2024 romantic SF, fourth of what was originally a planned trilogy but will now get at least one more book. Vesper Quill and Kyrion Caldaren, with an unbreakable psychic bond that's led the psi-hungry emperor to put a bounty on their heads, flee to a planet that should offer sanctuary…
2020 urban fantasy, fourth of its series. Lydia Crow is still dealing with the fallout of her last case, but new problems keep coming.
1994 mystery, seventh of Granger's novels of Chief Inspector Alan Markby and non-detective Meredith Mitchell. At the Chelsea Flower Show, the pair run into Meredith's old school friend Rachel (who turns out to be Markby's ex-wife) with her new husband Alex. But it won't be a long acquaintanceship.
2020 fantasy, final volume of its trilogy. There's a huge, world-shaking event going on… but is intervening even the right thing to do?
1920 mystery with very mild fantasy elements. Sylvia Ashe lost her job as a journalist when all the men came back from the War, but stumbles into a job with a magical library.
1981 mystery. Virginia Freer runs into an old friend who's planning to get married; she knew him during the breakup of his previous marriage. Several people are going to die…
2023 SF, short fiction in the Arcana Imperii series. Various people work for the DHC (the relatively "good" human government) to find out what's happening in the breakaway mini-empire of New Texas.
1958 police procedural, seventh in the 87th Precinct series. The 87th gets a note: "I will kill the lady tonight at 8. What can you do about it?"
2019 science fiction novella, in the Chronicles of St Mary's series (time travel). Ian Guthrie is retiring as Head of Security at St Mary's, but first goes on one last jump…
2023 paranormal fantasy novella, first of a series. Bunny Barrington was trying to make a life having run away from her rich parents. She didn't expect to become a vampire.
2023 SF, first of a planned trilogy. The generation ships arrived in the Treble over a thousand years ago. Now rule is a complicated tension between the overall government, the Kindom, and the First Families. Several people are planning to do something about that.
2018 historical mystery; fifth in Huber's Lady Darby series (post-Regency amateur detection). Our heroes are plucked from their honeymoon to investigate the murder of a nun in Ireland.
1946 Napoleonic naval fiction, fifth written but tenth by internal chronology. Hornblower is summoned to deal with a mutinous crew on the French blockade.
1952 mystery; sixth and last of Tey's novels of Inspector Alan Grant. Suffering from overwork, Grant travels to Scotland for a few weeks' fishing with an old friend. But as he leaves the overnight train, he finds that one of his fellow travellers has died en route…
2024 romance/SF/mystery; 59th novel of Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). At a hen party, one of the prospective brides slips away… and is murdered.
2023 Regency romance, third and last of its series. Josephine Brown is a knife-thrower and freelance covert agent, and Elliot Wingate is an agent for the crown. There will be many stumbles on their road to true love…
2023 mystery, first of a series. Marius Quin wrote a successful detective novel, but he's blocked on his second one; so when an old girlfriend asks him to join a New Year's Eve party, he goes along… Naturally, the host will be murdered.
2020 fantasy, middle volume of its trilogy. Being one of the few hugely powerful sorcerers means everyone wants to lure you onto their side.
2015 SF, one of a loose series but intended to stand alone. Something very strange is happening around the top-secret teleportation project…
2024 non-fiction. How can theme be effectively built into the design of a board game, rather than pasted on at the end?
2024 urban fantasy, second of its series. Frankie the necromancer continues to work for her dead clients…
2023 fantasy romance, first of a series. Evie is wondering how to cope without a job when she runs into a wounded man in the woods. She helps him, only to discover that he is the Villain who's terrorising the kingdom. But it turns out that he needs a PA…
2024 mystery, fourth in the loose Harbinder Kaur series. Two sisters ask the detective agency to look into their mother's death, though it was ruled an accident. And it seems that several other writers have also died recently…
2012 police procedural mystery, tartan noir, first in the Ash Henderson series. A serial killer takes girls just before their thirteenth birthdays, kills them, and sends a photograph of the process every subsequent year. DC Ash Henderson is really not the man to crack the case.
1991 SF, first in a series. "Star" Svensdotter is in charge of getting the American Alliance's first O'Neill colony ready for commissioning. Terrorists, bureaucrats and a potential military takeover will get in the way.
2023 epistolary fantastic romance. In 1822, Delphine's lover disappears, and she is forced to marry. Several years later her vile husband dies and leaves her wealthy, but that is by no means the end of her troubles.
2021 romantic fantasy. In 1922, Rathna is sent to look into a transportation portal that's shut down; she's very specialised in her understanding of portals, so an expert in other magics is sent to help her out.
2018 anthology of novellas from Stewart's various universes.
2023 Regency romance, second of its series. Cecile Tremblay is a French emigré turned circus sharpshooter, and had an agreeable interlude with Gaius Darlington on their trip to ransom a missing brother. But then he wrecked it all…
2011 contemporary police mystery, fourth in Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series. Stanhope, reluctantly attending the local gym, finds a woman's body in the steam room.
2022 detective fiction anthology. Twelve modern authors present their takes on Miss Marple. No editor is credited.
2024 Victorian romance. Anne Deveril has been letting herself fade into obscurity looking after her widowed mother. Mr Felix Hartford is apparently a feckless man-about-town. They were almost married six years ago, and they've spend the intervening time despising each other…
2024 SF, second of its series. The crew of the greatship Athens has found out something about what's been going on. Now she has to make it home.
2011 thriller, fourth of this ongoing series; translated from the original German by Rachel Ward. The owner of a Chinese restaurant hires Nea to get back a stolen videotape.
2017 mystery. Dale Whitehead's company has sent him to the BSD North convention, which isn't a good match for his ADD or anxieties. But when someone drops dead on stage, he seems to be the only person to have thought of murder.
2019 fantasy short story, epilogue to Thornbound.. Two years later, Cassandra is determined to celebrate her anniversary.
2023 mystery, seventh in the Karen Pirie series. As COVID restrictions start in Scotland, a researcher at the National Library contacts the Historic Cases Unit with an unfinished manuscript in the papers of a dead writer which shows some remarkable parallels with a real murder.
2023 fantasy. Kayla's day out at the State Fair suddenly includes a stranger telling her that she's the daughter of the previous Dark Lord of Zaradwin, and bringing her and her family across worlds to commence her rule of evil.
2020 fantasy romance, first of a series. Theodora Ettings meets a fairy lord in the woods, and half her soul is stolen before her cousin Vanessa can rescue her. With her emotions largely missing, can she avoid scandal long enough to see Vanessa though her Season in London?
1989 mystery; Holt's first novel. Sheila Malory is a widow in a Devon town, who gets involved in all the local Good Works. Naturally that ends up including poking about in a local murder. US vt Mrs Malory Investigates.
2000 mystery, twentieth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Sharon's father dies, and when she's going through his things she finds a very surprising document. Spoilers.
2024 romance/SF/mystery; 58th novel of Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). Someone's poisoning girls in public places; Dallas investigates.
2024 fantasy. Kiela and Caz flee from the sack of the Imperial Library with all the books they could save, and go to Kiela's birthplace on a remote island. They plan to keep their heads down. But problems aren't going to solve themselves.
2023 mystery, seventh in its series. It's 1966 in Brighton, and someone is murdering magicians' assistants again…
2020 fantasy. Some wizards hurl lightning or speak with water. Mona helps the bread rise in her aunt's bakery, and occasionally animates a gingerbread man. But a dead body on the bakery floor is only the start of her problems.
2024 modern fantasy novella, set in the world of the Kate Daniels series. Roman is a servant of Chernobog, but that doesn't make him a bad person. And certainly when someone turns up semiconscious and claiming sanctuary he knows what to do…
2004 mystery, first in a series. In 1970 a small child goes missing while camping in the garden with her sister. In 1994 a young woman is murdered in her father's office. In 1979 a new mother is found clutching an axe next to her husband's body: "He woke the baby". And in the modern day former copper turned PI Jackson Brodie investigates.
2019 fantasy, second of its tetralogy. Five years later, Nahri is married to the heir of Daevabad; younger brother Ali has somehow survived an exile that was meant to kill him; and Darayavahoush is dead, but they won't let him rest.
2018 historical adventure, first in a trilogy. Having had a fatal row with her guardian, Margaret Fitzroy finds herself with no option but to be sent as a spy into the court of King George, as one of the maids-of-honour to the Princess of Wales.
2019 urban fantasy, third of its series. Lydia Crow is blackmailed by ex-boyfriend Paul Fox (of one of the other magical families of London) to work on a vaguely-defined case. But who killed the guy, and what dies his ghost want?
2024 urban fantasy, first of a planned series. Frankie and her siblings Matty and Josie run a garage for classic cars… and Frankie is a necromancer on the side.
2023 space-navy SF, third and last of its sub-series. Another ex-commonwealth state is under attack by an alliance of former naval commanders, and they appeal to the Dakotan Confederacy and the rump Commonwealth for help…
1936 semi-autobiographical novel. Robert Owen, out of the Royal Air Force, goes to work as an instructor at a small flying club in an English cathedral town.
2004 romance/SF/mystery; second of its series. Lydia Smith and Emmett London are carrying on their relationship, but they both bave prickles that the other can brush against. Oh, and someone has just tried to kill Emmett's old friend…
2020 fantasy, first of a trilogy. Dr Kira Aist was brought up not to use magic, because of the attention it would bring; after she breaks that rule and Bad Things happen, she creates a House that will be a sanctuary, and travel anywhere she needs it to. After all, Baba Yaga is an old friend of the family…
1979 Arthurian fantasy, last of its series. Arthur is King, but Merlin is still needed to advise him.
2008 YA SF, third in its series. Ishmael Horatio Wang continues his career as space crew on a trading ship.
1983 mystery. Virginia Freer has been lightly socialising with an antique-dealing couple in her small town, and one of them is murdered. Then it turns out that a harmless old woman was killed in a way that might indicate it was related…
2022 mystery, third in the loose Harbinder Kaur series.. At a 21-year school reunion, one of the former pupils is found dead with cocaine round his nose. And he's an MP…
2024 paranormal fantasy, first novel of a series. Bunny Barrington is working for the cops in a tiny town in Alaska. Oh, and she's a vampire.
2023 romance/SF/mystery; 57th novel of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). A retired Internal Affairs officer is found shot in his home, but Dallas sees right through the apparent suicide…
2011 tartan noir, collection of loosely-linked short stories. It's a few days before Christmas in Oldcastle, and several people won't be having a merry Christmas.
1973 collection of short supernatural and mystery stories
2019 fantasy. Cassandra Harwood has got her magical school for young ladies, but many people would like it to fail.
2023 SF. Enitan is a scribe and tea cultivator on Koriko, conquered a few years ago by the Vaalbaran Empire. But when her sibling disappears, and her highly-placed friend promises to help her in the search and promptly winds up dead, she volunteers to travel to the mother world as a hostage…
2017 historical thriller, second of its series. After a planned expedition has to be abandoned, Veronica Speedwell and her undeclared beau Stoker are bored in London, and easily lured into investigating a Bohemian murder…
1987 sf. On the gas giant moons of Orestes and Electra, a harsh honour code has been mellowed by allowing "social death" to replace execution. But the system still isn't stable.
2023 gothic fantasy, first of a planned series. Winifred Hall takes up a position as governess at Witchwood Manor, complete with brooding lord, old lady in the attic, enigmatic butler, and other traditional strangenesses.
2012 fantasy, last of its trilogy. Moon is taken from his adoptive court by what may be his birth family, but it's all much more complicated than that.
2024 short romantic SF novel, side story in Galactic Bonds. Zane Zimmer tries to juggle his position as chief hatchet-man to a psychotic emperor with the demands of his highly-placed family…
2014 Ruritanian fantasy. Barbara is the elderly Baron's bodyguard-duellist, and after his death is passed on with most of his property to his distant niece Margerit—who mostly wants to study miracles at the university…
2020 science fiction, second in the Time Police sub-series in the Chronicles of St Mary's continuity (time travel). Team Weird continues to be the dangerous intellectuals of the Time Police.
2020 romantic fantasy. Stephen was a paladin, but his god has died: he still has the potential for berserk rage, but not the assurance that he's being used for the right. Grace is a perfumer with a supernal sense of smell and a habit of stumbling into trouble…
2017 fantasy, first of a tetralogy. Nahri is a successful con artist in 18th-century Cairo, but she knows that all magic is trickery. But when she accidentally summons a djinn, she steps into a larger world…
2024 pair of romance/fantasy stories. Feora steals the king's gold and uses it to buy books; Zenira tries to survive on piecework while hiding her magic. Spoilers.
2021 mystery, sixth in its series. It's 1965, and the old impresario has died—of rat poison. DI Edgar Stephens and his team investigate, and his wife's own private enquiry agency gets involved too…
2024 romantic comic fantasy. Caroline is trying to write an enemies-to-lovers fantasy story, but her heroine Lady Rosamund keeps objecting.
2002 horror, tenth and last in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. Dickon, a cowardly ancient vampire, brings a friend to visit Dracula (still living in Chicago as "Matthew Maule"); in the morning, the friend is dead and Dickon has vanished. But what does this all have to do with alchemy and ancient Egypt?
2021 alternate-history novel, fanfic of the Brontës' Gondal, among others. Every puissant prince must be in want of a wife.
2021 Regency romance, third and last in a loose series. Sophie Roseingrave's family lost their money, and she lost her musical confidence, to a swindler; now she wants to make sure that doesn't happen to anyone else. Maddie Crewe didn't set out to be a thief, but her fellow weavers are depending on her…
2021 SF, first of a duology. Zetian's older sister died as a pilot-concubine, co-piloting a giant mecha to fight off the aliens from beyond the Wall. She knows she will also die, but she plans to take someone down with her…
2023 romance/SF/mystery; 56th novel of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). The famous actress throws a party to celebrate a new project; then her husband drops dead of a champagne cocktail meant for her.
1996 horror, ninth in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. Phil Radcliffe, on his honeymoon, finds himself and his new wife politely but weirdly kidnapped "for his own good". Who's responsible, and who wants to drink his blood—and why?
1994 mystery, sixth of Granger's novels of Chief Inspector Alan Markby and non-detective Meredith Mitchell. A young woman's body is dumped near a playing field, and it appears she may have been up to something dodgy. Meanwhile there are goings-on at the local stately home…
2020 SF, last of its trilogy. This time Thorn is mucking about with time.
2023 science fiction, last of its series. The Gods have withdrawn their protection from the planet Jai, just as the Keres is coming. What can Yasira Shien and her band of renegades do?
2000 romance/SF/mystery; first of a series. After an unfortunate incident in an alien tomb, Lydia Smith is finding it hard to get work. So she can't afford to turn down the one client who's willing to employ her, even if he clearly isn't telling her everything…
1958 collection of two novellas. A man convicted of murder summons those who have wronged him to meet him post-mortem at "The Assize of the Dying"; and the novelist husband of "Aunt Helen" explains in detail how he could be murdered, then turns up dead. (Later republished as by Ellis Peters.)
2020 Regency romance, second in a loose series. Agatha Griffin has made a success of the printing-house that she ran with her late husband, but she's not ready to deal with bees in the archive. Penelope Flood lives uncomfortably on the edge between gentry and trades, but mostly wants to get on with beekeeping…
2021 YA SF, first of a trilogy. Tina has never been ordinary: she was left on Earth by aliens, and knows they'll come back for her one day. But when that day comes, it's far more dangerous than she expected…
2017 fantasy romance. In Angland in the 19th century, gentlemen are magicians, while ladies wield political power. Cassandra Harwood was never one for following the rules.
2023 fantasy, first of a planned trilogy. Back in the day, Amina al-Sirafi was a pirate captain, a terror of the waves. Now she just wants to raise her daughter and see the rest of her family prosper. But the mother of an old crewmate comes to her with a generous offer for one last job…
2019 urban fantasy, second of its series. Lydia Crow is working as a private investigator, trying to hide her magical abilities from people who'd take advantage of them. But in between following potentially erring spouses, she can't resist looking into someone found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge.
2018 SF, second of a trilogy. Thorn comes back to civilisation to end slavery, and the long-running war.
2023 fantasy/horror anthology. There are things out there thave have no interest in humans, and other things that have too much.
2020 mystery, second in the loose Harbinder Kaur series. An old woman is found dead by her care vistior. Nothing unexpected about that. Except that there's a threatening note tucked into the book she was reading, and she had a business card as a "Murder Consultant"…
2024 science fiction. Annie is a companion bot: getting dinner ready each night, cleaning the flat, and of course sex. But something seems to be going amiss.
1994 fantasy, eighth in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. We're back with Sherlock Holmes as he investigates what seems at first to be a simple spiritualist fraud.
2021 science fiction, second of its series. Productivity Hunt wasn't expecting to be a reality-bending revolutionary, but it turns out she's one of the more functional of the band…
2022 fantasy. In the wilds of Yucatán in 1891, Doctor Moreau conducts his experiments, and a minimal household staff looks after him. But his funder wants to see results.
2022 romance/SF/mystery; 55th novel of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). Two girls escape from a "school" for sex slaves…
Short mystery stories from 2000, in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco.
2019 fantasy/horror. Melissa, or Mouse, goes to rural North Carolina to clear out her dead grandmother's house. But it turns out that she had secrets, and some of them outlived her…
1982 fantasy. Kidnapped from the family stronghold, Alethia is going to be instrumental in saving the world.
2020 science fiction, eleventh in the Chronicles of St Mary's series (time travel). A jump to see the Princes in the Tower changes everything…
2015 historical thriller, first in a series. Veronica is a foundling, now in 1887 left alone in the world by the death of her "aunt". But soon her house is ransacked and a benefactor is murdered…
2010 police procedural mystery/horror, eighth in the Bryant and May series. The murderer-for-hire Mr Fox has escaped from custody and vanished from his previous life. But when a woman is killed by being pushed down the staircase at King's Cross, is this more of his work?
2012 fantasy, second of its series. Moon and his adoptive court have returned to their old home, but there's a problem…
2023 science fiction. In a mostly-recognisable near future, Cal is a police contractor who smooths the way in cases that involve Titans, the super-wealthy subjects of the life-extending drug T7. So when a Titan commits a dodgy-looking suicide, he investigates…
2023 fantasy romance. Rose Tregarth is a born organiser, and being lodged with her cousins after her parents' ruin and death hasn't been too bad for her. But now valuable dragons are appearing at random in the neighbourhood, and the Mysterious Sinister Neighbour is getting involved…
2018 SF. Thorn wanted to be a Battle Mage, but then things got complicated.
1992 fantasy, seventh in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. A girl has gone missing near the Grand Canyon, and it's nothing like that simple.
2020 SF. The two top-ranked new Interplanetary Marshals go to Delta sector, where crime is out of control…
2019 mystery, fifth in its series. It's eleven years later, and the mods and rockers are threatening Brighton. But also a schoolgirl has gone missing…
2019 Regency romance. Lucy Muchelney has lost her lover to a socially advantageous wedding, and her brother has no time for her interest in astronomy (fired by her late father). One of father's correspondents is looking for someone to translate a French astronomical treatise…
2021 historical mystery; third in Baker's Anna Fairweather series (1920s amateur detection). Mrs Montford is having her portrait painted. At the end of the session, she sends Anna after the painter to change an appointment; Anna's just in time to see him stabbed in the street.
2019 science fiction, first of a series though it stands well on its own. Yasira Shien's reactor design destroys a space station and kills a hundred people. But the gods give her a chance to redeem herself…
2017 urban fantasy, first of a series. Lydia Crow's parents got out of the magical Crow family business, and she went further, to Aberdeen to work as a private investigator. But now she's back in London and her Uncle Charlie definitely wants her back in…
2023 SF novella, part of an ongoing series. Kiera Alexander, thrust before she was ready onto the throne of Mars, needs children to carry on a particular set of magic-wielding genes, but would really prefer a husband she actually likes too. Barry Carpentier is a failed mage turned shuttle thief, and it turns out the Queen's ship has a really interesting prototype shuttle on board…
2007 YA SF, second in its series. Ishmael Horatio Wang transfers from the galley to environmental maintenance on the intersteller merchant ship, and grows up a bit more.
2022 horror novelette. Starr comes to work for the crime boss as handler for her pet ghoul—who may be more than the flesh-eating monstrosity she appears.
2011 fantasy, first of a series. Moon is a shapeshifter, able to turn into a flying predator. When he's driven out from the latest human community he's been hiding among, he is found by another shifter and brought to meet more of his people, while becoming a pawn in several power games…
1945 Napoleonic naval fiction, fourth written but ninth by internal chronology. Hornblower is settling uncomfortably into rural life when he's given a squadron and sent on a diplomatic and military mission to the Baltic.
1990 fantasy, sixth in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. Dracula, now known as Matthew Maule and living in Chicago, loses consciousness after an evening with family, and the guests in his high-rise flat find themselves under siege.
2019 fantasy. Oliver is a very minor mage; he has some talent, but he's twelve, and he only knows three spells. But when the village is desperate for rain, and when a mob gets started, he finds himself (and his familiar) forced out with only the vaguest of instructions…
2018 SF. A reporter and camera operator are embedded aboard a convoy taking troops and supplies to the front lines. In space.
2017 mystery, fourth in its series. A "good" girl is found murdered in her lodgings, and more deaths follow. DI Edgar Stephens, and his old wartime colleague the magician Max Mephisto, investigate.
1992 contemporary fantasy. Former poker player Scott Crane is drinking himself to death after having lost his wife, and those aren't even the worst of his troubles.
2021 fantasy romance. In Regency society, the essential accessory for every young lady is a dragon to sit on her shoulder. But Elinor Tregarth is still a poor relation…
1986 alternate history. While camped at Bactra and on the verge of the Indian campaign, Alexander the Great hears of a revolt among the Greek cities he left behind him. So he turns back…
2016 historical mystery novella in Huber's Lady Darby series (post-Regency amateur detection). Lady Darby, suffering from pre-wedding jitters, is determined to resolve the mystery of a necklace.
2017 thriller and light mystery. Jenny Checkland is married to Russell and has a small daughter. But some people seem determined that she should not be happy.
1982 fantasy, fifth in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. A stage magician is asked to perform at a rebuilt castle in Illinois, and everyone's plans are interlocking.
2019 SF/romance, last in the Class 5 series. Ellie Masters wakes up in an abandoned installation. But someone out there is talking to her…
1903 thriller. On a sailing trip in the Baltic and points nearby, two young men discover a German plot.
2022 SF, twelfth of its series. Naval forces and stealth ships are mustered in a joint operation to track down a breakaway force from the defeated enemy. But they will get unexpected help.
2007 TV tie-in science fiction. The Stargate team from Atlantis finds an enigmatic artefact…
2018 fantasy. Halla was taken in by her husband's family after he died, and has been working as a housekeeper for her great-uncle. Now he's died, and left everything to her, which of course the rest of the family won't let stand.
2019 SF/romance novella in the Class 5 series. Having been aboard ships for far too long, Rose McKenzie goes along with a planetary survey party. Then the rest of the party vanishes.
2016 mystery, third in its series. DI Edgar Stephens and his old wartime colleage the magician Max Mephisto are called in to solve the killing of their own old boss. There are cryptic clues, one of which seems to point to the imminent coronation of Elizabeth II.
2023 SF. Destry is a terraformer on the planet Sask-E, which over thousands of years is being made into a luxury resort by the company. Then an anomaly shows up…
2021 SF, last of its trilogy that's also a sequel to the Indranan War series. Empress Hailimi prepares for the big fight against the godlike aliens.
2021 historical mystery; second in Baker's Anna Fairweather series (1920s amateur detection). Mrs Montford, recuperating after the death of her husband, takes Anna to Brighton, where Anna helps pull a drowning woman out of the sea—too late, alas.
2020 SF/romance novella, last of its trilogy. Queen Samara and Emperor Valentin go to a neutral space station for a meeting with the military commander who's been trying to kill them both. Everyone knows it's a trap…
Fifth, roughly, of Tey's novels of Inspector Alan Grant, but not detective fiction in the conventional sense. Stuck on his back in hospital after being injured on the job, Grant becomes bored, and finds himself looking into the murder of the Princes in the Tower.
2018 near-future suspense; first in a series. Dr Janet Watson lost an arm in the civil war; the substandard replacement won't let her go back to work as a surgeon. So while she waits in DC she's in the market for a roommate…
2019 science fiction, first in the new Time Police sub-series in the Chronicles of St Mary's continuity (time travel). Three new recruits join the Time Police…
2015 historical mystery; fourth in Huber's Lady Darby series (post-Regency amateur detection). While Lady Darby is lodging in Edinburgh with her pregnant sister, one of he portrait subjects drops dead, apparently of an "apoplexy".
2019 SF/romance, fourth of of its series. Lucy Harris has also been kidnapped from Earth into an alien civilisation…
1980 horror, fourth in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. "Mr Thorn" is out to get hold of a painting from the 1400s, and other people are foolish enough to get in his way.
2019 SF, second of its trilogy that's also a sequel to the Indranan War series. Believing almost all her advisors and friends dead, Empress Hailimi does her best to work towards peace rather than the big battle everyone else seems to want.
2015 mystery, second in its series. DI Edgar Stephens works reluctantly with the magician Max Mephisto, this time on a case of missing children.
2019 SF/romance novella, second of a trilogy. Queen Samara is visiting Emperor Valentin to try to help him find the traitor among his advisors.
2010 fantasy, first in a series. Tanyth Fairport is a travelling herbalist, planning to learn all she can before writing a book about it. Then the villagers she's visiting ask for her help.
2006 TV tie-in science fiction. The Stargate team from Atlantis explores a new planet…
1958 police procedural, sixth in the 87th Precinct series. A blackmailer is shot in a drive-by; the 87th has to find out which of his victims did it.
2021 SF, eleventh of its series. Roslyn Chambers is now a battlecruiser's XO, but not for long…
2019 fantasy. The Quest is over; the magic gem destroyed the Old God, cured the king, and ushered in peace and happiness for everyone. But Apprentice Knight Kalanthe still needs to find a rich husband to pay back the cost of her training, and Olsa still needs to steal for a living even though she's bought herself free of her obligation to the Thief Bosses.
2016 SF/romance, third of of its series. Imogen Peters has also been kidnapped from Earth into an alien civilisation…
2023 short science fiction novel, seventh in the Murderbot series. After the events of Network Effect, Murderbot continues to help the Preservation mission to an alien-remnant-infected planet.
2018 fantasy, second of a pair. The motley band send to deal with the "clocktaur" invaders has got as far as the city they come from. But some of them have history there…
2018 SF, first of a trilogy that's also a sequel to the Indranan War series. Empress Hailimi is trying to keep her empire out of the war between two lots of highly advanced aliens… but why do all the factions want her working for them?
2019 science fiction, tenth in the Chronicles of St Mary's series (time travel). Time to deal with a problem once and for all.
2022 SF. The climate catastrophe has happened, and the survivors are rebuilding, whether it's the hollowed-out remnants of nation-states, the corporates on their bunker-islands, or the dandelion networks that are trying to make the environment back into something compatible with human thriving. None of them is expecting the alien scout ship.
2017 SF/romance novella, first of a trilogy. Two space empires are at war: the Rogue Coalition is caught in the middle.
1979 horror, third in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. Kate Southerland is murdered by a vampire, and her brother is kidnapped and mutilated… but her family has a favour to call in.
2014 mystery. It's 1950, and variety is on its last legs. Two wartime friends meet again over the investigation of a series of grotesque, and perhaps meaningful, murders.
2014 romance and light mystery. Jenny Dove has a severe stutter and chronic lack of self-confidence; she's on the verge of suicide when something appears to her and tells her not to. Eventually, she will have to make something of herself.
2023 mystery anthology, fifth of the British Library's series of seasonal mysteries.
2022 fantasy-romance, fixup of four shorter works. After the townsfolk burned down her workshop, Mia Brandt tries to keep her powers quiet in her new home. But the necromancer next door isn't going to let it be.
2014 historical mystery; third in Huber's Lady Darby series (post-Regency amateur detection). Still shaken by the events of the previous book, Lady Darby must step forward again when a caretaker is murdered and a body stolen…
2023 romance. She's a curse-breaker. He's a disgraced archaeologist with a famous father. They're both wotking on the same Scottish castle before it gets redeveloped…
2007 YA SF, first in a series. Ishmael Horatio Wang finds himself orphaned and penniless, and the only way of getting out of that seems to be to sign aboard an interstellar merchant ship.
2017 fantasy, fifth and last volume of its series. Things are finally getting moving.
1987 SF, third of its trilogy. With a new Hegemon established, Silence Leigh is finally ready to make another try at reaching Earth.
2021 alternate-world fantasy, eighth and last of its series. Irene is trying to do something about the situation she's discovered, but forces within the Library seem to be working against her.
1944 psychological thriller, dir. George Cukor, Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman: IMDb / allmovie. Is she going mad?
2005 gaslamp fantasy, last of its trilogy. The Gardier are still invading; Vienne has fallen; and our heroes are a long way from home.
2020 historical mystery; first in Baker's Anna Fairweather series (1920s amateur detection). Anna is a maid in the country house of Colonel and Mrs Montford; when the Colonel drops dead during his 70th birthday party, she's one of the few people who thinks it might be murder…
1940 psychological thriller, dir. Thorold Dickinson, Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard: IMDb / allmovie. Is she going mad?
2016 SF/romance, second of of its series. Fiona Russell has also been kidnapped from Earth into an alien civilisation…
1994 historical military fiction, fourth and last in its series, but this time falling back on the early life and career of Otto Prohaska of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.
1998 drama, dir. Sam Raimi, Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton: IMDb / allmovie. All we have to do is hide the money for a few months while the heat dies down.
2021 SF, tenth of its series. As the cleanup from the rebellion continue, Lieutenant-Commander Roslyn Chambers is sent to a backwater world that may be hiding war criminals.
1983 fantasy for children (and everyone else), first of a long series. While hiding from bullies in the library, thirteen-year-old Nita Callahan finds a book that promises to teach magic. But nothing is free.
1950 noir, dir. Billy Wilder, William Holden, Gloria Swanson: IMDb / allmovie. Just back away now, you'll end up in the same place and it'll hurt less.
2023 fantasy. Many years before the events of Legends & Lattes, a young Viv the orc is stranded for a few weeks in a seaside town as her wounded leg heals.
2016 fantasy, fourth volume of its series. Cathy seeks allies in her reform of Neither society; Max finds himself showing disconcerting initiative given what's happened to his soul; Sam finds out what the Elemental Court is really up to.
1980 horror, dir. John Carpenter, Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis: IMDb / allmovie. The vengeful ghosts are out to get you.
2023 fantasy novelette. On the island of Merlank, the ferryman has to take the dead away to where they can end their existences, or they'll hang around and haunt. Milo is one of the Ferryman's sons, and since noticing the dead can cause you to join them, his curious nature makes him unfit for the job. Until the lord's daughter dies… Illustrated by Emily Gravett.
2017 SF, third of its trilogy. Hailimi has to take back her Empire, and think hard about the future…
1993 science fiction, dir. Steven Spielberg, Sam Neill, Laura Dern: IMDb / allmovie. How dare they do science!
2017 fantasy, first of a pair. A disgraced paladin, an assassin, a forger and a scholar ride out on a suicide mission…
2020 alternate-world fantasy, seventh of its series. Irene's trying to train up a new assistant, but someone's attacking them and their allies…
1986 action, dir. John Woo, Ti Lung, Leslie Cheung: IMDb / allmovie. Two brothers on opposite sides of the law…
1993 historical aviation fiction. For a few months in 1916 Linienschiffsleutnant Otto Prohaska of the Austro-Hungarian Navy is a heroic aviator.
2023 SF/romance, third of a trilogy. Lexi Bowen, professional thief, fell for human-adjacent hottie Nilo Shoren, but he dumped her and stole her job. But why does he have to be so nice?
2019 science fiction anthology collecting stories mostly in the Chronicles of St Mary's series (time travel).
1978 horror, second in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. In 1897, London is getting ready for Victoria's Jubilee. A man is clubbed on the street and loses his memory, but finds himself being used as an experimental subject. And SHerlock Holmes will encounter the Giant Rat of Sumatra.
2015 SF/romance, first of a series. Rose McKenzie was kidnapped from Earth and was kept as a prisoner and experimental subject aboard a space battleship, until she managed to escape. Dav Jallan doesn't know why this battleship has turnd up in his region of space, or why its crew is dead, but…
2022 Regency romance. Marianne Simpson boxes at Farnham's Fantastical Female Fayre, run by her uncle. She has good reason to be suspicious of aristocratic men. But the Duke of Staunton has need of her…
2020 SF novella, side story in the Starship's Mage series. Ivan Halloway is a retired Mage who wanted to get away from the dangers of naval service; but he'll still help out his old buddy who's got himself into way too much trouble…
2013 fantasy, third volume of its series. Cathy tries to kick off her project to reform society in the Nether; Max still works for the increasingly erratic sorcerer Ekstrand; Sam is dragged into the Elemental Court.
2016 SF, second of its trilogy. Hailimi has survived one plot to depose her, but there are more waiting their turn…
2011 mystery (modern police procedural plus amateur), eighth in its series. All the fæces hits the fan at once.
1929 comedy. All the couples are at odds, but more importantly, the Empress of Blandings is missing. US vt Fish Preferred.
2022 SF/romance, second of a trilogy. Kee Ildez knows that human-adjacent hottie Varro Runkow isn't interested in her, and anyway she's got lots of hacking to do to track down the various conspirators left in the wind…
2019 alternate-world fantasy, sixth of its series. The world where Irene went to school is threatened by chaos, and only a particular book will save it. But that means she's going to have to deal with the Fae…
1992 historical naval fiction. In spite of his best efforts, Linienschiffsleutnant Otto Prohaska of the Austro-Hungarian Navy is not going to avert the First World War.
2007 contemporary police mystery, third in Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series. A few days apart, two unrelated people are strangled, a troubled young man and a trainee teacher, and their bodies laid out in water surrounded by flowers.
1987 science fiction, dir. Paul Verhoeven, Peter Weller, Nancy Allen: IMDb / allmovie. When do we start? As soon as some poor schmuck volunteers.
2013 military SF, eleventh of the Kris Longknife books. Kris has a planet to defend.
2013 historical mystery; second in Huber's Lady Darby series (post-Regency amateur detection). On the way to Edinburgh, Lady Darby stops at the Dalmays', where scandal, madness and murder will all be unveiled…
1978 horror, dir. John Carpenter, Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance: IMDb / allmovie. The killer child has grown up and come home.
2004 gaslamp fantasy. All the pieces are moving in different directions, across multiple worlds and multiple factions.
2016 SF, first of a trilogy. Hailimi left the court to become a gunrunner, but now the other heirs are dead and her mother the Empress is going mad…
1980 science fiction, dir. Jimmy T. Murakami, Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn; IMDb / allmovie. The villagers know the bandits are coming, so they hire fighters to defend them. In space.
2011 mystery (modern police procedural plus amateur), seventh in its series. War is not good for people.
1960 western, dir. John Sturges, Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen; IMDb / allmovie. The villagers know the bandits are coming, so they hire fighters to defend them.
2013 fantasy, second volume of a series. Cat's forced into marriage; Max and the gargoyle investigate a sudden power vacuum; Sam worries about his wife.
2022 SF/romance, first of a trilogy. Octavia Zarola can't afford to turn down a retrieval mission. Even if it's from the people who were at war with humanity.
1954 Japanese drama, dir. Akira Kurosawa, Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune; IMDb / allmovie. The villagers know the bandits are coming, so they hire fighters to defend them.
2020 SF, ninth of its series. The forces of Mars work to clear up the débris from the big rebellion; for one thing, nobody's actually found their government…
1976 adventure, dir. Richard Lester, Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn; IMDb / allmovie. After many years abroad with King Richard, Robin finally comes home to Marian, but life has moved on.
1975 horror, first in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. Count Dracula tells the real story of the events that led to the novel.
1947 glurge, dir. George Seaton, John Payne, Maureen O'Hara: IMDb / allmovie. If you don't believe in Santa Claus you're an old meaniehead.
2018 science fiction, ninth in the Chronicles of St Mary's series (time travel). More adventures in history!
1946 glurge, dir. Frank Capra, James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore: IMDb / allmovie. You can't win, you can't break even, and God won't let you get out of the game.
2010 romance, last of its loose tetralogy. Parker Brown and three of her childhood friends run a wedding business, everything from engagement photos to the Big Day; she does the overall organisation and client-wrangling. She isn't looking for romance…
2016 Korean horror, dir. Yeon Sang-ho; Gong Yoo, Kim Su-an; IMDb / allmovie. There's an extra passenger aboard the express. (Vtt Busanhaeng or 부산행.)
2018 alternate-world fantasy, fifth of its series. The Fae and the Dragons have been brought to an alternate Paris to negotiate a peace treaty. But one of the negotiators has been assassinated, and not-Sherlock-Holmes Lord Peregrine Vale is the obvious person to solve it.
2007 Spanish found-footage horror, stylised as "[•REC]"; dir. Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza; Manuela Velasco: IMDb / allmovie. Making a documentary about the night shift at the fire station is not going to end well.
1999 mystery, nineteenth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Or, this time, in Kauai, as her office neighbour Glenna Stanleigh asks for extra security on a troubled documentary film project.
1920 surreal horror, dir. Robert Wiene, Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt; IMDb / allmovie. The mysterious Caligari sets up at the town fair, with his somnambulistic subject, and people start to die…
2022 SF/romance novelette, prequel to a trilogy. Captain Octavia Zarola is a bounty hunter with a heart of gold.
2017 fantasy anthology in two parts, commentaries on fairy stories and a few original ones.
1991 SF, twelfth and last of its series. After three Observers go missing, the Time Corps protagonists travel to Tombstone, Arizona in 1881.
2011 interstitial collection of letters, in the Fergusson-Van Alstyne series. Various people write to friends and family on deployment.
1993 mystery, nineteenth and last in the series about Superintendent Henry Tibbett. Susan Gardiner unexpectedly inherits a run-down country pub and, since she's trained in restaurant management, decides to refurbish it and open it as a restaurant. Then one of her customers dies from mushroom poisoning…
2013 fantasy, first of a series. There are magical worlds beyond our own… and most of the people who live there are horrible.
1986 SF, second of its trilogy. Silence Leigh, already a hyperspace pilot, has now had some training as a magus, and is ready to have another try at travelling to lost Earth.
1925… thriller, I suppose. Prince Séliman works as secretary to Lady Diana Wynham, a scandalous woman. Original title La Madone des sleepings. Banned in Boston!
2023 SF novella. Years before the events of Firebreak, the twelve-year-old cyber-enhanced SecOps 06 and 22 run away from the Company for the first time…
1991 historical naval fiction. In 1915, Linienschiffsleutnant Otto Prohaska of the Austro-Hungarian Navy takes command of a submarine…
2023 space-operatic SF. Earth was destroyed in the great war, and its survivors scrape by on Gaea Station, an asteroid powered by the last salvaged warships. Kyr, a genetically enhanced "warbreed", has spent her life training for a chance to avenge the fourteen billion dead… "While Earth's children live, the enemy shall fear us."
In 2023 I read 204 books, the most of any year since the pandemic began.
2018 crime, seventh in the Sean Duffy series. As the 1990s dawn, Sean Duffy just has a bit of paperwork to do before he goes part-time for good. But he can't ever let it lie…
1980 SF novella, in the same world as The Outcasts of Heaven Belt though set before the events of that book. In a system of gradually-decaying asteroid habitats, two self-loathing people go along on a rich man's self-promoting rescue mission.
2023 mystery story, seventh of the Lady Sherlock series. Charlotte Holmes is taking a sea voyage, both to assist the Crown in recovering some missing files and to spend time with her lover. But as always murder supervenes.
1990 SF, eleventh of its series. The night before Caesar crosses the Rubicon, he's visited by a soothsayer who gives the names of those who will act against him…
2012 mystery, fifth in the series (police plus amateur detection). One of Ruth's old university friends has died in a house fire, but he'd already written to ask her to come and have a look at something he'd found in the post-Roman site at Ribchester…
2009 science fiction, dir. Duncan Jones, Sam Rockwell: IMDb / allmovie. Sam's coming to the end of his three-year shift supervising helium-3 mining robots on the moon…
2018 SF, third of its sub-series. David Rice and his subtly well-armed merchant ship are still doing covert intelligence gathering for the Protectorate.
2017 alternate-world fantasy, fourth of its series. A political struggle leaves Irene dodging everyone from gangsters to dragons in alt-1920s New York.
2019 SF novella, placed in the Shieldrunner Pirates setting but not part of that series. Ku Nel-Aoki is the boss of level 2 of the Jane Jacobs residential module on Ceres. But the Syndicate she works for is not an easy employer.
1995 science fiction, dir. Terry Gilliam, Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt: IMDb / allmovie. After the plague, a man is sent back in time to try to get a sample of the original strain.
2020 romantic fantasy, first of a new loose series. In the spring of 1915, Major Roland Gospatrick is recovering in hospital, though nobody will tell him what's wrong with him. Elen Morris is assigned as his latest nurse, though he doesn't expect her to last any longer than the others.
2012 SF short story, set in the same universe as the Imperial Radch series. The world of Ghaon can only be reached via the Crawl, which destroys ships that try to cross it in less than six months…
1962 shoft science fiction, dir. Chris Marker, Davos Hanich, Hélène Châtelain: IMDb / allmovie. After the war, a man is sent back to his memories of the past.
1989 mystery, eighteenth in the series about Superintendent Henry Tibbett. The government of the Caribbean island of Tampica seems to have been taken over by drug smugglers; but what can Tibbett do to stop them?
2023 military SF, last of its trilogy. The crew/found family of the not-Coast-Guard spaceship Zuma's Ghost are having to say goodbye to old members and welcome new ones.
1955 thriller, dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot, Yves Montand, Charles Vanel: IMDb / allmovie. When you're stuck at the end of the world, you'll take any chance to get back.
1922 fixup of comic short stories. Six friends go to France for the winter.
2012 historical mystery; first in Huber's Lady Darby series (post-Regency amateur detection). Lady Darby has retired from society to her brother-in-law's Scottish castle after the death of her husband tainted her with his scandal, but her sister is throwing a party, and not everyone will leave it alive…
1999 pseudo-historical fantasy, dir. John McTiernan*, Antonio Banderas, Vladimir Kulich: IMDb / allmovie. Ahmad ibn Fadlan's diplomatic mission to the Volga Vikings goes further than anyone expected.
2023 SF short story collection in the Planetfall universe.
2003 gaslamp fantasy. Ile-Rien is under attack by the mysterious Gardier and their black airships. Tremaine Valiarde doesn't really care about that; she's just looking for a way to die, on her own terms. In another world, Ilias wants to make sure the wizard he killed is still dead.
1957 noir, dir. Alexander Mackendrick, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster; IMDb / allmovie. Compromise enough and there's nothing left; then the film begins.
2011 police procedural mystery, tartan noir, seventh in the Logan McRae series. The most popular contestants on Britain's Next Big Star have been kidnapped – but is it all a hoax by the promoter? Meanwhile the target of a drugs bust seems to think he can get Logan to get him the drugs back…
2007 mystery, fourth in Greenwood's Corinna Chapman series. A cut-price rival bakery, a dangerous new drug, a prickly neo-Pagan conference, Nazi-looted gold…
2023 comedy-horror, dir. Chris McKay, Nicholas Hoult, Awkwafina: IMDb / allmovie. What if Dracula's servitor tried to get out from under his thumb?
2022 space-navy SF, second of its sub-series. The Dakotan Confederacy refuses to become the arsenal for a massive fleet being built by the admiral who's taken over the Commonwealth of which it used to be a part. Nobody there wants a fight, but military dictators aren't known for their understanding of differing opinions…
2017 military-adjacent SF, second of its series. Ian Dunlop the genetic experiment is trying to settle down to life with his new family, but not everyone has forgotten about him.
1947 mystery-comedy, dir. Edward Buzzell, William Powell, Myrna Loy: IMDb / allmovie. That devil music, it's no good!
1992 mystery. Helen Lovelace dies peacefully at eighty-eight. But when her surviving relatives turn up, a glamorous Hollywood star and an Australian businessman, one will soon be shot dead and the other suspected of the murder…
1978 short SF novel. After its civil war, the Heaven system (gas giant and trojans, asteroid belt, some very marginal planets) has split into multiple polities, and the machinery that sustains life is gradually breaking down. Then a ramscoop starship arrives from a nearby system…
1944 mystery-comedy, dir. Richard Thorpe, William Powell, Myrna Loy: IMDb / allmovie. There's nothing like going back to your home town.
2023 modern fantasy, continuation of the Kate Daniels series. Kate and Curran are still trying to live in peace, but the effort is still doomed.
2017 crime, sixth in the Sean Duffy series. Belfast, 1988: a heroin dealer is wounded by a crossbow bolt, and another is murdered. But for once it doesn't seem to have been the paramilitaries who did it.
1941 mystery-comedy, dir. W. S. van Dyke, William Powell, Myrna Loy: IMDb / allmovie. Can new screenwriters revive the series, without Dashiell Hammett's help?
2023 romantic SF, second of a planned trilogy. Vesper Quill is trying to pretend she doesn't have an unbreakable psychic bond with Kyrion Caldaren, so that the Emperor doesn't eat their souls (he has form). But to get through all the things being thrown at them they'll need to use not only their own powers but each other's.
2023 audio drama, adapted in ten parts by Julian Simpson from the story by H. P. Lovecraft.
2022 comic fantasy. Frinzil the sorcery student suddenly has to pay for several years of tuition. Obviously the way to do this is to go adventuring.
2017 short story in the Lady Sherlock series. A client has a mysterious puzzle box…
1939 mystery-comedy, dir. W. S. van Dyke, William Powell, Myrna Loy: IMDb / allmovie. Everyone wanted the old man dead.
1957 police procedural, fifth in the 87th Precinct series. The beautiful redhead is gunned down in a liquor store. But everyone who knew her seems to have had a motive.
1936 mystery-comedy, dir. W. S. van Dyke, William Powell, Myrna Loy: IMDb / allmovie. The husband has deserted his wife, and she wants to track him down.
1990 SF, tenth of its series. It's 1765 in Boston, and the Sons of Liberty are being threatened by a headless horseman.
1934 mystery-comedy, dir. W. S. van Dyke, William Powell, Myrna Loy: IMDb / allmovie. Turns out life doesn't have to end at marriage.
2020 SF, third and of its series. Adda and Iridian have been captured by the law, and the rogue AIs are still out there and trying to manipulate them…
1986 martial arts fantasy, dir. John Carpenter, Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall: IMDb / allmovie. Jack Burton doesn't care about immortal sorcerers and demon kings, he just wants his truck back.
1985 mystery, seventeenth in the series about Superintendent Henry Tibbett. Returning from Amsterdam, Henry and Emmy can't get a cabin on the night ferry, and end up having to rough it in seats. In the morning, one of their fellow travellers has been murdered…
2023 SF, set in the same universe as the Imperial Radch series but not in Radchaai space. Three people get involved in the mystery of a Presger Translator who went missing hundreds of years ago.
2017 science fiction anthology collecting stories in the Chronicles of St Mary's series (time travel).
1963 thriller/horror, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor: IMDb / allmovie. The spoiled socialite goes to the small seaside town to track down her latest potential conquest…
1941 Regency-adjacent romance. Deb Grantham, though of good birth, has ended up as a faro-dealer in her aunt's gaming house. She's taking what amusement she can from stringing along several beaux, while refusing any serious entanglements. But one of them is the wealthy young Lord Mablethorpe, and his mother, terrified by the idea of his making an unsuitable marriage, sends her nephew, man-of-the-world Mr Ravenscar, to buy her off…
1959 thriller, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint: IMDb / allmovie. The ordinary man is suddenly thrown into Cool Spy World.
2018 SF, second of its sub-series. David Rice is still being hunted by people trying for the bounty posted by the crime lord he killed. Fortunately his covert-ops backers want those guys taken off the table too.
2017 fantasy, first released as a web serial. When Baba Yaga's house walks into Summer's back yard, she sets off on an adventure…
1958 psychological drama, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, James Stewart, Kim Novak: IMDb / allmovie. Obsession is not good for you.
2008 mystery (modern police procedural plus amateur), sixth in its series. Police chief Van Alstyne is still working through grief over his dead wife. But he still has to be the police chief.
2016 alternate-world fantasy, third of its series. The Library is under attack!
1948 psychological adventure, dir. John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston: IMDb / allmovie. Gold fever takes men in strange ways.
2022 Victorian romance. Julia Wychwood suffers from professionally invalid parents and crippling shyness, and her only escape has been to rely on her friends and to pretend illness herself. But her friends are away for a crucial few days, and her parents are forcing her to socialise. Meanwhile Captain Jasper Blunt, notoriously cruel hero of the siege of Sebastopol, rumoured to have a string of bastards and a haunted estate in Yorkshire, is looking for a rich wife…
1993 mystery, fifth of Granger's novels of Chief Inspector Alan Markby and non-detective Meredith Mitchell. Meredith's asked to help out her nervous friend Ursula on an archaeological dig when a bunch of new age travellers set up nearby, but what Ursula's really concerned about is whether her obsessive ex (also on the dig) may have murdered his wife…
1984 adventure, dir. Robert Zemeckis, Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner: IMDb / AllMovie. Joan the mousy romance writer has to travel to Colombia to pay off the people who've kidnapped her sister…
1989 SF, ninth of its series. In 1702 Lemuel Gulliver is drinking himself to death, having encountered tiny men after a shipwreck. Obviously a job for the Time Commandos.
2017 fantasy, first of a projected series. It's 1923, and most of England's occultists died during the War. But magical threats haven't gone away…
1983 adventure, dir. Brian G. Hutton, Tom Selleck, Bess Armstrong: IMDb / AllMovie. It's the 1920s. Eve Tozer's father will be declared dead, and his crooked business partner will take over the company, unless she can find him and get him to a British court. What this needs is a drunken war hero!
1983 mystery, sixteenth in the series about Superintendent Henry Tibbett. Tibbett receives a letter from an obvious crank: a crossword, to which the answers hint at undetected murders. The resolution of that is straightforward enough, but it's only the beginning…
2000 fantasy. Maskelle was a high-ranking priest, but did something bad and has been living in exile. Now she's called back to Duvalpore, because something strange is going on with the Hundred-Year Rite that will reinforce the world…
2014 SF short story, set in the same universe as the Imperial Radch series. Her-Breath-Contains-The-Universe is is a junior monk in a monastery (on a space station) that also trains players for something like the Mesoamerican ballgame, which has political significance too…
2006 remount of the 1947 audio thriller by Francis Durbridge, in 8 parts. Paul and Steve are asked to take a pair of spectacles with them on their trip to Cairo…
2020 romantic fantasy, seventh and last of its loose series. Vivian Porter's inquiry agency is humming along, so she does a favour for a friend by looking into strange goings-on at a boarding house outside Oxford.
1987 science fiction action, dir. Paul Michael Glaser, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Dawson: IMDb / allmovie. The only real game is the game of death.
1980 mystery. Virginia is staying in the country with some friends, but when her estranged husband Felix turns up there's bound to be trouble…
2021 science fiction in the Diving Universe series. Everything lands in the same place all at once.
1987 science fiction action horror, dir. John McTiernan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers: IMDb / allmovie. There's something out there waiting for us, and it ain't no man.
2006 mystery (modern police procedural plus amateur), fifth in its series. Van Alstyne the police chief is known to be on the outs with his wife, which makes it awkward when her body is found…
2013 military SF novella, side story to Furious in the Kris Longknife series. The detective who failed to catch Kris does some investigation on her behalf.
1995 SF. Joe wakes up in a hospital with serious memory loss: he overdid things, it seems, and had a major breakdown. But bits of the world are wrong.
1985 action, dir. Mark Lester, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rae Dawn Chong: IMDb / allmovie. A tragic love story.
1948 mystery. Robert Blair is a solicitor in a country town, settling comfortably into middle age. Then the two odd women who've moved into the impractical and isolated house known as The Franchise find themselves accused of kidnapping and torture…
2021 military SF, second of its trilogy. The crew/found family of the not-Coast-Guard spaceship Zuma's Ghost are having to say goodbye to old members and welcome new ones.
1984 audio adaptation by Neville Teller of Anthony Berkeley's 1929 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. The womanising Sir Eustace was sent a box of chocolates, which he gave to Graham Bendix; Graham was taken ill, and his wife died. A circle of amateur criminologists tries to work out what happened.
2020 Victorian romance. Neville Cross has always got on with animals better than with people, particularly since the injury that made it hard for him to speak. Clara Hartwright is a lady's companion with unconventional plans for the future. Will they turn a brief acquaintance during a Christmas visit into something more?
1944 noir, dir. Billy Wilder, Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck: IMDb / allmovie. He doesn't get the money, and he doesn't get the woman.
2017 SF, first of its sub-series. David Rice lost his merchant ship, but the Mage-King of Mars has given him a new one. And there almost isn't a price…
2019 horror, dir. Richard Stanley, Nicolas Cage, Madeleine Arthur: IMDb / allmovie. There's something in the water…
2012 mystery-adjacent short story. With a young daughter, Ruth Galloway feels she ought to get a Christmas tree and otherwise have a "proper" Christmas.
2015 alternate-world fantasy. Irene's apprentice is kidnapped from steampunk Victorian London, and she has to go to an ideal of Venice to rescue him.
2011 horror, dir. Sean Branney, Matt Foyer, Autumn Wendel: IMDb / allmovie. Albert Wilmarth is about to go deeper into folklore than he ever intended.
2023 space-operatic SF, second of a planned trilogy. Sun Shan and the Chaonian forces have won their first great victory over the Phene Empire, but domestic complications arise.
2010 horror, Huan Vu, Ingo Heise, Marco Leibnitz: IMDb / allmovie. Why has Dad gone back to a part of Germany he visited during the war? vt The Color Out of Space.
2016 crime, fifth in the Sean Duffy series. Belfast, 1987: Duffy faces another locked-room mystery when a journalist is found dead in Carrickfergus Castle.
2005 horror, Sean Branney and Andrew Leman, Matt Foyer: IMDb / allmovie. Great-uncle left some very disturbing papers…
1973 Arthurian fantasy, second of its series. Merlin watches over Arthur, from his birth to his coronation.
2023 fantasy, last of its trilogy. Princess Gemma has got her man, but still has other problems to solve, including his murderous brother and their scheming mother.
2022 whodunnit, dir. Rian Johnson, Daniel Craig, Janelle Monáe: IMDb / allmovie. The tech billionaire hosts a murder mystery party on his private island. It doesn't go well.
2012 military SF, tenth of the Kris Longknife books. Exiled to a significant but powerless position and surrounded by spies, Kris has to get back to her homeworld and start planning out how to deal with the alien menace that people aren't being told about.
2003 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1948 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes. Rosaleen had just married her very rich husband when their flat in London was bombed and she was the only survivor. Two years later, the war's over and his relatives are coming round with their hands out…
1978 mystery. The rich old woman dies, not unexpectedly. But her relatives and her solicitor are all going to be surprised, some of them fatally.
2019 whodunnit, dir. Rian Johnson, Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas: IMDb / allmovie. The rich old man is stabbed after his 85th birthday party; whodunnit?
1988 SF, eighth of its series. People are being torn apart in Victorian London, or simply drained of blood. How will the Time Commandos solve the problem?
2021 SF, dir. Lana Wachowski, Keanu Reeves, Jessica Henwick; IMDb / allmovie. What if we ignored the films that were not so good?
1964 SF. Douglas Hall is working on a simulated reality to make product test-marketing cheaper. But all of a sudden things aren't the way he remembers them being… UK vt Counterfeit World.
2003 SF, dir. Wachowskis, Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne; IMDb / allmovie. See Neo fight. Fight, Neo, fight.
2019 Victorian romance. Laura Hayes' father died of the same fever that left her brother an invalid, and what was left of the family business and land is tied up by a grasping lawyer. Alex Archer, professional card sharp, is trading in the thousands of pounds owed to him by his latest victim for an introduction to an heiress, who happens to be Laura's neighbour…
2003 SF, dir. Wachowskis, Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne; IMDb / allmovie. OK, so you're God. Now what?
1980 mystery, fifteenth in the series about Superintendent Henry Tibbett. Henry and Emmy are back in the British Seaward Islands for a boating holiday. But people have been disappearing…
1999 SF, dir. Wachowskis, Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne; IMDb / allmovie. What if it were all, like, a simulation, man?
2020 SF, eighth of its series. The Mage-King of Mars has been assassinated; Damien Montgomery takes over as Lord Regent for the young Mage-Queen.
2021 crime, dir. Michael Sarnoski, Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff: IMDb / allmovie. He just wants his pig back.
2005 mystery (modern police procedural plus amateur), fourth in its series. The old family woodland is going to be sold to an alliance of environmental group and logging company, and that triggers a variety of bad behaviour.
2016 science fiction novelette, in the Chronicles of St Mary's series (time travel). Things have gone well for a change, so the historians and other of St Mary's go on an outing to see one of the first run performances of Hamlet. Of course, things go wrong.
2020 drama, dir. Emerald Fennell, Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham: IMDb / allmovie. When she was a medical student, her friend was raped, and killed herself after nobody believed her. She's going to stop that happening again.
2016 fantasy. Gerta's friend Kay is stolen away by the Snow Queen; so off she goes to get him back.
2021 science fiction, short novella in the Diving Universe series. A backwater planet's moon has a complicated hazard; what happened to the ship that famously vanished?
2020 romantic fantasy, sixth of its loose series. Castalia Jones has built up her dressmaking business to the point where she can make choices about what to make, and for whom. Benton is Lord Carillon's valet, factotum, and household manager. They don't particularly like each other…
2020 pseudo-documentary, dir. Chloé Zhao, Frances McDormand; IMDb / allmovie. Migrant labour is still a thing.
1957 police procedural, fourth in the 87th Precinct series. A con man is finding victims on the streets of Isola… and the body of a young woman has just turned up in the river.
2019 Victorian romance. Jenny the vicar's daughter left home to be a lady's companion. Now the lady's married, but has settled a moderate amount of money on her. So she decides to go to India and track down the truth of what happened to the lady's brother.
1999 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1954 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. Richard Abernethie dies; his sister Cora claims that he's been murdered, and by the next day has unambiguously been murdered herself.
2014 alternate-world fantasy. The Library connects all libraries; agents are sent out into alternate worlds to collect unique books. Irene is going to a steampunk Victorian London to retrieve a particular edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, but it's all going to get terribly complicated.
1978 mystery, fourteenth in the series about Superintendent Henry Tibbett. Just before Lord Charlton dies, he decides to leave his company and fortune to his nephew Simon, thought by most to have died as a baby in the Blitz but secretly adopted by an American officer and his English wife. It's been a while, information has been lost, and two plausible claimants appear. But then one of them is murdered…
2022 animated action, dir. Angus MacLane, Chris Evans, Keke Palmer: IMDb / allmovie. Buzz the Space Ranger learns to be a good person.
1985 SF, first of a trilogy. Space pilot Silence Leigh is stuck on a world in which women are literally second-class citizens, marooned by the death of her grandfather and legal entanglements over his will. And there's a starship in the balance…
1998 gaslamp fantasy. Nicholas Valiarde is a nobleman turned thief, obsessed by his revenge plan against the villainous Count Montesq. But now someone who seems too powerful to be the common con-artist he looks like is interfering with that…
2009 thriller, third of this ongoing series; translated from the original German by Rachel Ward. A woman disappears soon after her eighteenth birthday; her boyfriend employs Nea to find her.
2020 science fiction, tenth in the Diving Universe series. Contemporary with Boneyards, Squishy's various sabotage teams destroy stealth tech research stations across the Empire.
2019 animated action/comedy, dir. Josh Cooley / John Lasseter, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen: IMDb / allmovie. What if God is just a series of children?
2019 military SF, thirteenth and to date last of this series. As the truce continues to hold, the Far Traveller explores a forgotten section of space.
2011 mystery, fourth in the series (police plus amateur detection). A private museum is about to open the recently-discovered coffin of a mediæval bishop, but just before the event the museum's director drops dead next to it.
2010 animated action/comedy, dir. Lee Unkrich, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen: IMDb / allmovie. Growing up is a thing now.
2015 crime, fourth in the Sean Duffy series. Belfast, 1985: what looks like a family murder followed by a failson's suicide turns out to have wide-ranging implications.
2004 mystery, third in its series. Back in 1930, Jonathan Ketchem left his wife and was never seen again. Now someone else has gone missing from the small town of Miller's Kill.
1999 animated action/comedy, dir. Ash Brannon / John Lasseter / Lee Unkrich, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen: IMDb / allmovie. What is the righteous path to take in your life?
1987 SF, seventh of its series. With a parallel timeline thought to be causing disruptions, the Time Commandos are sent to join Jason in his voyage to retake the Golden Fleece.
2001 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1940s mystery, in one 90-minute episode. Newlywed New Zealander Gwenda Reed finds the house she's just bought in England stranglely, even hauntingly, familiar, and then breaks down at a performance of The Duchess of Malfi…
2012 collection of short stories (published between 1958 and 1992) with murder, or at least attempted murder, as a theme.
2015 fantasy. Bryony is caught in a snowstorm and takes refuge in an abandoned manor house that casually gives her food and drink. But when she tries to take home the cut rose…
1995 animated action/comedy, dir. John Lasseter, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen: IMDb / allmovie. What if the toys could, like, come to life, man?
2022 historical detection, twenty-second in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Phryne happens across an opium-pipe, then a corpse, in a suburb to the west of Melbourne; meanwhile her family work to track down irregularities at the Blind Institute.
2018 military SF, twelfth of this ongoing series. Roy Olfetrie's father was caught on the take, so Roy had to leave the Academy; but a chance meeting puts him aboard Daniel Leary's latest venture…
2019 crime tragedy, dir. Josh and Benny Safdie, Adam Sandler; IMDb / allmovie. Gambling with the mob's money is not good for your health.
2018 Victorian romance. Helena is desperate to escape from her family; Justin is a scarred ex-soldier living in isolation in Devon and has advertised for a wife…
2018 animated superheroics, dir. Brad Bird, Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter; IMDb / allmovie. I know, let's give the chick something to do!
2019 SF, seventh of its series. Roslyn Chambers ends up as a flag lieutenant in the big fleet trying to win the war; Damien Montgomery follows the clues to uncover something the enemy's keeping secret even from their own people.
2011 thriller, second of this ongoing series; translated from the original German by Rachel Ward. A new client brings Nea a complicated multi-stage puzzle…
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I want a trailer to tell me what's different about this film; the marketers want it to tell me why it's like all the others…)
2020 military SF, first of a series. Max Carmichael, younger daughter of a super-rich family, is trying to get away from their influence. Meanwhlie the Near Earth Orbital Guard is just trying to keep space safe for honest travellers…
2004 animated superheroics, dir. Brad Bird, Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter; IMDb / allmovie. What does a superhero do when superheroes are illegal?
1994 mystery. Frances and Malcolm Chance have retired to a small village. Their neighbour is murdered, and all the secrets start to come out.
1983 action parody, dir. Dick Clement, Alan Shearman, Diz White: IMDb / allmovie. The dashing Captain Crummond (war hero, flying ace, Olympic athlete, racing driver, and part-time sleuth) defends the Empire against the machinations of the evil Count Otto von Bruno. Later vt Bullshot Crummond.
2021 science fiction, ninth in the Diving Universe series. As "Boss" explores deeper into the Boneyard, the Fleet of the present day finally organises a response.
2018 drama, dir. Alfonso Cuarón; Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira: IMDb / allmovie. A year in the life of a middle-class family in Mexico City in the 1970s, as mostly seen through the eyes of their maid.
2020 historical detection, twenty-first in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Phryne and Dot go to a spa for shell-shocked soldiers in rural Victoria and deal with small-town crimes, while the rest of her found-family look into a mystery in Melbourne.
2017 SF, dir. Denis Villeneuve, Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford; IMDb / allmovie. Turns out slaves may think they're people.
1952 thriller. Punch, Phyllida, Peter and Mab are on a European trekking holiday, before they have to go back to school or work. They meet a pleasant old man on the train, but later find him murderously attacked. And then things start to get odd. (Later republished as by Ellis Peters.)
2018 drama, dir. Martin McDonagh, Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell: IMDb / allmovie. Her daughter was raped and murdered, and nobody's caught the killer…
2012 military SF, novella in the Kris Longknife series. As the news of Kris's return from a scouting trip leaks into civilised space, various factions react to it.
1977 mystery, thirteenth in the series about Superintendent Henry Tibbett. On an island near Tampica, but still under British rule, the murder of a US senator has raised racial tensions. Everyone thinks they know who did it, but the evidence isn't of the best. So Tibbett is brought in to make it look good, but inconveniently insists on actually investigating… US vt The Coconut Killings.
2016 SF, dir. Denis Villeneuve, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner; IMDb / allmovie. The alien ships arrive, but nobody knows how to communicate with their occupants.
2017 science fiction, eighth in the Chronicles of St Mary's series (time travel). Everything is finally going well for Max. But not for long.
2016 science fiction, seventh in the Chronicles of St Mary's series (time travel). A young Historian gets emotional, and the others throw aside good sense to support him.
2018 horror/comedy, dir. Brendan Steere, Greg Cohan, Alyssa Kempinski: IMDb / allmovie. After his parents are killed, a priest travels to China, and finds he's gained the ability to transform into a dinosaur. With a prostitute as his moral guide, he sets out to fight for justice.
2019 romantic fantasy, fifth of its loose series. Lorelei "Laura" Penhallow has been healed of her consumption enough to live a normal life, and that includes being invited for a weekend house party by a family with an eligible son. But we all know what happens at weekend house parties.
1994 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1936 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes. The flashy unsuitable wife of the famous archaeologist thinks someone is out to get her; everyone but her husband assume's she's just seeking attention, until she's killed.
1986 SF, sixth of its series. A soldier sent back to 1897 to fight in the Hindu Kush meets his exact twin…
2022 space-navy SF, first of its series but following the six-book Castle Federation series. Admiral James Tecumseh came off worst against the Alliance, and was given a "safe" posting in a backwater sector. But now all the FTL communicators have gone dark, and he's the man in charge…
2014 historical mystery with fantastic elements. In 1906, former military police Lieutenant William Prior is going native in German New Guinea. Then he's asked to help look into a mysterious death in the local colony of weirdoes…
2022 action comedy, dir. Johannes Hartmann and Sandro Klopfstein, Alice Lucy: IMDb. They killed her parents and her boyfriend, and her grandfather, and now Heidi's striking back.
2016 military SF, eleventh of this ongoing series. Another neutral star cluster, where one arm of the enemy Alliance seems to be fomenting a rebellion against another. So Leary is sent in to be a mercenary…
2015 action, dir. George Miller, Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron: IMDb / allmovie. Who killed the world?
1995 post-apocalyptic fantasy. Charisat is the greatest of the cities in the Great Waste, and a centre for the trade of Ancient relics. Khat and Sagai are relic-dealers, as much as they can be when (as non-citizens) it would be illegal for them to use coinage. But a Patrician demands Khat's services as a guide in the Waste…
2009 police procedural mystery/horror, seventh in the Bryant and May series. A headless body is found in an empty shop; someone dressed in a deerskin, with knives for antlers, is terrifying people on the construction site north of King's Cross. Where is the PCU when you need it?
1979 action, dir. George Miller/George Ogilvie, Mel Gibson, Tina Turner: IMDb / allmovie. We don't need another hero.
2017 SF/mystery, first of an ongoing series. Caelin Morrow is an Inspector in the Professional Compliance Bureau, dedicated to rooting out dirty officials (even among the police). But when an alien ambassador is murdered, that lands on her plate too.
2020 science fiction novelette, in the Diving Universe series. An incident during the voyage of The Renegat.
1981 action, dir. George Miller, Mel Gibson, Vernon Wells: IMDb / allmovie. After the end of the world, you can still get petrol and spiked leather. US vt The Road Warrior.
2011 thriller, first of an ongoing series; translated from the original German by Rachel Ward. Nea Fox is a private investigator, going in undercover to a weekend gathering in a house said to be haunted. It's all going to get much more complicated.
1980 collection of short stories (written between 1940 and 1980) with murder as a theme.
2021 children's SF. Jillian is eleven, and going to visit her parents for Take Your Children To Work Day. Her parents explore other planets…
2003 mystery. The small New York town of Miller's Kill is seeing gay-bashing incidents which escalate until someone's killed. But how does this tie to rumours of contamination at the site of a new holiday resort?
1979 action, dir. George Miller, Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel: IMDb / allmovie. Oil is running out, but there are still cops.
2019 SF, a loose sequel to Mainline. Kes is the top dominatrix at the top club on the planet, but one of her clients has attracted the wrong sort of attention.
2015 drama, dir. Tom McCarthy, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo: IMDb / allmovie. The Boston Globe's investigative team is going to get to the bottom of this story no matter who tells them to lay off.
1984 SF. The Empress is dead… and, lacking an heir, has left the Empire to her latest favourite. But can he force the nobles to take him seriously?
2020 space-navy SF, stand-alone novella in the Castle Federation series. Before the last big war, an admiral has to decide who set up the obvious trap.
2014 science fiction, dir. Doug Liman, Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt; IMDb / allmovie. Groundhog Day meets Aliens.
2017 SF/thriller, first of an ongoing series. Mark Warren is a researcher in a top secret facility which gets attacked by terrorists, and things spin out from there.
2022 fantasy, second of its trilogy. Princess Gemma continues to try to work out what the Mortans are up to.
2009 science fiction, dir. J. J. Abrams, Chris Pine. Zachary Quinto: IMDb / allmovie. A franchise reboot, but yet another civilisation-scale threat.
2022 American Regency-ish romance, part of a loosely linked series. Juno Bell and the future Duke of Dammerton knew each other as children, but he had his duty, and then she had her life as a scandalous artist. But fate keeps throwing them together.
2014 drama, dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu, Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis; IMDb / allmovie. Back in the day, Riggan Thompson played the hero in the Birdman films; now he's putting on a Broadway play in a bid to be taken seriously for his art.
1989 detective fiction, ninth of James's novels of Inspector (now Commander) Adam Dalgliesh. Dalgliesh goes to an obscure headland in Norfolk to decide whether he wants to keep his deceased aunt's house; inevitably, he gets drawn into murder.
2022 Victorian romance. Evelyn Maltravers has a Grand Plan: she'll wow fashionable London with her riding, then find a wealthy husband to pay for bringing out her sisters. But to do that she will need the right riding habit, and Ahmad Malik the tailor is her man for that…
2022 SF/fantasy novel in the Innkeeper series. In what seems like an obvious trap for Dina and Sean, Sean's mentor is kidnapped and taken to a planet that's almost certainly fatal to get to. Someone else can provide safe transport, but there's a price…
2013 science fiction, dir. Alfonso Cuarón, Sandra Bullock, George Clooney; IMDb / allmovie. Kessler syndrome is not your friend.
2010 mystery/thriller, fifth in its series. Georgiana Rannoch, 34th in line to the throne, finds herself in Nice with a mission to recover the Queen's "borrowed" snuffbox.
1983 fantasy, first of a tetralogy. Alanna wants to be a knight and have adventures; her twin brother Thom wants to be trained in magic. So they swap roles, and Alanna disguises herself as a boy.
2018 SF, sixth of its series. Everyone was expecting the newly-seceded Republic to attack the Proctecorate, but it's been eighteen months without any movement…
1975 mystery, twelfth in the series about Superintendent Henry Tibbett. The ambassador to the US from newly-independent Tampica has an Unsuitable Wife; when she gets horribly drunk at a diplomatic reception, then kills herself, nobody is terribly surprised. But that may not be quite what happened…
2013 romantic drama, dir. Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy; IMDb / allmovie. Another nine years later, Jesse and Celine are raising their children, but have they turned into their own unhappy parents?
2014 military SF, tenth of this ongoing series. A variety of missions, well outside the scope of anything official, brings Daniel and crew to a planet in rebellion.
1964 murder mystery. Two years ago, Colin Lockie was ambushed on the road, and a worthless painting stolen. Now his childhood friend has spotted it for sale in an auction-house at the other end of the country. vt The Decayed Gentlewoman.
1996 SF. Reva is an assassin with a strange power: she can jump between similar timelines, so that chance is always on her side. She'll need more than that to survive her latest entanglements, though.
2004 romantic drama, dir. Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy; IMDb / allmovie. Nine years later, Jesse and Celine meet again.
2014 crime anthology, stories set in Belfast.
1954 historical fiction for young people. Marcus Flavius Aquila, centurion of auxiliaries, is crippled in his first battle; that ends up freeing him for an even more perilous mission, to find out what happened when the Ninth Legion, with its First Cohort under the command of his father, marched north and never came back.
2022 fantasy. Thara Celehar continues to witness for the dead. But as with any agent of the law, there are people who don't want him doing his job.
2014 fantasy. Rhea the miller's daughter was expecting that she'd get married some day… but why has Lord Crevan made an offer for her at all, never mind right now?
2019 science fiction, eighth in the Diving Universe series. A crew of Fleet misfits is sent on a suicide mission to find out what's happening in one of the stockpiles of abandoned ships.
2023 modern fantasy novella, continuation of the Kate Daniels series. Kate, her husband Lennart and their son Conlan just want to live in peace for a bit. Of course that isn't going to happen.
2019 thriller, thirteenth and as of this writing last in the series about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox, former soldier and currently private bodyguard. After stumbling into an ambush aimed at someone else, Charlie quickly jumps from unemployed into a new bodyguarding gig. With an arms dealer, but you can't have everything, right?
1985 SF, fifth of its series. A stolen ballistic missile submarine is somewhere out there in time…
2019 urban fantasy, third and to date last of its series. Dr Greta Helsing is invited to step in as clinical resident at a spa for mummies. But something very strange is going on…
2019 romance, third in the Reluctant Royals series. Nya Jerami, daughter of the man who tried to overthrow the Thesolan government, finds herself thrown together with Prince Johan Maximillian von Braustein, bad boy darling of the tabloids…
1995 romantic drama, dir. Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy; IMDb / allmovie. Two people meet on a train, and decide to spend the night exploring Vienna.
2019 comic fantasy, second and to date last of the Inspector Paris series. The invasion from fantasyland has been repelled, but things aren't quite back to normal.
2012 military SF, ninth of this ongoing series. After the events of the previous book, Daniel Leary and the Princess Cecile are sent to get a privincial admiral moving in the right direction to head off a war-starting coup. Of course it's always more complicated than that.
2011 mystery, third in the series (police plus amateur detection). When a team looking at coastal erosion turns up six bodies, Ruth Galloway, a forensic anthropologist just back from maternity leave, inevitably gets involved.
1973 mystery, eleventh in the series about Superintendent Henry Tibbett. Henry and his wife Emmy visit her sister Jane, the local Cruelty Lady (representative of the RSPCA). A local character has been imprisoned for vehicular manslaughter, and Jane ends up fetching and looking after his floating population of dogs… but should it be two or three of them?
2012 historical drama, dir. Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman: IMDb / allmovie. How to get six American State Department employees out of revolutionary Tehran? The CIA pretends to make a film…
2019 romantic fantasy, fourth of its loose series. Kate Davies is a Guard, one of the magical police force of England. There was more interesting work when the men were off at the Great War, but what's left is better than nothing. Her new assignment is to help out Giles Lefton, mathematics professor and puzzle-solver, as he tries to solve the riddle of a country house that has suddenly appeared, surounded by a mass of roses.
1956 police procedural, third in the 87th Precinct series. A young man is found hanging from his barred window, but he clearly died of an overdose first. What's going on?
2011 science fiction, dir. Joe Cornish, John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker: IMDb / allmovie. The aliens picked on the wrong gang.
2018 urban fantasy, second of its series. Dr Greta Helsing is in Paris for a conference on unnatural medicine. But other people are there too.
2012 audio adaptation by Joy Wilkinson of Christie's 1945 mystery, in three 30-minute episodes. The feckless and erratic wife dies of cyanide in the champagne at her birthday party; suicide, everyone supposes. Then a year later her husband recreates the event, and dies the same way…
2017 SF, fifth of its series. Montgomery and the Mage-King's forces are cleaning up the conspiracy… but someone else is ahead of them.
2014 crime, third in the Sean Duffy series. In 1983, Sean Duffy finds himself fitted up and thrown out of the RUC, but destiny hasn't finished with him yet as he's brought back to track down one of the Maze escapees, an expert bomb-maker who's dropped completely out of sight.
2002 mystery. In a small town in upstate New York, a child is left on the church steps. A few days later, a young woman who's recently given birth is found murdered in the snow…
2011 drama, dir. Michel Hazanavicius, Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo; IMDb / allmovie. George Valentin is a star of the silver screen, but the talkies are coming…
2021 SF, first of a series. Marca Nbaro has committed various forms of fraud to get aboard one of the nine treading Greatships that link human worlds (and the enigmatic aliens). This turns out to be a very good thing.
1955 murder mystery. Fanny Lynam throws a party to celebrate the engagement of her younger half-brother, and makes her special lobster patties. That will turn out to have been a mistake.
1942 wartime romance and comedy, dir. Michael Curtiz, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman: IMDb / allmovie. As refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe collect in Casablanca on the way to Lisbon and freedom, everybody comes to Rick's Café Americain.
2019 romance novella, in the Reluctant Royals series. Regina Hobbs was always the "good" daughter in her parents' eyes, and having to use a wheelchair hasn't changed that, but she has built things on her own too…
2008 thriller, twelfth and last in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). Getting back into PI work after her absence at short notice, Carlotta takes on a prospective bride who wants the groom checked up on. But it's all much more complex than it looks.
2010 mystery/thriller, fourth in its series. Georgiana Rannoch, 34th in line to the throne, is sent to the wedding of Maria Theresa of Romania to Prince Nicholas of Bulgaria (after all she was at school with "Fatty Matty").
2018 science fiction, seventh in the Diving Universe series. Cooper the captain and Vash the engineer deal with isolation from their original time in a variety of ways.
2010 urban fantasy, first of a 19-book series. In a magical world, Gin Blanco is an assassin for hire, until the job goes bad.
2010 military SF, eighth of this ongoing series. There's an election coming up, so famous commander Daniel Leary should be got away from the capital of the Republic before he accidentally endorses someone. But backwater postings never stay backwaters for long.
2010 SF romance, dir. Mark Romanek, Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley: IMDb / allmovie. The generic love triangle plays out over a dark background. Spoilers.
2017 urban fantasy, first of its series. Dr Greta Helsing is a doctor to monsters: vampires, ghouls, mummies, and stranger things. And now a sect of murderous monks is attacking them all…
2006 thriller, eleventh in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). Carlotta's "little sister" Paolina is missing.
2011 military SF, ninth of the Kris Longknife books. Kris leads an expedition in search of an alien menace.
2009 horror, dir. Neil Blomkamp, Sharlto Copley, David James; IMDb / allmovie. The people who don't look like us have to be moved on.
1968 mystery. Corin Johansen moves to Boston to be a designer, and finds her rented room is cheaper if she agrees to use the kitchen… There's a ghost, you see.
1935 comedy anthology, containing six stories of Lord Emsworth, and six others.
In 2022 I read 164 books, up again at last (some long drives meant I started to get through audio books again too).
2019 comic fantasy, first of the Inspector Paris series. Paris is a hard-drinking Mancunian detective, but he's not prepared for a beautiful woman crucified in a suburban garden. Or for her to be fifteen centimetres tall.
2021 supernatural mystery in modern Edinburgh, twelfth in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. People are overdosing on a strange new drug, and long-buried bodies are being dug up on construction sites.
1997 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1957 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. A friend of Miss Marple's, travelling by train, sees a woman being strangled in another train running alongside; but nobody reports having found a body.
1942 mystery. On the eve of the USA joining the Second World War, self-important literary heir Hilary St. John Foulkes insists that someone is trying to murder him, and there's certainly no shortage of people who would profit by his death. Then he's found stabbed in the back in a locked room… Originally published as by "H. H. Holmes".
2022 fantasy, third of what was going to be a trilogy but has now expanded. Nona is a child living in a city at war, but still just about managing to go to school, while Camilla and Pyrrha look after her.
2019 romance. Meg Mackworth hand-letters journals and planners, and spots patterns in things; last year when Reid Sutherland and his fiancée came in for their wedding stationery, she got a Feeling, and couldn't resist working a hidden message of M-I-S-T-A-K-E into the invitation. Now he's back…
2009 war, dir. Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent: IMDb / allmovie. Dakka dakka dakka aieee for you Tommy ze var is over.
2013 fantasy novella. Goblins don't make very good soldiers, but there are lots of them. After an incident with a wizard, nine of them find themselves deep behind enemy lines. Fortunately, they run into a veterinarian…
2011 comedic metafiction. Lacey and Paul are pot-growing siblings in rural California, who find a headless corpse on their property. "Lisa" and "David" are struggling authors who are alternating chapters of the mystery they're writing, but still have significant issues to work out from their former relationship…
2019 romantic fantasy, third of its loose series. Proserpina Gates, widowed bookseller, is helping a client find a rumoured Roman treasure on her land. Ibis Ward is the scholar she engages to assist with the research…
2000 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1932 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes. While "retired" and visiting a Cornish resort, Poirot finds a young woman who has already survived several murderous attacks.
1949 murder mystery. David came to a small seaside village to live with his sister after his nervous breakdown, only to find as his neighbour Professor Verinder, whom he holds responsible for the suicide of the girl he loved. Sure enough, the professor is soon murdered; but David's far from the only person with a motive.
1938 Napoleonic naval fiction, third written but eighth by internal chronology. Captured at the end of the previous book, Hornblower is to be taken to Paris for a show trial and execution.
