I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Claire North deserves to be recognised as one of the best science fiction writers currently active in the UK. Yet she’s been consistently ignored by British genre awards, and her novels are rarely discussed or reviewed in fan circles. Why is…

I used to read a lot of van Vogt in my mid-teens. He was one of the authors I fastened onto when I started reading science fiction (for the record, the others were EE ‘Doc’ Smith, James Blish and Clifford D Simak). I remember there was one van Vogt novel…

I used to read Larry Niven back in the early 1980s. Ringworld (1970, USA), of course, was considered a classic, and even in the 21st century is in the SF Masterworks series — although the book’s reputation rests entirely on its titular Big Dumb Object. I think I started reading…

Since it’s Pride Month, why not three recent reads by transgender authors? They are — the first two novels of the Erin McCabe Legal Thriller series, By Way of Sorry (2021, USA) and Survivor’s Guilt (2022, USA), by Robyn Gigl, and Detransition, Baby (2022, USA) by Torrey Peters. Erin McCabe…

John Clute once described Coelestis (1994, USA) by Paul Park, one of my favourite science fiction novels, as “Third World sf”. I think it was in a review in Interzone shortly after the book had been published. …

Every year, I write about the books I’ve read which impressed me — first for the first six months of the year, and then for the whole twelve months at the end of the year. 2023 has been a good year, so far, in terms of quantity, if not quality…

Several years ago, I decided I’d no longer read new science fiction debut novels — that is, ones published in the year, and after, I made the decision. Too many failed to live up to the hype. True, that’s the nature of twenty-first century publishing — instant success, or no…

I mentioned in an earlier post on Cherryh’s Foreigner (1994, USA) — see here — The Faded Sun Trilogy (1987, USA) was the first book by Cherryh I remember reading, and yet I’m one hundred percent certain the first novel by her I read was much earlier than 1987. …

Timescape (1980, USA) was number 27 in the original SF Masterworks series published by Millennium/Gollancz between 1999 and 2007. It won the Nebula Award, BSFA Award and Ditmar Award in 1981. Which gives some indication of the regard in which the novel is held, if not now, at least shortly…