I ‘won’ a copy of this book in a giveaway entered online. When the paperback arrived, I was delighted, as I was about to go on holiday and expected it to make good poolside reading. This is an anthology of singularly dark, complex and richly written tales. Most are based on the elements of fairy …
Continue reading The Bloody Chamber, by Angela Carter, Reviewed.
A series of posts examining similar and dissimilar words to suggest ways writers might make their work more varied, accessible, interesting, accurate and effective. A good thesaurus provides alternatives for the idea of a word, but not all suggestions are true synonyms. Context is vital. Placing alternative words in the same sentence to see whether they …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #09
Fantasy merges with scholarship under the masterful guidance of real, original imagination. This book will be pigeonholed as fantasy, paranormal, science fiction, romance, crime, historical and erotic. It is all and none of these: it is something much bigger and better. Playing with time, power, culture and wealth, this novel is at heart a love …
Continue reading Chopin’s Ghost, by Cary Marc Grossman, Reviewed.
I hate to do this, but I must give an honest opinion. I got to chapter 8, 25% of this book, but wasn’t engaged at all. Much of the dialogue held no interest, and there was too much American cultural reference to make me want to read on. I really didn’t care about any of …
Continue reading Take the Body and Run, by Jada Ryker, Reviewed.
This is science fiction, but it is also so much more. Time travel with a difference; it’s plausible. The protagonists are wonderful characters, flaws and all. And I love the depiction of the arch-villain who represents everything I hold to be bad in the world. A great story, full of adventure, action and event, but …
Continue reading A Sickness in Time, by M. F. Thomas and Nicholas Thurkettle, Reviewed.
Unusual, intriguing, compulsive; a story with a very different structure. This isn’t an easy read but it is engaging and tells a tale. A form of fantasy, but set in contemporary times in a place we recognise as the USA. Is it crime? Well, sort of. But not in any form I’ve encountered before. Something …
Continue reading The Pink Beetle, by Caspar Vega, Reviewed.
Fantasy for YA readers, this tale of magical creatures failed to grab my attention, though I imagine those interested in the lore of elves, satyrs, centaurs, et al, will find enough here. I found the writing style a little stilted and was unable to engage with the characters, so didn’t read past the first quarter …
Continue reading The Birth of Death, by Joseph Macolino, Reviewed.
A remarkable book, this. And one that makes several demands of its readers. It tells the story of a family through a number of centuries, dipping into significant life events and back-referencing to identify the particular family member placed under the microscope. Starting in Hungary and ending in USA, via France and Mexico, it travels …
Continue reading Animal Magnet, by Gary Anderson, Reviewed.
For a short introduction to this series, please click this link. These posts examine similar, and sometimes dissimilar, words in an effort to suggest ways writers might make their work more varied, accessible, interesting, accurate and effective. A good thesaurus provides alternatives for the idea of a word, but not all suggestions are true …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #07
For a short introduction to this series, please click here. These posts look at similar, and dissimilar, words to suggest ways writers might make their work more varied, accessible, interesting, accurate and effective. A good thesaurus provides alternatives for the idea of a word, but not all suggestions are true synonyms. Context is vital. …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #06
For a short introduction to this series, please click this link. These posts look at similar, and dissimilar, words in an effort to suggest ways writers might make their work more varied, accessible, interesting, accurate and effective. A good thesaurus provides alternatives for the idea of a word, but not all suggestions are true …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #05
At the start of this week, my publisher, Fantastic Books Publishing, sent the edit notes for the MS of the novel set on Mars. A particularly perspicacious editor had spotted a few inconsistencies and had queries on a small number of issues. She was pleased to note the MS was unusually free of typos, …
Continue reading Progress on the WIP: SciFi in the Making.
For a short introduction to this series, please click this link. These posts examine some similar, and dissimilar, words in an effort to suggest ways writers might make their work more varied, accessible, interesting, accurate or effective. A good thesaurus provides alternatives for the idea of a word, but not all those suggestions are …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #04
Fantasy with a difference, this novel, set in a world of witchcraft, is remarkable for its language and surprising use of logic. The story is told through the first person point of view of an aspirant witch caught up in a civil war among her sisters. There is the usual fantasy ingredient, essential to my …
Continue reading The War of the First Day, by Thomas Fleet, Reviewed.
Close to the end! I spent a little over two days on the read aloud edit. That’s a demanding task both physically and mentally, but it’s the only way to detect certain mistakes and find those passages that fail to read well. Correcting the errors I found has taken another couple of days. The …
Continue reading Progress on the WIP: SciFi in the Making.
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Antidote to the Novel
Stuart Aken 