2008 war, dir. John Woo, Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro: IMDb 1 and 2 / allmovie 1 and 2. A true historical epic, based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
1985 SF, fourth of its series. After Rudolf Rassendyll gets poisoned on a train in Germany, our heroes have to provide a substitute double for Rudolf V of Ruritania.
2010 mystery, second in the series. After the events of the first book, Ruth Galloway is pregnant, and not quite sure how to tell anyone (particularly the father). Oh, and there's another archaeology-related crime to solve.
2017 space-navy SF, sixth of its series. The Federation is doing a good job on the battlefield, but it's simply a smaller economy than the Commonwealth, and those numbers are starting to tell. So Admiral Kyle Roberts comes up with a plan to end the war now, win or lose…
2004 mystery, tenth in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). A very paranoid Harvard professor is being blackmailed; he hires Carlotta to sort it out.
2008 war, dir. Kathryn Bigelow, Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie: IMDb / allmovie. War is a drug.
2009 military SF, seventh of this ongoing series. An irked senator, a shaky ally, and a major defeat for the RCN…
2015 science fiction novelette in the Chronicles of St Mary's series (time travel). When an historian leaves a gun behind in ancient Egypt, Max decides to retrieve it herself rather than calling in the Time Police.
1971 mystery, tenth in the series about Superintendent Henry Tibbett. Recent widow Jane Weston goes to live in a small Swiss village; her housekeeper is accused of murdering her unfaithful husband, and Jane's evidence helps to get her convicted. Then the Tibbetts turn up to visit…
2016 SF, fourth of its series. On an archaeological site light years from Earth, an academic magician makes an interesting discovery… and is promptly murdered.
2005 contemporary police mystery, second in Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series. Ten years ago, Emma's friend Abigail was murdered, and Emma found the body. The woman convicted of the crime always maintained her innocence… and now she's hanged herself. Old secrets will be dug up once more…
2020 documentary, dir. Matt Riddlehoover, Roseanne Cash, Kathy Cash Tittle; IMDb / allmovie. Hello. He's Johnny Cash.
2013 crime. It's 1982, and Sean Duffy, one of the few Catholic detectives in the RUC, has responsibility for a torso found in a rubbish pile. The victim was frozen before he was dumped, and he actually died of an obscure poison…
2014 science fiction novella in the Diving Universe series. When the Ivoire is attacked and disappears, Captain Sabin and the Geneva lead the search mission…
1989 late Cold War naval/espionage thriller. The captain of the nuclear attack submarine Truculent, sent north to join a large NATO exercise, has dropped out of communication. But what's he planning to do?
2022 romantic SF, first of a planned trilogy. Vesper Quill is a designer working on various high-tech products for the penny-pinching Kent Corporation. Kyrion Caldaren is the Emperor's right hand, head of his elite forces. There's no reason they would ever even meet…
2007 horror, dir. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Robert Carlyle, Imogen Poots; IMDb / allmovie. The zombies are still out.
1986 detective fiction, seventh of James's novels of Inspector (now Commander) Adam Dalgliesh. A tramp, and an MP in the process of resigning, are both found in a church, their throats cut. Murder-suicide? Double murder? Anything to do with the anonymous letter the MP had recently received? Adam Dalgleish, in charge of a new unit dedicated to dealing with politically sensitive incidents, investigates.
2022 fantasy. In the marsh-woods of Raddith, Things are living. And some of them give people the ability to curse: if you fester a hatred for long enough, you can turn your enemy into bees, or steal their shadow, or just set them on fire…
1995 military SF, sequel to A Small Colonial War. The rebellion on the colony world ended up with an independent civilian government, and the Japanese Empire doesn't like that…
I now have three Dymo label printers, each ideal for its task. But some care is needed in buying them.
2002 horror, dir. Danny Boyle, Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris; IMDb / allmovie. The zombies are out, and now they're fast.
1992 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1940 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes. The old woman had a young protégé, and now they're both dead, the protégé certainly poisoned.
2019 romantic fantasy, second of its loose series. In a slightly sideways magical 1924, Elspeth Penhallow finds herself looking into the suppliers of an addictive magical drink. As does Lord Geoffrey Carillon…
2002 mystery, ninth in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). As the Big Dig tunnels under Boston, Carlotta's picking up regular work working undercover for the inspectors. But people are behaving strangely, and then one of them has an "accident"…
2018 SF, continuation of the Poor Man's Fight series. Tanner Malone left the Navy with a reputation as a bloody-handed butcher, and went to university to study planetary surveying. The reputation won't leave him behind, and neither will the corporate assassins, so he joins a xenoarchaeological expedition…
2013 mystery-adjacent; sixth and last in the Spellmans series. Izzy took over the family private investigation company, but that doesn't mean her parents are happy with it. Oh, and someone seems to be trying to set her up for an embezzlement charge. Vt Spellman Six: The Next Generation.
2017 space-navy SF, fifth of its series. An ally of the Federation calls for help against pirates; they can't spare many ships, but they can send Captain Roberts, a hero with a reputation for winning against the odds.
2007 drama, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano; IMDb / allmovie. Horrible oilman is horrible.
1970 mystery, ninth in the series about Superintendent Henry Tibbett. An old woman who was a Bright Young Thing between the wars thinks her life is in danger, and asks for Tibbett to be her food-taster – and with all the old "friends" who are now powerful people, she can get him. So he's right there when she drops dead… US vt Many Deadly Returns.
2009 mystery/thriller, third in its series. Georgiana Rannoch, 34th in line to the throne, travels to Scotland to try to find out who's trying to arrange "accidents" for various of the Royal Family…
2010 romance. Laurel McBane and three of her childhood friends run a wedding business, everything from engagement photos to the Big Day; she does the cakes. Delaney Brown is the brother of one of the other friends, who's known them all for years and treats them like little sisters…
2012 mystery-adjacent; fifth in the Spellmans series. Izzy Spellman is by now the most normal member of her family. But that really doesn't take much.
2006 SF action, dir. Guillermo del Toro, Ivana Baquero, Maribel Verdú: IMDb / allmovie. As the Spanish Civil War grinds to an end, a woman goes to live with her new husband, taking her daughter with her. But there is dark wonder behind every tree.
1998 mystery, eighteenth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. This time there are two separate cases: Sharon's secretary Ted is suddenly being secretive and angry, and someone seems to be passing herself off as Sharon…
2017 space-marine SF, side story in the Poor Man's Fight series. Alicia Wong keeps getting tapped for special missions that she's not allowed to talk about…
1951 mystery; Pargeter's first mystery, and first about the Felse family. The War has come and gone, and the heroes have got their "thanks very much" and been thrown back to pick up what they can of their lives; and a German displaced person, working locally, causes so much trouble that nobody's at all surprised when his body is discovered in a stream. But even so, suspicion leaves everyone on edge. (Later republished as by Ellis Peters.)
1945 murder mystery. Kay Bryant lives in a grotty bedsit in London; as her neighbour is having a gas fire installed, the workmen turn up a revolver under the floorboards, and it's linked to the murdered former tenant of the flat. Suspicion follows.
2006 SF action, dir. Alfonso Cuaròn, Clive Owen, Clare-Hope Ashitey: IMDb / allmovie. Twenty years after babies stopped being born, there may still be some hope.
2017 space-navy SF, second of its series. War has broken out in earnest, and Captain Barron and Dauntless are rushed out of the repair yard to join the desperate defence.
2022 romance. Nora Stephens is the other woman, the city-living partner who gets dumped after the man in her life has a life-changing rural experience. Until her sister takes her on a rural experience of her own…
2008 military SF, sixth of this ongoing series. Another small war, another planet.
2005 biopic, dir. James Mangold, Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon: IMDb / allmovie. Hello. I'm Johnny Cash.
2010 police procedural mystery, tartan noir, sixth in the Logan McRae series. McRae is assigned to the team keeping an eye on the convicted, imprisoned and now released sex offender Richard Knox. But there's more to Knox than rape and torture, and many other things are going on too…
1984 SF, third of its series. After Percy Blakeney gets trampled to death while trying to leave Paris, our heroes have to provide a substitute Scarlet Pimpernel.
1982 mystery, second in the Richard Jury series (cosy-ish mystery). The long-missing younger daughter (who may have been playing a Brat Farrar) turns up stabbed on a foggy winter's night…
2015 paranormal romance. Courtney owns a failing antiquarian bookshop, and has a joyless relationship with Mia. Then the gorgeous vampire walks in looking for a rare book…
2005 action, dir. David Cronenberg, Viggo Mortensen, William Hurt: IMDb / allmovie. The guy doesn't do that any more, only this one last time he does.
2016 SF, fourth of its series. Captain Roberts pulled off a daring rescue, but he also brought back a badly-broken ship, and he has powerful enemies. So he's not getting another combat command… but the Intelligence division has a use for him.
1999 mystery, eighth in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). One of Carlotta's occasional volleyball partners asks her to help out with some security advice, but the old woman blows hot and cold, and soon turns up dead.
2011 SF, last of its trilogy. Fifty years after the events of Dust and Chill, the generation ship Jacob's Ladder has finally got to a habitable world. Alas, it's inhabited…
2016 SF, third of its series. Damien Montgomery, one of the few troubleshooters for the Mage-King of Mars, is bounced from one crisis to another. But he hadn't expected to be sent to his old homeworld.
2010 science fiction novella in the Diving Universe series. The Spires are an enigmatic artifact built by a now-vanished civilisation. Meklos Verr is a security consultant hired to guard the archaeological expedition… but nobody is quite what they appear.
2004 drama, dir. Mike Leigh, Imelda Staunton: IMDb / allmovie. Vera is nice and helpful to everyone, and that includes helping out girls in trouble.
2018 romantic fantasy, first of its loose series. In a slightly sideways magical 1922, Rufus tries to find work and keep up his cottage in the New Forest, but everyone despises him as one of the few to have come back unharmed from the War. Feronia, of rather better family but having taken work as a governess to escape from an arranged marriage, is one of the people who might take him seriously…
2016 space-navy SF, third of its series. The war drags on, and Archangel's government tries to hold on militarily while it makes diplomatic and undercover pushes. For both of which, reluctant hero Tanner Malone is the right tool…
1968 mystery, eighth in the series about Chief Inspector, now Superintendent, Henry Tibbett. A minor criminal is shot in a pub toilet; nobody in the private bar next door saw anything, particularly not his fancy girlfriend. But there's more to it than a falling-out among thieves.
2004 science fiction horror, dir. Shane Carruth, David Sullivan: IMDb / allmovie. Uh-oh, we've invented time travel.
2006 mystery, third in Greenwood's Corinna Chapman series. Two of Corinna's bakery staff are made dangerously ill by a mysterious "slimming tea"; a strange cult demands deliberately unpleasant bread for the mortification of the flesh; and Corinna's demanding mother turns up, because Corinna's father has run off from the collective where they live.
2010 mystery-adjacent; fourth in the Spellmans series. Izzy Spellman is a private investigator, but she doesn't do much investigation.
2003 historical war, dir. Peter Weir, Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany; IMDb / AllMovie. In 1805, HMS Surprise goes out hunting a French frigate…
2009 SF, middle volume of its trilogy. The colonisation ship has been restored, and the voyage can continue! Only not.
1993 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1930 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes.
1946 mystery. Lucy Pym's book on psychology proved to be an unexpected best-seller, and now she's a popular speaker. Henrietta, an old school friend, asks her to the physical training college that she runs, and she finds herself enchanted enough to stay on for a few days. But all is not well.
1992 mystery; fourth of Granger's novels of Chief Inspector Markby and non-detective Meredith Mitchell. The old stately home has finally got an owner who can do something with it: he's turned it into a hotel and high-end restaurant. But a protest by the local historical society during the grand opening ends with one of the protesters found stabbed in the wine cellar.
2015 humorous science fiction, third and to date last of its series. Lord Thomas Kinago, foppish distant cousin of the Emperor, is travelling to watch the enigmatic alien Zang bonsai a star system. Meanwhile the rocky Kail may be trying to open diplomatic relations with the Imperium.
2011 urban fantasy, second of its series. Nola O'Grady, high-grade psychic, continues to work for no-such-agency tracking down supernatural threats to the people of San Francisco.
2003 romantic comedy/drama, dir. Sofia Coppola, Bill Murray, Scarlett Johanson; IMDb / allmovie. Two people in Tokyo find themselves isolated and rootless.
1982 detective fiction, second and last of James's novels of Cordelia Gray, private investigator. The fading actress Clarissa Lisle has been getting subtle threats against her life; Cordelia's employed by her (fourth) husband to look into it. This will not end well.
2012 fantasy. The war in Faerie is over. But not everyone will accept the rule of the new Prince, and some of them are causing trouble back on Earth.
1956 police procedural, second in the 87th Precinct series. A mugger's attacking women in the city, with a distinctive pattern to his crimes.
1993 fantasy. King Roland of Ile-Rien is a weakling controlled by his favourite; only his mother, the ageing Dowager Queen Ravenna, is holding the kingdom together. Meanwhile the sorcerer Urbain Grandier has fled from the Inquisition and kidnapped the one magician left at court. For Thomas Boniface, captain of the Queen's Guard, all it needs is the king's half-fey bastard sister Kade Carrion to be up to her old tricks…
2002 science fiction, dir. Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, Max von Sydow: IMDb / allmovie. Precrime stops murders before they happen. But what happens when its boss is named as a future murderer?
2014 urban fantasy, self-published, sixth of its series. A mysterious Something comes to Singapore Three and makes its home in a largely-disused temple. And the Emperors of Heaven and Hell have both gone missing…
2015 action/mystery, third and last in the Miranda Vaughn series. Miranda's asked to help with an audit at a resort, complicated by a film production and an FBI operation led by her potential boyfriend…
2002 drama, dir. Roman Polanski, Adrien Brody: IMDb / allmovie. As the Jews of Krakow are rounded up into the ghetto, one pianist finds out that he's a survivor.
2010 military SF, eighth of the Kris Longknife books. Kris is hunting pirates and slavers beyond the edge of human-claimed space.
1998 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1962 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. Someone drops dead after drinking the famous actress's drink…
1941 murder mystery. The famous botanist Edgar Prees tried to hurl himself off a cliff and was prevented; the next morning he went into work as usual. Where he was promptly found dead. US vt Murder of a Suicide.
2021 fantasy, first of a trilogy, linked to the earlier Crown of Shards series. Gemma's public image is of a spoiled princess; so nobody expects her to be working undercover. But it seems that she's not the only one.
2001 science fiction horror, dir. John Carpenter, Natasha Henstridge, Ice Cube: IMDb / allmovie. It's just a routine prisoner transfer.
2014 space-navy SF, second of its series. Tensions are rising between Archangel's government and the corporations of the interstellar Union of which it's a member. Which doesn't bode well for Tanner Malone's wish just to put in his time and then get out of the Navy.
1998 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1971 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes.
2009 mystery. Ruth Galloway is an archaeologist specialising in bones, living on the edge of a salt marsh in Norfolk. Ten years ago a child went missing; now another one has vanished…
2016 SF, third of its series. Kyle Roberts commands the new carrier Avalon as the war against the Terran Commonwealth continues.
1997 mystery, seventh in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). Twenty-four years ago, Thea Janis was a teenage prodigy, who vanished and was believed dead. Now a client comes to Carlotta with a new chapter in her writing style…
2001 unclassifiable, dir. David Lynch, Naomi Watts, Laura Harring; IMDb / allmovie. The dame is trouble.
2007 SF, first of a trilogy. Rien is a castle servant, told off to look after the prisoner Perceval. Only it's all much more real than that.
2008 mystery/thriller, second in its series. It's still 1932, and Queen Mary is determined to separate her son Edward from That Simpson Woman. Enter Georgiana, 34th in line to the throne, who can be invited to host a Bavarian princess, eighteen and just out of the convent, and throw her into the path of the prince…
Max Ravenhill is a history professor, or so he thinks: but then a strange woman tells him that he's really an exile from the lands of the Fae…
2015 science fiction, sixth in the Chronicles of St Mary's series (time travel). In an effort to rebuild the History department, Max is put in charge of a new batch of trainees.
2004 crime. Alexander Lawson was a rising star in the RUC, until he joined the drugs squad and got hooked on heroin. But in 1995, when his first girlfriend is murdered in Denver, her father encourages him to go and look into it.
2000 crime, dir. Steven Soderbergh, Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle: IMDb / allmovie. Maybe after a hundred years of throwing more police at the drug problem we might try something different?
2006 military SF, fifth of this ongoing series. Dunbar's World is being invaded from Pellegrino, and the RCN is called on by their allies to help. But they don't really care that much, so they send one underarmed ship and Daniel Leary.
2000 horror, dir. E. Elias Merhige, John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe; IMDb / allmovie. In 1921, Murnau travels from Berlin to make a film about the mysterious Count Orlock.
2008 police procedural mystery/horror, sixth in the Bryant and May series. Women are being murdered in pubs, in a weird way. Bryant saw one of them before she died, but even the pub she went into isn't there any more…
2015 action/mystery, second in the Miranda Vaughn series. Disgraced (but found not guilty) former commercial banker Miranda is helping a whistleblower whose boss is making some very dubious-looking payments.
1922 horror, dir. F. W. Murnau, Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim; IMDb / allmovie. Hutter travels from his coastal German home to sell a house to the mysterious Orlock.
2022 fantasy. Viv the orc settles down after a life of adventuring… to open a coffee shop.
1999 religious comedy, dir. Kevin Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Ben Affleck: IMDb / allmovie. A brief revival of the plenary indulgence gives two banished angels the chance to get back into heaven… but that might be really quite a bad thing.
2010 urban fantasy. The Book that created the universe is missing, and may be getting Ideas; Detective Inspector Chen investigates. Meanwhile Zhu Irzh is finding himself drawn to the Great Khan.
1967 mystery, seventh in the series about Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett. The self-made man who wants to be County is found shot; nobody much regrets it, but Tibbett still gets called in to the house full of daft and self-interested people…
1999 drama, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, and a large cast; IMDb / allmovie. Stuff happens.
2004 fantasy/SF, fourth of its series. Rowan the Steerswoman returns to the port town of Donner, to try to learn more about the fallen Guidestar and the wizard who made it fall.
1957 audio thriller by Francis Durbridge, in 8 parts. Paul is asked by a theatrical impresario to look into the death of his daughter, who was training as an actor.
2020 SF/romance, last of a trilogy. Catarina von Hasenberg, the youngest of the heirs to one of the three Great Houses, has a public persona as a partying idiot… and some of the time even she believes it. But she'll still go undercover at a rival House's summer retreat to try to get proof relating to the kidnapping of her brother.
1940 Regency romance. Sir Richard Wyndham, contemplating the loveless but respectable marriage everyone's been badgering him to make for years and with no particular reason or excuse to put it off any longer, celebrates his last night before engagement by getting monstrously drunk. As he stumbles homewards, he spots a lad climbing down from a window on knotted sheets… early US vt Beau Wyndham.
2021 contemporary thriller with fantastic elements. DC Constance Fairchild was taking time off in rural Wales to recover, when the plague happened and she decided to wait it out. But as usual, trouble comes looking for her.
1999 SF noir, dir. Alex Proyas, Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland,; IMDb / allmovie. When you wake up a bath with no memories and a murdered hooker, you don't stop to ask questions.
2008 urban fantasy novella, side story in the Night Huntress (Cat and Bones) series. Isabella Spaga the restaurateur has caught the eye of a minor-league mobster looking to move up in the world, he insists on marrying her, and her ne'er-do-well brother tells her to go along with it then drops out of contact. But help is on the way.
1998 crime/comedy, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen, Jeff Bridges; IMDb / allmovie. That rug really tied the room together.
2009 mystery-adjacent; the Spellmans are a dysfunctional family of private investigators, but narrator Izzy is trying to get away from that. Of course it won't last.
1995 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1965 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes.
2010 urban fantasy. Nola O'Grady works for a government agency that doesn't exist, to preserve Harmony in the face of Order and Chaos. Back in her home town of San Francisco, she's looking into portents of doom. She tries to keep this separate from her family, but, well, many of them have magic talents too…
2005 non-fiction. Using mostly primary sources, the author attempts to determine just what pirates, privateers, and other ne'er-do-wells of the sea got up to in the Golden Age of Piracy.
2019 historical fantasy, third and probably last of its series. The various monstrous ladies – Mary Jekyll and Diana Hyde, Beatrice Rappacini, Catherine Moreau, Justine Frankenstein, and Lucinda Van Helsing – return from Budapest to find both Alice their housemaid and Sherlock Holmes missing.
1997 crime drama and romantic comedy, dir. George Armitage, John Cusack, Minnie Driver; IMDb / allmovie. What could go wrong with combining an assassination job with your high school reunion?
1978 autobiography. Keith Simpson was one of the successors of Spilsbury, and one of the first people in England to turn forensic pathology from an act of drama into a science.
I've changed the way I carry things around with me, to a flexible system for attaching pouches.
2020 fantasy, last of its trilogy. Queen Everleigh Blair decides to take the fight to the enemy: the king of neighbouring Morta, who with his sister orchestrated the massacre that put her on the throne and continues to try to assassinate her.
1984 SF, second of its series. The Timekeepers are terrorists who are trying to prevent time travel – by threatening to cause a catastrophic split in the timestream. In France in 1625?
1990 gothic: Mary Reilly is a maid-of-all-work in the establishment of Doctor Henry Jekyll. This will not end well.
1997 police/crime drama, dir. Curtis Hanson, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce: IMDb / allmovie. In 1950s Los Angeles, even the straight cops are bent.
1973 children's fantasy. It's the summer holidays; Frank and Jess need money after a chair got broken, and set up Own Back Limited, a revenge-for-hire service. But things get far too complicated far too quickly. US vt Witch's Business.
2015 SF, second of its series. Damien Montgomery and Alaura Stealey, two of the most powerful mages in human space, are sent to the planet Ardennes to deal with its escalating rebellion…
2002 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1936 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. The sinister Mr Shaitana invites four detectives to a party with his "collection" of undetected murderers. By the end of the evening, he's been stabbed…
2019 romantic mystery, sixth and last in the Mercy Kilpatrick series. Mercy's hastily dropped into an undercover job, while her police chief fiancé conducts a separate investigation.
1996 romantic horror, dir. Stephen Frears, Julia Roberts, John Malkovich: IMDb / allmovie. Mary is a maid of all work in the household of one Dr Jekyll…
2017 science fiction, sixth of its series. "Boss" is leading dives in the Boneyard, the stockpile of abandoned Fleet ships, in the hope of recovering hardware and learning more.
2010 fantasy, fourth in the Dhulyn and Parno series. Our mercenary heroes escort a princess to her wedding; but they're also sent to find out what happened to the last two mercenaries sent to that court…
1996 crime drama/black comedy, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen, Frances McDormand: IMDb / allmovie. Jerry just wants his wife kidnapped so that her rich father will pay a ransom, that he'll then split with the kidnappers. But subcontracting crime rarely pays.
1954 non-fiction. Molly Lefebure was a junior reporter who took a job as secretary to Keith Simpson, the Supervisor of Medico-Legal Post-Mortems and the forensic pathologist most often consulted by the Metropolitan Police. Reissued in 1990 as Murder on the Home Front.
1996 romantic drama, dir. Anthony Minghella, Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas: IMDb / allmovie. As the final victory over Axis forces in Italy approaches, a nurse looks after a badly-burned mystery man in an abandoned monastery.
2019 SF/romance. Bianca von Hasenberg, a rich widow (rumour has it, by her own hand), spends her resources trying to save other women from the grinder that is Consortium social life. But when she's attacked and the heir to von Hasenberg is kidnapped…
1998 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1941 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes. The (in)famous actress is brazenly conducting an affair, and it's not really a surprised when she turns up strangled, but everyone has an alibi…
2021 fantasy novella in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion). A corpse found floating in the harbour is not unusual… but this one, while clearly dead, is still moving. Penric digs into what happened, and why.
2013 space-navy SF, first of a series. On Archangel, your final exam determines how much you owe the company for your education. Tanner Malone messed that up, but joining the Navy will help pay the debt back faster. Meanwhile the local pirates are getting bolder…
1995 SF noir, dir. Kathryn Bigelow, Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett; IMDb / AllMovie. Paranoia's just reality on a finer scale.
2003 fantasy/SF, third of its series. Rowan the Steerswoman comes to the seaside town of Alemeth, searching the Annex for evidence of a wizard who doesn't seem to exist…
2020 young adult SF, last volume of its trilogy. Maseo Kaytu and Anvil Squad are being sent into space, and nobody's even telling them why…
2021 supernatural mystery in modern Edinburgh, eleventh in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. An old woman's found burned to death in her isolated home; not an accident, not with the beating first, but with a week before the body was even discovered this is going to be a tough one. Then men start dying mysteriously, and the only connection seems to be that they've recently got divorced…
1930 thriller. The Saint and Roger Conway work again to prevent Rayt Marius from plunging Europe into (highly profitable for him) war. Vt The Avenging Saint.
1995 space history, dir. Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton; IMDb / AllMovie. Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here.
2016 space-navy SF, first of an 18-book series. Everybody knows that another war is coming, and Captain Barron and the battleship Dauntless are getting a refit a long way from the front lines. Until a third power gets involved.
2004 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1940 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes. Poirot leaves his dentist, passing a lady who loses the buckle of her shoe while getting out of a taxi. Later, it turns out that the dentist is dead. Suicide? Of course not.
1938 Napoleonic naval fiction, second written but seventh by internal chronology. After his triumphs in the Lydia, Hornblower gets command of a ship of the line, if an ugly and unseaworthy one, not to mention short of crew.
2001 horror, dir. Stuart Gordon, Ezra Godden, Francisco Rabal: IMDb / allmovie. No one leave Imboca. People come, but no one leave.
2006 alternate-history war story, last of six books. The Malwa have been pushed back but still hold their home territory; Belisarius and allies must finish the job.
2014 urban fantasy, fourth of its series. Angel Crawford is still a zombie (subtype conscious and super-strong, though still cerebrivorous), and things seem to be going all right, but several of her allies get kidnapped by the evil corporation…
1985 horror, dir. Stuart Gordon, Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott: IMDb / allmovie. New medical student Herbert West is dedicated to his work…
2009 military SF, seventh of the Kris Longknife books. Kris, continuing her exploration mission, meets an oddly peaceful Iteeche ship (the aliens who almost wiped out humanity during the last big war), and doesn't get to act on what she learns.
2008 urban fantasy. Detective Inspector Chen's partner has disappeared, finding himself stalked by tiger-demons. And someone is trying to assassinate the new Emperor of Heaven.
2019 romantic mystery, fifth in the Mercy Kilpatrick series. A body found in the woods could be connected with an armoured car robbery thirty years ago. FBI agent Kilpatrick and her police chief fiancé Truman Daly, among others, investigate.
1994 horror, dir. John Carpenter, Sam Neill, Julie Carmen: IMDb / allmovie. The insurance investigator is sent to find the wildly popular horror author, who's vanished with the overdue manuscript of his latest book…
1995 non-fiction, an informal look at money-laundering.
2016 science fiction, fifth of its series. In the heyday of the Fleet, one of the great Sector Bases is scheduled for closure – in thirty years, but that still affects people's lives now as they plan their futures. And outside the base odd things start happening, such as two pairs of shoes left at the top of the big local waterfall…
1994 crime drama, dir. Quentin Tarantino, John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson: IMDb / allmovie.
2019 science fiction novella. Four interstellar explorers discover wonders.
1993 action comedy, dir. John McTiernan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charles Dance: IMDb / allmovie. Danny loves the Jack Slater movies, but he didn't expect to find himself in one.
1997 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1937 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes. The heiress gets married (to her best friend's former fiancé), then murdered; she's joined in the latter by what seems like half the cast.
2020 Victorian fantasy. Wounded in Afghanistan, Dr J. H. Doyle returns to London and takes up with a new roommate, a renegade angel interested in the solving of crime.
2015 SF, second of its series. Kyle Roberts, former fighter jock now forced by neural implant damage into the big-ship navy, has both a good popular reputation and highly-placed enemies. Which means that his command of the new carrier is going to be more complicated than it needs to be.
1993 drama, dir. Steven Spielberg, Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley: IMDb / allmovie. As the Jews of Krakow are rounded up into the ghetto, one Nazi businessman sees a way to get rich.
2021 fantasy. Thara Celehar is a witness for the dead, a priest who can retrieve some memories of the recently-deceased. Having been of some slight assistance to the emperor, he's moved away as far as he can from the court and politics, and just wants to be able to do his job…
1992 crime drama, dir. Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth: IMDb / allmovie. What happens if the manager won't give you the diamonds?
2019 science fiction, a direct sequel to After Atlas. Dee made it onto the evacuation ship at the last moment, and is one of the few people who knows what happened to Earth as they left. But a mysterious someone seems to want to help her with her quest for justice.
2020 young adult SF, middle volume of a trilogy. Maseo Kaytu has done the previously impossible and operated one of the mysterious CAV weapons as its pilot rather than as a remote controller. What next?
1923 comedy. Psmith finds himself at Blandings, impersonating a squalid but trendy Canadian poet.
1967 crime/revenge film, dir. John Boorman, Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson; IMDb / allmovie. Walker's partner in crime betrayed him, took his wife and left him for dead. Walker wants his money back.
1940 murder mystery. Toby Dyke the journalist vaguely knows the young and naïve Lou Capell, so when she comes to him in tears wanting a place to sleep and to borrow fifteen pounds, he provides them, even though she refuses to explain why. Soon afterwards, he gets a phone call saying she's been murdered… US vt Rehearsals for Murder.
1994 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1942 mystery, in a single 90-minute episode. Amyas Crale's widow went to prison for poisoning him, and died there; now their daughter plans to marry, but worries about the possibility of a hereditary murderousness, and asks Poirot to investigate.
2022 SF/mystery; 54th novel of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). The woman's body, throat slit, is dumped on a playground bench, neatly dressed and made up but decades out of style. And the note reads Bad Mommy.
2017 SF horror, dir. Dagen Merrill, Sarah Habel, Dominic Monaghan: IMDb / allmovie. Something's amiss at a nuclear power plant… of the future.
1900 anthology of short stories (first published in Pearson's Magazine), dealing with Newton Moore, top agent of the British Secret Service. (The "Fund" part is never explained, though it seems to have been in general use at the time; I think the idea may have been that Britain wouldn't want an actual secret service like those filthy foreigners, but could have a fund to pay for occasional distasteful but necessary actions.)
2014 fantasy, dir. Mark Atkins, Scott Martin, Ross Brooks: IMDb / allmovie. In the Second World War, the Nazis have got dragons. That's about it really.
2001 alternate-history war story, fifth of six books. Belisarius and his allies take the war to the Malwa, invading the subcontinent and pushing them back into their heartland.
1992 western, dir. and starring Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman: IMDb / allmovie. William Munny was a bad man, until his wife reformed him. But she's dead.
1919 dystopian science fiction. Three friends accidentally inhale a strange dust, and find themselves in a Philadelphia… of the future!
1991 science fiction, dir. James Cameron, Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger: IMDb / allmovie. Two more soldiers from the future, and a different target to kill or protect.
2022 spy-jinks audio drama by Julian Simpson. Clara Page is an agent set to track down the Themis Group, a criminal conspiracy so powerful nobody's even heard of it.
1980 thriller, a stand-alone novel. Philippa Palfrey, who's always known she was adopted, makes use of a change in the law to discover the identities of her biological parents – who turn out to be a notorious rapist and murderess.
1903 anthology of short stories (first published in Pearson's Magazine), in which various catastrophes are visited upon London.
1984 science fiction, dir. James Cameron, Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger: IMDb / allmovie. Two soldiers from the future fight to kill, or save, the mother of the revolution.
2019 SF/romance. Ada von Hasenberg, younger daughter of one of the three Houses that together rule human space, has been on the run for two years from an arranged marriage. She's finally been caught… but then they made the mistake of putting her in a cell with the man-monster.
1991 drama, dir. Ridley Scott, Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis; IMDb / allmovie. It was just supposed to be a weekend trip to a cabin in the mountains…
1995 mystery, sixth in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). She may not have a client but, when shenanigans affect the cab company she drives for part-time, Carlotta can't help but get involved.
1990 science fiction/comedy, dir. Robert Zemeckis, Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd: IMDb / allmovie. You're just not thinking fourth dimensionally!
1891 fantasy (perhaps 1885). Tourmalin, bored on a long sea voyage, discovers the Anglo-Australian Joint Stock Time Bank, into which he can deposit his unwanted time, only to reclaim and spend it later.
1989 science fiction/comedy, dir. Robert Zemeckis, Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd: IMDb / allmovie. We've got to do something about your kids!
2014 action/mystery novella. Miranda's working at the mall to get some money together for Christmas presents for her friends while pining over her not-quite-a-boyfriend-yet. Then things happen.
1961 audio thriller by Francis Durbridge, in 8 parts. While Paul's away on a lecture tour, his wife Steve is briefly kidnapped as a warning about… something… and left in her car is a coat with the unusual label "Margo".
2019 contemporary thriller. After the events of the last book, DC Constance Fairchild is on suspension and hounded by the press. But she's a born copper, so when a man turns up by her bins, mutilated and barely alive, she can't keep out of it…
1985 science fiction/comedy, dir. Robert Zemeckis, Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd: IMDb / allmovie. You built a time machine? In a DeLorean?
1992 fantasy/SF, second of its series. Rowan the Steerswoman and Bel the barbarian travel into the Outskirts to try to find the source of the mysterious blue jewels…
1990 Mafia drama, dir. Martin Scorsese, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci: IMDb / allmovie. Henry Hill learns that being a wiseguy is great fun, until it isn't.
1965 mystery, sixth in the series about Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett. Tibbett's wife Emmy is invited to a reunion of staff from the fighter control station where she worked as a young woman during the war. They get together a plan to write a history of the station, with a focus on "Beau" Guest, the injured former pilot who committed suicide by aircraft. Or did he…? Somebody doesn't want the past uncovered.
2009 fantasy, third in the Dhulyn and Parno series. Our mercenary heroes are forced to take a long ocean voyage to mediate between shipbuilding nomads and the land power they trade with; things go comprehensively wrong.
1989 black comedy, dir. Michael Lehmann, Winona Ryder, Christian Slater: IMDb / allmovie. Veronica's part of the Top Clique, but isn't actually into pointless cruelty and drunken sex. New student JD seems to offer an alternative…
1936 romance. Sylvester Lavenham is dying, and is determined to protect his niece Eustacie (young and excitable) by betrothing her to his nephew Sir Tristram Shield (rather older, stolid, but willing to do his duty). Naturally, she must run away to London to become a governess. But she wasn't expecting smugglers…
1992 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1934 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes. The nasty American has been stabbed in his berth, but even Poirot seems unable to make sense of the evidence.
1999 mystery, first in Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series. Rachel, Anne and Grace are working on an environmental study in the North Pennines, where the landowner's planning to reopen an old quarry. Their nearby neighbour, a woman with a disabled husband, apparently hangs herself, though it seems very out of character for her. And still waters are running very deep…
1989 drama, dir. Spike Lee, Danny Aiello; IMDb / allmovie. On the hottest day of the year, on a block in Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, nobody was planning that the day would end with a death.
Contemporary fantasy, sixth in the series. Peter Grant, Metropolitan Police constable and magician, is back in London, starting with a magic-related drug overdose and following clues to the Big Bad.
1897 SF short story. A massive volcanic fissure opens in the Thames Valley; London and the home counties are flooded with lava.
1988 thriller/action, dir. John McTiernan, Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman; IMDb / allmovie.
2008 mystery-adjacent, second of its series. Izzy Spellman, private investigator and all-round mess, gets arrested for spying on her secretive neighbour.
2011 fantasy. The civil war is over, and Lord Protector Cranmer is in charge… but seems strangely unwilling to go about the business of ruling. Meanwhile the last of the Royal Guard finds a dead woman by the side of the road…
1988 drama, dir. Guiseppe Tornatore: IMDb / allmovie. Salvatore the famous filmmaker learns that Alfredo is dead; but who was Alfredo to him? Released as Nuovo Cinema Paradiso in Italy.
2018 science fiction, concurrent with After Atlas. Anna Kubrin, geologist and painter, arrives on the Mars base to join the four-person scientific crew there. But then she finds a painting, in her own distinctive style, warning her not to trust one of them; equipment is missing from what she remembers packing, though the inventory matches what's there; an inscription is absent from the inside of her wedding ring; and worst of all, she knows just what paranoia looks like, because she saw it in her father's breakdown.
1997 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1964 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes. Miss Marple's nephew sends her on a winter holiday for the good of her health, but she soon gets bored; fortunately the crusty old Major drops dead just after telling her about an unsolved murder.
2020 superheroic SF. Even supervillains need office workers, and like everyone else they hire through a temp agency. Anna didn't expect to find herself holding a mind-control device to the mayor's kid's head, but she still became collateral damage when the superheroes came in to rescue him. Then it gets interesting.
1899 collection of variously SF, polemic, and whimsical stories.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I want a trailer to tell me what's different about this film; the marketers want it to tell me why it's like all the others..)
2021 SF, third of its series. Fergus is just trying to settle back down with more family than he thought he had, but this time he's not even surprised when he gets involved in world-saving…
1968 war, dir. John Wayne and Ray Kellogg, Wayne, David Janssen: IMDb / allmovie.
2021 SF. Mallory and Jessa are orphans of the corporate wars, streaming their VR gameplay in the hope of getting more water credits. But the real prize in the game is finding the SecOps NPCs, automated avatars of real-world corporate supersoldiers…
2021 mystery story, sixth of the Lady Sherlock series. Charlotte Holmes finds herself employed by Moriarty himself, to investigate the situation of his estranged daughter. But nothing is as it appears.
2018 romantic mystery, fourth in the Mercy Kilpatrick series. Skeletal human remains turn up in a blocked culvert, with a pattern of injury consistent with a killer from twenty years ago. And in this small town, many of the people who were involved back then are still around now.
1987 war, dir. John Irvin, Dylan McDermott, Courtney B. Vance: IMDb / allmovie. Even the breaks between war are fairly hellish.
2013 science fiction, fourth of its series. The Empire is attacking: "Boss" goes to a cluster of abandoned ancient ships to try to get some of them back into service, while Captain Cooper tries to hold off the initial wave with the ships they have.
1987 war, dir. Barry Levinson, Robin Williams: IMDb / allmovie. A laugh a minute in good old Vietnam.
2021 fantasy novel in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion). Penric's brother-in-law, the former General Arisaydia, is quite happy to ignore the Imperial succession crisis. But one of the factions doesn't trust him to stay out, and sends a new sort of assassin after him. Which generates a theological challenge for Penric…
1995 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1953 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. Rex Fortescue dies of poisoned marmalade, and someone has filled his pocket with grains of rye.
1987 war, dir. Stanley Kubrick, Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey: IMDb / allmovie. Boot camp is hell, then it gets worse.
2021 science fiction novella, first of a planned series. Dex is a monk who feels hemmed in in the city; going out and serving tea-and-relaxation to villagers seems like a reasonable change. But it's not the answer.
2017 thriller, twelfth in the series about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox, former soldier and currently private bodyguard. Charlie's in Iraq, on the trail of whoever tortured an ex-soldier to death – because there's a chance it might be her old lover Sean.
1986 war, dir. Oliver Stone, Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger: IMDb / allmovie. Turns out war isn't as bad as you thought; it's worse.
2013 urban fantasy, third of its series. Angel Crawford is still a zombie (subtype conscious and super-strong, though still cerebrivorous), and gradually getting her new life together. It doesn't help that nobody tells her anything.
2005 military SF, fourth of this ongoing series. With riots breaking out after an officer who lethally suppressed a mutiny is found not guilty at his court-martial, Daniel Leary ends up serving under him. This is unlikely to end well.
1987 drama, dir. John Huston, Anjelica Huston, Donal McCann: IMDb / allmovie. Everybody is miserable (in Dublin in 1904).
1993 SF, last of its trilogy. Saint Butterflies-are-free Peace Sincere has a new job: stop the war by killing the man who's starting it. But of course things are going to get much more complicated.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I hate most things.)
In 2021 I read 129 books, fewer again as I think I've fallen out of the habit of making time to read. (And I'm still not having long drives for listening to audio books.)
2007 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1956 mystery, in four thirty-minute episodes. Ariadne Oliver has been blandished into organising a murder-mystery clue-hunt at the summer fête held at Nasse House, and she calls in Poirot to give the prize; but the film-obsessed local girl playing the victim is found strangled…
2005 gothic giallo. Father Xaviero Torturo rises from obscurity to become Pope; it helps that he speaks with the tongue of a saint.
1986 science fiction, dir. James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn: IMDb / allmovie. Game over man, game over.
