John Redfearn
Total Recall, by Phillip K Dick
Reviewed on October 26, 2012
Philip K Dick’s short science fiction stories are not exciting. They’re rather plodding affairs where remarkably ordinary people have rather ordinary lives in a somewhat unusual, somewhat implausible, setting. On the whole that setting, regardless of whether its Mars or Marin, is a rather 1950ish America transposed into the future. Its more likely to be [...]
Warrior of Rome: The Wolves of the North, by Harry Sidebottom
Reviewed on October 25, 2012
German soldiers of the second world war talked afterwards of the mindless depression brought by the invasion of Russia. Day after day and week after week the same. Driving or walking across the Steppes the same scenery, the same cottages, farms and villages, never seeming to get anywhere, just extending the supply lines and gradually [...]
The King’s Spy, by Andrew Swanston
Reviewed on October 17, 2012
A dull as ditchwater bookseller from the 1643 dull as ditchwater Romsey, just outside Southampton, is a pretty unlikely central character. Even more unlikely is his mathematical expertise and his penchant for codebreaking. Yet more unlikely still is his sudden elevation to become the King’s most important cryptographer in the whore, soldier and sewage strewn [...]
Nelson: A Dream of Glory, by John Sugden
Reviewed on October 15, 2012
With Nelson: A Dream of Glory John Sugden has written part 1 of the definitive biography of Nelson, covering the period up to 1797 and his return home from Tenerife. Intensely researched from original sources and written in a thoroughly readable style this work supercedes all earlier biographies of the man. Horatio Nelson was born [...]
Spartacus Rebellion, by Ben Kane
Reviewed on September 26, 2012
Spartacus is rapidly running out of steam. His army’s in disarray and few more slaves are rebelling to join him. There’s been no general slave uprising against the Romans, so it’s a one front war. He’s frantically trying to escape, but wherever he turns there are legions blocking him, chasing him down. He doesn’t have [...]
Dark Pools, by Scott Patterson
Reviewed on September 21, 2012
To err is human, but to really mess things up you need a computer. The financial markets are really messed up. There’s something fundamentally distasteful and morally repugnant about any activity that has no purpose other than making money. That’s why we loathe ambulance-chasing lawyers, detest money-grubbing bankers, boycott products from tax-avoiding corporations and despise [...]
The Labyrinth of Osiris, by Paul Sussman
Reviewed on September 12, 2012
In 1931 an archaeologist disappeared in Luxor. He’d been a frightening figure, his face so badly disfigured that he’d habitually worn a mask. That, with his biking leathers and helmet, made an alarming sight. Enough to scare the children rather badly. In 1971, quite by accident, his body was finally found when a tourist fell [...]
Praetorian, by Simon Scarrow
Reviewed on September 6, 2012
Narcissus, secretary and spymaster to Emperor Claudius, kept Praetorian Guardsmen Capito and Calidus kicking their heels in Ostia for weeks before finally descending unexpectedly on them and giving them their instructions. No longer, for the moment, were they Prefect Cato and Centurion Macro but now they were to be the lowliest of Praetorians. Not too [...]
Fuel on the Fire, by Greg Muttitt
Reviewed on August 31, 2012
Lack of trust is a scary thing. It leads to speculation, rumour, re-interpretation of facts and, most fundamentally, conspiracy theory. On the whole I don’t believe in conspiracy theory. Not because people don’t conspire, but because few are clever enough conspire effectively and none can keep secrets for very long. On the whole I go [...]
Avenger of Rome, by Douglas Jackson
Reviewed on August 25, 2012
Emperor Nero was right to be concerned. It’s a dangerous and lonely place when you’re the absolute ruler of a great superpower, or even of a minor local fiefdom, especially if you rely on charismatic generals to fight your wars for you. Especially if those generals are ambitious, and what general isn’t ambitious? Emperors and [...]
Murdoch Mysteries: A Journeyman to Grief, by Maureen Jennings
Reviewed on August 18, 2012
On her honeymoon by Niagara Falls on a fine summer’s day in July 1858 a young girl was kidnapped. Soon after she was transported south into the Confederacy and sold into slavery. Nasty place, the 1858’s. April 1896 sees William Murdoch and Dr Julia Ogden attending a lecture on fear at the Toronto Medical school. [...]
The Lost Library, by A M Dean
Reviewed on August 13, 2012
Eliza was an early example of a natural language processing system that performed a sort of psychologist’s interview with patients. When it didn’t recognize anything in the text its victim typed onto the glass-teletype it would ask them to tell it something about their mother. It did convince a select few that they were conversing [...]
Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads, by Benedict Rogers
Reviewed on August 10, 2012
Try to put yourself in the heavy boots of one of the leaders of a cruel, repressive state that has for years terrorized, murdered, raped and suppressed much of its population and all of its ethnic minorities. You stay in power because you control a powerful army designed and trained to enforce internal control. You’re [...]
