople. Russia even nukes a couple of its own cities to know avail. A plucky band of survivors with a ship find a scientist near an oblivious nudist colony that may just be able to make a weapon to stop them. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about The Hamelin Plague – A. Bertram Chandler
An evolved race of porpoises that have been taught to talk to humans, a couple of crazy guys and a marine scientist and colleagues equals a conflict with delusions of grandeur on both human and sea beast sides. Stuck on an island captive people work for the guy with the weapons and those that control [...]
Bad guy crossover. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about Birds of Prey – J. A. Konrath and Blake Crouch
Forty-five is officially old in this society…paperwork and a euthanasia pill if you prefer that option as life becomes very difficult. Or, survival and forced labor camps…or Martian prison work camps. Men in prison, women in prison, areoforming screwups and revolution for a new Mars. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about The Bitter Pill – A. Bertram Chandler
Religious ironclad conflict. On Venus. Yeah, about that interesting. 2.5 out of 5
A starship crew has to make some hard choices, including their families, when helping out some new allies and coming under attack by their enemies in space. A really long walk around a planet, too. 3 out of 5
A man gets dragged out of his stunt simulator job to return to an early profession. Networked simulation boxing, where he was the only one to beat the current years long reigning champion. Rich guy that both fired him in the past and has now rehired him not giving him the whole story, of course. [...]
An insane billionaire with a personal freak collection and sex drug research lab has delusions of grandeur and more than delusions of transformation, with plenty of murder. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about The Teratologist – Edward Lee and Wrath James White
Because of a really bored immortal deciding to relieve himself with old fashioned war games. 2.5 out of 5
Building Bridge System to travel between planets not so bad – programming it is hard. Getting a planet named Azrael together also tricky, with snakes. 3 out of 5
Green tentacled body snatching alien comes to Earth. Finds some hosts. Loses. 2.5 out of 5
Not pinned down by Alyce. 2 out of 5 http://manybooks.net/titles/willefordcother09high_priest_of_california.html
Continue reading about High Priest of California – Charles Willeford
An investigation finds some old fashioned organleging. 3.5 out of 5
Jason Dark does some demon slicing, with some martial artists assistance. 3 out of 5
The animals are revolting, especially the Anthrovacs. 3 out of 5
A hunter exiled ends up on a scientific exploration to somewhere even the trees will get you. Doesn’t end well. 2.5 out of 5
The Golden Amazon and company find a dark star and a planet of rock zombie slaves to help out. 2 out of 5
A kid hunter finds a partner, big cat shape shifter style. 3.5 out of 5
After a bad breakup a woman decides to go for one a month variety, egged on by an over the top friend who also wouldn’t mind corrupting her brother. 4 out of 5
Another little job for Quincey Morris and Libby Chastain, or more than one as they are in demand with a volume of the Corpus Hermeticum missing and a group burning down churches and ritually slaughtering priests or various flavours as part of it. Going to need some help to stop the gates of hell being [...]
Here’s a nice find. An interstellar agent is sent to check out possible corruption on a wealthy planet whose life revolves around participation in dangerous games, for status, income and more. Such as a drop from the sky using repulsor trios to land, swimming an obsctacle course under burning water, getting out of a seat [...]
A student who excels at sport but not otherwise comes from a rich family. After finally finishing uni he decides that he will go it alone, not with rich dad’s help. Not so easy he finds and ends up in less than salubrious circumstances, befriends a safecracker, works as a waiter at an underworld dive [...]
Continue reading about The Efficiency Expert – Edgar Rice Burroughs
An inexperienced director looks to do a documentary about a famous eighties band. A group with a nasty past involved as one of the singers was murdered on the cusp of them signing a record deal. All centred in low-rent St Kilda with the drug dealers and prostitution and rather fine hamburgers that entailed. That [...]