2010 steampunk fantasy, first of its series. Amaranthe Lokdon is a cop in the Empire's capital city, struggling against sex prejudice. While she's dealing with a robbery, the young Emperor has a chance conversation with her, and next thing she knows the General of the Armies is sending her out alone on a job to kill Sicarius, the most dangerous assassin ever known…
1979 science fiction horror, dir. Ridley Scott, Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver: IMDb / allmovie. Nobody listens to the woman, and as a result they all die.
2007 urban fantasy. Detective Inspector Chen and his demonic partner Zhu Irzh just want to get on with solving crime. But they're set to escort a celestial diplomat from Heaven on a visit to Hell…
1958 science fiction, dir. Edward L. Cahn, Marshall Thompson, Shawn Smith: IMDb / allmovie. The last survivor of the first Mars expedition is being brought back to face a court-martial for killing all the others. But his mad story of a monster might just be true…
2020 American Regency-ish romance, part of a loosely linked series. Arabella Larke and the Marquess of Hardbury were promised to each other as children, but on coming back from years overseas the first thing he did was refuse to abide by the parental plan. That suits her. But it's not going to work out that way.
1986 drama, dir. Rob Reiner, Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix: IMDb / allmovie. In 1959, four kids go out following a rumour of a dead body…
2019 fantasy novella in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion). In the not-Venice city of Lodi, Penric's called to look at a madman recovered from the sea. Sure enough, he's got a demon riding him. Then he runs away.
2001 alternate-history war story, fourth of six books. Belisarius delays the Malwa's best general in the Zagros Mountains to stop him reaching Mesopotamia; his wife Antonina forges an alliance with the Axumites.
2014 audio adaptation by Joy Wilkinson of Christie's 1958 mystery, in three 30-minute episodes. Dr Arthur Calgary has been in the Antarctic – during which the man to whom he gave a lift one rainy night, for whom Calgary might have given an alibi, has been convicted of the murder of his mother and died in prison. But the family is oddly ungrateful for the news…
2015 military fantasy. In the new Second Commonwealth, five apprentices learn to use their magical power.
1985 drama, dir. John Hughes, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald: IMDb / allmovie. Five high school kids are in weekend detention. Much to their surprise, this will actually have a positive effect on them.
2019 young adult SF, first of a trilogy. Maseo Kaytu is a former child terrorist, who enlists because he feels a need to make up for some of the harm he did. But it's a crapsack world, and the only way he can get in at all is by volunteering for the suicide units…
2021 thriller/mystery, dir. Jaume Colette-Sara, Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt; IMDb / allmovie. In 1916, Dr Lily Houghton travels up the Amazon in search of a tree that could revolutionise medicine…
1999 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1950 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes. When the local paper carries an advertisement that there'll be a murder, everyone in the village turns up to see what's going on. But it's the gunman who ends up dead…
2017 alternate-history novella. In the 1850s, President Buchanan approved a plan to import hippopotamoi into the US as livestock – they'd eat the invasive plants and produce plenty of meat. Forty years later, the hippo is both ranched animal and mount… but feral hippos infest the lower Mississippi, until someone comes up with a plan to clear them out.
1985 drama/tragedy, dir. Mike Newell, Miranda Richardson, Rupert Everett: IMDb / allmovie. In 1955, Ruth Ellis just wants to run a nightclub and do a little prostitution on the side, but things have to get all complicated.
2019 fantasy, second of its trilogy. Everleigh Blair killed the usurper and took the throne of Bellona… but her problems are not even slightly over.
1984 drama/black comedy, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen, John Getz, Frances McDormand: IMDb / allmovie. Abby was just planning to leave her husband, but then it all got complicated.
1959 remake of 1950 audio thriller by Francis Durbridge, in 8 parts. A child is kidnapped, her "sitter-in" has vanished and may be responsible, and of course Drugs are lurking in the background.
2021 science fiction, second in a projected series. The huge Teixcalaanli Empire is going to war, thanks largely to the actions of Mahit Dzmare, Ambassador from the independent polity of Lsel Station. But of course a war that might end with extinction that isn't going to stop everyone from playing politics…
2015 fantasy, last of the Katya and Starbride tetralogy. Katya and Starbride are both fighting to depose the Fiend-possessed usurper Roland, but winning that battle won't be the hardest thing either of them has to do.
1984 drama, dir. Wim Wenders, Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski: IMDb / allmovie. A man stumbles out of the desert, and collapses. Why was he there? What will he do next?
2010 SF/fantasy, sequel to Soul Purpose. Alan Reece has coped with his experiences as the Conduit, a link between this universe and the space outside it, by trying to ignore them. Unfortunately there are things out there that aren't going to ignore him.
1993 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1969 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. At a Hallowe'en party, a girl says that she once saw a murder, but didn't realise it until later. By the end of the evening she's been drowned in the apple-bobbing tub.
1983 drama/comedy, dir. Bill Forsyth, Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson; IMDb / allmovie. Young privileged man travels from Houston to Charming Rural Land, and learns an Important Lesson about Life.
1981 mystery, first in the Richard Jury series (mostly cosy mystery with police investigator, rather than police procedural). When the second murder happens in the village, the local force calls in Scotland Yard. But several more people will die before it's all resolved.
1982 science fiction horror, dir. John Carpenter, Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley: IMDb / allmovie. So the antarctic scientists find an alien spaceship in the ice…
2018 technothriller. Those sneaky Russians have a new terror weapon, and only a pre-emptive attack can prevent World War III.
1951 science fiction, dir. Christian Nyby, Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan: IMDb / allmovie. So the arctic scientists find an alien spaceship in the ice…
2020 SF, second of its series. Fergus has got back to his found-family, the Shipmakers of Pluto; but when he goes to Earth to tie off one last bit of unfinished business, things suddenly get desperately complicated again.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Since I started doing a film review podcast I hate slightly less of everything, but I hate generic film with nothing to say if anything more than before.)
1983 aviation/space, dir. Philip Kaufman, Ed Harris, Scott Glenn; IMDb / AllMovie. As the cutting edge of aviation shifts from transonic flight to spaceflight, NASA needs a new sort of hero.
1938 science fiction novella. A group of Antarctic researchers finds a spaceship in the ice, wrecked millions of years ago. But something of its crew/cargo seems still to be alive, and able to take over humans…
2021 science fiction comedy, 10 episodes. The Cerritos continues to do all of Starfleet's trivial and boring jobs (and they continue to be surprisingly dangerous).
2020 supernatural mystery in modern Edinburgh, tenth in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. A police administrative assistant doesn't turn up for work, just as a major cross-jurisdictional investigation is kicking off. Did she tip off the targets and vanish, or is something more sinister going on?
2010 audio adaptation of Christie's 1944 mystery, in four half-hour episodes. Lady Tressilian invites her former ward for a summer visit; he insists on bringing both his ex-wife and his current one. And then people start to die.
1982 drama, dir. Barry Levinson, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon; IMDb / allmovie. In 1959, young men contemplate growing up, and decide that it's too much like hard work.
2000 mystery, fourth and last of Caudwell's Hilary Tamar series. Julia's aunt Regina has an annoying new fortune-telling neighbour, with an even more annoying droopy niece. Julia's colleague Selena has a client who wants to know which of the underlings at his bank is abusing his position with insider dealing. Which would all be just a series of nuisances, until people start to drop dead.
2020 science fiction comedy, 10 episodes. On the USS Cerritos, the bridge crew think they're the stars of the show, but we follow the ensigns as they go about their daily grind (plus adventure).
2018 young adult SF, first of its series. Darrow is a Red, lowest of the colour-coded castes, mining helium-3 on Mars to power the terraforming project. One day the work will end and everyone will live on the surface… but it's all a lie.
1981 adventure, dir. Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Karen Allen; IMDb / AllMovie. In 1936, the treasure-hunting "archaeologist" Indiana Jones tries to beat the Nazis to the lost Ark of the Covenant.
1934 romance. The Winwoods are a good family, but impoverished; the rich Earl of Rule needs a wife. He offers for the oldest sister, as is proper, but Elizabeth already has a beau (though a sadly poor one), so young Horatia suggests that she might do just as well. A marriage of convenience seems like a good idea to both of them, but…
1981 war, dir. Wolfgang Peterson, Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer; IMDb / AllMovie. In late 1941, U-96 goes out hunting Allied ships…
2011 fantasy, last of its trilogy. The Shadowborn are attacking, and even if Lightborn and Darkborn work together that may not be enough to stop them…
2016 SF, last of its trilogy. Jak needs to get back to her homeworld of Haefen for specialised medical attention, and to hunt down the sniper who killed her brother; Torrin needs to go there because her sister and business partner has been kidnapped.
1980 air disaster spoof, dir. Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker, Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty: IMDb / allmovie. It's Zero Hour! all over again, with jokes. vt Flying High!
1877 polemic, the autobiography of a horse.
1974 air disaster film, dir. Jack Smight, Charlton Heston, Karen Black: IMDb / allmovie. Midair collision over Salt Lake… vt Airport '75.
1970 air disaster film, dir. George Seaton, Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin: IMDb / allmovie. Everything's happening at Chicago Airport tonight…
2021 SF/mystery; 53rd novel of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). A woman is found dumped on a demolition site; while Eve Dallas is investigating that, another body turns up nearby, but it's been walled up for forty years.
1992 SF, middle volume of a trilogy. Saint Butterflies-are-free Peace Sincere, a smuggler pilot without a ship, has nearly got her inconvenient protégé back to safety… but it's never that simple.
1957 aviation disaster, dir. Hall Bartlett, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell: IMDb / allmovie. Looks like you picked the wrong week to quit smoking.
1999 audio adaptation of Christie's 1942 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. The blonde dressed for a party turns up, stone dead, on the floor of the library at Gossington Hall…
1954 disaster film, dir. William A. Wellman, John Wayne, Claire Trevor: IMDb / allmovie. A 2,000-mile overwater flight is no place for an engine to explode.
2012 thriller novelette, prequel to the series Her Royal Spyness. "Georgie", cousin to the king but really of no importance, is coming to the end of her Season with no offers. She doesn't particularly fancy Prince Otto of Prussia, but going to a Halloween Ball (an American innovation) should be harmless enough…
1980 drama, dir. Martin Scorsese, Robert de Niro, Joe Pesci; IMDb / allmovie. The boxer is on the way up, then he's on the way down.
1904 revenge-fiction. They laughed at George Arthur Rose at the seminary, but now he'll show them – he'll show them all!
2015 historical fantasy, fifth in the Order of the Air series. Late in 1935, Alma, Lewis and Mitch are showing off the new Catalina at an air show in Palermo, while Jerry is across the Med in Alexandria following magical hints to the lost tomb of Alexander the Great.
1978 horror, dir. George Romero, David Emge, Ken Foree: IMDb / allmovie. The dead are still rising, and they're still hungry.
2019 American Regency-ish romance, part of a loosely linked series. Thea Knight disguises herself as her sister Helen, so that Helen can elope with her beau. Lord Luxborough, set to watch Helen, realises what's going on, and works out that if he marries the woman under a false name he can get access to the family money he needs without the inconvenience of a wife he doesn't want…
1968 horror, dir. George Romero, Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea: IMDb / allmovie. The dead are rising, and they're hungry.
2018 SF, second of its series. Adda the hacker and Iridian the engineer travel with the infamous pirate Captain Sloane to his base on Vesta… which has been grabbed out from under him while he was away.
1979 war, dir. Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall: IMDb / allmovie. Captain Willard is sent upriver to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, who's fighting the war just a bit too well.
2018 YA science fiction, last of its trilogy. When Kerenza IV was invaded, some of the inhabitants escaped; a few survived on the surface. Now the escapees' only option is to come back, but the invaders are still there…
2008 science fiction, dir. Scott Derrickson, Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly: IMDb / allmovie. The aliens land with a message for humanity, and the humans immediately shoot one of them.
2021 science fiction. Three travellers get stranded at an inn by bad weather, and for once don't pass the time by telling each other stories.
1899 novella. Charles Marlow takes a steamboat up the Congo to the aid of the ivory-agent, Mr Kurtz…
1992 audio adaptation of Christie's 1933 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes. Lord Edgware has been denying his actress wife a divorce; she's been talking about killing him; and then he's murdered, and his staff say they saw her enter the house. But she has a perfect alibi…
1959 science fiction, dir. Ed Wood, Gregory Walcott, Bela Lugosi: IMDb / allmovie. The aliens land with a message for humanity, but that message is apparently "Your stupid brains!" Original vt: Grave Robbers From Outer Space.
2013 thriller, eleventh in the series about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox, former soldier and currently private bodyguard. Charlie's in Colombia, helping a disaster relief crew after an earthquake. Not really her thing? No, but her employer is also concerned about the rumours of large-scale thefts that seem to be following this team around the world, and the previous security guy has just mysteriously died…
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. I still hate everything.)
2018 mystery. Clare Cassidy's fellow teacher Ella Elphick has been stabbed to death, in a way that suggests more than casual killing. A further death, and other odd events, suggest that someone is modelling the crimes on The Stranger, a story by an obscure Victorian author that forms part of her creative writing course.
1951 science fiction, dir. Robert Wise, Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal: IMDb / allmovie. The aliens land with a message for humanity, and the humans immediately shoot one of them.
2018 non-fiction. Kassia St Clair, a design journalist, looks at the history of fabric and how it has influenced, and been influenced by, the history of civilisation.
1989 fantasy/SF. In a primitive world, Rowan is a Steerswoman, a wandering scholar sworn to answer any question she can. She tries to learn more about strange jewels found in the Outskirts, but it seems that the wizards object…
2000 audio adaptation of Christie's 1936 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. Someone with the initials A. A. is murdered in Andover, then B. B. in Bexhill; and Poirot receives a boastful letter before each killing. But how to catch them?
2003 non-fiction, a study of six British post-war technological projects.
1976 horror, dir. Bert I. Gordon, Marjoe Gortner, Pamela Franklin: IMDb / allmovie. "Based on a Portion of the Novel By H. G. Wells."
2009 romance. Emmaline Grant and three of her childhood friends run a wedding business, everything from engagement photos to the Big Day; she does the flowers and decoration. Jack Cooke is a family friend, and the architect working on the business's various expansions and extensions. They've known each other for years, but then all of a sudden…
2015 SF, first in a series. Avalon is a famous space-fighter carrier with plenty of battle honours, but outdated and due for scrapping. But first she's due one last goodwill tour of border systems.
2006 SF/fantasy. Alan Reece is a vet who hates his job, who's just seen something downright strange on a late night call. Kate is an ex-medium turned physics student whose models of the new particle accelerator show some disturbing possibilities. It's not the end of the world. If we're lucky.
1977 science fiction, dir. Steven Spielberg, Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon: IMDb / allmovie. The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming!
2020 modern fantasy. If magicians are powerful, why don't they rule the world? Well, they do, but secretly. Two years ago a monster slaughtered Sam's wife and son, and he's quietly been drinking himself to death ever since; but now he meets someone else who knows what's going on, and is willing to help him get his revenge.
1956 audio thriller by Francis Durbridge, in 8 parts. The daughter of the head of MI5 has gone missing, and someone seems to have taken a pot at amateur sleuth Paul Temple while he was on holiday…
1976 drama, dir. Sidney Lumet, Peter Finch, William Holden; IMDb / allmovie. What TV really needs is a lunatic.
2016 mimetic fiction. Alan Reece qualifies as a vet, and finds that actual practice barely overlaps with what they taught him at the Langford Veterinary School.
2014 SF, first in a series. Interstellar travel is possible only because of Jump Mages, the magicians who were the byproduct of the Eugenics Wars centuries ago. Damien Montgomery has the talent, and has just finished training, but without the backing of a powerful family, he doesn't have much chance of getting a ship posting soon. Unless he meets a truly desperate captain…
1975 thriller, dir. John Huston, Michael Caine, Sean Connery; IMDb / allmovie. The two ex-soldiers have a great idea…
2014 fantasy, third of a tetralogy. Princess Katya is with the royal family, trying to drum up support for an army to retake the capital and depose the usurper. Her lover Starbride is hiding in the capital, gathering information and building a resistance.
1975 thriller, dir. Steven Spielberg, Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw: IMDb / allmovie. You can't close the beaches if only one person has died…
2006 audio adaptation of Christie's 1952 mystery, in five half-hour episodes. The snoopy cleaning-woman was bashed on the head, supposedly by her lodger for a little cash; but a little earlier, she'd got excited over a tabloid article about "Women Victims of Bygone Tragedies", some of whom may have sinned more than been sinned against.
2007 lesbian noir crime; third and last in Griffith's series about Aud Torvingen. Aud travels to Seattle to meet her mother, who's making a rare trip to the USA with her new husband. There's also a question of an underperforming commercial property…
1973 noir-esque, dir. Robert Altman, Elliott Gould, Nina Van Pallandt: IMDb / allmovie. So one night the private eye's buddy asks him for a lift…
1946 noir, dir. Howard Hawks, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall: IMDb / allmovie. The general hires the private eye to deal with his daughter's blackmailer…
1984 SF, first of a series. In the 27th century, the economic benefits of war are realised without danger to the warring countries themselves, by sending soldiers into the past to join in historical conflicts: referees count the killed and wounded. But time travel is never simple…
1941 noir, dir. John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor: IMDb / allmovie. So for a third time the dame hires the private eye to find her sister, who ran off with a man…
1985 audio adaptation of Christie's 1928 mystery, in six half-hour episodes. The heiress was murdered on the train on which her estranged husband was also travelling; of course her jewels were missing, and everyone suspects her parasite of a lover. Poirot, equally of course, is not so sure.
1936 noir comedy, dir. William Dieterle, Warren William, Bette Davis: IMDb / allmovie. So once more the dame hires the private eye to find her sister, who ran off with a man… Vtt Men On Her Mind, The Man in the Black Hat, Hard Luck Dame.
2018 fantasy/SF, sequel to Archivist Wasp. The Catchkeep-priest has been overthrown, and the former acolytes and Archivist are an uneasy part of the post-apocalyptic community of Sweetwater. But bad things are coming…
1931 noir, dir. Roy del Ruth, Ricardo Cortez, Bebe Daniels: IMDb / allmovie. So the dame hires the private eye to find her sister, who ran off with a man… Vtt Woman of the World, All Women, Dangerous Female.
2012 crime. It's the spring of 1981, and Sean Duffy is a Catholic detective in the RUC. He finds evidence of what might be Northern Ireland's first serial killer, not to mention a dodgy-looking suicide, but all too many things just don't add up.
1974 thriller. A huge shark seems to have taken up residence off the tourist beaches at Amity, Long Island…
1946 children's fantasy. In 1842, newly-orphaned Maria Merryweather leaves London to live with her only relative, somewhere in the West Country. Everything seems idyllic, except…
2008 military SF, sixth of the Kris Longknife books. Kris is sent to the back of beyond, in another vain attempt to keep her out of trouble. Good thing she has a pocket warship and quite a few Marines.
1974 noir, dir. Roman Polański, Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway: IMDb / allmovie. They never just want you to follow their erring husband… Spoilers.
2018 historical fantasy, second of a trilogy. The five monstrous daughters/creations of mad scientists have made a life for themselves in London; but their old governess Miss Murray wants their help in Vienna with Lucinda van Helsing and the secretive Société des Alchimistes…
2018 romantic mystery, third in the Mercy Kilpatrick series. One snowy night, Mercy nearly runs over a child seeking help for her dying grandmother. Who, it becomes clear, has been murdered.
1967 crime, dir. Arthur Penn, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway: IMDb / allmovie. Bored girl meets bad man. Death ensues.
2012 science fiction, third of its series. "Boss" goes into abandoned ancient bases in search of clues to the present location of a nomadic fleet; her former employee "Squishy" is back working in the Empire's stealth technology project, as the only way of shutting it down once and for all.
1954 audio thriller by Francis Durbridge, in eight parts: Paul Temple is a professional novelist and amateur sleuth. A young woman is murdered, and her boyfriend is set to hang. But her father is convinced that the man is innocent.
1973 crime, dir. Terrence Malick, Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek: IMDb / allmovie. Bad boy Kit meets good(-ish) girl Holly. Death ensues.
2014 humorous science fiction, fifth in the Isambard Smith series. The Lemming men are invading the British Space Empire, and must be stopped!
1989 mystery, third of Caudwell's Hilary Tamar series. The barrister Cantrip has been called to Jersey, though he's certainly not a tax expert. It turns out that the administrators of the Daffodil Trust are becoming unexpectedly prone to sudden death…
2010 science fiction, last of its trilogy. Ariane Kedros is testifying at the trial of surviving terrorists, and someone seems to be trying to blow her up, but at least the enigmatic aliens have a new job for her. Oh good…
1998 non-fiction. A Pan Am Boeing 314 Clipper was en route from Noumea to Auckland when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. They were instructed to make their way back to the USA as best they could.
2013 audio adaptation of Christie's 1939 mystery, in three half-hour episodes. Luke Fitzwilliam runs into a dotty old lady who's going to London to report a series of murders in her small village… but she's "accidentally" killed before she can get anywhere.
2010 fantasy, second of its trilogy. Both Darkborn (burned by light) and Lightborn (dissolved by darkness) are having political upheavals, with assassination only another tool in the kit. Someone seems to be trying to set them at war with each other. But will anyone listen in time?
2015 SF, second of a trilogy. Torrin has got her new love Jak back to Torrin's home world, but that isn't by any means going to be the end of their problems.
2020 fantasy, dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne: IMDb / allmovie. From the dawn of time they came, moving silently down the centuries…
2018 fantasy, first of a trilogy. Evie is a very minor member of the royal family, without significant magic or status; even when the Crown Princess carries out a coup against the Queen, she just wants to be ignored. But as the only other survivor of the family, she won't be granted that luxury.
2021 science fiction novella, sixth in the Murderbot series. On Preservation Station, one of the largest polities that's not part of the Corporate Rim, someone's been murdered. And it's Murderbot who finds the body.
2020 urban fantasy. Susan Arkshaw, brought up in the country by her slightly dippy mother, goes to London to start her art degree and try to find her father. Magic ensues.
1996 police procedural audio in four parts, by Nick Fisher. A body is found by a tour boat going along the Regent's Canal; DSI Julie Enfield (Imelda Staunton) investigates.
1949 children's fantasy. Timothy and Hew live on Popinsay Island with their father, a retired naval captain, and help look for the pirate ship reputed to have been wrecked nearby. But soon they will get involved in larger adventures…
2008 fantasy, the second in the Dhulyn and Parno series. They're on the winning side of a battle against an aggressive kingdom, and they've captured the crown prince; and that's only the start of their troubles.
2018 non-fiction, Charlotte Higgins explores the maze and labyrinth in fiction and their influence on the world.
1997 mystery, seventeenth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. McCone's former flying instructor asks her to look into her disappeared boyfriend… then dies in a way that's surely not coincidental. And letting a client's death go unavenged isn't in the Private Eye Code.
2010 western fantasy, first of a trilogy. It's after the American Civil War, and there are a few magicians out there. Also gods, or at least things that want to claim they are.
1998 tartan noir. Los Angeles is losing itself in millennial fever, but that won't stop the hawkers of cheap film from having their show. Even if there's a fundie across the road who's talking about God sending a tidal wave to wipe out their filth…
1999 police procedural audio, four short stories, by Nick Fisher. DSI Julie Enfield (played, as usual, by Imelda Staunton) investigates.
1936 thriller. Iris Carr is a poor little rich girl travelling by train from "a remote corner of Europe" back to England via Trieste. She talks with a Miss Froy, who's briefly amusing. Then after a short rest she discovers that Miss Froy is no longer there, and everyone claims that she has never existed… Vt, and loosely filmed in 1938 as, The Lady Vanishes.
2016 science fiction, in the same universe as Planetfall but not a sequel to it. Carlos Moreno's mother abandoned him to go on the Atlas mission; forty years later he's a detective, looking into the murder of the leader of an anti-tech cult… of which he used to be a member.
2015 historical fantasy, fourth in the Order of the Air series. It's 1935, and the Gilchrist Aviation team are in Hawaii testing a new flying-boat – except for Jerry the archaeologist, who's on a dig looking for evidence of Chinese explorers reaching the islands.
1932 romance. The reprobate Marquis of Vidal, having casually fought a duel over dice, must flee to France. He plans to take his latest would-be conquest with him, but that lady's sister has other ideas.
2001 audio adaptation of Christie's 1942 mystery, in a single 90-minute episode. Someone's sending poison-pen letters in a little village, and one of the recipients has committed suicide as a result. Though Miss Marple is not so sure…
2015 science fiction, fifth in the Chronicles of St Mary's series. Max tries to get down to the business of investigating major historical events in contemporary time (don't call it time travel), but old enemies are an ongoing problem, even out of order.
2014 action/SF, first of a series. Cas Russell is a retriever of missing things in a world of action and adventure. Naturally, her latest job is going to get terribly complicated.
There are three space sandbox games (i.e. with multiple things you can try to do in order to win) that I've tried. Which is best?
2016 technothriller. As China and the rest of Asia recover from the war in the previous book, an Indian conspiracy plans to shift the stalemate in Kashmir.
1907 thud and blunder. Herbert Wrayson finds a young lady rifling the desk in his flat. It turns out that she was after the fellow upstairs. But later that man turns up murdered…
2008 children's fantasy, illustrated short stories loosely based on suburban life.
1901 SF. Lord Redgrave has built the first spaceship, and with his new wife (the daughter of the late inventor) goes on a tour of the solar system.
1999 alternate-history war story, third of six books. Belisarius takes an army to help the Persians throw the invading Malwa out of Mesopotamia; his wife Antonina suppresses civil unrest in Alexandria.
2021 SF, fantasy and horror anthology, 30 very short stories.
2020 SF. Humanity can travel to parallel worlds! But only pretty close parallels; and the only people who can do it are people whose other-world counterparts have died. Which means that the high-tech city has a use for people from the warlord-run town next door…
2020 mystery story, fifth of the Lady Sherlock series. Inspector Treadles, the Lestrade of this parallel Sherlock setup, is found in a room with two dead men, one of them the supposed lover of his wife. Everyone assumes he did it, and he won't speak up in his defence. Charlotte Holmes to the rescue!
2019 SF, first of a series. Fergus is a finder, a probably-reformed thief turned repo man for (in this case) a stolen starship.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal.)
1946 mystery, second in the series centred on Francis Pettigrew, a not-terribly-successful barrister. As the war begins in earnest, Pettigrew is made legal advisor to the Pin Control, the vitally important new government department controlling the production of, and preventing anyone from profiteering on, pins. But murder is never far away.
1968 audio thriller by Francis Durbridge: Paul Temple is a professional novelist and amateur sleuth. People are being murdered, and the only clue is the name "Alex" left with the body.
1937 Napoleonic naval fiction, first written but sixth by internal chronology. Hornblower, commanding the frigate Lydia, is sent to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua to aid a local insurgency against the Spanish.
2016 SF. Simon Forrester is rather forgotten beside his mother the warship captain and his sister the space marine, even if he is unreasonably good with computers. So he sets off to make his own way…
2021 SF/mystery; sixty-third story or 52nd novel of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). A sculptor is killed in her studio; it looks as though her lover did it. But there's more to be found behind the obvious case.
2019 supernatural mystery in modern Edinburgh, ninth in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. A girl is found in a forgotten cellar, partly mummified even though she died quite recently. Then another turns up in the same state.
1919 boys' adventure. Martin Hamer's airship design is stolen (and covertly constructed), along with the niece of Mortimer Carne, the industrial magnate whom the inventor had hoped to get to build the thing. Clearly the thing to do is build another airship and track him down.
1993 mystery, fifth in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). Carlotta's hired by a woman whose daughter died in hospital, to try to get some closure; but soon the key witness dies and the client goes missing.
2012 urban fantasy, second of its series. Angel Crawford, now a zombie, is finally getting her life sorted out: working at the coroner's, eating spare brains, planning beyond the immediate fun thing. But her life still has ways of getting complicated.
2013 steampunk fantasy, fourth and last of its series. Civil war has broken out between the Awakener cult and the government, and it's not entirely Captain Frey's fault.
2005 alternate-history science fiction war story. The "uptimers" from 2021 are helping their Allied counterparts from 1942, but both sides have future tech and people to exploit.
1964 mystery, fifth in the series about Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett. When the film's leading man stumbles across the platform and dies under the wheels of an Underground train, it's clearly an accident. But then the continuity girl falls to her death from her flat…
2015 military SF, last of its trilogy. James Shelley has abandoned friends and family to be a covert soldier for The Red, the mysterious AI that's now a power in the world. But just because he thinks the things he's doing are important, that doesn't necessarily make him valuable.
2003 military SF, third of this ongoing series. Peace has broken out between Republic and Alliance, which means that Leary's command, the captured corvette Princess Cecile, is being sold out of service. But she's bought by a foreigner who needs a ship and a crew for his expedition to backwater space.
2020 fantasy action, dir. Paul W. S. Anderson, Milla Jovovich, Tony Jaa: IMDb / allmovie. A US Army patrol somewhere in Afghanistan is about to meet something it really didn't expect…
1940 murder mystery in rural England. Anna Milne, the local Mysterious Widow, comes into the police station to report that she's run over and killed a man. As the investigation progresses it starts to look as though this was no accident; but ex-journalist Toby Dyke suspects the police are on the wrong track.
2020, dir. Roseanne Liang, Chloë Grace Moretz, Taylor John Smith: IMDb / allmovie. In 1943, Flight Office Maude Garrett boards a B-17 that's ferrying from Auckland to Samoa, with secret orders and a mysterious package. But she's not the only unexpected passenger on this flight.
2003 SF romance, first of an ongoing series. Captain Ryland Miller volunteered to become a psychically-enhanced soldier, but he's ended up in a cage. Lily Whitney, daughter of the scientist running the project, has abilities of her own, and when her father disappears she has to work out who might be trustworthy.
2014 contemporary fantasy, fifth in the series. Peter Grant, Metropolitan Police constable and magician, goes to Herefordshire to help the local force with the investigation into the disappearance of two girls.
2020 SF/mystery; sixty-second story of 51st novel of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). The latest murder victim whom Lt Eve Dallas is investigating was killed by a professional assassin… who's a figure from her husband Roarke's criminal past, and who may be out to get him too.
2020 short fantasy novel in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion). Penric and the demon Desdemona are called on to look at an unusual illness that's struck the barracks near his home town. Which wouldn't be quite as bad if he hadn't sworn off medicine after it nearly killed him.
2016, dir. Nacho Vigalondo, Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis: IMDb / allmovie. Gloria is a drunken wreck who's gone back to her hometown; and a giant monster is rampaging through Seoul. Spoilers.
2010 urban fantasy, third of the trilogy. After the events of the previous book, Evie Scelan is getting by, just barely, but things are gradually getting worse. Even her power to track down lost objects seems to be fading.
2016 YA science fiction, middle volume of a trilogy. As the survivors of the Kerenza colony fled towards safety, they sent distress calls to the jump station that was their destination. They got no replies. This book explains why.
2014 science fiction, fourth in the Chronicles of St Mary's series. Dr Madeline Maxwell is dead, and that's not even the hardest problem she's got to deal with.
1991 non-fiction. Simon spent 1988 looking over the shoulders of the Baltimore Police Department's Homicide Division and writing articles about them for the Baltimore Sun.
2006 audio adaptation of Christie's 1972 mystery, in a single 90-minute episode. Ariadne Oliver is buttonholed by a woman who wants to find out the truth about the deaths of her son's fiancée's parents, fourteen years ago; Poirot investigates.
1930 thriller. The Saint and Pat Holm stumble across a weapon so terrible it cannot be allowed to exist, even in the hands of the British government. Vt The Saint Closes the Case.
2021 modern fantasy, first in the Aurelia Ryder series, sequels to Kate Daniels. Eight years after Julie Lennart left post-magic-apocalypse Atlanta, Aurelia Ryder is back, with a new face, a prophecy to subvert and a murder to solve.
1987 Cold War espionage thriller. The upgrade to Polaris warheads, to get them through a new generation of Soviet defences, is one of the most closely-guarded of British secrets. Then one of the pages is found in a rubbish bin on Parliament Hill…
2007 mystery or at least mystery-adjacent; first in the Spellmans series. Izzy Spellman is a private investigator, from a family of the same. This does not make things simpler when her younger sister goes missing.
2005 audio adaptation of Christie's 1920 mystery, in 5 half-hour episodes. Captain Hastings, home on leave from the front, is staying with friends at Styles Court when the elderly owner dies suddenly. He enlists his old friend Hercule Poirot to help investigate.
2015 fantasy/horror anthology on the theme of modern Lovecraftian stories, sampling stories published between 2010 and 2014.
2019 non-fiction. On 17 April 2018, the Boeing 737-7H4 registered N772SW suffered a catastrophic engine failure at 32,000 feet over Pennsylvania. Only one person died. This is the story of the captain's life.
2019 non-fiction, popular science; short treatments of scientific aspects of human existence.
Letter Tycoon, by Brad Brooks, was published in 2015 and is now quite hard to find. But I was recently introduced to it on BoardGameArena, and it turns out I'm quite good at it.
2019 short fantasy novel in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion). On his way home from a pointless job, Penric's ship is captured by pirates, and he finds himself responsible for two orphaned girls.
2020 non-fiction. In 2004, Libertarians started moving to Grafton, New Hampshire, in an effort to "free the town". The bears soon followed.
2011 fantasy/horror anthology on the theme of modern Lovecraftian stories.
2012 fantasy/horror anthology, consisting of more stories inspired by Lovecraft.
1990 audio adaptation of Christie's 1931 mystery, in 5 half-hour episodes. At a table-turning session in a near-snowbound house on the edge of Dartmoor, the spirit claims that Captain Trevelyan has been murdered. When the party gets down to his house later, so he has. The fiancée of the prime suspect works to clear his name.
In 2020 I read 141 books, very slightly up from last year.
2018, dir. James Franco/Bruce Thierry Cheung, Jeff Wahlberg, Suki Waterhouse: IMDb / allmovie. After the androids were used to fight the Last War and civilisation fell, all is sand and motorcycles, and hawt babes are a far more jealously-guarded resource than leather or petrol.
2020 fantasy. In Gilded Age America, there's no such thing as witches: they were burned, and all that sort of thing was stamped out. But there will be witches again.
2019, dir. Mike Mitchell/Trisha Gum, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks: IMDb / allmovie
The peace of Brickville is shattered by invaders from Duplo.
2012 fantasy, second of a tetralogy. Princess Katya and her consort Starbride must deal with opposition on several fronts, even if it does lead back to the same source.
2016 action comedy, dir. Paul Feig, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon: IMDb / allmovie.
Two paranormal enthusiasts, a nuclear engineer and a subway worker band together to save New York from paranormal threat.
2013 humorous science fiction, fourth in the Isambard Smith series. Smith and his crew take on an unbeatable prototype warship, protect a peace conference, invade a planet of religious fanatics, and visit Europe.
1923 historical thriller, set in the rebellion of 1745. Alastair Maclean is carrying messages to England and getting promises of support for his Prince. But it seems that one of his fellow couriers may be a traitor to the Cause.
2018 action comedy, dir. Susanna Fogel, Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon: IMDb / allmovie.
Drew dumped Audrey by text message a few days ago… then two men claiming to be from the CIA interrogate her… then Drew comes in suddenly through her window. Then he gets shot by someone her roommate Morgan picked up the night before…
2020 historical mystery with fantastic elements. In 1634, the Indiaman Saardam sets sail from Batavia on the eight-month journey to Amsterdam. Sammy Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to answer for a crime that nobody seems to be able to name. His bodyguard, Arent Hayes, is determined to prove his innocence. And there are signs of a demon on board…
2019 documentary, dir. Jack Bennett: IMDb / AllMovie.
The surviving cast and crew of Galaxy Quest discuss, twenty years later, the making and reception of the film.
2000 military SF, second of this ongoing series. With a heroic reputation from the previous book, which can be both good and bad depending on who has power over him, Leary waits to learn his next assignment… then gets sent to a volatile allied world where political games are rapidly becoming deadly.
1906 SF. Professor Marmion has, by an excess of abstract thought, accidentally conquered the Fourth Dimension. And the tragedies of ancient Egypt shall be tragedies again.
2020 documentary, dir. Kate Stirr: IMDb.
The Makani project tried to solve a simple problem: wind turbines are already big and expensive, but there's more wind at higher altitudes. So why not put a wind turbine on a kite rather than on a pole?
1998 alternate-history war story, second of six books. Belisarius is a guest of the Malwa empire in India, as they try to bribe him to turn against Justinian's Constantinople; meanwhile his wife Antonina works on developing a military force to use crude gunpowder weapons, which will be tested sooner than they expect.
2018 American Regency-ish romance, part of a loosely linked series. Cassandra has been married for two years, and has only met her husband once; it was arranged by her father and neither partner wanted anything more than the legalities. But now she has her sisters to launch into society, and she'll have to use his London house to do it…
2011 steampunk fantasy. The misfit crew of the Ketty Jay has fame, at least a bit of fortune, and a new and exciting job… oh dear.
2020 thriller/mystery, dir. Harry Bradbeer, Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill; IMDb / allmovie.
On the morning of her sixteenth birthday, Enola Holmes finds that her mother has disappeared without a word. But since she's the younger sister of Mycroft and Sherlock, she doesn't wait to see what will happen next. On the way to London, she runs into someone fleeing from his own problems…
2012 collection of mildly Lovecraftian fantasy/horror stories, loosely connected by reference to the Calipash family.
2019 audio drama, adapted in eight parts by Julian Simpson from the story by H. P. Lovecraft.
1988 SF. The survey team on the planet Lassti is under pressure to declare it free of native sentients so that the colonisers can move in. The "sprookjes" mimic human speech, but that alone is not enough. One of the surveyors dies in what's probably an accident. And then the Hellspark arrives…
2011 fantasy/horror anthology, consisting of stories inspired by Lovecraft.
1928 Georgian romance. As the consequences of the rebellion of '45 are still being felt, two fugitives from the losing side set off for London – disguised as the opposite sexes.
2019 mystery story, fourth of the Lady Sherlock series. Charlotte Holmes continues to act as a consulting detective, this time acting to recover some blackmail-grade letters from an old flame of Mrs Watson. But of course there's much more going on than that.
2009 science fiction, second of a trilogy. Ariane Kedros was involved in finding an alien artefact that lots of people want a look at. Some of them aren't planning to be polite.
2017 cosy mystery, first in the Morgan Dane series. Morgan, widowed with three small daughters, is getting back into her career as an ADA; but when the daughters' former babysitter is murdered and the neighbour kid is accused, she offers to defend him.
2017 Lovecraftian horror. In 1920s London, ex-boxer Harry Stubbs is employed to track down a mysterious thing. But it seems to be leaving corpses in its wake.
2020 non-fiction. In 2019, Facebook announced that it was planning to revolutionise money. How did it fail?
This 1990 RPG supplement by Peter Phillipps portrays a Britain after World War III. Well. Up to a point. It is a famously bad book.
2020 space-operatic SF, first of a planned trilogy. Sun is the daughter and heir-presumptive of Queen-Marshal Eirene, who turned the Chaonian Republic from a defeated mess into a strong if fragile interstellar power. She's just won her own first naval victory. But there are enemies both internal and external…
2006 urban fantasy, second in the series set in Singapore Three. With Detective Inspector Chen on vacation, Seneschal Zhu Irzh, his demonic partner, must look into the matter of a murdered socialite…
2015 collection of Lovecraftian horror stories mostly set in South London. vt Shadows from Norwood.
2013 collection of new SF stories set on pre-space-probe ideas of the planet Mars.
2015 SF, first of a trilogy. Torrin is an interstellar smuggler, planning to ship her high-tech weapons to anyone on the Fringe World of Haefen with a budget to buy them. Jak is a sniper, disguised as a man in a military that doesn't allow women, waiting for a chance at revenge on the man who killed her brother, but for now on a solo mission to kill the smuggler the other side is dealing with.
The final major section of the book is the GM's toolkit.
2009 crime/SF. In future Glasgow, serious criminals are "halfheaded", lobotomised and their lower jaws removed, to work as simple labour and serve as an example to others. But, to nobody's surprise, that isn't much of a deterrent to some.
2018 contemporary thriller, first in a new series. DC Constance Fairchild goes to a meeting with an undercover officer, only to find he's been tortured and shot. And her superiors are determined to prove that she's the corrupt cop who did it.
That's more or less the players' part of the book. The rest of it is advice to the GM.
2008 science fiction, second of the two books of Lords of Creation. The first Mars and Venus landers found breathable air and human life. Forty years later, Jeremy Wainman is on an archaeological expedition looking for a lost Martian city.
You now have a character. Now let's break it.
1915 comedy. For reasons too silly to go into, several of the guests at Blandings are out to steal a rare scarab… US vt Something New (with slight alterations).
So given that universal resolution mechanic, what's the rest of the game about?
This universal RPG system suffers from conflicting goals, but ends up producing a pleasantly fast-moving game.
1988 historical fantasy. In 1595, Elizabeth has decided that James of Scotland shall be her heir. But he is beset by witches, and she sends her champion, Sir Philip Sidney, to aid him.