Murdoch Mysteries: Vices of My Blood, by Maureen Jennings
Reviewed on August 3, 2012
The role of a poorhouse Visitor was to sort the deserving from the undeserving poor. The beneficent Visitor would give the deserving a chit for a night or two’s lodging or a few day’s food. The morally upright Visitor would leave the undeserving with, at best, a sermon about the evils of drink, prostitution or [...]
On His Majesty’s Service, by Allan Mallinson
Reviewed on July 30, 2012
Armies are remarkably expensive things to keep around. Troops have to be recruited, clothed, housed, trained and fed. They have to be equipped and kept supplied. Since their job description includes a requirement, on demand, to die or be injured for their country, their country has to provide short and long-term medical and social care [...]
Rome: The Eagle of the Twelfth, by M.C.Scott
Reviewed on July 20, 2012
When you draw a bow, short bow, longbow, Parthian composite bow, whichever, you push the bow away with one arm and draw the string back with the other. As you pull the string towards your nose or ear the tension mounts across your back at a rate in proportion of about five to one above [...]
A History of the World in 100 Objects, by Neil MacGregor
Reviewed on July 11, 2012
You know the Seven Wonders of the World game? If you were selecting the Seven Wonders of the Ancient/Modern/Natural world which would they be and why? This is that game writ large. The Earth is about to be destroyed by the Vogons’ new hyperspace bypass and you must choose 100 objects to represent the entire [...]
A second look at Warrior of Rome: The Caspian Gates, by Harry Sidebottom
Reviewed on July 2, 2012
I think the Romans would have found the whole concept of prison very odd. You take people who acted in a way unacceptable to society and at great expense house them, feed them, provide them with entertainment, provide any necessary medical attention, teach them a trade and then let them back into society, often to [...]
The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice, by Stephen Deas
Reviewed on June 24, 2012
Berren was a streetwise young thief working for dung-master and juvenile-thief-master Hatchet in the port city Deephaven when he watched the execution. Three men having their heads’ chopped off by the executioner in Four-Winds Square had brought out the crowds, and the crowds brought out the pickpockets. Like Berren. When he saw the thief-taker being [...]
The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier: Invincible, by Jack Campbell
Reviewed on June 21, 2012
Explorers are well known for discovering a new place and asking the locals what everything’s called. “What’s that?”, they’d say, pointing at a big tree. The local would look at the explorers, look at the tree, roll his eyes, look slowly back at the explorers and profoundly say ‘Its a Big Tree’. Or they’d arrive [...]
The Drowned Cities, by Paolo Bacigalupi
Reviewed on June 12, 2012
In a few decades, when sea-levels start to rise sharply because of runaway global warming caused by methane released from under the melted permafrost and ice caps, how will nations react? Bacigalupi thinks some will build immense dykes around their cities, others will build floating islands and some societies will continue to deny there’s a [...]
JAG in Space: Against all Enemies, by Jack Campbell
Reviewed on June 6, 2012
Against all Enemies has all the sharp twists and turns of a ten billion megawatt array-laserbeam. It spins and weaves over the space lanes like the twenty-nine lanes of I-10 does out west from Houston in Texas. The surprises are so swift and fast that by the end you’ll feel as if you’ve been savaged by a dead [...]
Earth’s Children: The Land of Painted Caves, by Jean M Auel
Reviewed on June 2, 2012
Load up the horses, trek across the landscape, hold lengthy greetings and listings of credentials with leaders of the next village, face local incredulity with horses/wolf, hold even more lengthy greetings and listings of credentials with local religious leader/doctor, perform medical examination of case local medicine-man/woman needs help with, visit sacred cave, sing/howl/drone/tweet/roar marvel at [...]
Murdoch Mysteries: Let Loose the Dogs, by Maureen Jennings
Reviewed on May 29, 2012
Maureen Jennings’ Murdoch is not the slick, stylized William of the TV series. Hers is a photo-realistic detective closer in style to a Marlowe than a Tintin. He eats the rather awful meals provided by his landlady Mrs Kitchen with forced enthusiasm, reads ‘Our Bodily Dwelling’ to try to understand more about certain elements of [...]
Hannibal: Enemy of Rome, by Ben Kane
Reviewed on May 27, 2012
Surprise! Hannibal is not the subject of this book. He barely figures at all. There’s a bit of besieging in Spain and crossing of Alps with elephants and cracking of big rocks with heat and water but even then he barely gets a mention. Hanno the Carthaginian is the book’s subject. Hanno, however, does no [...]
