Book Reviews

First published 2005.  Penguin, paperback, 2006, pp 326, c.85,000 words. This book was an immediate success when it was first published, being shortlisted for the Orange Prize, winning the Bollinger Everyman prize for comic fiction, and appearing...

First published 1957.  Penguin, paperback, 1963, pp 217, c.65,000 words. Stewart was a prolific novelist, writing over eighty books, as well as being a fellow of English at Oxford University.  He is perhaps best known for his detective Appelby,...

First published 1954.  Penguin, paperback, 1959, pp 236, c.90,000 words. C. P. Snow is not in fashion these days, and is currently out of print.  I developed a fascination with his work in the early 1980s, reading all his fiction.  I...

First published 1960.  Penguin, paperback, 1971, pp 204, c.60,000 words. I can’t help feeling that Wyndham was a jolly nice man.  His characters tend to be decent people with hearts in the right place who have got caught up in some ‘what if’...

First published 1975.  Arrow, paperback, 1976, pp 112, c.30,000 words. Blish was a prolific writer of science fiction short stories.  This book was a development of Beep, one he wrote in 1954.  That story was seminal because it introduced...

First published 2006.  Bloomsbury, paperback, 2012, pp325, c.115,000 words. I remember enjoying this when I first read it some ten years ago.   Boyd is a writer who I greatly admire and has ranged widely across the genres of contemporary...

First published 1996.  Pan, paperback, 1997, pp 437, c.120,000 words. Innes was around 83 when this, his last book, was published – the last of thirty books of fiction and three of non-fiction.  It contains much that is familiar from...

First published 2022.  Five, paperback, 2022, pp 143, c.30,000 words + many illustrations. This book is a collection of short pieces of prose and poetry by five accomplished artists.  The five have known each other for quite some time and...

First published 2012.  Abacus, paperback, 2015, pp434, c.125,000 words. There is no doubt that Banks was a great writer.  In this book, a pervasive menace hangs over every page.  It’s a hugely impressive feat, especially as actual violence...

First published 1953.  Penguin, paperback, 1972, pp 240, c.85,000 words. This is one of Wyndham’s classic science fiction stories (for want of a better term for novels set in a speculative near future).  They were hugely popular at least from the...