Continue reading about The Price of Fame – Rowena Cory Daniells
MMA base go. 2.5 out of 5
Tombstone usually interesting. Fantasy Tombstone, maybe as well? Nope. This meanders slowly like a dodgy fat fantasy novel with a bad case of trilogitis around a journo and a horsebreaker amidst the Earps and Clantons and accuations of who is and is not a thief or a rustler to be quite dull, Ringo and Doc [...]
A masked wrestling fetish novel. 3 out of 5
A very tongue in cheek sfnal shapeshifter shenanigans story. Rescues and tails and bad jokes all over the place. ““This is FUC headquarters.” “A sex place?” She said it on a squeak. “No,” he hastened to correct. “FUC as in the Furry United Coalition. We are a group of shifters working to aid our kind [...]
What is worse than zombies? Zombies that get nastier as time passes. Especially when they interrupt birthday groupings. Vaccines would be useful. 3 out of 5
Don’t assume about the new neighbour who manages to help you with stuff falling down at xmas time. Might be good for more than roofing. 3.5 out of 5
Survivor guilt in zombieland, check. So, take what family you can get, even if it surprises you. Also get rid of creepy looping zombies. 3 out of 5
Clean zombies out of a hospital, maybe kill some evil cultists. Get sweaty. Watch. The usual. 3 out of 5
Where it is discovered that the ex has aged well. So ex-ex, relatively speaking. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about The Anniversary Party – Sommer Marsden
A deliberately retro and tongue in cheek romp, complete with subversive secret space princesses, robots, wizened crimelords, telepathic spies and intelligent tanks as a dodgy captain and pilot and crew get in the shit in all senses of the word. Somewhat Resnickian, if you like. A fun book. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Alexander Outland: Space Pirate – G. J. Koch
A dying prisoner of war lets a fellow inmate in on a secret of cash in jars back home and when there runs afoul of a fellow captive and involved with a dodgy woman as things get nasty. 3 out of 5 http://www.munseys.com/book/31250/A_Bullet_For_Cinderella
Continue reading about A Bullet For Cinderella – John D. MacDonald
A Samothracian prince and his father were happy naval men with the freedom to trade in Rome. Until Julius Caesar’s blokes decided politics and money dictated otherwords and their letter of conduct was dishonoured, crew killed and declared pirates with a couple left. Made to go to Britain, Tros seethes and decides to get the [...]
When you have Bin Laden cornered then you stuff a grenade down this throat. Courtesy of your controlled vampire troubleshooter. Because he is a Innsmouth derived demonic lizardman. Far worse than lizardman terrorists are those behind things like that. Occult influenced mercenary companies and traitor spies. Which are the real problems for Zach and Cade [...]
Continue reading about The President’s Vampire – Christopher Farnsworth
Thanks to his forcing a deal with the Lion of Petra, Jimgrim is left with his superfluous wife. Who fancies him. Which is of course something he can use, along with her brains and military talents and prior relationships. Hence the title. As he has yet another warlord with a small army to try and [...]
Recounted by a brawny trusted association, Jimgrim has a plan to bring a desert bandit to heel so he doesn’t upset the Middle East peace process. Or force British air power to blow him and his whole tribe to you know where. Complicating the process are two wives, the brains of the operation. One sent [...]
Athelstan King gets a surprising notification. Yasmini has changed her mind and now considers him the only British officer with enough brains to fill his hat. So it is the hill country and subterfuge and disguise for him to rendezvous with the princess and her designs in all senses in an ancient fortress. Which has [...]
Continue reading about King of the Khyber Rifles – Talbot Mundy
Cavalier choice. 3 out of 5
A guy getting out of jail thanks to your random act of violence attempts to get back together with his young family. Complicating things is the rain – which started and doesn’t stop. Also the low-life fellow denizens who have affected him and another woman. Monsters are slipping in to get them. 3.5 out of [...]
What happens to the son (and daughter) of a very dodgy Doc Savage analogue who becomes a modern gladiator while in the background being groomed for a posthuman Elder God usurping upgrade. 4.5 out of 5
Continue reading about The Light is the Darkness – Laird Barron
Ranjoor Singh keeps his promise to rejoin his men in the war, fighting with the British. 800 of such end up in the evils of the Belgian trenches and eventually surrender to the Germans, taken prisoner. The boss has a plan, however, for escape and a little mini-Anabasis via Kurds, Turks and Persians to get [...]
