Science fantasy books reviewed on FantasyBookReview.co.uk
A definition, offered by Rod Serling, is that science fiction makes the implausible possible, while science fantasy makes the impossible plausible. The meaning is that science fiction describes unlikely things that could possibly take place in the real world under certain conditions, while science fantasy gives a veneer of realism to things that simply could not happen in the real world under any circumstances. Another interpretation is that science fiction does not permit the existence of supernatural elements; science fantasy does. Even the usage of this definition is difficult, however, as some science fiction makes use of apparently supernatural elements such as telepathy. For many users of the term, however, science fantasy is either a science fiction story that has drifted far enough from reality to feel like a fantasy, or a fantasy story that is attempting to be science fiction. While these are in theory classifiable as different approaches, and thus different genres (fantastic science fiction vs. scientific fantasy), the end products are sometimes indistinguishable.
1 The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
After I was introduced to Tim Powers through his Cold War fantasy, Declare, I attempted to track down his earlier works at libraries and used bookstores. Several proved impossible to find. Among these was the novel that first made him famous: The Anubis Gates, so eventually I gave in and bought a new copy. Now, having read it, I understand the reason for its rarity: no one in their right mind would relinquish a copy of such a marvelous book!
The Anubis Gates (Fantasy Masterworks) (Amazon.co.uk)
Author: Tim Powers
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 464
Publication date: 2005-09-08
Publisher: Gollancz
RRP: £8.99
Lowest new price: £3.60
Lowest used price: £3.72
2 Ancient Appetites by Oisin McGann
I can honestly say this book is unlike any I’ve ever read before. The plot is so bizarre and there is so much that writer Oisìn McGann packs into its 440 pages that it just shouldn’t work but it so does at such break neck speed that you’ll finish reading it long before you’re ready for the story to end.
3 Before the Gods by KS Turner
This is where it all began. Everything. Love, hate, good, evil, us and them. This is before they were gods. A mute prophet, a damaged sensitive, and a wayward leader, hold the fate of the world in their hands. But the ultimate choice? That belongs to the innocent. It’s what started the battle for life. It’s what made our world the way it is today. I have heard them called many things: Strangers, gods, angels, visitors. Do not forget their real names, Because they know our pasts and are not as we’ve been told.
Before the Gods (Chronicles of Fate and Choice) (Amazon.co.uk)
Author: KS Turner
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 496
Publication date: 2009-07-02
Publisher: Ruby Blaze Publishing
RRP: £9.99
Lowest new price: £4.24
Lowest used price: £4.14
4 The Enemy’s Son by James Johnson
The Enemy’s Son is the debut novel of Derby-born author James Johnson and was first published in 2008 by Man Tor Publishing Ltd.
The Enemy's Son: Erth Chronicles Book I (Amazon.co.uk)
Author: James Johnson
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 280
Publication date: 2008-05-12
Publisher: MAM TOR Publishing Ltd
RRP: £6.99
Lowest new price: £3.51
Lowest used price: £1.39
5 Star Wars: The Clone Wars by Karen Traviss
The raging Clone Wars illuminate dark motives and darker destinies until one question must be answered: Does the end ever justify the means? It’s time the Jedi found out.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars 1 (Amazon.co.uk)
Author: Karen Traviss
Binding: Hardcover
Number of pages: 272
Publication date: 2008-08-07
Publisher: Century
RRP: £17.99
Lowest new price: £3.69
Lowest used price: £3.53
6 Small-Minded Giants by Oisin McGann
Small-Minded Giants is set in a not too distant future when Earth has entered another ice age and small pockets of survivors take to living in artificial environments. Ash Harbour is such a place, a city built under a vast glass dome to keep out the elements and powered by the machine, which runs on the continual motion of Ash Harbours residents, but things are starting to breakdown, more accidents are starting to happen and people are going missing.
Small-minded Giants (Amazon.co.uk)
Author: Oisin McGann
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 368
Publication date: 2007-07-05
Publisher: Corgi Childrens
RRP: £5.99
Lowest new price: £0.01
Lowest used price: £0.01
7 The City and the City by China Mieville
I was pleasantly surprised by the latest from China Mieville. For a while anyway. I was about 50 pages in when I realized it was all grown up. No gun-slinging cacti, or flying birds with no wings. Just people. Full blooded three dimensional people filling up the City of Beszel. Or was it Ul Qoma? It seems through an incident referred to as “The Cleaving”, the city became two cities. But not in the usual way. Somehow they became two cities on top of each other. They physically take up the same space and time, but are not truly in the same location. For example, the fashions, the language, the cars, and the food are all different. Confused yet? Maybe this will help:
The City & The City (Amazon.co.uk)
Author: China Mieville
Binding: Hardcover
Number of pages: 312
Publication date: 2009-05-15
Publisher: Macmillan
RRP: £17.99
Lowest new price: £6.64
Lowest used price: £3.71
Certain writers absolutely defy categorisation – and China Miéville is most definitely of that rarefied company. His prose is exhilarating, poetic, coruscating with ideas and atmosphere – and it has enhanced a body of work that has almost no parallels in modern writing. Heretofore, if Miéville has brushed shoulders with any identifiable genres, they are those of fantasy and science fiction – which makes his remarkable new book, The City and The City, such a surprise. The author's publishers compare this novel to Philip K Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984 – which at least gives a series of corollaries for this book, however tentative. There are elements here of the crime thriller, but very much refracted through Miéville's highly individual imagination.
The body of a murdered woman is discovered in the remarkable, crumbling European city of Besźel. Such a crime is par for the course for Inspector Tyador Borlú, who is the premier talent of the Extreme Crime Squad – until his investigations uncover evidence that bizarre and terrifying forces are at work – and soon both he and those around him will be in considerable peril. He must undertake an odyssey, a journey across borders both physical and psychical, to the city which is both a complement and rival to his own, that of Ul Qoma.
Like all of China Miéville's work, The City and The City will not be to everyone's taste – the very individuality of the prose and the surrealistic inventiveness will not attract those preferring more prosaic fare. But for readers who hanker after untrammelled imagination – and look for literary fare unlike anything they have read before (even, it has to be said, by Miéville himself), then this is a journey to be undertaken. But with caution, perhaps. --Barry Forshaw
Amazon.co.uk Review
Latest reviews...
- Before the Gods by KS Turner
- The City and the City by China Mieville
- Ancient Appetites by Oisin McGann
- Small-Minded Giants by Oisin McGann
- The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars by Karen Traviss
- The Enemy’s Son by James Johnson
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