Song of Susannah by Stephen King King’s magnum opus is not a series that you can jump into midway through, so if you’ve not read it, I suggest you start at the beginning. See my post with links to all of the volumes and find your starting point, don’t read on. It’s fair to say Read More
Tag: Dystopia
‘The sleep of reason brings forth monsters’
Dark Satanic Mills by Marcus & Julian Sedgwick, John Higgins, Marc Olivent It’s a rare thing for me to read a graphic novel – in fact the only one I’ve read since starting this blog was The Crow by James O’Barr, (see here). When I finished reading that, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to Read More
The book that inspired 1984 and Brave New Worl
This post was republished into it’s original place in my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin Translated by Clarence Brown So, I finally read the book that inspired Orwell’s1984 (my brief write-up here). Many other dystopian novels have similarities, including Huxley’s Brave New World (my review here) although Huxley said he was actually inspired by HG Wells, Read More
A new approach to the problem of werewolves …
Red Moon by Benjamin Percy Inside this chunkster of a werewolf novel are at least two shorter novels trying to get out… Imagine a post 9/11 America into which a new threat has emerged to fuel a nation’s paranoia. It’s the age of the werewolf, or Lycans as Percy dubs them. From the opening chapters Read More
A dystopian psychodrama that packs a punch…
I Have Waited, and You Have Come by Martine McDonagh Set in a near future where global warming has wreaked Mother Nature’s revenge on the Earth and made large parts of the globe uninhabitable due to rising water levels, Rachel lives alone in a old mill in the Yorkshire Dales. Jacob used to live with Read More
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Or can they?
The Flame Alphabetby Ben Marcus Before Beryl Bainbridge Reading week, I posted about how I’d essentially bought this book on the basis of its cover alone which is rather stunning, and how it would be the first book I read after Beryl. Now, I’ve read it and the question is did it live up to its Read More
Return to the Dark Tower saga
Last year I took part in Teresa & Jenny’s Dark Tower readalong at Shelf Love, but I dropped out after book four in the series. I didn’t have the time to get through the increasing page-count then, but was definitely hooked by the genre-busting dystopian western cum SF & fantasy series. I always intended to Read More
Stephen King’s Dark Tower #5
The Dark Tower Book 5: Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King Last year I took part in Teresa & Jenny’s Dark Tower readalong at Shelf Love, but I dropped out after book four in the series. I didn’t have the time to get through the increasing page-count then, but was definitely hooked by the Read More
One man against a world of vampires …
This post was republished into my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson I am Legend was first published in 1954; it was Matheson’s third novel. His fourth would go on to make cinematic history – The Shrinking Man would become a huge film hit as The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957. I remember adoring Read More
Zombie mayhem to scare your pants off
The Enemy and The Dead by Charlie Higson Last month I had the privilege of interviewing Charlie Higson for Gaskella – see my write-uphere. He was in town for a big schools event, promoting the third volume in his series of horror books for teens. So far, I’ve read the first two – The Enemy Read More
Stephen King’s Dark Tower #4
The Dark Tower Book 4: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King. It’s the fourth month of the Dark Tower Readalong hosted by Teresa and Jenny at Shelf Love. The fourth book was the longest yet at a massive 845 pages (I’ve been able to say that each month!), but it was also very enjoyable and the Read More
A renowned children’s author goes mainstream…
The True Tale of the Monster Billy Deanby David Almond David Almond’s first novel, written for older children, was Skellig (1998). It parallels the stories of two children who find and help an ailing creature who may or may not be an angel, with that of the boy’s little brother who is ill in hospital. Read More
Stephen King’s Dark Tower #3
The Dark Tower Book 3: The Waste Lands by Stephen King It’s the third month of the Dark Tower readalong hosted by Shelf Love. The Waste Lands (1991) is the thickest book so far, and things are certainly starting to hot up. If you’d like to see how I got on with the previous volumes, click here for Read More
Dystopias R Us – Book Group Report
We had a new first for our book group last night. Because we just couldn’t choose a book to read in August two months back, we decided to try reading to a theme. You could choose whatever book you wanted to read as long as it featured a dystopian society. Firstly, what is a dystopia? Read More
Of baby factories, orgy-porgy & Shakespeare – Yes, it’s that dystopia!
This post was republished into my blog’s original timeline from my lost posts archive. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley This week, having re-visited one dystopian novel I previously read as a teenager (click here), I was able to fit in another of the biggies of the genre in time for our book group discussion Read More
From Paradise to Hell …
This post was edited and republished into its original place in my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. Lord of the Flies by William Golding Conceived, so I’ve read, as a response to the Utopian and rose-tinted worlds of Swallows and Amazons, and in particular, Ballantyne’s Coral Island, Golding’s Lord of the Flies, published in Read More
Stephen King’s Dark Tower #2
The Dark Tower Book 2: The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King It’s month 2 of the Dark Tower Readalong hosted by Teresa and Jenny at Shelf Love. If you want to catch up with the first book, click to my review here, as I won’t re-explain what happened before. Book 2 starts exactly where we left Roland, the Read More
Stephen King’s Dark Tower #1
The Dark Tower Book 1: The Gunslinger by Stephen King It’s simply years since I read any Stephen King, and then I only read his horror stories. I was only vaguely aware that he had written a series which was a dark fantasy. Then Jenny and Teresa at Shelflove decided to launch a readalong of The Dark Tower, Read More
The Hopkins Manuscript by R C Sheriff
Chicken Licken was right in this dystopia! Last weekend was Persephone Reading Weekend hosted by Claire and Verity. I did start my Persephone reading at the weekend, but didn’t finish until yesterday. But what a book I chose – one of the few by male authors, and a dystopian bit of science fiction to boot – yet it fits Read More
Fforde does YA and it’s Ffabulous Ffun!
The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde Jasper Fforde has written a new book, and if it wasn’t for heroine being two weeks short of sixteen, no swearing, and no overt classic literary references, you’d be hard pushed to know that it was for young adults. I expect that many grown-ups will read it anyway and some Read More
Book Group Report – The Death of Grass
The Death of Grass by John Christopher A while ago I reviewed The Death of Grass by John Christopher (click here for the review. On Monday we discussed it at our Book Group, and it was a big hit. Unusually, everyone really enjoyed it, and although this meant no arguments, we did have a lively Read More
