Simon Appleby
Simon Appleby is a Digital Project Manager for Octopus Publishing Group. He spends as much time as he can reading, mostly on the train, and is very happy to be working for a division of the UK’s largest publishing company. Simon reads mostly SF, fantasy, historical novels, history, and contemporary fiction, but dabbles with all sorts of other books from time to time. Simon is an active user of a number of book-related sites – he can be found on LibraryThing.com and BookMooch, among others. The most unusual book on his shelves is an Estonian first edition of The Colour of Magic, signed by Sir Terry Pratchett.
The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
Reviewed on January 1, 2011
Hugo and Nebula award-winning since its publication in the US last year, The Windup Girl is now available in the UK – and it’s definitely been worth the wait. Combining dystopian speculation about the future of the world following the exhaustion of fossil fuel supplies, and a storyline that encompasses genetically engineered beings, political intrigue, [...]
The Thick of It: The Missing DoSAC Files, by Armando Iannucci et al
Reviewed on December 20, 2010
Armando Iannucci’s deadpan political satire The Thick of It is, without a doubt, the 21st century’s answer to Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay’s wonderful Yes, Minister, and like that immortal series it has now spawned a book. The good news is that just like the Yes, Minister diaries, which adapted the scripts and introduced elements [...]
Kraken, by China Miéville
Reviewed on December 9, 2010
Tales of hidden London are an established sub-genre within urban fantasy – from Neil Gaiman’s seminal Neverwhere to offerings like Kate Griffin’s A Madness of Angels and China Miéville’s own debut King Rat and his more recent Un Lun Dun. However, with Kraken, it’s possible that he’s written the definitive ‘alt-London’ novel. Many of the [...]
The Legion, by Simon Scarrow
Reviewed on November 30, 2010
For the tenth instalment of his Macro and Cato series of Roman historical novels, it’s destination Egypt for Simon Scarrow. Our heroes have come a long way from their beginnings on the German frontier: Macro is still a Centurion but Cato, with his intelligence and diplomatic skills, has now gone from being his underling to [...]
The Heroes, by Joe Abercrombie
Reviewed on November 19, 2010
Whatever happened to the heroes?, asked the Stranglers – well, one thing’s for sure, they didn’t make it as far as Joe Abercrombie’s latest substantial slice of fantasy, because, you see, the Heroes of the title are a group of standing stones plonked on a hill in the North. It’s the kind of hill that, [...]
Lightborn, by Tricia Sullivan
Reviewed on November 9, 2010
Tricia Sullivan’s Lightborn initially appears to be a new twist on the zombie novel: in a near-future society, technology has been developed which allows neural stimulation and recreation via patterns of lights watched by the user. These Lightborns, colloquially known as Shine, are an accepted part of society, being used for pleasure, for learning new [...]
Return of the Crimson Guard, by Ian Cameron Esslemont
Reviewed on October 28, 2010
The second novel by Ian Cameron Esslemont, co-creator with Steven Erikson of the world chronicled in the Malazan Book of the Fallen, gives considerably more of an idea of what Esslemont is capable of than his first novel, Night of Knives. Where that book was relatively short and simple, describing events over the course of [...]
Surface Detail, by Iain M. Banks
Reviewed on October 7, 2010
Surface Detail is the eighth of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels – Banks likes to make his readers wait, as its predecessor, Matter, was the subject of my first Bookgeeks review (indeed, the first review on Bookgeeks), back at the start of 2008. There has never really been such a thing as a ‘typical’ Culture [...]
The SS: A New History, by Adrian Weale
Reviewed on September 28, 2010
The SS as an organisation is in many ways synonymous with Nazi Germany – while the brownshirted SA may have provided Hitler’s muscle during his ascent to power, their leadership was brutally suppressed and they had little impact on the actual period of Nazi rule, especially by comparison with the SS. Originally conceived as a [...]
I Shall Wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett
Reviewed on September 26, 2010
As someone who started reading Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books when I was maybe 10 or 11 years old, as a logical progression from Douglas Adams, I confess I have always found the distinction between his ‘normal’ and young adult books slightly hard to understand. The ‘normal’ books contain no sex, no swearing and only cartoon [...]
A Loyal Spy, by Simon Conway
Reviewed on September 23, 2010
Like many things in life, it’s possible to stop thinking about the real meaning of the labels that we apply to the stuff that surrounds us – and in my case this is certainly true of the notion of the thriller novel. In my younger days I hoovered up Tom Clancy, Jack Higgins and Alistair [...]
Warrior of Rome: King of Kings and Warrior of Rome: Lion of the Sun, by Harry Sidebottom
Reviewed on September 15, 2010
The second and third instalments of historian Harry Sidebottom’s historical series continue in the same vein as the first book, Fire in the East. At the start of King of Kings, the barbarian-turned-Roman Ballista and his retinue are fleeing the fall of Arete, following the betrayal of the city to the Persians at the end [...]
Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes
Reviewed on September 10, 2010
For a conflict that has made such a huge impression on film and video games, the Vietnam War has not made the equivalent impact on literature: to my mind, there is no Vietnam equivalent to For Whom the Bell Tolls or Catch-22. Graham Greene’s The Quiet American explored the origins of the war, but the [...]
The Temporal Void and The Evolutionary Void, by Peter F. Hamilton
Reviewed on September 3, 2010
With the second and third volumes of his Void Trilogy, set in the same universe as his two-book Commonwealth Saga, Peter F. Hamilton makes it clear why he is one of the paramount writers of space opera working today. Hamilton’s books have a tendency towwards high page-counts, and the two being reviewed here are no [...]
The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, by Christopher Andrew
Reviewed on August 20, 2010
MI5, Britain’s Security Service, tasked with counter-espionage and counter-terrorism, hit the headlines recently when their work in Northern Ireland was criticised. Public attention for MI5 is a relative rarity and undesirable, on the whole, so it’s perhaps surprising that they invited an independent historian to write an authorised history of their work to celebrate their [...]
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City, by Greg Grandin
Reviewed on August 6, 2010
Henry Ford is famous for the invention of the production line, for creating a motoring revolution that transformed America, and for saying “history is bunk” and “you can have any colour as long as it’s black”. What he’s definitely not known for is paying millions of dollars to establish a rubber plantation in the Amazon [...]
Black Lung Captain – A Tale of the Ketty Jay, by Chris Wooding
Reviewed on August 4, 2010
In the second of Chris Wooding’s series of standalone adventures featuring the dysfunctional crew of the barely functioning aircraft the Ketty Jay, we are treated to more of the same kind of page-turning, larger-then-life techno-piratical adventures as we experienced in the first book, Retribution Falls. Having assembled a crew who could just about tolerate one [...]
Shoedog, by George Pelecanos
Reviewed on July 31, 2010
George Pelecanos is a writer with a considerable body of work under his belt, a chronicler of urban crime who has made his native Washington D.C. the setting for most of his work – but I confess I would not have picked up Shoedog were it not for his involvement in immortalising the life of [...]
Rockers and Rollers: An Automotive Autobiography, by Brian Johnson
Reviewed on July 29, 2010
Brian Johnson, frontman of perennial rock’n’roll favourites AC/DC is, as anyone who has seen his appearance on the BBC’s Top Gear not so long ago knows, also a car fiend, a racer through and through, so the emphasis in this autobiography is firmly on the automotive side of his existence. AC/DC get plenty of mentions, [...]
Warrior of Rome: Fire in the East, by Harry Sidebottom
Reviewed on July 17, 2010
In to the cut-throat, blood-soaked arena that is the world of so-called swords and sandals historical fiction comes Harry Sidebottom – gasp as he beheads an opposing novelist who was armed only with a trident and a net; swoon as he eviscerates a ravenous lion; marvel as he hacks his way through the throng. Fire [...]
New Model Army, by Adam Roberts
Reviewed on July 16, 2010
Adam Roberts can be relied upon to never be predictable in his choice of subject matter: his previous two novels were a sequel to Gulliver’s Travels and a tale of alien invasion and cover up in the Soviet Union. With New Model Army, he turns his attention to the profound effects that modern Internet technology [...]
The Fields of Death (Revolution 4), by Simon Scarrow
Reviewed on July 10, 2010
The culmination of Simon Scarrow’s Revolution series sees things brought to a close in suitably epic style. There are no surprises about the scope of the story: Wellington’s campaigns in Spain, culminating in the invasion of France; Napoleon’s ill-judged invasion of Russia, abdication and return; and to round it off, the bloody Battle of Waterloo, [...]
Our Tragic Universe, by Scarlett Thomas
Reviewed on July 3, 2010
If ever there was a book that ought not to work as an enjoyable novel, Our Tragic Universe pretty much fits the bill – with a loose plot about the unhappy life of central character Meg, a small-town setting on the Devon coast and some lengthy digressions in to topics as diverse as narrative theory, [...]
Making Shore, by Sara Allerton
Reviewed on June 21, 2010
Sara Allerton’s debut novel is an impressive and affecting war story – based around and inspired by the real experiences of young merchant seaman Brian Clarke during the Second World War, but with Allerton putting those events in to an original fictional framework which place this firmly in the domain of the novel. The story [...]
The Dream of Perpetual Motion, by Dexter Palmer
Reviewed on June 10, 2010
Dexter Palmer’s debut novel is that most 21st century of concepts: a mash-up. Starting with a healthy slice of early 20th century science fiction, reminiscent of Jules Verne, with mechanical men and other technological wonders, he adds lashings of Shakespeare, in the form of numerous clear references and allusions to The Tempest, and wraps it [...]