Murdoch Mysteries: Poor Tom is Cold, by Maureen Jennings
Reviewed on May 12, 2012
‘Gawdelpus’ is not the name of Toronto police station number four’s cat. Neither is it Sergeant Gardiner’s friendly nickname for Acting Detective William Murdoch. It’s the greeting an insomniac, half-frozen, soaking wet, swollen faced, fishy smelling and sealskin-coat clad Murdoch receives from the sergeant on arriving in the station one dark November night. Nowadays at [...]
JAG in Space: Rule of Evidence , by Jack Campbell
Reviewed on May 2, 2012
It’s hard to believe that even in the US military legal system a case could ever come to court where there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for a crime having been committed. There’s probably even evidence against those who are arguably illegally incarcerated without trial in the nefarious Guantanamo Bay, albeit inadmissible or insufficient to [...]
Hawk Quest, by Robert Lyndon
Reviewed on April 29, 2012
Despite the headlines on the cover Hawk Quest is not an Epic Novel of the Norman Conquests. Instead it’s a wide-ranging epic novel set in the post-Conquest Europe of the early 1070’s. And, despite the effusive praise festooning both front and back covers, its a truly first-rate adventure novel. Walter son of Olbec had been [...]
Silver: Return to Treasure Island, by Andrew Motion
Reviewed on April 27, 2012
Mr Stevenson, lookout and a non-swimmer, oversaw the voyage of the Silver Nightingale from a vantage-point high above her deck right up to the moment near the end of the tale when he leapt from her with a bar of silver. The Nightingale had been hired by a dying Long-John Silver to return to Treasure [...]
A second look at The Dervish House, by Ian McDonald
Reviewed on April 15, 2012
What exactly is the definition of Science Fiction? Set in the future? Set in the past with technology that didn’t exist? Set in the present but when a key past event differed from historical reality? Set in a parallel universe? A story based on a simple ‘what if’ premise? Something where people have developed new [...]
How to Think Like a Neandertal, by Thomas Wynn and Frederick L Coolidge
Reviewed on April 9, 2012
Psychology professors at the University of Colorado dream of 8-foot-tall robot rabbits with antennae. Neandertals didn’t. They dreamed of falling out of trees or being chased by predators or hungry neighbours. Would you recognize a Neandertal if you saw one? Maybe. Imagine someone who looks like a stereotypical Eastern European weightlifter, short, heavily muscled, young, [...]
All Business is Local, by John A. Quelch and Katherine E. Jocz
Reviewed on March 29, 2012
Charmin, a US manufacturer of loo-roll, sponsors SitOrSquat. It’s an app that will find you a public toilet almost anywhere in the world, complete with user reviews, opening times and even in some cases photos. Few examples better demonstrate the importance of locality and the cunning of marketing. Location is the place where the customer [...]
A Ship of War, by Sean Thomas Russell
Reviewed on March 27, 2012
I quite enjoyed this book. Captain Charles Hayden has a British father and a French mother and, surprisingly, is the Lieutenant in command of HMS Themis, a British frigate on a special mission off the coast of France in the early stages of the French Revolutionary War. Surprising because frigates were normally commanded by Post [...]
Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans, by Jane Taylor
Reviewed on March 17, 2012
This book comes in disguise. Its a history of the Nabataeans, their history, their culture, their religion, their architecture and their rise and fall. How many people would buy a book about that? Not too many would even know who they were, let alone read an academic tome about them. Avid Scrabblers and crossworders might [...]
JAG in Space: A Just Determination and Burden of Proof, by Jack Campbell
Reviewed on March 9, 2012
I couldn’t resist it. Two JAGs in space. No bus lanes in the spaceways, no extolling the virtues of public transport, just Twojags. Does Twojags equal one minor asteroid? Sends shivers of horror through the spine. Why am I covering two books in one review? Because they’re ever so very similar even though they’re not [...]
Triumph of the City, by Edward Glaeser
Reviewed on March 6, 2012
I’ll try to summarize Glaeser’s two blindingly obvious yet deeply profound theories in my own words. One: The more people who live in close proximity to each other the more innovation, wealth and contentment you create. Two: the more communication there is the better, but technology can only supplement, never replace, physical, face-to-face contact. Result: [...]
Spartacus the Gladiator, by Ben Kane
Reviewed on March 4, 2012
Marcus Licinius Crassus, General, Praetor, Censor, member of the First Triumvirate and fireman was a good Roman. He lived and fought through some of the most dangerous times for Rome and excelled, allied first with Sulla and later with Pompey and Caesar. He started out as an impoverished aristocrat and ended up unimaginably wealthy and [...]
Murdoch Mysteries: Under the Dragon’s Tail, by Maureen Jennings
Reviewed on February 25, 2012
This series is addictive. In terms of crime and mystery Under the Dragon’s Tail is nothing special, the characters are nothing you wouldn’t expect, the pace is unequivocally slow, the outcome not unpredictable. There’s a good sloppy dollop of deserving poor and undeserving rich and no lack of Victorian uprightness and hypocrisy. So what is [...]