1936 detective fiction; second of Tey's novels of Inspector Alan Grant. A film star's body washes up on a beach in Kent; it might have been an accidental drowning, but for a small piece of evidence.
2013 non-fiction; Houston looks into the history and evolution of a variety of punctuation marks.
2019 non-fiction, Stephanie Land's description of raising a child without a partner while working as a cleaner.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: if you don't know by now…)
2014 humorous science fiction, second of its series. Lord Thomas Kinago, professional fop, is sent on another mission for his cousin the Emperor: this time a neighbouring power, defeated in the big war a few years back, is putting unreasonable restrictions on trade, not to mention arresting a whole host of merchants as smugglers.
2005 detection, second in Greenwood's Corinna Chapman series. Someone's sabotaging the local chocolate shop, the self-made messiah is angry that his latest handmaiden has been rescued, and someone's criminally annoyed with the new tenant.
2010 fantasy. Hazel's mother told her never to give up on her dreams… but turns out she didn't quite mean it in the usual way. Hazel is a Grand Champion Dreamer, and when she wakes up in the Night she's going to have to prove it.
1991 SF, first of a trilogy. Saint Butterflies-are-free Peace Sincere was happy as a smuggler pilot, but she had to go and save an inexperienced mercenary from the local lowlife, and then things just got complicated.
2015 collection of new SF stories set on pre-space-probe ideas of the planet Venus.
2013 historical fantasy, third in the Order of the Air series. In the winter of 1932, planes are crashing in the Rockies, and a Greek medallion being valued in New York may be worth vastly more than it seems.
2014 military SF, first of a trilogy. Ben Mason tried to kill himself when the PTSD got too much for him… but instead, They recruited him to go up against an alien invasion that most of humanity doesn't even know about.
2017 fantasy romance, first of its series. The Hokkaran Empire rules practically everyone, including the Qorin horse nomads whom it conquered half a generation ago. But plagues and demons are rising, and two young warriors will have to save the world.
2018 supernatural mystery in modern Edinburgh, eighth in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. A truck driver loses control of his vehicle in the middle of Edinburgh, killing twenty people as it turns out that his cargo really wasn't what it said on the manifest.
2018 young adult/crossover SF, first of its series. The aliens arrived, brain-clamped all the adults, and implanted some kind of parasite in the children. Then things got bad.
1970 Arthurian fantasy, first of its series. The young Myrddin is haunted by portents and visions, and is the plaything of gods.
2016 Lovecraftian SF, first of a series. Owen Merrill is a student at Miskatonic, doing his thesis on Rhetorics of Otherness in the Horror Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft…
Clarkesworld is a monthly on-line magazine edited by Neil Clarke.
1977 detective fiction, sixth of James's novels of Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. At a forensic lab in the depths of Cambridgeshire, one of the senior scientists spends the day making himself as objectionable as possible… and is found dead the next morning.
2020 fantasy novelette, prequel to the rest of the Locked Tomb series. When a study sealed for 400 years is to be opened, the young Palamedes Sextus and Camilla Hect are part of the investigating team. But someone has been in there since it was sealed.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: The experiments that the Payne Fund carried out concentrated on such issues as the extent to which children learnt from film and how well they retained what they learnt; the possibility that exposure to film affected attitudes; and how moral standards might be affected by what was viewed. The findings of these studies showed that the human mind could be shaped and moulded by persons in positions of influence; and, in this context, the film maker was in an almost unique position of influence.)
2020 fantasy, second of a trilogy. Harrowhark is now an imperial Lyctor, more or less. Which means she gets to fight an unwinnable battle with profoundly unreliable allies.
2013 historical fantasy, second in the Order of the Air series. In 1931, the Great Depression is biting and there's not much work for an air charter company in Colorado. So they enter a cross-country air race.
1963 mystery, fourth in the series about Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett. As Style magazine is putting together its coverage of the Paris fashion show, one of the editors drinks tea full of cyanide…
2017 SF, first of its series. Adda the hacker and Iridian the engineer hijack a colony ship and take it to her brother and the infamous Captain Sloane, who are living the high life on Barbary Station. Only it's not like that, and the station's AI is trying to kill them.
2018 space opera, fourth book (first of a new trilogy) of Dread Empire's Fall. Seven years on as the empire tries to recover after the civil war, things start to fall apart all over again.
2015 police procedural mystery, sixth in the Fiona Griffiths series. An archaeologist is found in her home, beheaded and transfixed with Iron Age spears.
1984 legal mystery, second of Caudwell's Hilary Tamar series. When a Trust is changed to avoid tax, one of the parties puts a high price on her compliance; but it all goes through anyway, several months before she falls from a balcony during a Boat Race party.
1973 animated children's comedy, dir. Wolfgang Reitherman; IMDb / allmovie. They sing and dance in the forest…
2011 science fiction, second of the "Wreck Diving" series. "Boss" moves from exploring derelict spaceships to exploring underground ruins in the quest to find ancient stealth technology before the bad guys do.
1938 adventure, dir. Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland; IMDb / allmovie. Prince John oppresses the Saxons; a Saxon lord fights back.
2018 mystery with science-fictional elements. A man wakes up in mid-shout with no memories, in the grounds of a decaying country house during a weekend party, nineteen years after the young son of the house was murdered. And someone is going to be murdered now. US vt The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.
1959 audio thriller by Francis Durbridge: Paul Temple is a professional novelist and amateur sleuth. A young woman has vanished from a finishing-school in Bavaria… starring Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury.
1922 adventure, dir. Allen Dwan, Douglas Fairbanks, Wallace Beery; IMDb / allmovie. The Earl of Huntingdon goes off to the Crusades with King Richard…
1979 science fiction. Rob Merlin is the world's best engineer, but he's being given his most challenging project yet.
1991 mystery, fourth in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). Carlotta runs into her old bandmate Dee Willis, who's stayed in the music business and finally made it big. But Dee's behaving weirdly even for her, and the past echoes into the present.
2020 horror audio in eight parts, by Mark Healy. On the island of Toll Mòr, a storm hits just after a murder is discovered, and the part-time policewoman has to deal with both.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: The success of most Hollywood films these days is down to the fact that they're comforting. They tie things up in nice little bows and give you answers, even if the answers are stupid, you go home and you don't have to think about it.)
2004 fantasy. In Regency England, magic is much more an historical curiosity than an occupation for gentlemen… until Mr Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey starts actually doing it again.
2017 Lovecraftian horror. Dan Carter, ex-cop, and Emily Lovecraft, librarian with a shotgun, are trying to come to terms with their new world. But threats to reality haven't gone away.
2019 non-fiction. Nott is a general and vascular surgeon who uses his leave to volunteer with MSF in combat and disaster zones.
2004 young adult steampunk fantasy, first of a trilogy. Matt Cruse is a cabin boy aboard the airship Aurora.
2010 science fiction, first of a trilogy. Jean le Flambeur is a thief, broken out of prison to steal something very special. But first he must steal back his own history…
2012 fantasy, first of a tetralogy. As far as the court is concerned, Princess Katya spends her time at (both sorts of) venery; in fact she leads a secret band that hunts magic-using enemies of the king. Starbride is a foreigner sent to court to snare a rich lover, but she'd much rather spend her time studying law…
1998 military SF, first of an ongoing series. Lt Daniel Leary of the Republic of Cinnabar (space) Navy is the impoverished fifth wheel on a diplomatic mission to the new government of Kostroma. Adele Mundy's family on Cinnabar was disgraced and put to death, largely by Leary's father, and now she's working as librarian to the new Kostroman ruler. Neither of them is expecting a revolution fomented by the Alliance of Free Stars.
2010 urban fantasy. Evie Scelan was a big part of what happened to the previous magical rulers of Boston. Which means that everyone's looking to her to see what she's going to do about the power vacuum that's been left behind.
2014 military SF, second of the trilogy. After the illicit mission in the last book, James Shelley and his squad are on trial. So, elsewhere, is the person they winkled out of their bunker. But other factions are still out there.
1929 detective fiction; first of Tey's novels of Inspector Alan Grant. There's a long queue for the last night of a hugely popular musical; as the doors open, a man falls to the ground, dead, with a dagger in his back.
2011 urban fantasy, first of a series. Angel Crawford is a pill-popping loser living with her deadbeat alcoholic father in rural Louisiana. Until the night she blacks out and wakes up in hospital, with memories of a car crash but no injuries…
1991 cyberpunk science fiction. In a future California recovering from the Semi-Medium One (the Big One is still waiting to happen), music video creators, VR artists and corporate greed collide.
2009 fantasy, first of a trilogy. For centuries, humanity has been divided into the Darkborn, to whom light is fatal, and the Lightborn, who cannot live in darkness. Mostly they keep to their own communities, but Minhorne is a city shared uneasily between them. Balthasar Hearne, Darkborn doctor, takes in the pregnant fugitive who turns up on his doorstep just before sunrise… but it seems that her children are born with sight…
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: a pastime for helots, a diversion for uneducated, wretched, worn-out creatures who are consumed by their worries, … a spectacle which requires no concentration and presupposes no intelligence,… which kindles no light in the heart and awakens no hope other than the ridiculous one of someday becoming a "star" in Los Angeles…)
2007 military SF, fifth of the Kris Longknife books. Kris is sent to show the royal flag on a minor diplomatic mission to one of Earth's first colonies.
2004 comic fantasy, second in the J. W. Wells series. Paul Carpenter continues to blunder his way through magical hazards.
2009 science fiction. The Erasmus system is run on debt-slavery, water monopoly, and a panopticon, but it seems they're going to launch a war against Earth. So Earth's government sends a team of Guardians to work out what's happening, and stop it. Of course it's not as simple as that.
2019 non-fiction, examining the life and work of Letitia Landon.
2008 non-fiction, an informal history of English science in the age of Joseph Banks, William Herschel and Humphry Davy.
1992 mystery; third of Granger's novels of Chief Inspector Markby and non-detective Meredith Mitchell. A digger breaking ground for a new housing development turns up a recently-buried body. Meredith, house-sitting for a friend, inevitably gets involved.
1998 alternate-history war story, first of six books. In 528 AD, the young Byzantine general Belisarius is given a message from the, or a, future: a powerful enemy is rising in India, and will subjugate the world with massive armies and devastating weapons if not prevented. And he's the man to prevent it.
2017 romantic mystery, second in the Mercy Kilpatrick series. Someone's been starting fires in the small Oregon town where Mercy grew up and is now trying to rebuild bridges with her family; when the police who turn up in response to the fires start getting shot, the FBI gets involved and puts her on the case.
1926 romance. The evil Duke of Avon, walking through Paris, finds an urchin fleeing from a beating and buys him as a page. But, being who he is, he has plans within plans.
1999 lesbian noir crime; second in Griffith's series about Aud Torvingen. Still shattered by grief from the loss of her true love, Aud reluctantly goes to New York to look for the missing girlfriend of an old friend.
2015 fantasy. In the city of Dresediel Lex, the run-down area down by the docks is to be redeveloped, and everyone will make a lot of money. Except for the locals, but who cares about them?
2012 thriller, tenth in the series about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox, former soldier and currently private bodyguard. Charlie's on a new assignment, guarding an old client while he goes on a fundraising trip for a friend's charity. But she's not sure she can trust either her partner or her fellow bodyguards… Spoilers for earlier books in the series.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them; things seem to have got started again, though there are more TV series trailers in the mix than usual. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: When you've got these kinds of sums involved in creating another two hours of entertainment for Western teenagers, I feel it crosses the line from being merely distasteful to being wrong.)
2016 urban fantasy, third in the Shadow Police series. In this version of London, people's memories and obsessions bring something like ghosts to life… and now the ghost of Sherlock Holmes has been murdered.
2009 humorous science fiction, third in the Isambard Smith series. The insectoid Ghast have enlisted the lemming-people of Yull as allies in their war against the British Space Empire. Are Isambard Smith and his motley crew really the only people who can save the day?
2020 science fiction, fifth in the Murderbot series (though the previous four were novellas). Kidnapping, aliens, space battles, and meditations on ethics and the nature of consciousness.
1995 police procedural audio in five parts, by Nick Fisher. An accountant is killed messily in his flat in Smithfield; DSI Julie Enfield investigates.
1990 mystery, third in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). A hispanic woman asks Carlotta to retrieve her missing green card, because she doesn't trust La Migra. But then she vanishes, and the card turns up on the body of a murdered woman…
2019 science fiction. The rebellious Martian colonists wiped out São Paulo in a devastating surprise attack. Dietz, whose family was among the dead, joins up with the corporate armies to fight them off – and maybe end up with citizenship.
A War of Whispers, by Jeremy Stoltzfus, got some attention when it came out last year but sold out quickly, and as I write there's a Kickstarter for the second edition. Should you jump in? I've now played it twice…
2012 contemporary fantasy short stories, a "re-imagining" of the Twilight series. Various snippets out of the lives of various characters in the earlier novels.
2015 Lovecraftian horror. Dan Carter was a cop in New York, until his partner shot himself while they were arresting a child kidnapper. Now he's working as a private investigator, but it suddenly turns out that a complete stranger has left him a bookshop in his will…
1942 mystery, first in the series centred on Francis Pettigrew, a not-terribly-successful barrister. The anonymous letters arriving for the High Court Judge while he's out on circuit are obviously the work of a lunatic; the poisoned box of chocolates is less easily dismissed.
2015 urban fantasy, fourteenth and last in the series. Kitty's ready to try to assassinate the master vampire Roman before he can carry out his plan to rule the world. Spoilers.
1997 romantic mystery. Kate Herrick was married, then very soon widowed, during the War; a few years later, she travels to her childhood home, to sort out the furniture that'll be sent to her grandmother in Scotland. And to get some papers left in a safe. But they're missing…
2019 young adult fantasy, first of a planned trilogy. In a decaying interplanetary empire powered by necromancy, Gideon is a foundling brought up by the Ninth House, guardians of the Locked Tomb. But the Empire has required all the houses to send their necromancer-heirs, and a necromancer needs a bodyguard…
1962 mystery, third in the series about Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett. Tibbett is in Geneva for a conference on drug-smuggling, and his wife has joined him for a holiday. One of the staff is killed in a place that very few people could have reached, and Tibbett becomes the prime suspect.
2014 urban fantasy, thirteenth in the series. A side story in which Cormac, the mercenary monster hunder turned ally of Kitty Norville, tracks down a historical murder and runs into some old contacts. Spoilers.
2019 young adult fantasy. In Gilded Age America, January Scaller lives in a mansion filled with peculiar treasures, and is something of a peculiar treasure herself. Her father travels for months on end, hunting for artefacts for Mr Locke. But it gradually becomes clear that what really matters is the doors between worlds…
2012 cosy mystery, third in the Mac Faraday series (amateur detection). Someone sends Mac the stolen last painting of Ilysa Ramsey, murdered eight years ago. Naturally, he looks into the unsolved case. Meanwhile, it seems that the same woman was murdered elsewhere a year earlier…
Some trailers I've seen recently, at least the few that are still being released, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: There is only one thing that can kill the movies, and that is education.)
2019 fantasy. The islands of the Myriad used to have gods: great and implacable entities living in the sea, feared as much as worshipped. Thirty years ago, for no obvious reason, they turned on each other, fighting until they were all dead. But parts of their bodies make for useful salvage…
2019 romance novella in the Reluctant Royals series. Likotse, assistant to Prince Thabiso, met someone amazing while she was briefly in New York last year - but then Fabiola cut things off without explanation, and Likotse's been trying to forget her ever since. Now, by chance, they meet again…
1993 audio adaptation of Christie's 1961 mystery, in 90 minutes. People seem to be dying very… conveniently; do the village witches of Much Deeping have anything to do with it?
2018 science fiction, second of its series. Oichi Angelis and Medusa are now among the leaders of the generation ship Olympia, but that hasn't solved their problems; it's just given them new ones.
1921 romance, first of Heyer's novels. Six years ago Jack Carstares left England in disgrace, having admitted to cheating at cards. Now in 1751 he's back, and living as a highwayman, leaving the family home to his brother even though his father has died and he's now the rightful Earl; but meanwhile Tracy Belmanoir, the sinister Duke of Andover, has his eyes on beautiful Diana Beauleigh…
2013 urban fantasy, twelfth in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, is kidnapped by fanatics.
2015 police procedural mystery, fifth in the Fiona Griffiths series. The body of a young woman is found in the annexe of a church, respectfully laid out and with no signs of violence. It may not even be a murder…
2012 historical fantasy short novel, first in the Airship Daedalus series. In a somewhat alternate 1925, ace pilot Jack McGraw is going to lead the hunt for Aleister Crowley's agents of chaos. (Released free of charge by the author.)
2018 comedy detective audio, four half-hour episodes. Knut Angstrom is a brooding Swedish detective in the Nyarlslund Peninsula.
2018 romance, second in the Reluctant Royals series. Portia Hobbs, former self-indulgent hot mess, has gone to Scotland to apprentice in sword-making.
2014 steampunk fantasy romance, third in the Clockwork Heart trilogy. Taya and Cristof are on a diplomatic mission to Alzana, trying to prevent a war, when the Alzanan coup is launched, and of course as dubious foreigners they get blamed for the assassination of the royal family…
The nomination results are out.
2019 fantasy anthology, on the theme of female characters who solve their own problems rather than waiting for a man to do it for them.
2019 SF/mystery; sixty-first (roughly, or 50th novel, hence presumably the title) of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). Someone beloved by everyone who knew him is killed by a cunning gas bomb.
1961 mystery, second in the series about Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett. Tibbett and his wife join some friends for a week of sailing in Essex. But the accidental drowning a few months ago starts to look less so, especially when it's followed by another.
2018 non-fiction, a layperson's introduction to the way in which algorithms are allowed to affect life. (Another Book of the Week condensation.)
2007 police procedural mystery/horror, fifth in the Bryant and May series. With the team split up by chance and weather, they most solve two separate cases.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.)
2016 science fiction novel, fanfic in the Vorkosigan universe (set around and among the events of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance). The narrative follows Byerly Vorrutyer, agent of Imperial Security, as he negotiates politics, bomb threats, and his personal life.
2013 urban fantasy, eleventh in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, has multiple problems in Denver.
The BBC has occasionally been rebroadcasting the Paul Temple radio plays, dealing with a professional novelist and amateur sleuth. This one is a 2011 remounting of a lost 1946 original, starring Crawford Logan and Gerda Stevenson. Someone's supplying drugs in London, and that must be stopped!
2019 science fiction, first in a projected series. The Teixcalaanli Empire is huge, and Lsel Station has only just managed to maintain its independence from it. So when the Empire requires a new ambassador, Mahit Dzmare is sent. Then she discovers that her predecessor has been murdered…
2019-2020, 12 episodes: AniDB. Schoolgirls with the spirit of WWII Japanese fighting ships take on an alien navy. Hang on, this sounds familiar…
2019 SF/mystery; sixtieth (roughly, or 49th novel) of J. D. Robb's In Death series (SF police procedurals). Someone's torturing and killing abusive men.
1991 romantic suspense. Rose Fenemore is an English tutor at Cambridge, as well as a poet and author. She takes a cottage on the western Scottish island of Moila to have a writing retreat free of distraction. But why do two young men end up in her living-room one stormy night?
2012 urban fantasy, tenth in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, goes to London to give the keynote speech at the First International Conference on Paranatural Studies. It will not go smoothly.
2010 mystery, fourth in Cleeves' Shetland Island series. Jimmy Perez is taking his fiancée Fran Hunter home to meet his parents on Fair Isle. But over at the Fair Isle Field Centre, tensions among the isolated birdwatchers may be building up to murder.
2019 thriller, dir. Elizabeth Banks, Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott; IMDb / allmovie.
The Townsend Agency is a covert international force for justice. Now they have to prevent a new technology from being turned into a universal assassination tool.
2014 steampunk fantasy romance, second in the Clockwork Heart trilogy. Taya, an "icarus" flying courier, is now the wife of the Ondinan ambassador to Mareaux. But between the assassination attempts and the more conventional betrayals, her life is rarely boring. vt Iron Wind.
I'm not planning to vote in the Hugos this year, but I am eligible to nominate. Nominations close early on Saturday morning, UK time.
2019 space opera, first in a projected series. Haimey Dz is the engineer on a salvage tug; her latest job uncovers both a terrible crime, and alien supertech.
2019 fantasy of sorts. The Imperial City has been suddenly besieged, and its defences will be commanded by Orhan, Colonel of Engineers… not by his choice.
2019 SF. On a tidally-locked colony world that's slowly decaying, a few people will make a difference. But not necessarily in a good way.
2017 science fiction, 10 episodes. Kirsten Clark continues to have her consciousness inserted into the minds of the recently-dead.
2019 fantasy. In Jazz Age Mexico, Casiopea Tun is a drudge working in her rich relatives' house. But when she frees a captive Mayan god…
2016 Lovecraftian fantasy/horror anthology by three authors.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: Hatreds are the cinders of affection.)
2019 non-fiction. Honoré looks at the practicalities and possibilities of ageing.
1942 autobiography of the first person to fly the Atlantic solo non-stop from east to west.
After having enjoyed the recent radio plays based on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Whisperer in Darkness, I sought out earlier audio drama written and directed by Julian Simpson.
1989 thriller, first in the long series dealing with police detective Lucas Davenport. Someone is raping and murdering women in Minneapolis, but unlike your typical serial killer this one is smart…
2018 cooking story, shounen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Food Wars: The Third Plate: Totsuki Train Arc". Yukihira Sōma fights cooking duels to try to let himself and his friends be allowed to stay in the élite Totsuki cooking school.
2011 urban fantasy, short stories in the world of Kitty Norville – which means werewolves, vampires, and other odder things.
2011 cosy mystery, second in the Mac Faraday series. Police detective turned heir Faraday finds his ex-wife importuning him to let them get back together… but soon enough she's dead, and so's her new husband.
2019 science fiction. There have always been the Machines: nobody knows how they work or where they came from, but they let people travel back in time, and return. Tess is a traveller from 2022, studying history and making illicit changes to it. In 1992, Beth is trying to work out the right thing to do as her life goes out of control.
Guendelsberger worked as a reporter at a local newspaper; it was closed down. Through a combination of poverty and journalistic curiosity, she took a pre-Christmas job at an Amazon warehouse ("fulfillment center"), then later worked at a call centre and in a fast-food outlet.
2015 animation, dir. Mark Burton, Richard Starzak; IMDb / allmovie.
When the sheep get bored with the hard work of life on the farm, they lock the farmer in a caravan for a day off. Chaos ensues.
2011 urban fantasy, ninth in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, goes to San Francisco to help out a friend. Who happens to be a vampire…
2016 non-fiction. Doyle examines the history and the anatomy of the celebrity trainwreck, the (female) figure who is deemed to have fallen from grace and behaved badly.
1984 science fiction, re-read. For the Fuzzies to be able to testify against the people who kidnapped and enslaved them, they need to be veridicated… which means they need to be able to lie. But that's not a thing that Fuzzies do…
2018 romance. Naledi Smith is studying epidemiology in New York while waitressing to pay the bills, and really doesn't have time for those emails claiming to be from an African prince to whom she was betrothed as a child. But Prince Thabiso is real…
2019 non-fiction. Morton considers the history of human interaction with the Moon.
2009 romance. Mackenzie Elliott and three of her childhood friends run a wedding business, everything from engagement photos to the Big Day. But, inspired by the example of her mother, Mac thinks true love can't be for her…
2010 urban fantasy, eighth in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, is still post-traumatic from the events of the last book, but has to face two new problems.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: It was his love of hatred that kept him going.)
2019 thriller, 12 episodes. An antiquities expert and an art thief work together to catch a terrorist who funds his activities through the sale of ancient artefacts.
1987 collection of short mystery stories by MacLeod.
2020 SF novella in the Innkeeper series. During Treaty Stay, an annual holiday, Dina has to cope with yet more potentially-lethal alien guests.
2017-2018 seinen manga adaptation in 22 episodes: AniDB, vt "March Comes in Like a Lion". Kiriyama Rei is a young professional shōgi player, but is profoundly lonely.
Contemporary thriller novella, introduction to the John Milton series. Milton is an assassin for the British government, in North Korea to deliver a "message" to the controllers of their hacking teams.
1998 cozy American detective fiction; twelfth and last of MacLeod's novels of Boston Brahmin Sarah Kelling and art investigator Max Bittersohn. A family wedding is complicated by the return of jewels long thought lost, an unexpected balloon landing… and a dead body.
2019 non-fiction. Macfarlane explores natural and man-made underground spaces.
2009 urban fantasy, seventh in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, gets invited onto a reality show: shapeshifters, vampires and psychics put together in a remote house.
2017 science fiction, 10 episodes. The space bounty hunters rapidly shift into preparations for all-out war.
1996 mystery, sixteenth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Sharon's brother-in-law, country music star Ricky Savage, has a stalker who may be turning nasty, just as his personal life is falling apart.
1994 mystery, sixth and last in the John Sanders/Harriet Jeffries series. Sanders and Jeffries are setting off on a romantic holiday in New Mexico when they find themselves giving a lift to two children who've missed the tour bus on which they were supposed to hitch a ride. Then things start getting quite strange.
2007 urban fantasy. In modern Ohio, Cat hunts vampires, surprisingly well for a human, but she has some hidden advantages. Bones is an ancient vampire who's tracking down his own kind for his own reasons. Eventually, they make common cause. There is also sex.
1996 comic mystery; tenth and last of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy. Peter's neighbour Jim spends most of his evenings at Fraternal Brotherhood meetings to avoid his horrible wife Mirelle; but he doesn't come back, and soon murder is afoot.
2019 short SF novel in the Innkeeper series. Dina's sister Maud turned down a marriage proposal from the vampire Lord Arland, but she's travelling to his homeworld anyway…
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: When our hatred is too keen it places us beneath those we hate.)
1992 mystery, fifth in the John Sanders/Harriet Jeffries series. Harriet's old flame Guy, who dumped her and ran off with her assistant, shows up again in Toronto… but not for long.
2019 science fantasy, 8 episodes, Star Wars tie-in. After the fall of the Empire, there's still work for bounty hunters.
In 2018 I watched 5 films; in 2019 I watched 32.
In 2019 I read 138 books, down again even though that included several Book-of-the-Week condensations; I did a lot of other things too, and generally didn't remember to make time for reading.
2019 high school sports story, original anime in 12 episodes: AniDB. The boys' soft tennis club is the joke of the school; the student council decrees that they'll be disbanded unless they win at least one match at the summer tournament. Then a new kid joins the school… vt Stars Align.
2009 urban fantasy, sixth in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, thought she'd dealt with the problems in Las Vegas. But some of them have followed her home.
1964 science fiction, re-read. The Fuzzies are legally recognised as sapient, and that means big changes to the government of Zarathustra.
2009 police procedural mystery, tartan noir, fifth in the Logan McRae series. Someone is attacking Polish immigrants in Aberdeen, cutting out their eyes and burning the sockets – but taking care to leave them alive – then sending ranting racist letters to the police…
2019 audio drama, adapted in eight parts by Julian Simpson from the story by H. P. Lovecraft. Henry Akeley has vanished from his home near Rendlesham Forest, and the podcasters investigate.
2019 high school story, 4-koma manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB. Miki is terminally shy, but learns to make friends through an interest in boardgames. vt After School Dice Club.
1991 police procedural mystery; first of Mankell's novels of Inspector Kurt Wallander of the Ystad police. Two elderly people living in a remote farmhouse are tortured to death; nothing's obviously missing, but someone fed the horse before they left. And a couple of clues point at foreigners in Sweden… (Translated by Steven T. Murray; original title Mördare utan ansikte.)
1989 mystery, second in the Carlotta Carlyle series (neo-noir private investigation). Carlotta's old friend on the force Mooney has been suspended after he beat up a man who attacked him; he says the guy had a knife, nobody's found one, but there's one witness who hasn't come forward. While Carlotta looks for the prostitute with the snake tattoo, a rich teenager who's been roughed up is looking for his missing girlfriend in a part of town that neither of them should be visiting…
2019 fantasy. The god Raven sustains the city of Vastai, via his Lease, a human ruler destined to sacrifice himself to the god. But Mawat the Lease's Heir returns to find that his father is missing and his uncle is the new Lease…
1997 police procedural audio in four parts, by Nick Fisher. Someone is poisoned in the Reading Room of the British Library, and someone else is mummified; Detective Superintendent Julie Enfield investigates.
1995 cozy American detective fiction; eleventh of MacLeod's novels of Boston Brahmin Sarah Kelling and art investigator Max Bittersohn. The administrator of the Wilkins Museum dies suddenly, and Sarah turns out to be named as her executrix.
The author of the webcomic xkcd gives desperately impractical but scientifically rigorous advice on how to solve common problems.
2019 non-fiction, examining the life and work of Gropius.
2006 science fiction, first of the two books of Lords of Creation. The first Mars and Venus landers found breathable air and human life. Twenty years later, Marc Vitrac is assigned to the American base on Venus, studying the planet and its natives.
1991 mystery/police procedural, fourth in the John Sanders/Harriet Jeffries series. A corporate chairman is found shot in a hotel room, and it looks as if the people who did it are going after the witness too, even though she doesn't know much.
2004 detection, first in Greenwood's Corinna Chapman series. Corinna runs a bakery in Melbourne; someone's sending threatening letters, the local junkies are dying, a new neighbour is drinking himself to death after his daughter ran off, and a lovely but mysterious man finds her interesting.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: It does not matter much what a man hates, provided he hates something.)
2019 non-fiction. A history of sewing and embroidery, trying to recover the stories of the people who did it.
2009 urban fantasy, fifth in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, is going to get married… in Las Vegas. So naturally she has to do a live show there too. And that isn't even the problem…
1994 comic mystery; ninth of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy. Shandy is visiting a grower of remarkable lupines [sic, apparently American usage] when a fellow guest at the inn where he's staying collapses dead over the chicken pot pie.
1991 mystery; second of Granger's novels of Chief Inspector Markby and non-detective Meredith Mitchell. Now in a home posting, Mitchell moves to a hamlet in Oxfordshire with plans to commute to London. But the new friend she makes there has a fatal "accident"…
1990 collection of SF stories and speculation about solar sails.
2015 police procedural mystery, fourth in the Fiona Griffiths series. Stuck with logging evidence, Fiona asks for some cold cases to look at, and is soon digging for details in her own distinctive style.
1962 science fiction, re-read. Zarathustra was an uninhabited planet when humanity arrived, so the Company owns it and everyone's happy. Until Jack Holloway the old sunstone prospector comes along with some crazy story about the animals he's found being intelligent natives…
2018 non-fiction, Michael Caine's (third) autobiography, shading into advice for aspiring actors.
2017 action horror, dir. Alex Kurtzman, Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella; IMDb / allmovie. A treasure-hunter uncovers the tomb of a female pharaoh who’s been erased from the historical record; ignoring all the warnings, he lets her out.
1990 mystery, third in the John Sanders/Harriet Jeffries series. A series of high-value burglaries turns lethal; and an ageing actress is murdered at her soirée, having mentioned that she might be planning to change her will. Sanders investigates; Jeffries was a guest at the party…
The Lightless Beacon is an adventure by Leigh Carr with Lynne Hardy, released to commemorate the death of Greg Stafford. I recently ran it for Whartson Hall. Spoilers.
2019 collection of short science fiction stories featuring light sails.
2007 police procedural mystery/horror, fourth in the Bryant and May series. Someone is killing celebrities by various baroque means; the Peculiar Crimes Unit balances that investigation with an attempt to prevent the unit being shut down.
Aeon’s End is a cooperative deck-building game by Kevin Riley, in which players work together to fight a monster (the “nemesis”) and save their home.
1993, cosy American detective fiction; fifth and last of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Dittany Henbit and the Lobelia Falls Grub-and-Stakers Gardening & Roving Club. The ghost of a nineteenth-century mule-skinner turns up in town, and wants his bones found and properly buried… but doesn't much mind what happens to the chest of gold that should be near them.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: There is nothing like just indignation for fostering unreasoning hate.)
2012 steampunk western fantasy. In 1867, Jett Gallatin is a gunslinger searching for his brother who went missing after the War; White Horse is a civilian scout attached to the Union Army; and Gibbons is a scientist and inventor. All of them arrive in the town of Alsop, Texas, just as the zombies attack. But who made that happen, and why?
2019 collection of short science fiction stories set in the universe of the Heptarchate/Hexarchate.
2008 urban fantasy, fourth in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, returns to Denver to be with her sick mother; which means that all the problems she's been running away from come back to haunt her, with new ones to join them.
2009 mystery; third in Cleeves' Shetland Island series. At an archaeological site on Whalsay, the old woman who lives nearby is shot one foggy night – accidentally, everyone assumes. Then one of the archaeologists is found with her wrists slit. DI Jimmy Perez investigates.
This GURPS supplement is primarily an equipment catalogue, listing electrical and related equipment from Galvani and Volta to the present day.
1999 mystery, eighth in the Robert Amiss series. Amiss is brought in to help an old, money-losing, right-wing weekly newspaper lose slightly less money. Which puts him in a prime position when one of the senior staff is murdered.
1934 non-fiction, a short look at the writing mindset and how to set oneself to work.
2012 non-fiction, following the life and death of Marie Colvin.
2019 Australian science fiction comedy audio drama in eight parts, by John Richards. Dr Anastasia Black, Eddie Jones and Sue Denholm continue to travel through time and space in a suburban house, fixing problems and getting into trouble.
Strange Horizons is a weekly on-line magazine edited by Vanessa Rose Phin.
Uncanny is a bimonthly on-line magazine edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas.
1992 cosy American detective fiction; fifth and last of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Madoc and Janet Rhys. They've gone to Wales to help celebrate Madoc's great-uncle's 90th birthday, but soon enough there's a dead body to be dealt with.
2018 non-fiction. HMS Erebus had already travelled to the Ross Ice Shelf; in 1845, she was sent to search for the Northwest Passage, and never came back.
2012 fantasy, third in the trilogy. In a parallel 19th century America, Eff Rothmer travels on an expedition past frontier territory, to where the magical beasts dwell.
1995 mystery, fifteenth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. McCone's trying to get the reward for tracking down the "Diplo-Bomber" who's been sending explosive packages to various embassies and consulates… but it quickly becomes personal.
2018 SF anthology, 14 short stories; all except the last have been published previously.
2013 historical detection, twentieth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). The hated conductor of an amateur choral ensemble is murdered… twice. And an old friend of Phryne's is in love with someone who doesn't know he exists, and who seems to be the target of murderous attacks.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: Hatred is a vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their meanness, and make it a pretext for sordid tyranny.)
1989 mystery/suspense, second in the John Sanders/Harriet Jeffries series. DI Sanders is in Ottawa for training, and annoyed at the world; but he was also the last person to see an undercover cop, apart from the murderer.
2019 science fiction romance novella. Red and Blue are soldiers on opposite sides in a war that ranges across worlds and up and down the timelines. But then Red finds a letter in the ashes of a battlefield, that reads: Burn Before Reading.
1997 mystery, seventh in the Robert Amiss series. "Jack" Troutbeck enlists Amiss to help the new but unworldly Bishop of Westonbury as his chapter suffers a rift between the high church gay traditionalists and the intolerant evangelical new dean. Murder is also involved.
2018 clockpunkish science fiction, third and probably last in the series. With Napoleon defeated, the Prince Regent decides that it's time to conquer (and profit from) all of Mars. Arabella, who grew up there and feels herself Martian at heart, sets out to prevent him.
This GURPS supplement deals with contacts: how to use them, how to customise them, and a wide variety of examples.
2009 short collection of science fiction stories. In steampunk Victorian England a young woman learns to fly; in the distant future the heir to the Phoenix Empress learns to control her powers.
V-Commandos: Résistance is the supplement to V-Commandos that I wasn't able to buy at Essen last year.
1992 cozy American detective fiction; tenth of MacLeod's novels of Boston Brahmin Sarah Kelling and art investigator Max Bittersohn. An old friend turns up working in an atelier styled after a Renaissance guild, restoring damaged art; but quite a lot of it seems to get stolen shortly after it's been returned to the client…
This supplementary volume in the Monster Hunters series offers improved abilities for some of the standard hunter templates.
1991 mystery; first of Granger's novels of Chief Inspector Markby and non-detective Meredith Mitchell. Mitchell is British Consul in Bratislava, home on leave to support her actor cousin Eve as Eve's daughter Sara gets married. Markby was a friend of Eve's deceased husband, and is giving away the bride. But it's Mitchell who will discover the body of the local potter who may have had something going with Sara…
2014 mystery, first in the series about Helen Binney, ex-wife of the Governor of Massachussetts and now living in a small town and suffering from lupus erythematosus. Helen's fussy nieces insist on getting her daily visits from an overbearing nurse, who later turns up beaten to death outside Helen's house.
2018 modern fantasy, tenth and last in the Kate Daniels series. Things haven't got simpler for Kate, with a precocious infant son as well as her other responsibilities. Her father is mustering forces for the final battle. And that may not even be the worst of her problems…
This GURPS Powers supplement provides mechanical support for characters aided by totem spirits: something less than gods, but still more than human.
1959 mystery, first in the series about Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett. Tibbett and his wife go on a skiing holiday to a remote village on the Italian-Austrian border, but his superiors and Interpol ask him also to keep an eye on drug smuggling in the area. But what has that to do with the unpleasant German who turns up dead at the bottom of the chair-lift?
1985 police procedural, first in the John Sanders/Harriet Jeffries series. In Toronto, someone is raping and murdering joggers; but Detective Inspector John Sanders thinks the latest victim doesn't completely fit the pattern.
2018 modern fantasy, first in a planned series spun off from the main Kate Daniels series. Hugh d'Ambray was the warlord of the demigod Roland, but was cast out for failure; he'd be crawling into a bottle, but his men need him. Elara Harper leads an outcast community that needs soldiers, and could offer shelter and employment. But both of them are known for betraying their allies. How can they make this alliance look credible to their enemies?
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: If you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you.)
1996 mystery, sixth in the Robert Amiss series. "Jack" Troutbeck, newly Baroness Troutbeck, enlists Amiss to help organise opposition in the Lords to an anti-hunting bill. But even she didn't expect it to be murderous.
2016 modern fantasy, ninth in the Kate Daniels series. Kate's father Roland continues to poke at her claim of the city of Atlanta, this time by kidnapping people under her protection. Kate and Curran agree to marry. And then there's the matter of prophecies…
1991 Christmas-themed mystery anthology. Thirteen stories deal with crime (mostly murder) at, or themed on, Christmas.
1980 fantasy with SF elements. On the colony world of Nova Mars, the blood-drinking Sabella lives on her own… but her aunt has just died, and seems in her will to be set on outing her as a vampire.
2015 modern fantasy novella in the Kate Daniels series. Derek, now a vigilante known as the Grey Wolf, and Kate's adopted daughter Julie, deal with a killer and work out what it is the killer's trying to achieve.
1991 comic mystery; eighth of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy. During the annual owl-counting survey, a newcomer to the town is distracted by what seems to be an out-of-place snowy owl… and is promptly hauled into a tree and stabbed to death.
2011 fantasy. On a parallel American frontier, thirteenth-child Eff Rothmer is a heroine of sorts for working out how to solve the plague of insects that was destroying settlements west of the Great Barrier Spell. But that doesn't help her work out what to do next.
2005 police procedural mystery/horror, third in the Bryant and May series. In the winter of 1973, a man dressed in Edwardian garb defaces a Waterhouse painting in the National Gallery; a guest at the Savoy dies of venom from a marshland snake. The Peculiar Crimes Unit investigates.
2015 modern fantasy, eighth in the Kate Daniels series. Kate and Curran have stepped down from leadership of the Pack, and are trying to make new lives for themselves. But supernatural threats to Atlanta don't stop; the ghouls are swarming…
2008 crime novella, stand-alone. In the USA, a serial killer is cutting off young women's arms and legs; nobody's found the bodies. But his latest victim is a mobster's daughter.
2014 police procedural mystery, third in the Fiona Griffiths series. A routine payroll fraud blows up into a murder enquiry, and Fiona goes undercover.
2014 modern fantasy, seventh in the Kate Daniels series. Kate's summoned to attend the Conclave, the icily polite meeting between Atlanta's vampire lords and shapeshifters. Of course it's a trap. But even the knowledge that it's a trap can be a trap.
2008 police procedural mystery, tartan noir, fourth in the Logan McRae series. Twenty years ago, "The Flesher" killed and butchered – literally – people all over the UK. Thanks to flawed police work, he got out eleven years later. But it's only now that more bodies are being found, or rather more packaged meat…
2014 modern fantasy novella in the Kate Daniels series. Dali Harimau, myopic vegetarian weretiger sorceress, looks into a missing grandmother.
2017 romantic mystery, first in the Mercy Kilpatrick series. Mercy is an FBI agent, but she grew up as a prepper, stocked up on goods and skills for the end of civilisation. Now she's sent back to the small town in Oregon that she left fifteen years ago, where preppers also seem to be the target of the latest murderer.