The Folding Knife, by K.J. Parker
Reviewed on June 1, 2010
The personally elusive K.J. Parker’s latest standalone novel is a marvellous example of how fantasy does not need to be all about orcs, elves and evil wizards. The magic elements that featured in Parker’s early works are now absent, as they have been for the last standalone novel, The Company, and the Engineer Trilogy, while [...]
The Top 100 Cricketers of All Time, by Christopher Martin-Jenkins
Reviewed on May 28, 2010
Sports fans love lists, and I suspect cricket fans love them most of all – in a sport where batting and bowling averages serve as benchmarks of greatness, and where there are endless permutations for new records and new firsts (highest test match partnership shared by two brothers, highest scores on debut, longest break between [...]
All My Friends Are Superheroes, by Andrew Kaufman
Reviewed on May 21, 2010
A charming novella from Canadian filmmaker Andrew Kaufman, All My Friends are Superheroes tells the story of Tom – all of Tom’s friends are indeed superheroes, but not in the DC / Marvel sense. Most of them are people defined by regular and recognisable traits – the Stress Bunny, the Couch Surfer, the Dancer, the [...]
Siberian Education, by Nicolai Lilin
Reviewed on May 13, 2010
You can read two chapters from Siberian Education on our sister site Bookhugger.co.uk. Say ‘organised crime’ and most people’s first thought will be the Italian or American Mafia, Chinese Triads or East End mobsters – dislocated Siberians may not spring immediately to mind, but once you read Siberian Education, the Mafia will seem like pussycats [...]
Absorption, by John Meaney
Reviewed on May 10, 2010
The best way to judge a book is normally by reading it with no prior knowledge of the author or their oeuvre, thus avoiding the danger of judgment distorted by commercial success, critical acclaim or unwarranted obscurity – so it was with great surprise, after reading and enjoying Absorption, that I discovered the number of [...]
George Sprott, 1894 – 1975, by Seth
Reviewed on May 5, 2010
Seth’s new picture novella is the tale of has-been explorer and celebrity George Sprott. Seth has created a washed up, tragic and lonely old man whose existence is defined and validated by his youthful experiences as an Arctic explorer, despite the fact that his achievements in that sphere were rather more style than substance. The [...]
The Orphaned Worlds, by Michael Cobley
Reviewed on April 27, 2010
So Michael Cobley picks up where Seeds of Earth left off, continuing the story of humanity among the stars. This book certainly is, as the jacket blurb from Iain M. Banks proclaims, “galaxy-spanning”, and this reviewer confesses that it took a while to get in to the swing of thing, picking up numerous plot-lines and [...]
Farlander, by Col Buchanan
Reviewed on April 23, 2010
An enjoyable fantasy debut from Col Buchanan, Farlander is the first book in the ‘The Heart of the World’ series (a trilogy, perhaps?), and a very impressive debut effort it is too. Very much ‘low fantasy’ in that there are no non-humans to be seen, and precious little magic, Buchanan’s book is reminiscent of K.J.Parker [...]
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, by Philip Pullman
Reviewed on April 21, 2010
This may well be one of the more anticipated books of the year, from an author who has, along with Richard Dawkins, done much to make it OK to be openly atheistic, or anti-religious, thanks to the strong anti-Church sentiments that reside at the heart of his fantastic His Dark Materials trilogy. In the latest [...]
The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel
Reviewed on April 19, 2010
What David Simon did for the American inner city in Homicide and The Corner, David Finkel has done here for the war in Iraq. Good Soldiers is an account of time spent with the American 2-16 infantry battalion, known as the Rangers, and is by turns enthralling and depressing. The Rangers, under their commanding officer [...]
Blood Ninja, by Nick Lake
Reviewed on April 7, 2010
Ninjas. Vampires. Put them together and what have you got? Pure fantasy gold, it would appear. For many people, the combination of these two tropes, even without the ongoing Stephanie Meyer-induced vampire-mania, would be enough to get them to buy Blood Ninja, whatever the reviews say, but there’s an added bonus: this is really a [...]
The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, by Andrew Roberts
Reviewed on April 5, 2010
Writing a single volume history of the Second World War is one of the most ambitious things an historian can do – because the sheer scale of the topic, in terms of geographical range, span of time and the number of military campaigns make it a war about which you could easily write a copious [...]
Terminal World, by Alastair Reynolds
Reviewed on March 22, 2010
Two aspects of this book have provoked immediate comment: a colleague saw Terminal World sat on my desk and commented on the bleak title. Bleak, of course, is what Reynolds does as well as anyone in the SF sphere – entropy, decay, decline and annihilation are his stock in trade. The second aspect was the [...]