Spartacus: Swords and Ashes, by J.M.Clements
Reviewed on February 23, 2012
Sex most definitely sells. Gladiatorial violence sells. Crime, murder and mystery sells. Spartacus has the lot, with the added spice of a story about the enslaved underdog Spartacus working for his obnoxious master Batiatus, held by a promise that his politically naïve obnoxiousness will search for and buy his slave wife for him if he [...]
The House of Silk, by Anthony Horowitz
Reviewed on February 15, 2012
What an odd book. It’s highly authentic Sherlock Holmes, the great detective living in Baker Street with his housekeeper and accompanied by the faithful Dr. Watson, seeing tiny shreds of evidence and putting it all together to solve the case. It ranges from Victorian London to Victorian Boston and back and I for one was [...]
The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught, by Jack Campbell
Reviewed on February 14, 2012
If Jack Campbell’s space opera is representative of what the US military (he’s an ex USN officer) think about US politicians, and vice versa, then heaven help us all. Campbell’s politicians are mostly devious, backstabbing, scheming, lying, self-serving lowlife who don’t hesitate to send the military on hopeless and unnecessary suicide missions, sometimes with the [...]
Murdoch Mysteries: Except the Dying, by Maureen Jennings
Reviewed on February 10, 2012
This series is going to be addictive. Cunningly Titan will be publishing them one a month, timed so that you’ll be looking for the next one at about the time its due out. I wonder if you can get a subscription? Maybe a prescription? Not knowing what Toronto was like in 1895 I have no [...]
The Real ‘Dad’s Army’, by Col. Rodney Foster
Reviewed on February 3, 2012
Ok, you can forget about Dad’s Army now, this isn’t about them. This is the diary of a fairly ordinary bloke who lived in one of the dullest towns in the dullest of countries and whose main excitement before the war was from sitting on the local RSPCA committee and visiting friends and family for [...]
Naked Heat, by Richard Castle
Reviewed on January 26, 2012
Everybody knows it, it’s an open secret. When world-famous author Rick Castle writes about Jameson Rook and Nikki Heat he’s really writing about Richard Castle and Kate Beckett. Castle, who resembles Nathan Fillion so strongly they could be twins, swung a deal to shadow the renowned New York homicide detective and her team to provide [...]
Harald Hadrada, The Last Viking, by Michael Burr
Reviewed on January 22, 2012
Harald’s small warband surrounded the convent while a couple of warriors went a short way up the road to intercept any escapees and warn of any rescuers. Then the main band went in, seeking supplies, loot, and their pleasure with the nuns, in all of which they were fully satisfied. Sure enough a horseman burst [...]
Dark Eden, by Chris Beckett
Reviewed on January 19, 2012
In May 1969 when Snoopy detached from Charlie Brown in moon orbit the press was full of speculation and rumour. Despite all details of the mission plan they thought Cooper and Mitchell might really go for it and pre-empt Apollo 11 to be the first to land. In Dark Eden the crew of a brand [...]
The Iliad, a new translation, by Stephen Mitchell
Reviewed on January 17, 2012
Heresy I know, but the one image I couldn’t get out of my mind while reading this new translation of the Iliad was of a passionate and golden skinned C3P0 seated in front of a semicircle of furry little Ewoks and telling the battle of Endor. He’s simplified the story and added rhyming repetitions to [...]
Blue Remembered Earth, by Alastair Reynolds
Reviewed on January 10, 2012
Geoffrey and Sunday Akinya are the black sheep of the family. He lives in Africa and researches elephant psychology, she lives in an off the grid area on the moon and earns a marginal living as an artist and sculptress. The family, primarily Hector and Lucas, have written them off but would still welcome them [...]
Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Military Base, by Annie Jacobsen
Reviewed on January 3, 2012
‘Information classified TS/SCI ensures outsiders don’t know what they don’t know and insiders know only what they have a need-to-know.’ Very Rumsfeld. So here’s some of what you don’t know you don’t know and you definitely don’t have a need-to-know: Area 51, Area 52, CIA, skunk works, AEC, Oxcart, NACA, extinguished, NPIC, NRO, Black Shield, NSA, [...]
A second look at Lion of the Sun, by Harry Sidebottom
Reviewed on December 31, 2011
Looking in on different cultures and societies is always fascinating. The things people do, the things people believe, the radical differences in moral justifications they have for their actions is all just astonishing. So a question. As a member of one religion is an oath taken to the god of another religion binding? Is an [...]
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The Bookgeeks Interview
Mark Oldfield
Mark Oldfield has worked in criminological research for over 20 years. He has a PhD in Criminology from the University of Kent and has carried out research in the areas of risk assessment and prediction and as well as evaluative research on policing, prisons and probation. He has also taught in various Universities on research, crime and criminal justice.