Ranjoor Singh is a Sikh officer, German world war problems abound. A little problem with trying to put a stop something like a million hidden dynamite bombs. Luckily Yasmini is also paying attention. 3 out of 5 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6751
Continue reading about The Winds of the World – Talbot Mundy
Yasmini is young Indian royalty and the political winds have blown her relations out of favour. Her intellect is up to the challenge, however, as she uses her charms and disguise skills to woo a young Englishwoman to her aide (and side) to help her, along with her adventurer husband. The rise of a future [...]
The second of a duo where a British army major ends up sent back in time after trying to discover terrorist infiltration of said project. Ending up in post-Roman Britain as Lancelot, becoming involved in plots there as well as discovering who his terrorist quarry is in the past. Don’t keep history intact – no [...]
Young Morlock. Where we discover why he prefers the dwarven relatives [it seems no-one much at all likes the other dad, even squabbling Lankhmarian gods]. Dragon fighting, Guardian achieving, fancies taken, magic swords found. And labs blown up. 3.5 out of 5
A series popular enough to have spinoffs. Here Kate’s partner gun nut fferently flavoured werehyena disgraced knight narcoclosetphile Andrea gets to star. At a very down time for her she gets asked to investigate the murder of four shapeshifters and a room of artifacts that shouldn’t exist. The former working for her estranged boyfriend which [...]
Tanyana, following on from the last book continues to find out what the hell is going on behind the scenes with the Debris thing, the suits, etc. and the political divisions. 3 out of 5
A Catholic priest, a Jewish detective and a blonde. No, this is not a walked into a bar joke, it is a walked into a lot of corruption and crime novel. The good old crime lord and politician story. Told with a lot of heart though as this unlikely trio have the odds stacked against [...]
If you crossed Bedazzled with Snatch you might get something of the flavour of Gerard Brennan’s Fireproof. A falling out leading to revenge killing leading to revenge killing after drunken information oopsie leaves our protagonist dead. Also on the side of an afterlife dispersal era and hence in Hell. Satan sees an opportunity to use [...]
A woman is surprise when then the two men she works for are not as expected. Plus, help with a bad ex. 2.5 out of 5
If you crossed Jim Zubkavich’s Skullkickers and Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar stories you would likely get something of the tone of the Hammer and the Blade. A light hearted sword and sorcery romp at times and nasty demon forced breeding plot at others. Two aging adventurers decide to rob a tomb on a lark and kill [...]
Continue reading about The Hammer and the Blade – Paul S. Kemp
Here’s Vardeman’s take on a colourful planetary romance. Hybrid and cyborg partner get involved with what is going on with a woman’s disappeared father. The planet Rhyl being home to a race of telepathic and clearly sentient felines, once enslaved by an ancient race with the good old super science. On a ship there they [...]
Continue reading about The Sandcats of Rhyl – Robert E. Vardeman
A wealthy aunt asks a private investigation firm to investigate her niece’s involvement with a gangster. A male-female team with tension they find out the crime lord is not the only dodgy bloke involved. A fine example of this type of story. 3.5 out of 5
Since I saw my first Ashby story in Flurb Fitting a New Suit I was impressed. Her first novel is no letdown and also very good. In a future where artificial humans produced from a template are quite common, many of them have relationships and even marriages with humans. They are also capable of producing [...]
The second Hero novel picks up scant hours after the saving the world events of the first. The motley clandestine crew has a zombie Tyrannosaur to deal with, in a museum. They’d definitely prefer this to be one of the dinosaurs that was missing, certainly. To complicate things another group is involved, The Weekenders. Another [...]
In this Dream Park sequel the game is to be on the Moon, with politics complicating things as one of the players is a prince of Kikaya, country in the middle of a democratic revolution. Which makes him a tasty target for mercenary kidnappers and makes this game and all its tricks real. His bodyguard? [...]