2013 modern fantasy, sixth in the Kate Daniels series. Curran is called to Abkhazia, ancient Colchis, to mediate in a dispute between three shapeshifter packs. It's obviously a trap. But the bait is really tempting…
2014 action/mystery, first in the Miranda Vaughn series. Miranda worked hard to go to college and get a job in an investment bank… but it all fell apart, and she's spent eighteen months defending herself against fraud charges. Now she's been found not guilty… but that's not enough to get her life back.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: the state abhors only one thing in the end, and that's the sound of laughter. Violence it can understand.)
2017-2018 fantasy, continuing light novel adaptation in 13 episodes: AniDB. Momonga, the VR MMORPG player who found himself stuck in the game world when the servers shut down, lives on as a super-powerful lich, and continues to…
2015 modern fantasy anthology, short stories in the Kate Daniels universe.
2018-2019 fantasy comedy, 13 episodes. The afterlife's experiments with ethics and moral philosophy continue.
2012 modern fantasy, intermediate novel in the Kate Daniels series. Andrea Nash looks into the murders of four shapeshifters… and the possibility that something much, much worse is going on.
1987 mystery, first in the Carlotta Carlyle series. Carlotta was in the Boston Police, but left for reasons which aren't yet clear; now she's a private eye without clients. Then a nice old lady, worried about what's happened to her brother, offers her a bundle of cash to look into the matter…
2019 action comedy drama, 13 episodes. A motley group of rough men (and women) run around saving the world while trying to get in touch with their feelings.
2014 science fiction, third in the Chronicles of St Mary's series. The St Mary's team of time-travelling historians continue their highly dangerous observations of historical events, this time visiting Troy and Agincourt among other places.
2010 cosy mystery, first in the Mac Faraday series. Just after his firing and divorce, homicide detective Faraday finds that his birth-mother went on to become a hugely successful mystery writer, who's left him everything in her will. So now he doesn't have to do anything but laze around… though his neighbour did get murdered recently, and the local police chief doesn't seem to be up to the job…
2013 science fiction, third in The Expanse series. The mysterious plot-device-producing alien supertech has built a ring out past the orbit of Neptune, which seems to be a gate to Somewhere Else. In spite of his best efforts, James Holden will get involved again.
2009 fantasy. In a parallel 19th century America, Eff's twin brother Lan is the seventh son of a seventh son, so that means he's lucky, and he'll probably become a great wizard. But Eff is a thirteenth child, which means that everyone knows that sooner or later she'll turn bad.
2015 Regency romance. Elinor Bascombe, a widow who's been bringing her late wastrel husband's estate back to something like prosperity, meets the wicked Lord Ryde, exiled from the country for decades, and here to raise money from his own neighbouring estate before leaving for good.
2018 modern fantasy novella, third and last in its series. The big bad vampire has broken the others out of prison, and is setting up for the big battle.
2018 Lovecraftian SF, second in the series. Aphra Marsh is in New York, trying to track down any relatives who might have survived the Innsmouth Raid. But other forces are at play.
This is my ballot for the 2019 Hugo awards. I've talked about some of it already; see the "Hugo 2019" tag.
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated short stories. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated novelettes. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.
2018 SF novella, set in what I now learn is known as the Xuya Universe, the Vietnamese empire in space with mindships. A ship who's working as a blender of mildly psychoactive teas has an odd new client, a "consulting detective".
2019 drama/comedy, dir. Stephen Merchant, Florence Pugh, Jack Lowden; IMDb / allmovie. Siblings Raya and Zak Knight come from a wrestling family in Norfolk, but is that going to be enough to get them to the top?
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I didn't know the cybernetic death squads would be used for violence.)
2018 SF novella. In a world where environmental collapse has forced everyone underground (how they ate while there is not explored), Minh is of the generation that came up and started to reclaim the surface. But time travel has apparently taken all the funding away.
1994 police procedural audio in five parts, by Nick Fisher. A mutilated corpse is found on the railway tracks; Detective Superintendent Julie Enfield tries to work out what happened.
2018 steampunk SF/fantasy novella. The American Civil War ended in a peace treaty, and New Orleans is a neutral city. But in among the airships and steam-powered walkers, someone's planning to deploy the ultimate terror weapon.
Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn, designed by Isaac Vega and published in 2015, is a competitive game of wizard battles for 2-4 players.
2018 Hugo-nominated science fiction novella in the Binti series. Binti is back on Earth with Strange Things in (and on) her head.
2018 Hugo-nominated modern fantasy novella in the Wayward Children series. The Home for Wayward Children has another person to be got back to their right place.
2018 science fiction. When the aliens arrive on Earth, it turns out that they have a standard process for determining whether a race is truly sentient. So now, to save humanity, Decibel Jones, has-been glam-rock star, has to avoid coming last in Space Eurovision.
2018 fantasy. Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father does a lousy job and so she takes over. Irina is the duke's daughter, given in marriage to the demon-ridden Tsar. Wanda is a peasant girl, beaten by her drunkard father, and looking for anything that might help her survive.
Apex was a monthly on-line magazine edited by Jason Sizemore among others.
2008 mystery; second in Cleeves' Shetland Island series. A stranger turns up at the opening of an art show, and claims to have lost his memory; later, he's found hanged in a boathouse. DI Jimmy Perez investigates.
2011 modern fantasy novella in the Kate Daniels series. Kate's out for a meal with Curran when a fellow diner is handed a necklace… and is promptly strangled by it.
2017 post-apocalyptic science fiction, ten episodes. The virus that nearly wiped out humanity has mutated into a crop-destroying plague.
2019 Australian science fiction comedy audio drama in eight parts, by John Richards. Dr Anastasia Black used to save the universe every week, but now she's enjoying a comfortable retirement. Until Eddie Jones comes to her door to sell her a new electricity contract…
2012 modern fantasy novelette in the Kate Daniels series. Julie, Kate's ward, is living with her in Atlanta after having been thrown out of her last school. Kate takes her to look at a new one… but it turns out that this is also a request for help, because one of the students has gone missing.
2011 modern fantasy, fifth in the Kate Daniels series. Kate's set up as a freelance magical investigator, though she has no clients yet; when she gets a warning about a loose vampire, she'd have taken the job even without the public-safety angle. But that's just the first sign of a new threat.
2018 science fiction, distant prequel to the Hugo-winning novelette The Lady Astronaut of Mars. In 1952, a huge meteorite hits the east coast of the USA; the resultant climatic shift is enough to push for quicker development of a space programme, because it looks as if Earth will soon be uninhabitable. Elma York, mathematician, tries to become one of the astronauts, but it's still the 1950s and everyone knows women can't do that.
2018 mystery story, third of the Lady Sherlock series. Charlotte Holmes continues to act as a consulting detective, but this time she must solve the murder of Lady Ingram, found on her estranged husband's estate. And Charlotte, known to be a Fallen Woman, has been seen in Lord Ingram's company…
2018 modern fantasy. After the Big Water, with two-thirds of North America flooded, magic has returned to the world. Maggie Hoskie is a hunter of monsters among the Diné (Navajo); she's also a very broken person.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: Stabbing people is fun.)
2013 zombie romance, dir. Jonathan Levine, Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer; IMDb / allmovie. After the zombie apocalypse, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy is still dead.
2011 modern fantasy novella, side story between fourth and fifth in the Kate Daniels series. Dali Harimau, vegetarian weretiger, finds her pack leader (and crush) passed out in her house. A new magical threat needs a competent magician not only to handle it but to work out what's going on.
2018 SF-horror, dir. Jon Turteltaub, Jason Statham, Li Bingbing: IMDb / allmovie. Five years ago, submarine rescue expert Jonas Taylor had to make a hard decision and leave some of his men behind to save the rest. Now, not only is there another submarine lost, his ex-wife is aboard. (A giant shark will also feature.)
2018 science fiction, stand-alone continuation of the Wayfarers series. Five inhabitants of the Exodus Fleet live parts of their lives.
2018 SF-horror, dir. Darin Scott, Danielle Savre, Rob Mayes: IMDb / allmovie. Another offshore research station, another giant shark. Must be Thursday.
2007 police procedural mystery, tartan noir, third in the Logan McRae series. McRae continues to be bounced between Inspectors Insch and Steel, and to try to have a personal life too.
2018 mystery show, 10 episodes. Frankie Drake and Trudy Clarke continue to be private detectives in 1920s Toronto.
1988 romantic suspense. After a lonely childhood, Geillis Ramsay finds herself orphaned and the heir to her mother's cousin's house in rural Wiltshire. And perhaps to her magic too.
Apex is a monthly on-line magazine edited by Jason Sizemore among others.
1999 science fiction horror, dir. Renny Harlin, Saffron Burrows, Thomas Jane: IMDb / allmovie. On a remote floating shark research station, things are going to go very badly wrong.
2018 Scottish zombie Christmas musical, dir. John McPhail, Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming; IMDb / allmovie. Zombies have risen, and we're all going to die. In a small Scottish town just before Christmas.
1994 mystery, fifth in Perry's William Monk series (Victorian investigation). Hester Latterly takes a job escorting an elderly lady by the overnight train from Edinburgh to London, making sure she takes her medicine on time. In the morning, her charge is dead, and soon enough Hester is charged with her murder.
2013 horror/comedy, dir. John V. Knowles, Allison Scagliotti, Francia Raisa: IMDb / allmovie. Leah is a blue-state girl in a red-state town, trying to get into a good college by breaking a really big story in the school paper. But when a new "abstinence educator" comes to town it may be a bigger story than she can handle.
1990, cosy American detective fiction; fourth of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Dittany Henbit and the Lobelia Falls Grub-and-Stakers Gardening & Roving Club. Industrial espionage comes to town, and the local mincemeat magnate is under attack.
The revived show continues, with a shorter six-episode season.
2006 mystery, first in Nadel's series about Francis Hancock, East End undertaker during the Blitz. During an air raid, a man claims that he's been stabbed, then runs off; later he shows up on Hancock's slab, apparently dead of blast, but Hancock isn't satisfied.
2017 slice of life, 4-koma manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB. Suzukaze Aoba continues to work as a character designer at a computer game studio.
2018 Hugo-nominated science fiction, third in a trilogy. The last thing Shuos Jedao remembers is being seventeen… but now he's been woken into a much older body, and apparently the Hexarch Nirai Kujen is relying on his military skills to reassemble the shattered empire. But Kujen, as always, is playing a very deep game…
2003 mystery, third in the Berger and Mitry series. It's tourist season in the small town of Dorset, and a film star couple is among them (she grew up in the area). But soon enough someone is going to plummet to his death.
2015 action comedy, dir. Paul Feig, Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham; IMDb / allmovie. In a James Bond-style world, when all the CIA's field agents are compromised, it's up to an analyst to go undercover and look for a missing nuclear weapon.
2010 modern fantasy novelette, prequel to the Kate Daniels series. Kate the mercenary gets a short-notice, high-paying bodyguard job, for a particularly repulsive client.
2017 SF, 10 episodes. The civilisation-ending plague was just part of the bigger plot, and nobody's loyalties are clear even before time travel comes into the picture.
2018 non-fiction, an informal look at the history, particularly in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, of fraud.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: Burn it. Burn it all.)
2015 action comedy, dir. Kyle Newman, Hailee Steinfeld, Dove Cameron: IMDb / allmovie. Number 83 grew up in a secret government training school for assassins, with no emotional connection to anyone. But when she's left behind on a mission, she decides to find what she's never had: a normal childhood. Pity that childhood ideal is built on 1990s high school comedies…
2010 modern fantasy, fourth in the Kate Daniels series. A bar fight that went a bit strange turns out to have been the first inkling of a deity-level supernatural threat to Atlanta. Just another day at the office.
2016-2017 romance, seinen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Scum's Wish". High-schoolers Hanabi and Mugi both have hopeless crushes on other people; they become a couple to tide them over until they get what they really want.
1994 collection of short mystery stories, in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco.
2013 action-horror, dir. Tommy Wirkola, Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton; IMDb / allmovie. After they escaped from the witch, Hansel and Gretel set up as witch-hunters for pay.
1989 mystery; seventh of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy. After the town's soap factory burns to the ground, it seems likely that the arson was cover for the theft of an antique weather vane.
1996 horror, dir. Andrew Fleming, Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk: IMDb / allmovie. When Sarah moves to a new high school, she reluctantly falls in with the witchy crowd; but first the power is surprisingly real, then it's surprisingly hard to handle.
2016 science fiction, 13 episodes. The motley crew of the Raza continues to try to stay alive, and maybe even do something worthwhile.
2018 romantic comedy, dir. Victor Levin, Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder: IMDb / allmovie. Frank and Lindsay have each been invited to San Luis Obispo for the flashy wedding of someone they don't much like. She's the groom's ex; he's his half-brother; they're both bitter people. Naturally, they meet.
1994 mystery, fourteenth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Sharon's gone independent, though she stays on good terms with All Souls and even rents office space from them; but her first case is from an old college friend, who was a bit iffy back in the day and may be even more so now. He claims he's being persecuted, but his evidence isn't great. Then things change.
2016 comedy with romantic elements, dir. Jake Szymanski, Zac Efron, Adam DeVine, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza: IMDb / allmovie. Manchild brothers Mike and Dave are told that they can't come to their sister's wedding unless they bring dates (to calm them down and stop them hitting on other women). Not knowing any women, they advertise. Alice and Tatiana, who are just as messed up but in different ways, decide that a free trip to Hawaii is worth a few days of good behaviour…
2016 animated fantasy, dir. Ron Clements and John Musker, Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson; IMDb / allmovie. Moana lives on a Pacific island and has always wanted to see more, but the tribe forbids anyone from venturing beyond the reef; then Ocean chooses her to find the demigod Māui and break an ancient curse.
2019 alternate-history audio drama in six parts, by Robert Valentine. In 1979, both USA and USSR have lunar bases packed with nuclear missiles aimed at Earth. But Jack Sloper, former MI5 agent now in a dead-end job in the Space Liaison Department, is just concerned about an inventory mismatch…
2016 minimal-budget horror, dir. Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski, Aaron Poole: IMDb / allmovie. Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Carter wasn't having a great day, but he's going to have an even worse night.
2018 light novel adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody". After a thirty-hour stint working on two separate computer games, contract programmer Satou sleeps under his desk and wakes up in a fantasy world.
2014 police procedural mystery, second in the Fiona Griffiths series. A woman's leg and foot are found in a freezer during a house clearance, and other parts are nearby; then a man's body parts start showing up in the same area.
1920 comedy, first of the series. Mrs Lucas, "Lucia" to all, is the social arbiter of the village of Riseholme – in spite of the best efforts of her subjects.
2012 historical detection, nineteenth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Pregnant girls are going missing from the Magdalene Laundry; an intrepid, if not too bright, reporter gets on their trail, then goes missing too.
2009 modern fantasy novella, side story between third and fourth in the Kate Daniels series. While Kate's recuperating from the events of the previous book, her friend and fellow monster-fighter Andrea Nash gets a call… about a shapeshifter being pursued by a house-sized dog.
1989, cosy American detective fiction; fourth of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Madoc and Janet Rhys. Madoc is summoned by his father, an eminent conductor, on an orchestral tour.
2017 French animation, dir. Patrick Imbert, Benjamin Renner; IMDb / allmovie. vt The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales
The countryside is not as peaceful a place as one might expect, as comedic bunglers try to do the right thing and are appropriately punished for it.
2013 science fiction, six short pieces in The Company series; five were previously published, and the last was written by Baker's sister for this collection.
2002 mystery, second in the Berger and Mitry series. Berger is settling in for the autumn to write a book about westerns, but small town politics and crime won't leave him alone; and the crime is Mitry's job too. Someone's blown up in her car on her way back from an illicit rendezvous, and she seems to have had a remarkable number of enemies.
2009 modern fantasy, third in the Kate Daniels series. When a shapeshifter gets killed and she's frozen out of the investigation, Kate's annoyed, but they're within their rights. When another shifter, a friend of hers, is deliberately crippled, that's another matter.
2018 animation, dir. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman; IMDb / allmovie.
Kid bitten by radioactive spider, great responsibility, blah blah. But this isn't just another retread of the usual origin story: universes are colliding, and each of them has its own Spider-Man.
2012 steampunk SF short novel, very loosely connected with the Company series. The finest brothel in 19th-century Whitehall… goes on holiday to Torquay. At least, that was the plan.
2007 thriller/mystery; seventh of Granger's novels of Fran Varady, would-be thespian and amateur sleuth. When Fran runs into Edna, the homeless woman she used to know when she was living in a squat, it seems like a welcome encounter; but Edna's scared of something, and someone is following her. And that's before Fran starts digging into old secrets.
2018 caper film, dir. Gary Ross, Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett; IMDb / allmovie. Con-artist and thief Debbie Ocean gets out of prison, and immediately plans her biggest heist yet.
2009 steampunk science fiction in The Company setting. Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax is born, grows up, is trained to be a spy, and in 1850 goes on his first mission for the Gentlemen's Speculative Society.
2017 mystery, second of the Lady Sherlock series. Charlotte Holmes is doing well in her disguised life as "Sherlock" the consulting detective, but her latest client comes from rather too close to home.
2007 caper film, dir. Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney, Brad Pitt; IMDb / allmovie. After one of their number is ripped off by a business partner, the gang gets together again for another casino robbery.
2004 police procedural mystery/horror, second in the Bryant and May series. An elderly woman is found dead in the basement of her house… dressed for a trip outside, even though she hardly ever went outside, and with river water in her throat. It's not even clear that it's a crime, never mind any questions of motivation; but with the Peculiar Crimes Unit under threat of closure, Bryant and May do their best to investigate and justify their existence.
2017 satirical action film, dir. G.J. Echternkamp, Manu Bennett, Marci Miller: IMDb / allmovie. In the dystopian future of America, the most popular entertainment is a cross-country road race with bonus points for slaughter en route.
This is the third of the new GURPS Steampunk supplements, updating and extending the old book; with genre and technology already covered, this volume deals with character generation.
2007 science fiction, eighth of The Company series. As 9 July 2355 approaches, all the forces determined to take advantage of the Silence, the point after which no information has flowed back in time, put their pieces on the board and ready their plans.
2004 caper film, dir. Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney, Brad Pitt; IMDb / allmovie. The crooks' victim from the first film wants his money back, and he's a Scary Guy. How to get it for him? Steal it, of course.
1975 detective fiction, fifth of James's novels of Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. After a medical scare and a hospital stay, Dalgleish visits an old friend to recuperate – only to find that the friend has died suddenly.
2001 caper film, dir. Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney, Brad Pitt; IMDb / allmovie. Gambler and con-man Danny Ocean gets out of prison, and immediately plans his biggest heist yet.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I hate you. I hate everything. Open that damn' door and let me out.)
1960 crime/drama film, dir. Lewis Milestone, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin; IMDb / allmovie. Old war buddies from the 82nd Airborne get together again, to rob five Las Vegas casinos in one night.
2007 science fiction, seven short stories in The Company series (five of them previously published 2001-2004).
2011 action, dir. Ernie Barbarash, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Scott Adkins: IMDb / allmovie. Two assassins find themselves working together on one last job.
2019 SF/mystery; fifty-ninth (roughly, or 48th novel) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. Lyle had cleaned up and got out of the gang life, and things were starting to look up for him. So when he's found dead of an overdose, Lieutenant Eve Dallas is already suspicious.
2015 horror comedy, dir. Todd Strauss-Schulson, Taissa Farmiga, Malin Akerman: IMDb / allmovie. Max misses her mother Amanda, who died in a car crash having never transcended her role in Camp Bloodbath, a schlock horror film of the 1980s. After an anniversary screening goes wrong, Max and some friends find themselves living, and dying, in the world of that film.
2016-2017 seinen manga adaptation in 22 episodes: AniDB, vt "March Comes in Like a Lion". Kiriyama Rei is a young professional shōgi player, but is profoundly lonely.
Human Punishment is a social deduction game designed by Stefan Godot.
1990 cozy American detective fiction; ninth of MacLeod's novels of Boston Brahmin Sarah Kelling and art investigator Max Bittersohn. Sarah's Aunt Emma steps in for an ailing friend to play hostess on a private island off the Maine coast, to a party of treasure-hunters who may also harbour criminals.
2006 mystery; first in Cleeves' Shetland Island series. In a village near Lerwick, two schoolgirls visit the local mad old man, on a bet. Five days later, one of them is dead. The old man was blamed, though not convicted, when a young girl vanished eight years ago and was never found, so everyone assumes he's done it again; Inspector Jimmy Perez tries to move beyond the automatic assumption of guilt and find out what's really happened this time.
2006 science fiction, seventh of The Company series. Alec Checkerfield forges ahead with his plan to rescue the Botanist Mendoza and take on the might of Dr Zeus and the Company. But he's not entirely himself, because his two past lives are sharing residence of his mind and body…
2014 Australian zombie horror, dir. Kiah Roache-Turner, Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradley: IMDb / allmovie. vt Wyrmwood. After a night of shooting stars, most people seem to have turned into zombies; Barry sets out to rescue his sister Brooke. But the military seem to know more than they're saying. vt Wyrmwood.
2017 military SF. In the near future, pilots have been made obsolete by a wide variety of drones, but there's still plenty of employment for soldiers as private military companies fill the gaps left by failing states. Former pilot True Brighton works for one of the "good" PMCs, but information picked up on a mission suggests that there's more to the death of her son than she'd thought…
The Dark Times, edited by Lee Williams, is a fanzine that follows on from Demonground and Protodimension in dealing with "the horror-conspiracy-weirdness gaming genres", beginning with Dark Conspiracy and drifting into nearby areas.
2009 mystery, first in the Kate Shackleton series (amateur detection). Kate's husband went missing in action in 1918; unable to locate him, she turned her hand to finding other vanished people. Now in 1922 an old VAD friend wants to find her missing father, who vanished after a possible suicide attempt. Some people don't want the past dug up.
1976 thriller or romantic suspense. After the death of her father, Bryony Ashley returns to Ashley Court; the place is going to ruin for lack of income, and it won't be hers anyway, but there's still business to take care of. But her father tried to leave her a warning…
2017 superhero-related, 8 episodes. David Haller is schizophrenic, or so everybody tells him; but maybe that's what having world-shaking superpowers does for you.
2005 science fiction, sixth of The Company series. Executive Facilitator General Labienus muses on his long life.
2016 mystery story, first of the Lady Sherlock series. Charlotte Holmes has an analytical mind, but feels constrained by the roles expected of her by Victorian society. So she does something Frightful…
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. Calibration: I hate everything.)
2004 science fiction, fifth of The Company series. The Botanist Mendoza has been imprisoned in time, left to fend for herself in 150,000 BC. But a man crashes a stolen time-shuttle on her island… a man she's met before, though he hasn't met her.
1998 mystery; sixth in Brett's Mrs Pargeter series (amateur sleuthing). The late Mr Pargeter was a criminal mastermind, though his wife "knew nothing about that"; now the dying widow of a thief who worked for him wants to restore all her stolen paintings to their rightful owners, and of course Mrs Pargeter agrees to help.
1999 crime/drama film, dir. John McTiernan, Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo; IMDb / allmovie. In New York, a painting by Monet is stolen from the Met; insurance investigator Catherine Banning helps the police to track down the thief, who may be the businessman Thomas Crown.
2012 police procedural mystery, first in the Fiona Griffiths series. DC Griffiths, who had a serious breakdown of some sort when she was a teenager, is the most junior member of the police team investigating the murder of a part-time prostitute and her young daughter in Cardiff.
This GURPS Action supplement lists hazards from the real world (or at least the cinematic world) for use in action games.
1993 mystery, fourth in Perry's William Monk series (Victorian investigation). In 1857, at the Royal Free Hospital, a nurse is found murdered and stuffed down the laundry-chute; she was one of the new breed of nurse back from the Crimea, and while she was undoubtedly good at her job she seems to have annoyed everyone too. With the police unimpressive, Monk's patron Lady Callandra Daviot (also a trustee of the hospital) asks him to investigate.
1968 crime/drama film, dir. Norman Jewison, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway; IMDb / allmovie. A successful businessman masterminds a Boston bank heist, coordinating five other men who've never met each other – or him. It's the perfect crime… but an insurance investigator is on his trail.
2018 sequel to Wreck-It Ralph, dir. Phil Johnston and Rich Moore; IMDb / allmovie.
After the events of the first film, all seems to be well in the secret life of the arcade; but when part of Vanellope's game cabinet gets broken, the only way to replace it is to venture onto the Internet. Also marketed as Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2.
2014 military science fiction, twelfth novel in the Legion of the Damned series (and last in the prequel sub-series). "McKee" is still hiding from the usurper Empress.
2012, dir. Phil Johnston and Rich Moore; IMDb / allmovie. Ralph is the villain in a Donkey Kong-like arcade game, Fix-It Felix Jr. – and, like most video game characters in this world, a thinking person too. He's tired of being the bad guy, and sets out to prove that he can be good.
2002 science fiction, fourteen short stories in The Company series.
1994 mystery, fifth in the Robert Amiss series. Amiss is recruited by his old friend "Jack" Troutbeck, Bursar of St Martha's College in Cambridge, to help her sort out the politics of how a bequest will be used. Of course, some people have strong and murderous feelings about that.
Chibnall continues to do far more than his share of the writing, but manages a thing that hasn't happened for a while: an end-of-year special with an actual story, rather than a sequence of scenes showing off how cool the protagonists are.
1778 gothic horror, and another prototype for the gothic novel. (Also published in 1777 in a very limited edition as The Champion of Virtue.) Some time in the 1430s, Sir Philip Harclay returns from the wars to find his old friend mysteriously dead, and the friend's castle with a new lord. But there is a Suspiciously Superior Peasant being raised in the household…
1999 caper film, dir. Jon Amiel, Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta-Jones; IMDb / allmovie. Gin the insurance investigator tracks down Mac the art thief, but are either of them really what they seem? Of course not.
1956 police procedural, first in the 87th Precinct series. When an off-duty detective is murdered, it might have been for any number of reasons. Then his partner is shot with the same gun…
2001 science fiction, fourth of The Company series. Mendoza has been disappeared by the Company, the same organisation that made her an immortal cyborg slave in the first place. Her recruiter Joseph, and former co-worker Lewis, try to find out what happened to her.
2016 American Regency romance, third and last of a linked series. Dr Gray conducts an academic correspondence with Miss Babcock, whom he met in passing during the events of the previous book. But when she comes to London to show off her hybrid rose, will they recognise their feelings for each other, or will societal pressures get in the way?
2013 military science fiction, eleventh novel in the Legion of the Damned series (and second in the prequel sub-series). "McKee" is still hiding from the usurper Empress, but after winning the fight in the previous book she has to go to Earth to get a medal… and she might well be recognised.
1993 mystery, thirteenth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco.
In 2018 I read 169 books, slightly more than in the last few years.
2017 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science-fantasy, third in its trilogy. It seems as though there may after all be a chance to save the world; but is it worth saving, and what will it look like afterwards?
2016 American Regency romance novella, side story in a linked series. In her youth, Cecilia Goodhue ran off with a wild young man in the direction of Gretna Green; but they were caught, and she learned he was a fortune-hunter; to escape some of the scandal, she lived by the grace of her married sister and became a teacher in a village school. Now, ten years later, her own younger sister has run off with a soldier, and in an attempt to find her she'll meet that man again.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, was the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme – though for this final issue that's mostly "look at all the different genres we've covered".
2000 science fiction, third of The Company series. In 1862, Mendoza is collecting plant samples from what will one day be Los Angeles, working out of a stagecoach stop in the Cahuenga Pass run by fellow immortal cyborg agents of the Company; she's still trying to cope with her post-traumatic stress. That won't go well for her.
2018 short science fiction novella in the Vorkosigan universe (set between Captain Vorpatril's Alliance and Cryoburn). Ekaterin, Lady Vorkosigan, is supervising an experiment in cleaning up radioactive contamination round the former city of Vorkosigan Vashnoi; but something's going awry, and old secrets will come to light.
This supplementary volume in the Monster Hunters series models real-world religions to give their monster-hunting adherents appropriate game effects.
1991 mystery, fourth in the Robert Amiss series. Once more, Amiss' friend Pooley sends him into an institution where murder may have taken place, for a bit of unofficial undercover work. This time it's as a waiter at ffeatherstonehaugh's, originally a club for roués that's since become gentrified, then fallen on distressingly moralistic times.
2012 military science fiction, tenth novel in the Legion of the Damned series (but first in the prequel sub-series, which is why I'm reading it first). Catherine Carletto is the spoiled daughter of industrialist nobles. But when the Emperor's sister assassinates the Emperor and takes over, she purges all his supporters. Cat will have to grow up fast just to stay alive, never mind getting her revenge.
This fourth Dungeon Fantasy Monsters book deals with the traditional Ultimate Fantasy Foe.
2015 American Regency romance, second of a linked series. During the deception of the first book, John Turner took on the persona of the Earl of Ashby, and was pursued by Leticia Herzog, fortune-hunting widow of an Austrian Count. When the game was discovered, she fled in public shame. But they each felt a spark for the other, and now they're going to meet again.
1999 science fiction comedy, dir. Dean Parisot, Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver; IMDb / allmovie. Galaxy Quest was a big SF show in the early 1980s, but by the present day the cast are reduced to convention appearances and store openings. Then some particularly odd fans turn out to be rather more into the show than anyone expected… Spoilers.
1764 gothic horror, and the prototype for the gothic novel. Conrad, the sickly son of the Lord of Otranto, is killed on his wedding day by a giant helmet falling from the sky, so his father Manfred plans to marry the intended bride himself; things get more foreboding from there.
2018 audio drama, adapted in ten parts by Julian Simpson from the story by H. P. Lovecraft. On 6 March 2017, Charles Ward vanished from a secure psychiatric hospital in Providence. Two podcasters, looking for mysterious stories, dig into what happened.
1968 thriller, short novella. The children's novelist Cora Gresham has decided to set her latest pirate story in Lanzarote, so she'll have to visit, and her secretary Perdita West has to make the arrangements. But the house that would be the ideal writing retreat is already occupied.
The season ends not with a bang but with a "to be continued". And that's not a bad thing.
This second Dungeon Fantasy Adventure book deals with an expedition to the long-abandoned (yeah, right) ruins of a draconic monarch's palace.
1999 science fiction noir. Vincent Rubio is a private investigator in Los Angeles: down on his luck, partner dead in an "accident", car repossessed, and a growing substance habit. But down these mean streets a man must walk who is not himself a man… Vincent is a velociraptor.
Doctor Who presents: Nightmare in Norway.
1915 comic novel, compilation from magazine publication in 1909-1910. Bored in New York, Psmith gets involved with a local newspaper, turning it from a provider of pap into a crusader.
1999 science fiction, second of The Company series. The immortal cyborg Facilitator Joseph finds himself with the task of talking a Chumash village into coming to work for the Company rather than hanging around to be wiped out when the Spanish arrive in California.
2014 American Regency romance, first of a linked series. "Lucky Ned", the Earl of Ashby, refuses to believe his friend and secretary John Turner when Turner tells him that people love his position and wealth more than his person. So Ned proposes that they swap roles while on a business trip, and bets Turner that he can make a woman fall for him even without the trappings of his status. Meanwhile, the governess Phoebe Baker has a particular reason to hate the Earl, whom she has never met…
2010 historical detection, eighteenth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Phryne is on holiday, with daughters and maid, in the seaside resort of Queenscliff, where the servants meant to come with her rented house have vanished (along with the furniture); and that's only the first mystery.
You can't go wrong with a good witch hunt.
2013 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. Breq is less than she was; she has memories of being the AI controlling the huge troop transport spacecraft Justice of Toren, and of being one of its "ancillaries", human bodies with personalities overwritten by said AI and used as soldiers. But she still has a job to do.
2005 thriller/mystery; sixth of Granger's novels of Fran Varady, would-be thespian and amateur sleuth. Fran didn't want to get involved again with Mickey Allerton, a strip club owner whom she's run into before, but he wants her to track down a dancer who's run off. And he's keeping her dog to make sure she does it.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's travel, and its perils and adventurous possibilities.
1997 science fiction, first of The Company series. In sixteenth-century Spain, Mendoza is plucked from the dungeons of the Inquisition by time-travellers who have need of local labour.
This episode would like you to know: Amazon is Scary.
2006 police procedural mystery, tartan noir, second in the Logan McRae series. A house is burned down, with the doors fastened shut so that the occupants can't escape; a prostitute turns up battered to death; and DS McRae deals with the aftermath of a bungled raid, and tries to serve two masters.
2013 science fiction, second in the Chronicles of St Mary's series. Max, time-travelling historian, kills Jack the Ripper, sorts out an attack from the future, and puts history back on course by making sure Mary Queen of Scots gets married on schedule to Bothwell.
2017 science fiction, final volume of the trilogy. As Disconnected Worlds and Fusion combine, reluctantly, to fight the rebel AIs, politics continues.
2011 crime drama/comedy, dir. John Michael McDonagh, Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle; IMDb / allmovie. On the rural Connemara coast, Sergeant Gerry Boyle has no time for people who don't want to let him do things his own way, but he still gets the policing done. Now, with the possibility of a huge cargo of cocaine coming in, there's an FBI agent in town…
1990 mystery, third in the Robert Amiss series. Having resigned from the Civil Service on a point of principle, Amiss doesn't have much luck getting a job; an old police friend asks him to look, informally, into a School of English where one of the teachers has died under suspicious circumstances. More deaths follow.
What a difference a new writer makes! Yes, this episode's not perfect, but it mostly gives the cast something to do, it uses the setting for more than mere background prettiness, and it has an alien menace that's resolved by talking rather than fighting.
Chibnall writes one more time. And he writes an awfully generic "something nasty on the spaceship" story, which I suppose is another way of saving your creative energy for something you find more interesting while still getting paid for the job you're half-arsing.
1984 SF. In a distant future, humans are desperately settling worlds as their alien-donated FTL ships become increasingly unreliable. Only native human-level life will prevent the colonisation of a new planet, and no life has ever been judged to be human-level. But the evaluation team on Belthannis is faced with something entirely new.
This is the second of the new GURPS Steampunk supplements, updating and extending the old book; it is primarily a book of equipment.
1988 cozy American detective fiction; eighth of MacLeod's novels of Boston Brahmin Sarah Kelling and art investigator Max Bittersohn. Sarah and Max have been invited to a Renaissance Revel at the Billingsgates', to work out what's happened to their missing 1927 New Phantom Rolls Royce.
Chibnall writes yet again. He's sole scriptwriter on four of the first five episodes (and of course the season finale), and co-writer on the fifth. And he's supposedly controlling the overall direction of the show. It's too much for one person to do well on a TV production schedule.
2008 modern fantasy novel, second in the Kate Daniels series. Magic is building up to a once-in-seven-years flare, someone has stolen maps from the local werewolf pack, and gods are going to come into play.
1984 mystery, second in the Robert Amiss series. Amiss is seconded to industry… well, to a dead-end privatised offshoot of the Civil Service where all the unemployables are sent to rot. And then people die.
2017, 2-hour film: AniDB, follow-up to 2012's Sword Art Online and 2014's Sword Art Online II. Two years after the SAO Incident, virtual reality is out of fashion as a new augmented reality game has become hugely popular. But Kirito reckons there's something just a bit odd about it.
2017 supernatural mystery in modern Edinburgh, seventh in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. A body is found in a tree; clearly it fell there, but how did it happen, and why?
Chibnall writes again (though this time with a co-author), but with a very different emphasis.
2018 science fiction novella, fourth and final volume in the Murderbot series. Murderbot has some key data that will expose dodgy activities by one of the corporations… but the person to whom it would do some good seems to have been kidnapped. It's definitely not an emotional decision to rescue her. That would be a system error.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's rules that amend, replace or extend what's already in the books.
2011 young adult steampunk SF, final volume of a trilogy. The living airship Leviathan crosses Russia en route to Japan; will Nikola Tesla's latest terror weapon end the Great War?
2017-2018 modern fantasy, shounen manga adaptation, 24 episodes: AniDB. Unwanted orphan Hatori Chise is bought at auction by the monstrous magician Elias Ainsworth, to be his apprentice… and his bride. vt The Ancient Magus' Bride.
1988 cozy American detective fiction; seventh of MacLeod's novels of Boston Brahmin Sarah Kelling and art investigator Max Bittersohn. Sarah is pregnant, but doesn't let that slow her down much; one of the rubbish-collectors working for the Senior Citizens' Recycling Center, a family charitable project, has been fatally mugged, and it seems that there's more going on.
Last week's opening episode was distinctly better than I'd expected, though very far from perfect. Can Chibnall (writing again) keep up the quality in a "regular" series episode?
2011 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning fantasy. Morwenna is a young Welsh SF and fantasy fan; after losing some of her family and becoming crippled, she ends up living with her father and going to a boarding school.
2013 science fiction, first in the Chronicles of St Mary's series. St Mary's Institute for Historical Research is rather more hands-on in their observation of history than anyone suspects; Dr Madeleine Maxwell is their newest recruit.
1924 mystery, first in the Anthony Gethryn series. A cabinet minister is beaten to death in his study; Colonel Anthony Gethryn, with a background in intelligence work but now terminally bored, investigates.
I gave up on watching Doctor Who around series 6 of the new iteration, in exasperation at Steven Moffat going on and on and on doing the same old things. Now he's finally left, so I gave it another try.
2018 SF/mystery; fifty-eighth (roughly, or 47th novel) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. Someone wears an explosive vest into a meeting to finalise a corporate merger; Lieutenant Eve Dallas has to find out why he did it, and whether someone else is pulling the strings.
2003 police procedural mystery/horror, first in the Bryant and May series. In the modern day, a bomb destroys the office of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, where boss Arthur Bryant was working late. John May, while mourning his friend and colleague, looks back on their first case together, during the Blitz.
2017 short fantasy novel in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion). This one follows directly from Penric's Mission and Mira's Last Dance; Penric, and the exiled general Adelis and his widowed sister Nikys whom Penric was escorting, are safely in their new home, but it turns out that Nikys's mother (it's complicated) has been imprisoned in order to get leverage on the general.
2018 steampunk SF, second of the Signal Airship series. The war continues, and Josette Dupre, captain of the scouting airship Mistral, will go on fighting it… if she can survive the politics of her own side.
2005 police procedural mystery, tartan noir, first in the Logan McRae series. DS McRae is just back on the force after a major injury sustained in the line of duty; it's winter in Aberdeen, and the mutilated body of a kidnapped boy has just been discovered. And it won't be the last.
2010 young adult steampunk SF, second of a trilogy. As an alternate Great War is beginning, the airship Leviathan visits Istanbul to give a British bribe to the Ottoman Sultan. But much more is going on behind the scenes.
2003 crime. Michael Forsythe left Belfast for America, but wasn't surprised when he ended up a petty criminal. After a betrayal, he sets out to get his revenge.
2010 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. Historians from Oxford in 2060 are visiting England in 1940, but things are going oddly wrong. Warning: this is going to be a bit of a rant.
1992 comic fantasy, first of the Pine Cove series. Travis has been living with the demon Catch for nearly ninety years – the immortality and invulnerability aren't bad, but the murders are getting to him. He's finally tracked down a way of ending the pact, but it won't be easy.
2004 fantasy, novel adaptation: AniDB, vt "Howl no Ugoku Shiro". Sophie is an apprentice hat-maker, until in one busy day she is assisted by a handsome man beset by enemies, then gets cursed with old age. She sets off into the wilderness to see if she can break the curse.
1996 mystery; fifth in Brett's Mrs Pargeter series (amateur sleuthing). Mrs Pargeter is having a house built, but a body turns up in the wine cellar, her builder is arrested, and he won't say anything to defend himself. What's going on?
1986 dieselpunk fantasy: AniDB, vt "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" and "Castle in the Sky". Pazu the engineer's apprentice catches a girl falling from the sky; bad people are after her, and all is not what it seems as various factions hunt for the legendary floating city Laputa.
2018 science fiction, first of a planned series. On the generation ship Olympia, life is stratified into the Executives and everyone else. Oichi Angelis is an everyone else, but one with a hidden asset.
2009 young adult steampunk SF, first of a trilogy. In an alternate 1914, the German Clanker powers build massive legged war machines, while the English Darwinists engineer creatures to serve their purposes. But none of that stops the Archduke Franz Ferdinand from being assassinated.
1988 fantasy: AniDB, vt "My Neighbor Totoro". Perhaps some time in the 1950s, a university professor and his two young daughters move to the countryside to be near his hospitalised wife; the house and woods prove to be full of magical creatures.
I bought Ascendancy (and the three currently-available expansions) at UK Games Expo, and I've just got it to the table.
2017 fantasy novella in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion), third by internal chronology in the Penric sub-series (though published after Penric's Mission). A temple-trained sorcerer is murdered in the woods, and her demon is missing; Locator Oswyl looks for the killer, while Penric looks for the demon.