The Sixth Directorate, by Joseph Hone
Reviewed on March 15, 2010
The second of Joseph Hone’s Peter Marlow sequence is, like the first, The Private Sector, a worthy and compelling piece of seventies spy action – like John Le Carre, Hone is more interested in the psychological effects of the cloak and dagger game on its participants, and recognises that the banal outweighs the dramatic by [...]
Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years, by Sue Townsend
Reviewed on March 11, 2010
I wonder if it would perhaps be possible to divide people in to people who were older than Adrian Mole when they first read his secret diary, and those who were younger. The reason for this speculation is that I can’t help feeling it makes a profound difference to how you read and relate to [...]
Sons of Thunder (Raven 2), by Giles Kristian
Reviewed on March 10, 2010
Former popstar turned novelist Giles Kristian really hit the spot with his debut, Raven: Blood Eye, and now the Norseman with the mysterious past is back for another outing – with added guts and gore. In his first book, Kristian out-Cornwelled the master of this kind of writing, but the challenge for any pretender to [...]
Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip, by Peter Hessler
Reviewed on March 4, 2010
We are increasingly being informed that China is a country we can no longer afford to ignore – as an economic powerhouse, as a nuclear power, as a polluter – yet it is very easy to be distracted by the sheer scale of China, to the point where it becomes difficult to relate to the [...]
Shadowrise, by Tad Williams
Reviewed on March 2, 2010
I owe Tad Williams a lot, as the fantasy author who I turned to when I wanted to see what the world beyond Tolkien looked like, and his latest book is quintessential Williams: a complex, multi-stranded narrative, a seriously big book, oh, and the third time he has failed to finish a trilogy inside the [...]
Empire of the Moghul: Raiders from the North, by Alex Rutherford
Reviewed on February 25, 2010
With Conn Iggulden having demonstrated the appetite of the British reading public for thrilling to the exploits of ancient conquerors, first with his Rome series and latterly with his Ghengis Khan books, Alex Rutherford is well positioned to take advantage: this enjoyable tale is the first in a series of novels about the Moghul Empire, [...]
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin
Reviewed on February 23, 2010
Mortals mixing with their gods is not exactly a new idea in fantasy writing, but with her debut novel, the first instalment of the obligatory trilogy, N.K Jemesin shows an ability to make the idea work extremely well – there are genuine echoes of ancient Greek and Norse mythology, with gods and mortals rubbing shoulders, [...]
The Boy Next Door, by Irene Sabatini
Reviewed on February 17, 2010
Amidst the stories of political violence, rampant inflation, AIDS, poverty and general chaos that make up the sum total of what we in the UK hear about Zimbabwe (especially since most British reporters are banned from entering the country), it’s not difficult to overlook the fact that it’s a place where, even now, millions of [...]
Bauchelain and Korbal Broach 1, by Steven Erikson
Reviewed on February 8, 2010
Originally published in the UK as limited edition novellas, Steven Erikson’s tales of the necromancers Bauchelain and Korbal Broach are now finally available to the masses of Steven Erikson fans courtesy of this collected volume from Erikson’s American publishers. Readers of the doorstop-sized volumes that constitute the Malazan Book of the Fallen have long been [...]
The Suicide Run, by William Styron
Reviewed on February 4, 2010
The Suicide Run collects together a number of short stories from the late William Styron, probably most famous for the novel Sophie’s Choice. They are all based on Styron’s experiences in the Marine Corps during and after the Second World War, and although the covers front and back may be suggestive of the bombs and [...]
The Eternal Prison, by Jeff Somers
Reviewed on February 2, 2010
The third book, and clearly not the last, in Jeff Somer’s series of Avery Cates novels, is a serious return to form after the relative disappointment that was The Digital Plague. In that book, Cates was manipulated in to being the vector for a deadly virus, and he has survived the experience only to eventually [...]
Bequest, by A.K. Shevchenko
Reviewed on January 27, 2010
In A.K. Shevchenko’s debut novel, the fate of Europe could be drastically altered by the contents of one document – no, it’s not Stalin’s shopping list or Hitler’s letter to Santa Claus, it’s the will of a Cossack general whose audacious theft of treasure from the Tsar could have repercussions for Russia, Ukraine and the [...]
NewsNow
Literature News 24/7-
The Bookgeeks Interview
Simon Kernick
Simon Kernick is one of Britain’s most exciting new thriller writers. He arrived on the crime writing scene with his highly acclaimed debut novel The Business of Dying, the story of a corrupt cop moonlighting as a hitman. However, Simon’s big breakthrough came with his novel Relentless which was selected by Richard and Judy for [...]
-
Latest Competition
Five copies of John le Carré’s Smiley vs Karla Trilogy to be won
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was one of the big film releases of 2011, and to celebrate its release on DVD we have five copies of John le Carré’s Smiley vs Karla Trilogy to be won – consisting of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People.
Latest Bookbitz reviews
