There is an ebook conspiracy going on out there, I’m sure of it. Engineered by Apple and Amazon (notice that both company names start with A?), they have been quietly kidnapping publishers and brain-washing them before releasing them in front of alarmist journalists to squeal, ‘10% of our sales this year have been ebooks’ or […]

Predator’s Gold by Philip Reeve My rating: 4 of 5 stars Predator’s Gold is the sequel to Philip Reeve’s brilliant sf/fantasy adventure, Mortal Engines. Its set in a post-apocalyptic world in which tractionism has evolved cities into huge mobile polities that prey on smaller towns and villages; quite literally survival of the fittest. In Predator’s […]

The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Shadow Rising, the fourth book in the Wheel of Time saga, continues the story of the kids from Emond’s Feild, of the Two Rivers. Rand’al Thor has raised Calandor in his hands and thereby announced to the world that he is the […]

Last weekend, I was driving through the Pennine Moors and switched the radio on to fend off boredom. It was set to Radio 4, because it helps me keep my speed down and I find it intellectually more stimulating than the lame attempts at slapstick by the Radio 1 DJs. A lady was talking about […]

Writing whilst trying to hold down a full-time job is a lot harder than most give credit to. I speak to a lot of people who think I spend my time in artistic pursuits and faffing around being ‘creative’, composing light and airy prose and dreaming up fantastic concepts. Actually, most of my day is […]

The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Dragon Reborn is a bit of a departure from the previous books in that the narrative doesn’t really follow Rand’al Thor (the main character of the first two books), despite him being ‘the Dragon Reborn’ of the title. Instead, it focuses on […]

The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Great Hunt is the second book in the Wheel of Time series, which has a huge following across the globe. The book continues the story of Rand al’Thor and his friends from Two Rivers, with their destinies woven tightly into the fate […]

Hope you’re all doing well so far in the new year. Life sucks in the UK at the moment, with our new nazi prime minister cutting funding left, right and centre, leaving us with a skeleton service at a local level, lots of unemployed people, non-profits going bust and no tax-cuts to reflect the lack […]

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Eye of the World is the first book in Robert Jordan’s international bestselling Wheel of Time series. I’ve been eyeing this series up for a long time, but have been put off by the prohibitive length of each installment and […]