2007 modern fantasy novel. In a world where magic ebbs and flows unpredictably, Kate Daniels is a mercenary who specialises in magical creatures. But her mentor has been murdered, and someone seems to be trying to start a war between the vampires and werecreatures of Atlanta.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's post-apocalyptic material, and more for The Fantasy Trip.
1993 mystery, third in Perry's William Monk series (Victorian investigation). In 1857, General Thaddeus Carlyon, a military hero, dies in an accident during a dinner party; but when the police decide it might have been murder, his widow confesses. She is sure to be hanged, but the justification she gives for her action is clearly false; Monk the private investigator, Oliver Rathbone the barrister, and Hester Latterly the nurse returned from the Crimea, work together to dig out what really happened.
2017-2018 mystery show, 11 episodes. In 1920s Toronto, Frankie Drake, former Signals rider, and her partner Trudy Clarke, are the city's first female private detectives.
A friend introduced my wife to Healthy Back Bags, and we're both rather impressed with them.
1988, cosy American detective fiction; third of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Dittany Henbit and the Lobelia Falls Grub-and-Stakers Gardening & Roving Club. There's a collection of antique theatrical memorabilia looking for a new home, and its owner sets a contest: whoever writes and produces the best new play, on a vaguely Canadian subject, will get it for their town. The Club gets together a two-act drama based on The Shooting of Dan McGrew, but complications follow.
Star Realms Frontiers is the new expanded version of Star Realms, by Darwin Kastle.
1953 science fiction, first of a series. Joe Kenmore goes to work on the construction of the space platform, the first step in humanity's road to the stars, but finds it beset by sabotage.
Who Goes There? is a new heavyweight social deduction game for 3-6 players, by Anthony Coffey and Jesse Labbe.
2018 science fiction novella, sequel to Artificial Condition. People are asking questions about the mysteriously vanished SecUnit from the planetary survey incident, and Murderbot (that same SecUnit) reckons the best way to distract attention is to bolster the case against the company which caused the incident.
Human Era is a new social deduction game by Zach and Jake Given.
2016 fantasy novella in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion). This one follows directly from Penric's Mission; the demon-ridden sorcerer tries to get a discredited general and his widowed sister to the safety of a foreign court. But Penric is injured, and the minimal funds they had for their escape have run out.
2012 modern horror. Billy Moon is a goth rock idol, but he's starting to think his producer Trevor Rail might be the Devil. Isolated in a rural studio in upstate New York, he knows he's got to make his third hit record… if it kills him.
1972 detective fiction, first of James's novels of Cordelia Gray, a private investigator. Having inherited a failing investigation business, Grey is employed to look into why a famous scientist's son abandoned his university course and killed himself.
2013 horror anthology, 33 very short Lovecraft-inspired stories.
1981 mystery, first in the Robert Amiss series. After a meeting of a liaison group between government and industry, Sir Nicholas Clark, Permanent Secretary of the Department of Conservation, is beaten to death with an abstract sculpture called "Reconciliation". Everyone seems to have had a motive, and then another murder follows…
2016 fantasy/horror anthology, Lovecraftian stories that explore the mythos in a positive way – celebrating rather than backing away from the implications of minds greater than human.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's tied to one recent and one upcoming release: the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, and The Fantasy Trip.
1992 mystery, twelfth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Thirty-six years ago, Lis Benedict was convicted of the gruesome murder of her husband's mistress; she's just been let out of prison on grounds of ill health, and her daughter's vowed to clear her name at a trial re-enactment. But as McCone investigates the long-buried case, it becomes clear that people still have something to lose.
1959 reminiscence; Lee recalls his childhood in the 1920s, in a village in the Cotswolds. US vt Edge of Day.
2018 short science fiction. Marie has done something bad at work; now she's undergoing therapy by virtual reality.
2017 steampunk SF, first of a series. The war between Garnia and Vinzhalia grinds on; Lieutenant Josette Dupre commands a scouting airship.
1936 mystery parody, first of the novels of Sergeant Beef. When Dr Thurston's wife is murdered during a weekend party, it looks like a classic locked room mystery. Three great detectives arrive, and try to solve the conundrum in their own ways. But it's up to the plodding police sergeant to save the day.
2017 Lovecraftian SF. In 1949, Aphra Marsh, one of the last survivors of the internment camps that came after the Innsmouth Raid, is just trying to make a life for herself. But her knowledge of magic makes her a powerful piece on the board even if she doesn't want to play the game.
1922 thriller. James Meredith is found guilty of murdering his romantic rival, and sentenced to prison. But there's a question of inheritance, and a hasty marriage leaves an outsider in danger. vt The Destroying Angel.
2008 thriller film, dir. Danny Lerner, Stephen Baldwin, Vanessa Johansson: IMDb / allmovie. A shark is killing divers in Venice, but we can't let the word get out or the tourists will be scared off. US vt Sharks in Venice.
2009 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning biopunk science fiction. Some time in the future, after peak oil and the crop blights, Thailand is one of the few countries that's still hanging on. But in Bangkok various factions are about to collide.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a tie-in with the recently-released Hot Spots: Renaissance Venice, dealing with areas on a slightly larger scale than last month's Locations issue.
2015 young adult science fiction. After the Omniwar, civilisation in the USA is just barely holding on; large swathes of country are still unlivable. The main entertainment is car racing, and the Widowmaker is the biggest race of all: and Cassica and Shiara, from a small town on the edge of the Rust Bowl, are going to try to win it.
2015 young adult science fiction, short story in the Earth Girl setting. Drago Tell Dramis is a young pilot, in an awkward social situation, and having to perform a desperate and dangerous mission.
Clarkesworld is a monthly on-line magazine edited by Neil Clarke. After seeing where some of my favourite Hugo novelette nominations had been published, I decided to take a look at the current issue.
This historical GURPS supplement deals with Venice in the 15th and 16th centuries.
2008 science fiction, first of a trilogy. Ariane Kedros was involved in a mission that's often regarded as a war crime; under her new identity she prospects in new star systems. But Intelligence still has jobs for her.
2017 historical detective fiction, sixth of Marston's novels of Inspector Harvey Marmion. In 1917, as the War drags on, Wally Hubbard breaks out of Pentonville and searches for the man who seduced and abandoned his daughter. But that isn't Marmion's only problem.
1971 detective fiction, fourth of James's novels of Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. A hospital on the Sussex-Hampshire border has a nurse training school attached; one of the students is poisoned during a demonstration of tube feeding, and a few weeks later another dies in her sleep.
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated novelettes. I'm not voting this year, but if you are, you may wish not to read these notes until you have read the stories.
2014 post-apocalyptic SF. A famous actor dies during a performance of King Lear; outside, the world is ending in pandemic.
1987 mystery; sixth of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy. The old pond that provides startup hydropower to the Balaclava Agricultural College's methane plant is the site of the annual Groundhog Day festivities; this year it's also where a body has floated to the surface.
On a recent ten-day European trip, I tried out packing cubes for the first time, and my impression is highly favourable.
2010 contemporary fantasy. In a decaying alternate-present Johannesberg, Zinzi December is one of the animalled: people who, for reasons that aren't entirely clear, have acquired an animal companion and magical powers. Of course, that's not entirely a good thing.
1967 detective fiction, third of James's novels of Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. Dalgleish is on holiday, visiting his aunt's cottage on the Suffolk coast; but one of the local writers has gone missing, and soon the police announce that his body has been found.
1975 science fiction, broadly in the same universe as Dreamsnake. In the last city on a post-apocalyptic earth, Mischa the thief is trying to get passage off-world for herself and her brother before their telepathic talents doom them both.
2007 mystery/thriller, first in its series. In 1932, Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie ("Georgie"), thirty-fourth in line to the throne, is desperate to get away from her brother's frozen castle in Scotland, and unwilling to be married off to Prince Siegfried of Romania, but is without funds of her own, so she travels to London to try to make her own way in life. Things rapidly become excessively complicated.
2017 mystery, tartan noir. In Oldcastle, a notional Scottish city that's mostly Aberdeen with some shades of Edinburgh, the detectives nobody wants (but who can't be fired) end up in the Misfit Mob. When lots of bodies turn up at once in the town dump, they get the most boring one. But now they've got a serial killer to track down…
2017 modern fantasy short novel novella, second in its series. The underdog FBI department that fights vampires gets a case in a small town.
2018 modern romance/slice of life, seinen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "After the Rain". High school student Tachibana Akira has a crush on Kondou Masami, the middle-aged manager of the restaurant where she does a part-time job.
2012… hard to categorise, but I think "contemporary thriller" comes closest. Unemployed web designer Clay Jannon gets a job at a bookshop… which turns out to be distinctly Odd.
2007 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning alternate-world noir. In 1940, refugee Jews from Europe were granted a temporary homeland in Alaska; sixty years later it's about to be handed back to the USA. But for homicide detective Meyer Landsman, that can't get in the way of solving the latest murder.
This first Dungeon Fantasy Settings book deals with a town - in other words, the very thing that Dungeon Fantasy tends to skim over lightly, as merely a place to heal up, sell loot and buy supplies.
2017 SF, set in the same universe as the Imperial Radch series but not in Radchaai space. Ingray Aughskold is a low-ranking political daughter, trying for a major coup to get herself some status. But her plans are going to go comprehensively wrong.
2018 SF, 12 episodes: AniDB, in the same setting as Sword Art Online but sharing no characters with it. People come to the virtual reality game for various reasons, and most of them find what they're looking for.
1986, cosy American detective fiction; third of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Madoc and Janet Rhys. After Janet is nearly killed while trying to give assistance at a road accident, Madoc is brought in at the other end of the case to track down stolen military equipment.
2011 young adult science fiction, first of the Australia Trilogy. Chan lives on the generation ship Australia, built in haste after Earth collapsed; they didn't find a new planet, so they've kept going. But its society is breaking down. Spoilers.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a set of four locations, with some effort made to blend detail with broad applicability.
2018 motoring show, 6 episodes. The inevitable plunge into comedy starts here.
1939-1940 short articles published in The Spectator; various characters from the Wimsey stories write to each other about the early days of the Second World War.
2018 modern romantic comedy, josei manga adaptation in 11 episodes: AniDB, vt "Love is Hard for Nerds". Obsessive fans of games and manga try to balance their passions with real life.
2016 modern fantasy. Dina Demille's magical inn will be the site of another meeting: a dying species has hired a group mind to work out where to find their new home world. But there's another species out there which regards slaughtering the first one as a religious obligation. Oh, and Dina's sister has just sent a message, asking for help.
This supplement adds to the standard GURPS magic system, with spells designed to destroy hordes of minor opponents.
2017 clockpunkish science fiction, sequel to Arabella of Mars. With her fiancé captured by Bonaparte, Arabella Ashby travels to Venus to rescue him.
1926 Ruritanian romance, originally serialised in 1914-1915. Travelling in the tiny kingdom of Lutha, between Austria and Serbia, American tourist Barney Custer finds himself mistaken for the young king, who's been confined for years with a mysterious ailment, and rapidly becomes mixed up in adventure.
2008 historical detection, seventeenth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). As Melbourne suffers under a post-Christmas heat wave, Phryne takes on two cases: a junk dealer's suicide, which his mother earnestly believes is nothing of the sort, and the whereabouts of a possible illegitimate child from sixty years ago. Minor spoilers.
1963 detective fiction, second of James's novels of Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. In a London psychiatric clinic that's still adjusting to being part of the NHS, the unpopular chief administrator is stabbed in the heart. Any of the staff could have done it, and most of them had reason to; but who is guilty?
This first GURPS Encounters book is a tavern/bar/club sourcebook combined with four short adventures.
2002 thriller/mystery; fifth of Granger's novels of Fran Varady, would-be thespian and amateur sleuth. Fran's in a play, very amateur and over a pub for one night only, but it's still acting work; and she's waitressing at the trendy pizzeria that used to be the Hot Spud Café. But something about it doesn't feel quite right, even before an illegal immigrant boy comes in, desperate to find "Max".
1972 collection of the last three short mystery stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.
2001 mystery, first in the Berger and Mitry series. Mitch Berger is a New York film critic mourning his dead wife, who rents a house in a rural (but rich) part of Connecticut; Desiree Mitry is a cop on the Serious Crimes Squad. So when Berger digs up a body in the vegetable patch…
2003 fantasy, sequel to The Curse of Chalion and set three years later. Ista, widowed mother of the new queen, feels supernumerary – even without her embarrassing history of madness. But the gods haven't finished with her yet.
2018 science fiction novella, sequel to All Systems Red. Murderbot is going to try to make a new life for itself… but it first it needs to get to the truth about that human fatality incident it was involved in.
1937 thriller. Caroline Watts, not wanting to be a burden on her married sister, takes up a post as games mistress at a minor school for girls, but soon runs up against the horrid Matron Miss Yaxley-Moore, who seems to have the Head under her thumb. Was the previous games mistress's death really misadventure?
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with a new style of magic.
1939 collection of seventeen short mystery stories, some involving Lord Peter Wimsey. Minor spoilers.
1983 fantasy. Brendan Doyle, an expert on nineteenth-century English poets, takes a job as a guide for time-travelling tourists, off to listen to an unrecorded talk by Coleridge. But he soon finds himself stranded in London in 1810, fleeing from sorcerers, a werewolf, and even his employer.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's GURPS Technomancer, the magic-as-technology world inspired by Magic, Inc., Operation Chaos and The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump.
2011 military science fiction, first of an ongoing series. In 2029, previously-unknown aliens destroy three cities, with a warning: "Never again attempt to develop this kind of technology." Earth responds in the only way possible: space battleships! Spoilers.
1937 mystery, eleventh and last of Sayers' novels about Lord Peter Wimsey. Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane are married at last… but at the house they've taken for their honeymoon, the owner is dead in the cellar with his head bashed in.
2016 science fiction, second of a trilogy. Michigan Long continues to serve aboard the analogue ship Fives Full as tensions brew up into interstellar war.
I borrowed a copy of Inka and Markus Brand's Exit: The Abandoned Cabin, one of the many recent escape-room-in-a-box games. (I will not reveal anything that's not immediately available when you start playing.)
1936 thriller, inter-war thud-and-blunder, last novel dealing with Richard Hannay and Sandy Arbuthnot. Hannay is feeling old and stale, not helped by seeing an old firebrand friend settled in suburban domesticity, when an old promise leads to adventure one more time.
1985 cozy American detective fiction; sixth of MacLeod's novels of Boston Brahmin Sarah Kelling and art investigator Max Bittersohn. Sarah's aunt is putting on her annual Gilbert and Sullivan show, but it will be made harder by theft… and perhaps murder.
1979 fantasy. Aging mercenary Brian Duffy is recruited by a strange old man to work as a bouncer at a brewery-inn in Vienna. But it's 1529, and the Ottomans are on their way.
1989 science fiction. In the City, it's always two-thirty in the morning, and raining. Mickey Rooney sells the papers and Barton MacLane is Captain of Detectives. All the noir films happen at once… and the guy behind it all needs to be taken down.
2007 urban fantasy, third in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who has become the world's most famous werewolf, goes to a mountain retreat to work on her book. But, of course, trouble follows her there.
2001 fantasy, the first set in this world. Lupe dy Cazaril has been a courtier, then a soldier, then a galley slave, and now he just wants to rest. But the gods meddle in the affairs of men, and to do it they need tools.
1936 mystery, tenth of Sayers' novels about Lord Peter Wimsey. Harriet Vane, doing a favour for a friend, returns to her Oxford college for the annual dinner for former members. But someone starts sending poison-pen letters, and worse; as the closest thing the college has to an investigator, Harriet reluctantly looks into it.
2001 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning modern fantasy. Shadow finishes his time in prison… but learns that his wife has died just before he was due to be released. He goes to work for Mr Wednesday, who's gathering forces for a big fight…
1985, cosy American detective fiction; second of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Dittany Henbit and the Lobelia Falls Grub-and-Stakers Gardening & Roving Club. In a small town in Ontario, the new museum (of early-settlement-era tat) needs a curator. Unfortunately, the first one seems to have fallen to his death.
2015 modern fantasy short novel, originally published as blog posts on the author's web site; second in the series. Dina Demille's magical inn needs guests; she's offered the chance to host an interstellar peace conference. But only because everyone else has turned it down…
2015 science fiction short novel. Ship-owner Caleb Shepperd, pilot and spy Francesca, and the android Number 1001 continue to be badly messed up people dancing around each other, and only one of them has an excuse.
1934 mystery, ninth of Sayers' novels about Lord Peter Wimsey. Stranded in a fen village on a snowy New Year's Eve, Wimsey helps out with the bell-ringing since one of the regular men is down with 'flu. But Fenchurch St. Paul has not finished with him, and soon enough a body will be found.
1992 mystery; fourth in Brett's Mrs Pargeter series (amateur sleuthing). Mrs Pargeter keeps an old friend company at a visit to a health spa, but Bad Things are going on there.
Naval technothriller, second in the series dealing with Captain Amanda Garrett and the USS Cunningham. As a Chinese civil war turns one-sided, US forces intervene to prevent nuclear holocaust.
1962 detective fiction, first of James's novels of Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. Sally Jupp the housemaid is found strangled in her bed, behind a bolted door. She'd managed to annoy pretty much everyone in the house… but who turned annoyance into murder?
2015 YA science fiction, first of a trilogy. This morning Kady broke up with her boyfriend Ezra. But as their mining colony is invaded and everyone has to flee for their lives, that fight starts to seem less important.
1933 mystery, eighth of Sayers' novels about Lord Peter Wimsey. Victor Dean, a copywriter at Pym's Publicity, fell down the office's iron spiral staircase and broke his neck. But his sister, with whom he was living, found a half-finished letter to the management that made her suspicious, and Wimsey goes in as a new copywriter to see what he can learn.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the combination of magic and imagination. Will that be different from the Thaumatology issues we've had before?
1992 mystery, second in Perry's William Monk series (Victorian police work). Over the winter of 1856-1857 in London, Monk is assigned to a new case: a young widow living in her father's house, found stabbed to death in her bed.
2009 science fiction. Gaia Jones just wants to run her snack stand, on the strange alien-human space station orbiting Mars. But one of the aliens dies in her shop, and things start to get extremely complicated.
My copy of the new (second) printing of Black Orchestra has arrived.
2011 historical mystery, first of a series. In Victorian London, Frances Doughty assists her ailing father in his pharmacy; but someone dies after drinking one of their tonics, and he's the obvious person to blame. But Frances is sure there must be more to the tale.
2015 science fiction, first of a trilogy. After the AI catastrophe, there are two sorts of colony world: the ones where computers are strictly regulated and monitored, and the ones where they aren't allowed at all. The "analog ship" Fives Full is navigated by slide-rule and sextant.
2018 SF/mystery; fifty-seventh (roughly, or 46th novel) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. A woman is stabbed while watching Psycho in a cinema; there's no obvious motive for killing her. Homicide Lieutenant Eve Dallas soon discovers roughly what's going on, but it'll still be a long twisty road to catching the killer.
2016 short space opera novel, postscript to the Dread Empire's Fall trilogy. Having won battles by means that weren't approved of, Caroline Sula is promoted to a backwater post: Earth. That's fine; it gives her scope to study Terran history. But she's also a large pebble being thrown into a deep pond of convenient arrangements…
1933 collection of twelve short mystery stories, some involving Lord Peter Wimsey.
1997 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning military science fiction. Sergeant Julian Class runs a "soldierboy" infantry drone through a neural link, in an eternal war against "rebels". But bigger and more frightening things are going on.
1967 mystery/thriller or romantic suspense. On holiday in Syria and the Lebanon, Christy Mansel runs into her cousin Charles. They decide to drop in on their great-aunt "Lady" Harriet, who's been doing the Lady Hester Stanhope thing and living in the local style in a remote palace. But when Christy steals a march on Charles and goes on her own, she discovers a rather more disturbing situation than she expected…
2004 space opera novella, postscript to the Dread Empire's Fall trilogy. Three years after the Naxid War, new star systems are being opened up for development. Which means that there's lots of scope for serious money to be made, legally or otherwise.
1932 mystery, seventh of Sayers' novels about Lord Peter Wimsey. Harriet Vane, having turned her post-acquittal notoriety into a boost to her writing career, is taking a walking-tour on the south-west coast of England when she discovers a corpse on the beach, still dripping blood.
2005 space opera, third and final book of Dread Empire's Fall. Gareth Martinez fights the civil war as a naval officer; Caroline Sula leads the resistance on the conquered capital world.
1985 fantasy, fifth of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy. Shandy and two colleagues are in Wales to look into a hogweed infestation, but soon find themselves in a fantastical realm.
2017 science fiction. In a world with cheap and easy cloning and memory transfer, it makes sense to crew the first interstellar ship with clones: when they die of old age on the voyage, they can renew themselves. But now they're all waking up at once, with no memories since the start of the trip, to find their previous bodies messily murdered.
The Grand Tour: 2017-2018, 11 episodes. Clarkson, May and Hammond continue to pretend to make a motoring programme.
2013 historical drama, first in a five-book series. Berlin, 1933: Clara Vine, unsuccessful actress, has gone to Berlin to try her luck in film, just as Hitler has come to power. She finds herself falling upwards into the company of Magda Goebbels, and is recruited as an intelligence source.
1931 mystery, sixth of Sayers' novels about Lord Peter Wimsey. In Galloway, one fishes or one paints, ideally both; but one of the more offensive painter-fishermen has apparently fallen off a cliff. Wimsey is unconvinced.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's back to the dungeon, looking at both the Dungeon Fantasy RPG and the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy series. OK, not really an exciting theme for me, but let's see how it goes.
2004 space opera, second book of Dread Empire's Fall. As the civil war continues, Gareth Martinez and Caroline Sula continue to fight both to keep the Empire going and to save their own careers.
2017-2018 science fiction, 15 episodes. Ten years before original Star Trek, the USS Discovery has a unique advantage in the war with the Klingons.
2006 urban fantasy, second in the series. Kitty Norville, the late-night DJ who brought werewolves and vampires into the public eye, is summoned to testify before a Senate committee.
1991 mystery; eleventh in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Out near the California-Nevada border, an environmental group is fighting the big mining company that's planning to reopen the old gold workings. But someone's playing dirty, and Sharon's brought in to find out what's going on.
2017-2018 science fiction comedy, 12 episodes. Captain Ed Mercer of the Planetary Union hit a rough career patch after his divorce, but now has command of an exploratory ship. But his ex-wife will be his new first officer.
2017 science fiction, second in a trilogy. The rebel and revenant general Shuos Jedao has taken over a war fleet… and is using it to fight the invaders better than anyone else could. How many layers deep does his planning go?
1992 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. At Oxford University in 2054, a history student is being sent back in time to the Middle Ages. But things are going to go about as wrong as they possibly could.
2017 cooking story, shounen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Food Wars: The Third Plate". Yukihira Sōma continues to fight cooking duels on his way up the élite Totsuki cooking school.
1930 epistolary mystery, Sayers' only non-Wimsey crime novel. An expert on edible fungi dies after eating mushrooms he picked himself: the mistake that was bound to happen eventually? A dossier of evidence suggests otherwise.
2017, 12 episodes. Final season of this police procedural in the CSI mould: a team of forensic experts at the "Jeffersonian" consults for the FBI.
2017 SF/mystery; fifty-sixth (roughly, or 45th novel) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. Homicide Lieutenant Eve Dallas is out with a colleague when another patron of the bar is cut and bleeds to death in front of her. She may not have much time for gossip journalists, but solving murders is still her job.
1899 non-fiction; Dr Thompson, a medical historian, examines the history and practice of poisoning.
2017-2018, 14 episodes (12 broadcast at time of writing). A new team tests various myths, sayings and rumours, to see how they stack up against the real world.
1929 thriller, inter-war thud-and-blunder. In South America, Sandy Arbuthnot and Archie Roylance find themselves involved in fomenting a revolution, but not in the usual way.
2013 science fiction. Some time late in the twenty-first century, Jayna is an analyst for a predictive agency, teasing trends out of disparate data. But there's something a bit different about her. Spoilers.
2017 modern fantasy, seinen manga adaptation, 13 episodes: AniDB. Kobayashi the office worker gets drunk one night, and in the morning finds a dragon outside her front door – who's come to stay with her and be her maid. vt Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid.
1928 mystery, fourth of Sayers' novels about Lord Peter Wimsey. General Fentiman was found dead in his armchair at the club; but there's some question about the timing, since someone else died around the same time and there's a complex interaction of wills, and Lord Peter gets involved.
2005 urban fantasy, first in a series. Kitty Norville is a late-night DJ; one night she gets a call from someone who claims vampires are real, someone else says that werewolves are too, and lots of other people seem to want to talk about them. Which is tricky, because she's been a werewolf herself for three years.
2017 fantasy comedy, 13 episodes. Eleanor is still in the afterlife, but things have got much more complicated.
2007 historical detection short stories, in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia).
1928 collection of twelve short mystery stories involving Lord Peter Wimsey.
2013-2017 science fiction web series, 11 episodes; a fan production extends the original Star Trek.
2009 science fiction, first of a series. "Boss" finds derelict spacecraft, investigates, and either salvages them or takes tourists round them. But now she's found the claim of a lifetime…
1927 mystery, third of Sayers' books about Lord Peter Wimsey. While dining and talking about crime, Wimsey meets a doctor who's lost his practice because he was unhappy about a death (the patient was certainly dying, but should have lasted several more months) and insisted on an autopsy – to the horror of the country town where it happened. Nobody else thinks there's any possibility of a crime, but Wimsey takes an interest.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the Action series, a set of rules for streamlining GURPS to fit the sort of story one finds in action films.
2017 science fiction. Ciudad de Cielo, the space habitat where the first generation ship is being constructed, has just had its first murder. Two unlikely investigators will need to work together to solve it, and the bigger plots behind it.
2013 romance novella. Nikki is an unsuccessful artist in the process of giving up on her dreams by taking a marketing job; Mark is the private detective whose office she walks into by accident. But it seems he needs some help catching an art thief…
1984 cozy American detective fiction; fifth of MacLeod's novels of Boston Brahmin Sarah Kelling and art investigator Max Bittersohn. A minor theft is nothing to be taken seriously, but a murderous practical joke has more significance… and there's more murder to come.
2015 fantasy/horror anthology, consisting of Lovecraftian stories by and about women. Because, as the editors point out, there's a substantial strand of writers of Lovecraftiana who have continued Howard's premise that women just aren't terribly interesting or worthy of notice (both in their stories and in real life), so why not?
2010-2011 mystery, light novel adaptation, 24 episodes: AniDB. In the European country of Sauville, Kujō the military brat transfers to an exclusive private school, and meets Victorique the goth-loli enigma. They solve crimes!
1986 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. Having gone from universally loved to universally reviled, Ender Wiggin continues to suffer for your sins.
2017 science fiction/investigation, 13 episodes; a tech billionaire, obsessed with finding the murderer of his daughter, builds a crowd-sourced crime-solving system.
1926 mystery, second of Sayers' books about Lord Peter Wimsey. Wimsey's brother, the Duke of Denver, is accused of murdering his prospective brother-in-law. Why won't he say what he was doing in the conservatory at three in the morning?
2017 science fiction. Jazz Basshara smuggles contraband into Artemis, the city on the Moon. She gets an offer too good to be true… and of course things go wrong.
2015 Norwegian disaster film, dir. Roar Uthaug, Kristoffer Joner, Ane Dahl Torp: IMDb / allmovie. The Åkerneset mountain overlooks the tourist village of Geiranger, but a landslide could cause a tidal wave along the fjord. It's going to. vt The Wave.
2017 military science fiction, first of a series. Gunnery Sergeant Tachikoma is about to have a very bad day… repeatedly.
1923 mystery, first of Sayers' books about Lord Peter Wimsey. A body is found in a bath in Battersea, naked except for a pair of gold pince-nez; and a prominent financier has disappeared from his bed. Unless they're the same man, the cases don't appear to be connected, but Wimsey the amateur sleuth takes an interest in both ends of the affair.
2017 non-fiction. What is bitcoin, and why should any sensible person have absolutely nothing to do with it?
2001 thriller/mystery; fourth of Granger's novels of Fran Varady, would-be thespian and amateur sleuth. A private investigator tracks down Fran to tell her that her mother (who abandoned the family when Fran was quite young) is dying, and wants to talk to her. But that's not all she wants. It turns out that after she left she had another daughter…
2017 non-fiction, popular science; short treatments of scientific aspects of farming, food transport and cooking.
1982 classic English detective fiction; thirty-second and last of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Peregrine Jay is putting on Macbeth at the Dolphin, but tensions are running high and not all the cast will make it to the end of the run.
2017 science fiction novella. Murderbot is an AI running a light-duty security robot, trying to keep the humans of a planetary survey expedition alive, though it would much rather spend its time catching up on episodes of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Unfortunately its job is going to get rather harder.
1980 classic English detective fiction; thirty-first of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The Great Soprano is being pestered by a paparazzo; her millionaire friend takes her to a retreat in the New Zealand bush, with just a dozen good friends – including the young composer she's taken over, and whose new opera she's going to put on in a private performance. But all that's not going to stop someone from killing her.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's fighting – not a theme I find particularly compelling in RPGs any more.
1957 murder mystery in rural England. The Jeacocks have split off part of their house to make a cottage to let, but not only is their tenant entirely too willing to pay three months' rent in advance in lieu of references, he's mostly interested in the Big House nearby, and its new owner.
2016 non-fiction. Sandifer writes about the alt-right, starting with the writings of three luminaries of neoreaction and in demolishing them wanders through a variety of strange places.
Note: this is the title both of the collection and of the first essay, which seems also to have been published separately.
2017 non-fiction, popular science. A biologist and a cartoonist look at ten fields of technology that seem likely to produce large changes in human life.
2017 science fiction/investigation, 5 or 12 episodes; H. G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper into the modern day.
1985 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction, expansion of an earlier short story. Ender Wiggin is brought up to be the tactical genius necessary to fight off the alien invaders.
1979 detective fiction; fourth and last of Brand's novels of Inspector Charlesworth. On a stormy night, faded film star Sari Morne finds her road blocked by a fallen tree; but a stranger has just arrived at the other side, and they swap cars to finish their journeys. But the next morning the car in her garage has a corpse in it.
2015 science fiction. Captain Caleb Shepperd runs a rustbucket interplanetary freighter, trying to make enough money to keep going. Number 1001 is a synth, supposedly built to be some rich woman's immortal body, but in practice sent off as an assassin. Things aren't going to go well.
1978 classic English detective fiction; thirtieth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The wealthy double-widow Sybil Foster apparently commits suicide while staying in a hotel for hypochondriacs. But this is not a story about suicide. vt A Grave Mistake.
2015 drama, dir. Jocelyn Moorhouse, Kate Winslet, Judy Davis: IMDb / allmovie. In 1950s rural Australia, Tilly Dunnage is coming home to upend the small town that threw her out as a child.
2015 military SF. Catherine Blackwood is a privateer ship's captain, which in practice means mercenary; a new contract has her employed by her estranged father to haul her idiot brother back out of whatever trouble he's got himself into.
In 2017 I read 124 books, down again from the previous year.
2005 mystery/thriller, first in a series. Dr Anya Crichton is a forensic pathologist (divorced, ex-husband has custody of the kid) trying to build a freelance practice as an expert witness. But several victims she examines have some unexpected findings in common.
2017 science fiction disaster film, dir. Dean Devlin, Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess: IMDb / allmovie. Earth's climate problems have been casually solved by a network of weather-control satellites, but now they seem to be going wrong.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the exploration of space, as distinct from alien planets.
1976 classic English detective fiction; twenty-ninth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Alleyn's son Rick is trying to write, staying in a rented room on a Channel Island. But while a riding accident might just be disturbing, it seems that murder is never far away. Fortunately, neither is his father.
2010 steampunk fantasy. Darian Frey is still just barely holding the airship Ketty Jay and her crew of misfits together, and once more he's going to get in way over his head.
1990 mystery; third in Brett's Mrs Pargeter series (amateur sleuthing). Mrs Pargeter keeps another recent widow company on a package holiday to Corfu, but clearly things are amiss even before the murder and the cover-up.
1973 classic English detective fiction; twenty-eighth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The president of newly-independent Ng'ombwana is visiting London; many years ago he was at school with Roderick Alleyn, and now he insists on having Alleyn involved in his security. Especially when there's an assassination attempt at his party in the embassy.
1984 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. Case used to be a hacker, but stole from the wrong people, and they took hacking away from him; now he's a hustler on an arc towards suicide by street. But someone wants him for a very special job.
2017 historical fantasy. After the death of her parents, Mary Jekyll – yes, that Jekyll – is left penniless, but with mysteries. There's still a reward for the capture of her father's murderous friend Edward Hyde. But Jekyll is not the only mad scientist to have left a daughter.
This supplement for campaign design deals with portal fantasy, specifically the sort in which people from Earth find thsmselves in a fantasy world.
Cities of Splendor is an expansion for Splendor, designed by Marc André.
1983 cosy American detective fiction; fourth of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy, set at an agricultural college in Massachussetts. Retired professor Herbert Ungley wouldn't want to be caught dead without his toupee, but that's just what's happened.
2017 fantasy. Makepeace has a gift, or curse, that she doesn't entirely understand. But she's going to have to learn about it fast, in part because it's 1641 and the tension between Parliament and the King is coming to a head.
The new Secrets & Lies expansion for Mysterium is designed by Oleksandr Nevskiy and Oleg Sidorenko.
2009 comedic mystery, first in its series. The nameless narrator runs No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. But when the private detective agency next door suddenly closes down, some of its customers start coming to him instead.
1972 classic English detective fiction; twenty-seventh of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Troy is painting a portrait of Hilary Bill-Tasman, which means staying at his country house for Christmas. But a servant disappears in the storm, and Troy's husband is certain to be involved.
1899 thriller, collection of short stories from 1898 with new material. A. J. Raffles, prominent society man and cricketer, leads a double life as a burglar.
2002 non-fiction: an experienced foreign reporter gives his views on the fundamental psychological brokenness of war.
This GURPS Fantasy-Tech supplement deals with upgrades, plausible or otherwise, to low-tech mêlée weapons.
2007 historical mystery, fourth of Shaw's series. In 1898, Vanessa Weatherburn investigates a young woman whose body was found floating in the Cam.
1998 mystery; fourth of Cutler's novels of Sophie Rivers, a teacher in a sixth-form college in Birmingham. Sophie's cousin Andy is a rock legend, planning to retire and devote himself to good causes; but it seems that someone wants him dead.
This first Dungeon Fantasy Encounters book deals with an abandoned (but monster-infested) tower offering portals into other worlds.
1970 classic English detective fiction; twenty-sixth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Various people have gathered for an expensive but exclusive tour of the sights of Rome; some of them are Bad Lots, and some of them will die.
2003 non-fiction; the story of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, and of Herman Mudgett or H. H. Holmes, America's first serial killer.
2017 ongoing comedic fantasy manga adaptation in 10 episodes: Anidb, vt "Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!". Kazuma continues to live in an MMORPG world.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a return to thaumatology, looking at magic and what to do with it.
1998 thriller; third of Granger's novels of Fran Varady, would-be actress and amateur sleuth. Fran's working in her friend Ganesh's corner shop when a man stumbles in, obviously injured, then leaves once he's cleaned himself up a bit. But now sinister characters are hanging around the shop, and around Fran herself.
Burgle Bros., by Tim Fowers, is a cooperative heist game for 1-4 players.
2017 SF/mystery; fifty-fifth (roughly) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. (Or 44th novel, I think. At some point I may renumber these reviews.) On the road on a snowy night, Homicide Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her billionaire husband Roarke find a naked, blood-stained and delirious woman who claims to have been attacked by the Devil.
This short book is a survey of histories of the Second World War.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the last of the three issues promised during the Dungeon Fantasy RPG kickstarter. (It's well timed, as hardcopies of the books were reaching Kickstarter supporters as it came out, and they're now available to the public.)
1983 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction, second book of the Uplift series. In a universe where every known intelligent species has been "uplifted" to sapience by an earlier species, humanity is the sole exception, and it's breaking interstellar politics; if humans hadn't already uplifted dolphins and chimpanzees before first contact, it would be even worse. An exploration vessel from Earth (mostly dolphin-crewed, with some humans and one chimpanzee) has found something amazing, but has made a forced landing on an unknown world while evading alien fleets.
For over a hundred years, the Royal Navy had been expecting to win the next Trafalgar. On 31 May 1916 off the Danish coast they got their chance, and it didn't go as well as might have been hoped.
1968 classic English detective fiction; twenty-fifth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Worn down by having to be too much in public, Agatha Troy takes a river cruise in fen country. But nobody is quite what they seem, and soon one of them will be dead.
1988 mystery; second in Brett's Mrs Pargeter series (amateur sleuthing). Mrs Pargeter moves into one of a small cluster of new houses, but it seems that the previous occupant may have come to a bad end.
1968 classic English detective fiction; nineteenth and last of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion, finished after her death by her husband. A hamlet on the Essex marshes is keeping secrets, and apparently some of them are worth murdering for.
2017, 9 episodes (on Geek & Sundry): teams of various minor celebrities try to solve puzzles to get of a room.
1990 mystery; tenth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. A former student radical dies in one of a series of apparently random shootings. Shortly before his death, he changed his will, disinheriting his children and giving his money to four strangers. Sharon tracks them down, and tries to find out why he did it and whether there might have been any duress or undue inflence.
The Dark Times, edited by Lee Williams, is a new fanzine that follows on from Demonground and Protodimension in dealing with "the horror-conspiracy-weirdness gaming genres", beginning with Dark Conspiracy and drifting into nearby areas.
2016 short fantasy novel in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion). Some years after the previous books, Penric and the demon Desdemona have been sent on a diplomatic mission, to recruit a disaffected general for Penric's home of Adria. So first he's accused of spying and thrown into a dungeon…
2015 Lovecraftian horror novella. In 1920s London, ex-boxer Harry Stubbs gets a job bodyguarding (and spying on) a Chinese visitor who clearly knows more than he's saying.
2016, 21 episodes: Wil Wheaton and other minor celebrities play boardgames.
1967 classic English detective fiction; twenty-fourth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Playwright and director Peregrine Jay is handed the dilapidated Dolphin Theatre, and is making a success of it, at least until the night-watchman is murdered. US vt Killer Dolphin.
1990 mystery; first in Perry's William Monk series (Victorian police work). In 1856 London, Monk wakes up in hospital with no idea of his own name or job, but soon discovers that he's a police detective, and is given a new case to work on, the beating to death of a popular veteran of the Crimea. But as he finds out more about the man he used to be, he doesn't like him very much.
1986 mystery; first in Brett's Mrs Pargeter series (amateur sleuthing). Widowed Mrs Pargeter moves into a seaside hotel in Littlehampton, and causes a stir by being herself; but when one of the guests falls down the stairs in the middle of the night and breaks her neck, she may be the only person who doesn't assume it was an accident. Or at least one of two people.
2016-2017 science fiction, 16 episodes. A time machine has been invented, and stolen, by someone whose goals are unclear but probably bad; a team is assembled in haste to take the second machine to try to catch him.
1998 non-fiction, an informal history of the age of the telegraph.
Alien Frontiers, designed by Tory Niemann, is a dice-placement game for 2-4 players.
1910 comic novel, compilation from magazine publication in 1908-1909. Mike and Psmith end up toiling in the New Asiatic Bank. This suits neither of them.
2012 modern fantasy short novel, originally published as blog posts on the author's web site. Dina Demille keeps a faded bed-and-breakfast in small-town Texas. But it's actually a way station for travellers from other worlds.
1979 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. Vannevar Morgan is determined to build a bridge linking Earth to geosynchronous orbit, but humans and physics are going to get in his way.
1965 classic English detective fiction; eighteenth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. Someone seems to be developing mechanically-assisted telepathy, but what does it have to do with Campion's nephew?
After an eighteen-year gap, bad film is mocked once more.
2016 modern fantasy novella, first in its series. There are vampires in the world; the FBI is hunting down the bad ones.
1964 classic English detective fiction; twenty-third of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. An island village gets rich off tourism following the "miracle cure" that happened at its spring, but the new owner of the island plans to shut all that down. Murder ensues.
2016 SF/mystery; fifty-fourth (roughly) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. A sniper is shooting people in New York – at random, or with specific targets in mind? Lieutenant Eve Dallas investigates.
2017 motoring show, 7 episodes. Much to everyone's surprise, it's actually trying to be a car show again.
1963 classic English detective fiction; seventeenth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. Timothy Kinnit learns, on the eve of his elopement, that he was adopted, and tries to find out more about his parentage; then he becomes a suspect in a suspicious death and a housebreaking.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's another batch for the Monster Hunters setting.
2016 fantasy novella. The greatest philosopher of all time is offering to sell his soul to the Devil. All he wants is twenty more years to complete his life’s work. But the demon assigned to the task is deeply suspicious. For one thing, it seems like an obviously bad deal for the human. For another, the philosopher asked for him by name.