Continue reading about The Moon Maze Game – Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
I Kill Rich People has a couple of protagonists and an antagonist. A cop that works for the CIA organised NYPD intel division, a shock jock present at the first killings and an assassin. What is thought to be an hate crime after the highly professional shooting of several Jewish billionaires soon is discovered not [...]
A couple of sisters take a holiday and go not very crazy. 2.5 out of 5
At the time of just before the collapse of the Soviet Union two bodies wash up in Sweden, leading Detective Kurt Wallander to a solo dangerous spylike investigation in Latvia amidst a power struggle in the police department in Riga. 3 out of 5
A soon to retire Joker detective decides to revisit an old case while an Internal Affairs detective investigates corruption and murder in the same precinct. The cold case leads back to one of the original aces and goes via several well known Jokertown identities. 3.5 out of 5
The second of this sequel series has Mavra and Nathan trying to get to the part of the Well where they can stop things from going bad. This involves a lot of travel with companions, some of whom struggle greatly with the species and gender shifting involved. Better than the first one but middle seriesness [...]
Continue reading about Shadow of the Well of Souls – Jack L. Chalker
As if Will Swyfte didn’t have enough problems with evil fairies and dodgy Spaniards now spy factions in his own government want to have him become mortally challenged. The disappearance of friend and fellow agent Christopher Marlowe escalates the need to run away and attempt to stop the takeover of England via an Unseelie version [...]
The latest Laundr novel picks an all-time favourite of mine to homage. Modesty Blaise. Bob Howard discovers the Laundry actually does have some external and deniable assets they use, not bound by the usual Yes Minister cum literal soul sucking bureaucratic agreements. So he is read in on the BASHFUL INCENDIARY dossier and sent to [...]
Continue reading about The Apocalypse Codex – Charles Stross
A gangster in charge of an extensive bookmaking setup has a few mental problems. A leavetaking allows an underling to make a power grab. So, confrontation on return as well as trying to keep the wheels greased. 3 out of 5 htp://www.munseys.com/book/23566/Kill_the_Boss_Goodbye
A young woman dying of untreatable cancer is caught up in a plot to kill the man responsible for an immortality process that could save her if she could 1) afford it and 2) he would allow it. A change of heart leads her to save his life and eventually make a deal to stay [...]
Here’s a fun one, ship full of dead people aside. The Titanic voyage doesn’t go so well. However, three of the survivors are Quin Harker, Abraham Holmwood and Lucy Seward. The ship that picks them up is in the title. On board, some vampires. The three friends soon realise that Uncle Bram may not have [...]
No cursed magic swords here. Only a cursed magic flail. Which which the captain of small military company is encumbered. Sent on an unspecified to the scribe hired to document their work mission the young man soon gets involved in events lethal and dodgy as these agents of a foreign empire go about their politically [...]
Continue reading about Scourge of the Betrayer – Jeff Salyards
A cop struggles with identity in seventies San Francisco. 3 out of 5
A degenerate muckracking reporter gets himself mixed up in an otherworldly serial killer recruiter vs hunter of conflict thanks to falling prey to the wife of a Romanian gangster. Murder and mayhem ensue. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Serial Killers Incorporated – Andy Remic
A low-rent itinerant drifter with a troubled past is somewhat out of the ordinary. When she touches people she will see exactly how and when they will die, if not exactly where. A smart and entertainingly foul-mouthed and black humoured young lass she gets into even more trouble than a life of paint stripper booze [...]
An army soldier and reporter falls for a famous war correspondent – problem being she is a general’s fiance. After a naval accident covering a story involving a fight with another reporter he ends up on the run and becoming involved with a Japanese crimelord who has a novel use for him in the drugs [...]
