Tag Archives: Books

R.A. Lafferty – Past Master (1968) Review

Posted on September 19, 2022 by Jeroen Admiraal

8/10 The planet Astrobe, about five hundred years in the future. It is mankind’s last chance to make something for itself. The Old World failed, then we got the New World, America, which also failed, and now Astrobe is our … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Science fiction | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Ursula K. Le Guin – Worlds of Exile and Illusion (1966-67) Review

Posted on September 10, 2022 by Jeroen Admiraal

Comprising: The three short novels contained within this collection are Le Guin’s first three published novels. Her brief warmup, you could say, before she really won fame with novels such as A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) and The Left Hand … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Science fiction | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Adrian Tchaikovsky – Eyes of the Void (2022) Review

Posted on September 3, 2022 by Jeroen Admiraal

7.5/10 The author went to his basement, sweat a lot, and oozed out another novel! And it’s a doozy this time, marketing says. None of that milquetoast science fiction for tiny babies and mooncalfs! This is the real McCoy so … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Science fiction | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Dan Simmons – Song of Kali (1985) Review

Posted on August 23, 2022 by Jeroen Admiraal

8/10 Set in the Indian city Kolkata, which used to be named Calcutta but the book was written before the name change in 2001 so the name Calcutta is used throughout, and anyway the Kolkata of this book isn’t really … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Fantasy, horror | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

Mark Leyner – The Sugar Frosted Nutsack (2012) Review

Posted on August 11, 2022 by Jeroen Admiraal

9/10 This book is nuts and I won’t sugarcoat it for you. Don’t let the obviously perfect and attractive title fool you: this is a totally bonkers, post-modern wankfest to the nth degree. But it is also science-fantasy about gods … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Fantasy, Mainstream | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Isaac Asimov – The Gods Themselves (1972) Review

Posted on August 5, 2022 by Jeroen Admiraal

6.5/10 The Gods Themselves is a popular, successful work in Asimov’s career and it is famous for a couple of things: it won the important awards, it was a return to fiction for Asimov after a 15 year drought, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Science fiction | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs (2018) by Steve Brusatte

Posted on August 1, 2022 by Jeroen Admiraal

Before there was fantasy and science fiction, before there was literature, before there were learned gentlemen, before there was agriculture, before there were humans, before there were freaking capuchin monkeys, before there was grass, before there were, in some cases, … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Non-fiction | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

C.L. Moore – Jirel of Joiry (1969) Review

Posted on July 29, 2022 by Jeroen Admiraal

8/10 Robert E. Howard made such a splash with his sword-and-sorcery writing. As his Conan stories began to appear in the Weird Tales pulp magazine, so many writers felt compelled to either write homages to the stories or write something … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Fantasy | Tagged , , , , | 18 Comments

Monday Starts on Saturday (1964), by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky

Posted on July 26, 2022 by Jeroen Admiraal

8/10 Translation by Andrew Bromfield in 2002. Sometimes published as “Monday Begins on Saturday”. In this supremely odd novel that is set in the 1960s in Soviet Russia, magic is real, and we have a Soviet science institute trying to … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Science fiction | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

Josiah Bancroft – The Fall of Babel (2021) Review

Posted on July 17, 2022 by Jeroen Admiraal

5.5/10 After the excellent and emotionally gripping third book, The Hod King (2019), Josiah Bancroft is now ready to present his conclusion to the entire Books of Babel series. The Hod King felt like a middle book done right, with … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Fantasy | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments