Book Reviews

First published 1944.  House of Stratus paperback, 2000, pp 285, c. 90,000 words. Set in World War Two on and RAF base in England, the book’s backdrop is bombing operations on Germany.  In the foreground is a romance between a pilot and a signals officer. ...

First published 2015.  Oneworld paperback, 2022, pp 253 (190 main text), c. 44,000 words (main text). This book attempts to describe how engineers think, and what makes that different from, say, how scientists or artists think.  To a degree this is...

First published 1981.  Harper Collins paperback, 2017, pp 347, c. 112,000 words. This was the last of Bagley’s books published in his lifetime, although three more have been published under his name since.  There is a degree of maturity in the complexity...

First published 1974.  Panther paperback, 1984, pp 319, c. 118,000 words. This is a book more about conflict between ideas rather than people: the cold war, capitalism versus communism, and a strong feminist sub-text.  In exploring these ideas,...

First published 2020.  Profile Books paperback, 2020, pp 215, c. 53,000 words. In thirteen chapters, this book goes through each of the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions and explains what we (people, businesses and the government) need to do...

First published 1992.  Sphere paperback, 2014, pp 388, c. 94,000 words. This is a detective story concerning the mystery of the appearance of a mute child.  That plot line is interleaved with an apparently unrelated tale of a pharmaceutical company. ...

First published 2018.  Harvill Secker paperback, 2018, pp 480, c.156,000 words. Set in late-eighteenth century Georgian London, this is a world of vice and virtue, and not the delicacy and decorum of Jane Austen.  The protagonist, Angelica Neal,...

First published 2003.  Harper Perennial paperback, 2004, pp 294, c.88,000 words. This can be seen as a mash-up of previous Ballard books: The middle-class rebellion against the consumer/capitalist/rat-race society from High Rise, the charismatic but...

First published 1961.  Panther paperback, 1964, pp 128, c.62,000 words. This is a collection of six stories, original published in magazines between 1952 and 1956.  It includes one of the finest SF stories of the period, The Waitabits, that is also...

First published 1814.  Penguin paperback, 1982, pp 464 (pp 417 main text), c.178,000 words (main text). This is the greatest novel ever written, or at least one of the very highest peaks.  In it, Austen shows her absolute command of character...