Here’s a safe bet – Star Wars toys will be all the rage this Christmas. I was pondering Star Wars gifts for my godson and his brother but wasn’t sure if they’d seen the films. After all; The Phantom Menace came out in 1999. That’s 16 years ago and neither boy is 16. As it happens […]
Doubles up on gigantic: A review of Shipstar
Shipstar is the follow on to Larry Niven and Gregory Benford’s Bowl of Heaven. Unusually for a sequel, it’s a much better book. The action picks up in the aftermath of Bowl of Heaven and the humans are in deep trouble. They’ve found this gigantic spaceship-thing built around a star and have learn the hard […]
Deadly power struggles: A review of The Boy Who Wept Blood
The Boy Who Wept Blood is the sequel to Den Patrick’s The Boy with the Porcelain Blade. I really enjoyed most of Porcelain Blade; with some of the flashbacks as the exception, they felt like a bit like filler when I really wanted to get on with the action. The Boy Who Wept Blood has […]
What’s more dangerous? Belief or bullets: A review of Slow Bullets
Slow Bullets is a novella from Alastair Reynolds. The sci-fi is set at a time where humanity has expanded to very many planets but split into two. A war rages between the Central Planets and the ones of the Periphery. The government uses a device embedded into its soldiers and people to record their identity […]
Huge, hard sci-fi: A review of Bowl of Heaven
Bowl of Heaven is a combined project from sci-fi faves Larry Niven and Gregory Benford. I’m in the interesting position of having read both Bowl of Heaven and the followup Shipstar based on recommendations for the latter of the two. Bowl of Heaven is harder to get into and ends in such a way that […]
Better than the first: A review of Magi – The Kingdom of Magic
I described the ‘prequel’ as odd but catchy. In Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic we meet anime characters with names taken from famous Arabian stories; Aladdin, Alibaba, Sinbad, etc, who have magic powers or supernatural abilities and follow them as their adventures led to a battle around the independence of a small nation. The action […]
Russians against the angel: A review of Truth and Fear
Truth and Fear is Peter Higgin’s strong sequel to Wolfhound Century. I used “communist angel punk” to try and summarise Wolfhound Century and Truth and Fear is more of the brilliant same. We’ve a State Investigator, now essentially hunted by the State, teamed up with the daughter of a terrorist, now an assassination target for […]
Boom! A review of a Certain Scientific Railgun
As mentioned in my review “Wizards vs Science” of A Certain Magical Index that the best character in the show is Misaka Mikoto. Misaka can manipulate electrical forces to such an extent that she’s a formidable warrior and a favourite tactic is to accelerate small items like coins at such speed that she acts as […]
Double or quits: A review of Psycho-Pass the Movie
Let’s begin this review with a caveat: there are times in this anime that the characters speak English and some of those dialogues are wince worthy bad. I watched the UK premier at Scotland Loves Anime and I very much hope the studio can dub over these sections before a general release. I really enjoyed […]
Are we doomed? A review of Attack on Titan live action movie
This was always going to be a challenging movie to make. For a start there are legion of manga and anime fans who really want this movie to bring to life this incredible story and then there’s task of bringing the towering titans to life. People laughed at this horror movie. I was able to […]