Solar Queen, rock apes, not so real magic though. 2.5 out of 5 http://manybooks.net/titles/nortona1884618846.html
A far future space opera with a Buck Rogers twist. A generation ship commander on a long-term cryomission to a nearby star wakes up and finds out that he has slept a long time by quite a lot of millenia. This interstellar Entelechy consists of members both human and artificial and his being found and [...]
Continue reading about Further: Beyond the Threshold – Chris Roberson
Funny crime novel about the fight over an estate after a grandfather leaves everything to his family – on the proviso that his chihuahua is looked after as well as her pups, or no inheritance. 3.5 out of 5
A bored starship captain gets an offer. The inscrutable aliens the Coyote humans had never talked to apparently have some real estate going. Which doesn’t make sense as there are no habitable planets in their system. What they do have is a several millenia long Dyson Sphere project crossed with the Well World and some [...]
Here’s your baby eating evil seductress witch breeding supernatural monster children to assist with her reincarnation later on. After she gets torn apart by wild horses. Patches, Old Bones and Jack (yes, the pumpkin head variety) have some fun with the local townspeople in the present at Halloween as they gather the bits and pieces [...]
Stroud is now a go-to occult guy for solving problems. Getting called back from a dig he is asked to assist with some animal-style slaughters. This time, enough werewolves that he needs to hire mercenary help along with his other colleagues. 3.5 out of 5
Who has a crappy kind of job? Those that have to collect nasty dead people, or people that need to be dead, or ex-souled. Particularly when you get sent after a young woman who apparently gleefully painfully massacred her whole family in a place that you really don’t like. Even worse when that places you [...]
Abraham Stroud is now an ex-detective, seizures and psychic phenomena and a metal plate in the head thanks to a military history cause him to give it up. A wealthy grandfather leaving him a legacy changes things. It turns out this grandpa of the same opinion as the one in the Lost Boys, personally out [...]
Crazy types want to bring back demons in this bronze age fantasy world. Bad gods, good gods, priestesses, a couple of stalwart warriors and your wizard type. 3 out of 5
Postapocalyptic wiccan science fantasy. Disease has blighted humanity making them unable to stand each other for long periods of time. Underground society, enmities, high priestess with secrets for a treatment to be found, etc. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about Sign of the Labrys – Margaret St Clair
The world is apparently infested with disease – which means people are born blind if not implanted with mechanical eyes. Whether ordinary person or cyborg soldier servant manufactured by brutality. In this Orwellian dystopia perhaps this is not completely true and perhaps it is worse than it seems. One SIM soldier with a cat and [...]
Good vs Evil farce round 2, demonically. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about If at Faust You Don’t Succeed – Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley
Wiz’s world bad guys learn of the fantasy land and see some criminal opportunity. Which again involves preferably no Wiz. 3.5 out of 5
Stephenson, Bear and Teppo do Howard, Lamb and Mundy. In alternate history style. Which is really rather interesting. Especially growing out of a shared world project and community as it has done. e.g. http://mongoliad.com/ Genghis Khan is dead, his sons are busy remorselessly conquering Europe with the odd stop for entertainment. Lots of slaughter, etc. [...]
Continue reading about The Mongoliad – Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear and Mark Teppo
Beat the bad guys – then they want revenge and you have to try again. Life for a computer nerd in fantasyland is tough. 3.5 out of 5 http://www.baen.com/library/0671698567/0671698567.htm
Romance and danger in Crete. 3 out of 5
As it says, the third Mandel novel. Possible alien vegetation discovery. Impressively, this trilogy continues the quality work as again Event Horizon and particularly Julia Evans need Greg Mandel’s help. There are plenty of dodgy characters to be dealt with in this novel as they try and find out what happened to her father, and [...]
Continue reading about The Mandel Files Volume 2 – Peter F. Hamilton
Fifth of the series of erotic space adventure sendups. Here a renowned space thief goes for it. 3 out of 5
Bring out your dead finds a spare. Monk investigates. 3 out of 5
Injured Channel becomes surgeon, meets Gen mate. Fails to vampire energy kill her. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about Unto Zeor Forever – Jacqueline Lichtenberg