2016-2017 modern fantasy, 10 episodes; the Librarians, who hunt down magical artefacts, take on a god and a government agency.
1962 classic English detective fiction; twenty-second of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Friction in a pair of country houses is the precursor to murder, but everything's tangled in the extreme.
2014 Lovecraftian horror novella. In 1920s London, ex-boxer Harry Stubbs is working for a firm of lawyers that's looking for valuable assets to pay off some of Shackleton's creditors. But what did he really find on those polar expeditions?
2006 historical detection, sixteenth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Phryne is invited to a decadent Christmas party at Chirnside Manor; someone's trying to discredit and kill the hosts. She might not have gone, except that someone's sent her a coral snake to discourage her.
2009 steampunk SF novella, very loosely connected with the Company series. The finest brothel in Whitehall is also a nest of spies, but very discreet ones.
2016-2017, 13 episodes. Hayes Morrison, daughter of an ex-president and living with a party-girl reputation, runs a unit that reviews old cases.
1978 Hugo-, Nebula- and Locus-award-winning science fiction. On a post-apocalyptic earth, various small groups of people scratch out a living; Snake is a healer, using bioengineered venomous serpents to produce drugs that cure ills and relieve pain.
2014 young adult science fiction, collection of short stories in the Earth Girl setting.
1960 classic English detective fiction; twenty-first of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The famous comedic actress Mary Bellamy has been getting increasingly troublesome, and now feels that all of her best friends have betrayed her. But only one of them is going to kill her.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the second of the three issues promised during the Dungeon Fantasy RPG kickstarter.
1919 thriller, third of Buchan's books about Richard Hannay; wartime thud-and-blunder. Hannay has to go undercover among the pacifists and conscientious objectors to root out a German agent.
2016 clockpunkish science fiction. In 1812 Arabella Ashby, daughter of a Martian plantation owner, is sent Home to Earth to learn proper ladylike behaviour; but she'll soon need to find her way onto a Marsman to return to the planet of her birth.
Mysterium, designed by Oleksandr Nevskiy and Oleg Sidorenko, is a co-operative game of deduction for 2-7 players.
2012 historical mystery novelette, part of Douglas's series about Irene Adler. Irene visits London and enlists the help of Sherlock Holmes to save an old friend from a complex blackmail plot.
1958 classic English detective fiction; twentieth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The passengers aboard the Cape Farewell are travelling to South Africa; but it seems that the Flower Murderer who's been plaguing London is among their number.
Vehicles aren't the defining image of steampunk, but they're certainly one of the important aspects of it, whether it's personal carriages or massive airships. This book lists a number of historical, speculative and fantastic vehicle designs, with stats for use in GURPS.
2015 science fiction. Zack Lightman is a dreamer and geek with anger management problems. But his video gaming skills are going to be needed to fight off a real alien invasion. Spoilers.
Colony, designed by Ted Alspach, Toryo Hojo and Yoshihisa Nakatsu, is a dice-based resource-building game of post-apocalyptic survival for 2-4 players.
2004 historical mystery, eighth of Douglas's novels about Irene Adler. Still in New York, Irene Adler looks into the last days of the woman who might have been her mother, and finds that other people are taking a violent interest in the matter.
1977 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction (and the Locus and Campbell too). The mysterious and vanished aliens known as Heechee left behind a space station in solar orbit, and lots of small FTL spacecraft attached to it. But humans haven't really worked out how to navigate them yet.
2016 fantasy comedy, 14 episodes. Eleanor dies, and goes to the afterlife. Not Heaven, exactly, but… The Good Place. Only problem is, she's pretty sure she's not meant to be there, but admitting it would surely make things worse.
2014 SF anthology consisting of short stories in the form of crowdfunding pitches and site updates.
1958 classic English detective fiction; sixteenth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. Several crimes seem to be vaguely related to a shabby-respectable area in west London, but how can it all be put together? US vtt Tether's End and Ten Were Missing.
2012 horror comedy. Travis wakes up one morning to find that Brisbane has been flooded with carnivorous strawberry jam.
1957 classic English detective fiction; nineteenth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. In the village of South Mardian, the Dance of the Five Sons is still performed at midwinter; but this year one of the dancers will be decapitated in truth as well as in jest. US vt Death of a Fool.
2006 historical mystery, third of Shaw's series. In 1896, Vanessa Weatherburn (now a mother of twins) investigates the murder of a professor of history at King's College.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's magic inspired by large-scale filmic stories. Is it just going to be a rerun of #102 Epic? Not quite.
2015 fantasy. In Victorian England, Faith Sunderly has gone with her family to the Isle of Vane as her father the famous naturalist supervises the excavation of fossils, though it gradually becomes apparent that he is under some sort of cloud. Still, there is science to be done… by the men.
1997 mystery; third of Cutler's novels of Sophie Rivers, a teacher in a sixth-form college in Birmingham. Seconded to a new college for a project, Sophie finds the proximity to her home and the high equipment budget don't compensate for a strange managerial attitude… or for murder.
2014 fantasy. Triss has survived a fall in the river, but she doesn't feel quite right: she's permanently hungry, her memories are fuzzy, and her sister refuses to talk to her.
2016, 10 episodes. Horror comedy by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan: the survivors of the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority house massacre are now running a hospital, but they haven't got away from masked killers.
1955 classic English detective fiction; eighteenth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The quiet village of Swevenings has seen two deaths recently: Sir Harold Lacklander of the Foreign Service died of old age and heart failure, leaving his memoirs to his good friend and neighbour Colonel Cartarette to edit and publish. But now someone's stove the Colonel's head in.
2012 fantasy. In the underground city of Caverna, Neverfell was found with no memories, aged five, in a cheese-vat. Seven years later, she sets out to catch an escaped rabbit, and ends up finding her place in the world.
1974 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning military science fiction. William Mandella is a conscript in Earth's first interstellar war; it starts off looking an awful lot like Vietnam.
2016 slice of life, novel adaptation in 11 episodes: AniDB, vt "The Great Passage". Introverted Majime is a useless salesman for Genbu Publishing, but finds his true calling working in the Dictionary Editorial Department.
These are my thoughts on the Campbell Award-nominated authors (yes, I know it's not a Hugo) based on the material provided in the voter pack. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated novels. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated series. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.
2016 caper show, 10 episodes. Alice Vaughan, private investigator, discovers her fiancé was a con artist stealing from her firm. But in spite of all that, neither of them is quite ready to break things off.
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated novellas. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so.
1955 detective fiction; sixth and last of Brand's novels of Inspector Cockrill. On a Conducted Tour (an early package holiday) in Italy, one of the group is murdered. Nobody has a strong motive, and everyone seems to have an alibi. But the local Grand Duke is determined to execute someone…
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's one of the three issues promised during the Dungeon Fantasy RPG kickstarter.
2016 fantasy novella in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion), second in the Penric sub-series. Now a trained sorcerer, Penric is lent to a detective chasing the murderer of a young nobleman; of course it's more complicated than that.
2016-2017, 18 episodes: Murtaugh is a straight-arrow cop, Riggs is his ker-razy partner.
1965 mystery/thriller or romantic suspense. Vanessa March, married two years, had a fight with her husband Lewis just before he left on a business trip to Stockholm. But then he shows up on a newsreel about a circus fire in Austria… with his arm round a blonde.
1996 detective fiction; eighth and apparently last of Cleeves's novels of amateur private detectives George and Molly Palmer-Jones. George is commissioned to look into a possible charity fraud, then whipped off to Texas to assist an old birdwatching friend who's being accused of murder.
1955 classic English detective fiction; fifteenth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. Campion's friends and country neighbours the Cassands are having their annual party; but three corpses will go some way towards spoiling the fun.
2016 science fiction, 10 episodes. At the Westworld holiday resort, the android "hosts" exist to be shot, slept with, and generally taken advantage of. But some of them are starting to remember.
2003 historical mystery, seventh of Douglas's novels about Irene Adler. Goaded by the scandal-mongering reporter Nellie Bly, Irene travels back to New York to look into a past of which she has little memory… but someone seems to be killing people who figured in it.
1974 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. Shevek is a physicist working on a new theory of time, but he finds political obstruction even in an anarchist utopia. He travels to the mother world to continue his work.
2014 modern fantasy, second in the series. Jade Crow is training to fight against the big nasty magician, but her father calls for help. You really shouldn't go home again.
2016 Hugo-nominated science fiction, first book of Terra Ignota. Even in a techno-utopia, there are people who are unhappy with the rules.
2016 post-apocalyptic horror, 13 episodes. Vampires have always walked the earth, and after a Yellowstone-eruption-induced loss of sunlight they've taken over. Three years later, a descendant of Abraham van Helsing helps to fight against them.
1954 classic English detective fiction; seventeenth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Alleyn is combining work for the Sûreté with a family holiday in the South of France, but sees a possible murder from the train, and then things get even more complicated. US vt The Bride of Death.
2016 Hugo-nominated science-fantasy. As the world ends, two orogenes try to protect their little patches of it. Definitely don't try to start the series here.
1990 mystery; ninth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Tracy Kostakos, rising comedian, disappeared two years ago; Bobby Foster confessed to kidnapping and killing her. But there's no body, he's recanted the confession, and All Souls Legal Cooperative is handling his appeal.
This historical GURPS supplement looks at the Silk Road during the peak years of its importance, between roughly the second and tenth centuries AD.
1989 collection of short mystery stories, some featuring Roderick Alleyn.
1952 detective fiction; fifth of Brand's novels of Inspector Cockrill. Raoul Vernet, fading roué, had his head bashed in on a foggy night – in a nearly empty house. But everyone's got something to hide. US vt Fog of Doubt.
2016 fantasy, light novel adaptation in 12½ episodes: AniDB. Six people find themselves in a monster-bashing fantasy world, without memories or resources. vt Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash.
2012 military science fiction, first of a planned five-book series. Private Andy Moralee has passed Dropship Infantry training, but it didn't prepare him for a unit posting and battle itself.
2016 cyberpunk drama, 10 episodes. Ben Larson, corporate climber, is secretly a climate-change refugee under a false identity, trying to find and save the woman he grew up with and lost.
1952 classic English detective fiction; fourteenth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. Meg Elginbrodde thought she was widowed in the war, and now plans to marry again; but someone is sending her recent photographs of a man who might be her late husband. Can it really be as simple as blackmail?
1997 mystery; second of Granger's novels of Fran Varady, would-be actress and amateur sleuth. Fran's waiting at a station and feels sorry for a homeless man, so gives him a cup of coffee. Soon she's hearing his life story… and all about the young woman he saw being kidnapped a few days ago.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's things that go wrong for player characters.
2016 Hugo-nominated science fiction. In a world defined by belief, Kel Cheris won a battle against heretics… by using a heretical technique. That makes her the perfect leader for a really important mission.
2016 modern fantasy, shounen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB. Makoto the trainee witch moves to a rural town in Aomori prefecture to live with her (non-magical) relatives.
2016 popular science/history, 10 episodes. The team does practical investigation of various historical events and other claims.
1951 classic English detective fiction; sixteenth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Towards the end of the opening night of a new play, one of the cast kills himself. Or does he? US vt Night at the Vulcan.
1973 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. In 2131, an object falls into the inner Solar System at high speed: it turns out to be an alien artefact, and only one ship is in a position to take a look before it falls out again.
1987 partly-historical mystery. In 1910, Edwin Strafford was Home Secretary under Asquith, and engaged to be married; then, suddenly, his intended refused to speak to him, his political career collapsed, and he ended up as a consular official in Madeira. In 1977, unemployed history teacher Martin Radford is employed by an eccentric South African to find out why, but the past is not as dead as he might have hoped.
2016 mecha science fiction, 26 episodes: AniDB, vt Black Relic. In the near future, a UN research station at the Kurobe Dam is looking into some ancient artefacts… and enigmatic aliens start to invade Earth.
2016-2017 detection, 13 episodes. Frank Sullivan the homicide detective was shot and killed in 1996; in 2016, his daughter Raimy, also a homicide detective, finds that she can talk to Frank of twenty years ago via an old ham radio.
2014 military SF, first of a series. Ian Dunlop thinks he might be going mad, but he's the product of an illegal experiment. That secret has been well kept for years, but now it's getting out.
2016 noir thriller, 10 episodes. A forensic neuropsychiatrist finds himself getting in way, way over his head.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's things to make the players say "that's amazing".
1976 comedic detective fiction; first of Thomas's novels of "Dangerous" Davies, barely-competent and perenially unlucky detective constable in Willesden. Set to look for a local criminal who might have returned to the area, Davies turns this into an investigation of a twenty-five-year-old disappearance.
2016 cooking story, shounen manga adaptation in 13 episodes: AniDB, vt "Food Wars: The Second Plate". Yukihira Sōma continues to fight cooking duels on his way up the élite Totsuki cooking school.
1945 war story (written in 1942 but held back by the censor). Four mismatched officers come together on a project to build up French morale by deploying a flamethrower against German coastal forces.
2016 horror, 10 episodes. Suburban family's daughter is demonically possessed; two priests try to do something about it.
1949 classic English detective fiction; fifteenth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Lord Pastern and Bagott, sitting in on the drums in a jazz band, has set up a bit of business where he "shoots" the piano-accordionist, Carlos Rivera, who falls down and is carried off stage. But Rivera's made himself offensive to everyone, and he's not going to be getting up again. US vt A Wreath for Rivera.
2013 military SF, first of a trilogy. In the near future, Lieutenant James Shelley commands a Linked Combat Squad of tech-enhanced soldiers in a desert war everyone knows is pointless, but profitable to the right people. Lately he seems to have developed a reliable sense of imminent danger. (vt The Red in 2015 revised release.)
2016 modern fantasy, shounen manga adaptation in 25 episodes: AniDB, vt "Circle of Reincarnation". High school student Mamiya Sakura, and Rokudō Rinne the shinigami, continue to have wacky adventures dealing with the spirit world.
1949 detective fiction; fourth of Brand's novels of Inspector Cockrill. Isabel Drew is domineering, vain, and thoughtless, but beautiful enough to get away with it. Today her chickens will be coming home to roost.
2016 political science fiction, 13 episodes. Alien insects are taking over American politicians. This causes surprisingly little disruption.
2002 tartan noir. Angelique de Xavia, police detective burning out after the events of A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away, comes up against a gang of Situationist bank robbers.
2005 historical detection, fifteenth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). After a series of jewel thefts aboard the SS Hinemoa, Phryne is employed by P&O as both detective and bait.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's humour, something I've always found tricky in RPGs.
2016 science fiction, 13 episodes. As the world starts to rebuild after the megaplague, some people decide they prefer it the way it is.
2005 historical epistolary mystery, second of Shaw's series. In 1892, a young woman's much older husband has been murdered; her mother brings in Vanessa Duncan to try to get the answers and avoid scandal before the police arrest the widow.
2016 slice of life, 4-koma manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB. Suzukaze Aoba joins the studio that's making the third game in a series she loved growing up.
1958 thriller/war story. In February 1942, Singapore is about to fall to the Japanese; one last ship makes it out, but those who made it aboard won't have an easy trip to safety.
2001 tartan noir. What's the connection between new teacher and new father Ray Ash, and international terrorist-for-hire The Black Spirit? Rather more than one might suspect.
2016, 13 episodes: the final season of odd-couple crimefighting from Detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles.
2016 contemporary comedy, 12 episodes, manga adaptation: AniDB. Kokonotsu works at his father's old-fashioned sweet shop, but wants to draw manga. A strange girl appears to try to recruit his father, but first she needs to persuade Kokonotsu to take over the shop.
1948 classic English detective fiction; thirteenth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. The decaying Palinodes are lodging in what used to be the family house, but one of them seems to have been poisoned; what is the neighbouring undertaker up to; and why is a delirious crook terrified of "going up Apron Street"?
2016 urban fantasy/horror, 13 episodes. Wynonna Earp, distant descendant of Wyatt, comes back to her home town to learn that her job in life is to send back to hell the revenants of the men who died by Earp's gun "Peacemaker".
1972 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. The Electron Pump has brought limitless free energy to Earth, by exchanging matter with a parallel universe where the physical laws differ. But one or two people think there might be a worm in this apple.
1944 mystery; eighth of Daly's books of Henry Gamadge, book expert and amateur investigator. Mr Crenshaw arrived in New York, settled his affairs and died of leukemia, with no relatives to be informed; but a casual acquaintance didn't like the look of his servant, and asks Gamadge to dig into the matter.
2016, 10 episodes. Space bounty hunters fight what looks at first like political oppression, but which turns out to have more behind it.
2008 alternate-history science fiction war story. During the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942, two antiquated four-stacker destroyers sail into a squall… and come out somewhere else.
2016 pseudo-historical fantasy, novel series adaptation in 8 episodes: AniDB, vtt "Arslan Senki Fuujin Ranbu" and "Heroic Legend of Arslan: Dust Storm Dance".
1947 classic English detective fiction; fourteenth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Agatha Troy is commissioned to paint a portrait of Sir Henry Ancred, famed Shakespearian actor; the house is full of his variously ghastly family, including the chorus-girl he's taken up with.
2016 police parody, 10 episodes. Detective Angie Tribeca solves crimes in the RHCU, the Really Heinous Crimes Unit.
1957 thriller/war story. The island of Navarone, off the Turkish coast, contains a set of naval guns in a rock fortress that can't be effectively bombed, surrounded by a massive occupation force. Two sabotage missions have failed, one by boat, one by parachute. It's time for the third.
2003 somewhat parodic cosy detective fiction; third and last of Anderson's novels of the Earl of Burford and Inspector Wilkins. The last two house parties at Alderley ended in murder, but surely there can't be any harm in having people down for Great-Aunt Flossie's funeral and the reading of her will?
1955 thriller/war story, MacLean's first novel. Ulysses, a heavily-modified Dido-class cruiser, has been worked nearly to death on the Arctic convoys, but in spite of that, and of an arguable mutiny among the men, she's sent out for one more run.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a celebration of 100 issues of Pyramid, and various articles that wouldn't fit well elsewhere.
1970 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. A motley crew of explorers travels to an immense, star-girdling ring.
2015-2016, 22 episodes. Police procedural in the CSI mould: a team of forensic experts at the "Jeffersonian" consults for the FBI.
1997 mystery; first of Granger's novels of Fran Varady. Fran is unemployed, broke, and about to be turfed out of her London squat along with her three housemates. But one of those housemates is soon going to turn up dead.
1989 swashbuckling science fiction. Against the background of the thousand-years' war between the Hanoverian Monopolity and the Jendyne Empery-Cirot, Arran Islay fights for freedom and revenge.
2016 steampunk action, 12 episodes, anime original: AniDB, vt "Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress". With the shogunate ravaged by zombies (kabane), civilisation survives in great walled "stations" and the armoured steam "fortresses" that travel between them.
1964 mystery/thriller or romantic suspense. After the play that was to be her Big Break closed in disgrace, Lucy Waring goes to visit her married sister in Corfu. But why would anyone shoot at the dolphin that comes into their bay?
1937 detective fiction; third of Heyer's novels of Detective Inspector, later Superintendent, Hannasyde and Sergeant Hemingway. Silas Kane is found at the foot of a cliff on the morning after his sixtieth birthday party; obviously he slipped. But then his heir is quite blatantly shot, and attempts are made on the life of the next heir.
2016 SF, 13 episodes. The plague that wiped out human civilisation is still a problem for the post-apocalyptic time travellers to solve, but other time travellers are a greater threat.
2016 science fiction, stand-alone sequel to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. A new AI in an illegal human-shaped body, and the human who's getting it out of a bad situation, work together to build new lives.
1946 detective fiction; third of Brand's novels of Inspector Cockrill. Sir Richard's grandchildren visit his country house in the summer of 1944 as flying-bombs descend on London; he decides to disinherit them all, goes to spend the night in the lodge dedicated to the memory of his deceased first wife, and is found dead in the morning. US vt The Crooked Wreath.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's death, and what might follow.
2004 historical detection, fourteenth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Phryne investigates a disappeared "fast" girl, and one of her adopted daughters tries to find her original father. But will Phryne manage to appear as Queen of the Flowers at the St Kilda Festival? Of course she will.
My copy of the Crime and Punishment expansion for Firefly arrived on Thursday.
Top Gear: 2015, 6 episodes; The Grand Tour: 2015-2016, 13 episodes. In both cases, these are comedy shows lightly disguised as motoring programmes.
2016 contemporary comedy, 12 episodes, manga adaptation: AniDB, vt "Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto". Sakamoto is the coolest student in the high school, perfect at everything.
1943 mystery, ninth in Innes' John Appleby series. At Nestfield University, Professor Pluckrose is found dead in his deck-chair on the Green, crushed by a meteorite; surely not an accident, and Appleby investigates.
1969 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. Genly Ai is a human emissary to the world of Winter, sent to bring it into star-travelling civilisation. The natives change gender as part of their life cycle. And this is a problem for him.
2002 historical mystery, sixth of Douglas's novels about Irene Adler. Following the events of Chapel Noir, our protagonists variously head east to put an end to the Ripper mystery.
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube. Opinions are thoroughly personal. These trailer posts are now not on a strict monthly rotation any more, but are being mixed into the automatic post scheduler that runs the rest of the blog.)
2004 alternate-history science fiction war story. In the near future, an American-led multinational naval force is approaching an Indonesia turned muslim-fundamentalist, when it finds itself hurled through time to 1942, just before the Battle of Midway.
2016 science fiction, 10 episodes. Kirsten Clark continues to have her consciousness inserted into the minds of the recently-dead, while hunting for more information about her father.
1945 classic English detective fiction; thirteenth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Florence Rubrick, sheep station owner and local MP, vanished one night from her home; her body was found some weeks later, packed into a bale of wool. Eighteen months later, Alleyn is hunting for spies in New Zealand, and informally takes on the case.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time, to support the forthcoming Dungeon Fantasy RPG, it's all about dungeon-bashing.
1915 thriller; first of Buchan's books about Richard Hannay. Bored in London, Hannay invites his worried neighbour into his flat, and soon finds both the authorities and a cunning group of terrorists against him.
2016 historical espionage, adaptation of a novel series, 12 episodes: AniDB. In the years just before the Second World War, a maverick Japanese spymaster establishes a new intelligence agency.
2015-2016, 24 episodes. In modern New York, (a completely different) Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson continue to consult for the police.
2004 historical epistolary mystery. In Cambridge in 1888, a young schoolmistress tries to solve the murders of three mathematicians before her beau is convicted of them.
2001 historical mystery, fifth of Douglas's novels about Irene Adler. In Paris in 1889, the Exposition Universelle is in full swing… but a notorious killer seems to have come over from London.
2009 mystery, fifteenth in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. After the events of the last book, Anna's on administrative leave; she travels with her husband to the Rio Grande for a rafting trip. They come across a nearly-dead, very pregnant woman; and apparently someone wants to finish the job.
2015 fantasy, adaptation of a light novel series, 12 episodes: AniDB. In a world where gods dwell among humans, Bell Cranel is a novice adventurer. Full title: Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darouka: Familia Myth, or Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?.
2014 modern fantasy/romance. Jade Crow runs a comics-and-games shop in Wylde, Idaho, where lots of magical creatures congregate. She's hiding from someone. But she isn't going to be able to stay hidden.
1945 classic English detective fiction; twelfth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. Back in London after three years overseas on mysterious war work, Campion just wants to catch a train; but Lugg and an unknown lady turn up in his flat with a corpse. US vt Pearls Before Swine.
2015-2016, 22 episodes. Brian Finch is an unemployed slacker, until he's introduced to a brain-boosting drug. Naturally he goes to work for the FBI to catch crooks.
1965 Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction. In the distant future, plots whirl within plots, and the control of the most valuable planet in the universe is a poisoned chalice.
2011 science fiction, dir. Neil Burger, Bradley Cooper, Robert de Niro: IMDb / allmovie
Eddie Morra is a struggling writer, until his ex-brother-in-law offers him a new drug that makes him smarter.
2004 tartan noir. Jack Parlabane is invited to the junket weekend of a new firm that plans to run team-building retreats with a twist. But that twist is going to turn out to be rather more twisted than anyone expects.
1909 school stories, compilation from magazine publication in 1907-1908: Mike Jackson, youngest of five cricketing brothers, goes first to Wrykin and then to Sedleigh. Also republished in separate parts later, as Mike at Wrykin and Mike and Psmith; the latter also as Enter Psmith.
1959 thriller. An airliner makes a forced rough landing near a weather observation post in the highlands of Greenland. What was it doing that far north, what foul play was involved, and who is responsible?
2016 alternate history mecha science fiction, adaptation of a manga spinoff of a visual novel, 12 episodes: AniDB. In 1983, the 666th Tactical Surface Fighter Squadron of the East German Army is the only force between the invading alien hordes and the rest of Germany.
2011 non-fiction. Orenstein breaks down various elements of the pink-princess culture as marketed to young girls.
1959 thriller. British agent Michael Reynolds travels to Budapest to retrieve a British scientist kidnapped by the Russians and due to be shown off at a conference. US vt The Secret Ways.
1943 classic English detective fiction; twelfth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. At a run-down hot-springs resort in the back country of New Zealand, one guest seems to be going out of his way to offend everyone; then he vanishes.
2015-2016, 22 episodes. Famous writer Richard Castle continues to work with NYPD homicide detective (now Captain) Kate Beckett, in the final season of this police procedural.
1959 horror. Mary Crane has stolen $40,000 from her employer and is running away to get married. Unfortunately she's chosen to stay at the wrong motel.
2011 non-historical fiction, sequel to Fly By Night. Mosca Mye and Eponymous Clent are still in trouble, and attempting to flee through Toll, the town that controls the only bridge across the big river. But both entering and leaving have their price. US vt Fly Trap.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the loose idea of bizarre phenomena and, well, strange powers.
1999 tartan noir. Gavin Hutchison has a brilliant idea: convert an oil rig to an offshore resort hotel for xenophobic tourists, with all the comforts of home but warmer weather since it'll be moored off the African coast. What better way to show it off than by hosting a school reunion there?
1941 (some sources say 1942) classic English detective fiction; eleventh of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. For his own amusement, Jonathan Royal invites six mortal enemies to a party at his house in Dorset. Really, the first surprise is that he isn't murdered.
2016 contemporary fantasy novel adaptation in 13 episodes: Anidb, vt "Myriad Colors Phantom World". Phantoms, weird magical creatures created by the human subconscious, are everywhere; Haruhiko and his school friends seal them away when they cause trouble.
2012 historical fantasy, first in the Order of the Air series. In 1929, as Lake Nemi is drained in search of its archaeological treasures, an ancient evil is loosed. Only four heroic aviator-magicians will be able to fight it.
2016 reality television, 7 episodes. The series follows recruits through the ten weeks of selection for the Royal Navy at HMS Raleigh.
1940 classic English detective fiction; tenth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. The Lampreys are an impoverished aristocratic family; after Lord Charles's rich brother refused to give them yet another handout, he was found stabbed to death. Mad wife? Annoyed brother? Random stranger? Well, it'll never be that last in a classic mystery. US vt Death of a Peer.
2015 science fiction. Ren works as the 3D printer engineer in a colony on an extrasolar planet, right next to the alien biotech artefact known as God's City. Then a stranger shows up, a descendant of the people thought to have been lost in an accident during planetfall.
In 2016 I've read 133 books, down a little from recent years.
2016 fantasy romance, shoujo manga continuation in 12 episodes as well as an OVA that bridges the two series: AniDB, vt "Snow White with the Red Hair". Shirayuki the herbalist continues to develop her low-key romance with Prince Zen.
1996 mystery; second of Cutler's novels of Sophie Rivers, teacher in a sixth-form college in Birmingham and part-time chorister. Sophie goes on a residential writing course; one of her fellow students dies, and a tutor goes missing.
2016 short romantic comedy, dir. Travis Hedges Williams, Kacie Barnes, Tyler Grezaffi: IMDb
When Quinn meets David, she has to decide whether he is a worthy suitor: she knows the rules, just as she knows the rules of her favourite games. But he doesn't seem to be following them.
1941 detective fiction; second of Brand's novels, and first to feature Inspector Cockrill. A visitor to a country house says "I wouldn't be seen dead in a ditch in a [hat] like that"… and is soon proved wrong. The next night another woman is murdered.
2016 science fiction, 12 episodes: AniDB. In a world where all power is provided by "coils" that draw from a parallel dimension, Mabuchi Kyouma is a "collector" who gets hold of the illegal ones.
2015-2016, 18 episodes. Detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles continue in their odd-couple crimefighting.
1994 detective fiction; seventh of Cleeves's novels of amateur private detectives George and Molly Palmer-Jones. Jimmy Morrissey was the public voice of environmentalism and conservation, but killed himself with an overdose of antidepressants. Or did he?
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's high technology and the things one can do with it.
2008 humorous science fiction, second in the series. Captain Isambard Smith of the British Empire in space is sent to the Didcot system, where a revolutionary movement threatens the Empire's supply of tea.
1941 detective fiction; first of Brand's novels, and first to feature Inspector Charlesworth. One of the senior staff of a London dress-shop dies of poison; her co-workers are the only plausible suspects.
2016 mecha science fiction, 12 episodes: AniDB. In a very changed world, Kazuki Azuma leaves an island in the sky to return to Japan, and gets involved with power struggles and giant robots.
2000 mystery, third in Whitelaw's Jordan Lacey series. Jordan takes on a job following a woman suspected of compensation fraud against the local department store, and then tries to track down vanishing stock in the run-up to Christmas. And of course there's also a murder.
1940 classic English detective fiction; eleventh of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. An amnesiac Campion knows he was in the middle of dealing with a truly serious plot… but what is it all about, and whom can he trust? US vt The Sabotage Murder Mystery.
1989 mystery; eighth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Sharon's assigned to follow Frank Wilkinson as he spends his Sunday going round the horticultural high spots of San Francisco. But her client's obviously lying about why he wants the job done, and soon he ends up dead.
2016 contemporary comedy, 12 short episodes: AniDB, vt "Middle-Aged Man and Marshmallow". Hige is an overweight middle-aged man working at Web Related Company (sic); he loves marshmallows. Several of the office ladies are in love with him, for no obvious reason.
1940 classic English detective fiction; ninth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. In an isolated village in Devon, a game of darts at the pub ends in death. Accidental? Surely not.
Leaving Earth, designed by Joe Fatula, is a game of the exploration of the solar system for 1-5 players.
2003 space opera, first book of Dread Empire's Fall. The Shaa subjugated the galaxy, binding all the races they met – including humanity – under their universal philosophy, the Praxis. But ten thousand years later, the last Shaa has chosen to die.
2016 seinen manga adaptation, 12 episodes: AniDB, vtt "Erased" and "The Town Without Me". Fujinuma Satoru sometimes slips back in time to just before a life-threatening accident, which lets him try to correct it. When his mother is murdered, he finds himself thrown back to eighteen years earlier, when he was in elementary school and someone was killing his classmates.
1981 mystery, first of Caudwell's Hilary Tamar series. A young barrister, Julia, is taking a tour in Venice; she gets a gorgeous young man to bed, and a few hours later he's found dead, stabbed, with her copy of the Finance Act next to the body.
1991 autobiography. Hamper writes about his life working on the GM factory floor in Flint, Michigan.
2015-2016 police procedural, 23 episodes. A woman is found in a bag in Times Square: she's alive, naked, totally amnesiac, and covered with tattoos. The FBI investigates.
1939 classic English detective fiction; eighth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Miss Campanula was killed by a booby-trapped piano, but was she really the intended victim?
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's wilderness adventures and travel in a fantasy, or at least low-tech, setting.
1975 historical detective fiction; sixth of Lovesey's novels of Sergeant Cribb, policeman in Victorian London. Two thefts during séances conducted by the latest fashionable medium attract the attention of the police, but when the next séance ends in a death, mere spiritualism is clearly not the only deception going on.
2002 non-fiction: George Dyson, son of Freeman, recounts what can be told of the history of Project Orion, a plan to propel spacecraft with nuclear explosions.
1962 war, dir. Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki and others: IMDb / allmovie
The tale of the D-Day invasion in 1944, with a literal cast of thousands.
1975 detective fiction; sixth of Aird's novels of Inspector Sloan and Constable Crosby. Bill Fent, local landowner, died when his car hit another at a notorious corner… but he'd have been dead before morning anyway, from the poison in his system.
Steampunk Rally, designed by Orin Bishop, is a game of racing bizarre inventions… or a card-drafting, engine-building game that uses a racetrack merely as a way of keeping score.
1939/1950 collection of short mystery stories featuring Albert Campion.
2016, 10+2 episodes. If you're reading this you probably know what MythBusters was about, or you can go and find out.
1975 detective fiction; first of Dexter's novels of Inspector Morse. Two young women wait for the bus out of Oxford one night; one goes to hitch a ride, and her dead body is found the next day.
Grifters, designed by Jake Tlapek and David Fulton, is a hand-building game of crime syndicates for 2-4 players.
1995 mystery; first of Cutler's novels of Sophie Rivers, a teacher in a sixth-form college in Birmingham. Finding one of her students stabbed to death in the lift is bad enough; when her best friend dies in a way that seems plausibly accidental except to people who knew him well, Sophie knows she'll have to look into the situation herself.
2016 comedic fantasy manga adaptation in 10 episodes: Anidb, vt "Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World!". Kazuma the shut-in dies in a traffic accident, but a goddess allows him to return to life in another world.
1930 thriller, second of the Saint series. In three loosely-linked novellas, the Saint takes on a succession of criminals.
The original GURPS Steampunk was published in 2000: both GURPS and steampunk have moved on since then. This first of what's planned to be a new series of PDF supplements does not replace that book, but "updates and extends" the GURPS treatment of this genre.
1975 detective fiction; first of Brett's novels of Charles Paris, ageing actor. A friend and occasional lover of Charles's has been dumped by her current sugar daddy, and she asks him to return some compromising photographs. But getting in touch is going to be something of a challenge.
2014 young adult science fiction, third in the Earth Girl trilogy. Jarra is Handicapped, unable to leave Earth for any of the colony worlds where most of society now happens, but she's also a famous hero. Which means she's now become a symbol, both for those who want to bring the Handicapped more into society and for those who resist that trend.
2014 non-fiction. Hannah Hart, youtuber, shares recipes and her philosophy of life.
2016, 6 episodes. FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully continue to look into strange occurrences.
1938 classic English detective fiction; seventh of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Someone's blackmailing London's high society as the Season begins, and Alleyn asks a friend who moves in those circles to look into it; murder will be done.
This third Dungeon Fantasy Monsters book deal with monsters of known mythic origins, and expands on the popular "magical mistakes" category of monster.
2011 historical mystery; fourth in Bradley's series about Flavia de Luce, young amateur sleuth in 1950s Britain. As Christmas approaches, Buckshaw is let to a film crew who'll be making The Cry of the Raven, starring the famous Phyllis Wyvern. But not all of the company will be leaving again.
2014 science fiction. A nameless scholar of the Second Chinese Republic looks back from the year 2393 on the Penumbral Age that brought western civilisation to its close.
1938 classic English detective fiction; sixth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. At an informal residential art school, the model has been murdered – by a method all the students had talked about some days before.
2011 historical mystery; third in Bradley's series about Flavia de Luce, young amateur sleuth in 1950s Britain. A missing baby, an assault on a Gypsy (sic) fortune-teller, and a murder in Flavia's own home will all turn out to be connected.
1907 mystery. Mlle Stangerson, daughter of the famous scientist, locked herself into her bedroom… then came the sound of a struggle, shouts of "Murder", and gunfire. When her father broke down the door, she was seriously injured and the only person there – and the window-bars had not been moved.
1938 classic English detective fiction; tenth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. Georgia Wells, actress and femme fatale, attracts men like moths. But somehow, just as they start to get troublesome, they seem to die. Is Georgia less silly, and more dangerous, than she appears?
2010 historical mystery; second in Bradley's series about Flavia de Luce, young amateur sleuth in 1950s Britain. Rupert Porson, the famous puppeteer (at least to those who have televisions), was passing through the village of Bishop's Lacey when his van broke down; since he's stuck there overnight, he might as well put on a show. But it's all going to go horribly wrong.
There aren't many interesting-looking new series coming up this year. Here are a few I've glanced at. (Reviews based on first episodes only.)
1981 somewhat parodic cosy detective fiction; second of Anderson's novels of the Earl of Burford and Inspector Wilkins. After the last one, the Earl swore off house-parties, but it seems it's all happening again. Including the murder.
2014 military SF, first book of the Alexis Carew series. Barred by her sex from inheriting the family estates, Carew signs aboard a ship of the Royal Navy as a midshipman… in space.
2009 historical mystery; first in Bradley's series about Flavia de Luce, young amateur sleuth in 1950s Britain. Flavia, one of three daughters of the widowed and impoverished Colonel de Luce, lives in Buckshaw, makes chemical experiments… and finds a body in the cucumber patch. Naturally, she investigates.
1937 classic English detective fiction; fifth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. This time he's on holiday in New Zealand, sharing an overnight train with a touring theatrical troupe also from England, when the manager says that someone's tried to murder him. The next day, someone will succeed.
1916 thriller; second of Buchan's books about Richard Hannay. Richard Hannay and Sandy Arbuthnot are convalescing from wounds received at the Battle of Loos when word comes from Sir Walter Bullivant of the Foreign Office: the Germans have some kind of trump-card with which they're planning to set the Moslem world on fire.
1982 mystery; second in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. One of Sharon's neighbours in her apartment building is strangled, and it looks worryingly as if Sharon's house-guest, who's prone to alcoholic amnesia, might have done it.
2008 mystery, fourteenth in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. Anna returns to Isle Royale, this time in winter, to join the wolf/moose wildlife study; it's disrupted by an observer from Homeland Security, who clearly has a brief to shut it down and instead open the park in winter to "beef up security". Then traces of an unexpected large predator show up. Then people start to die.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a third issue on the general theme of Spaceships (the GURPS subsystem as well as the overall concept).
2015 science-fantasy. The world known as the Stillness is wracked by tectonic activity; only the earth-shapers, the orogenes, can hold things together. So naturally they are slaves.
1977 mystery; first in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Sharon's been looking into arson and vandalism on a street of junk and antique shops that's in the crosshairs of gentrification. But now one of the shop owners has been fatally stabbed.
1937 classic English detective fiction; ninth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. Campion is called to the village of Kepesake as the recent rich incomer has clearly been murdered… but when Campion sees the body, he realises he went to the same man's funeral five months earlier.
2003 military SF, second book of Succession. Captain Laurent Zai tries to win a space battle; Senator Nara Oxham tries to survive imperial politics.
1994 historical detection, sixth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Phryne goes undercover in a circus to try to find out who's sabotaging it; and a performer who's moved on from it is accused of murder.
2009 non-fiction. Oates recounts the twenty cases in London during these two decades which were treated as murder, but never solved.
2003 military SF, first book of Succession. Captain Laurent Zai of the Imperial frigate Lynx is attempting to rescue the Child Empress from invading cyborgs. Only that makes it sound dire, and it's actually rather good.
1993 historical detection, fifth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). During a dance competition at the Green Mill, a figure slumps to the ground. Was he the target of his attacker – or was it Phryne? And why has her partner for the evening bolted?
1937 classic English detective fiction; eighth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. Someone's playing silly pranks on Jimmy Sutane, star of a successful musical; he invites Campion to look into it. But then one of Sutane's house-guests dies: accident, suicide, murder? Later US vt Who Killed Chloe?.
1992 historical detection, fourth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). As Phryne is driving home one night, someone shoots out her windscreen. As the gunfight moves on, she gets out of the car to find an injured young man, who dies in her arms.
2006 psychological thriller. After a highly public series of tragic incidents, Antonia Weston goes to Cheshire to stay in a cottage near a small market town, hoping for anonymity and peace. But she soon experiences a series of events which seem to be echoing the past she's trying to forget.
1991 historical detection, third in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Everyone in one of the carriages on the overnight train to Ballarat is chloroformed; Phryne retains just enough consciousness to shoot out the window and let in some air. When everyone recovers, it's found that an elderly passenger has vanished. But why?
2009 SF, loosely connected with the Company series. The British Arean Corporation sponsored the colonisation of Mars… then it turned out that short-term profits weren't possible, and they lost interest. Mary Griffith runs the only place to buy a beer on the Tharsis Bulge.
1936 classic English detective fiction; fourth of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. At a meeting of the House of the Sacred Flame, a small cult, the Chosen Vessel drinks from the Flaming Cup, gabbles nonsensically, and dies of a dose of sodium cyanide.
2015-2016 science fiction, 10 episodes. When the ice-hauler Canterbury gets destroyed, the Belters blame Mars, Mars blames Earth, and Earth blames the Belters.
1990 historical detection, second in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Phryne takes on the case of a son whose mother is worried he'll murder his father, and then the father is indeed murdered; and she tracks down a kidnapped child.
This supplement is not about a specific world, or an area of GURPS rules: it's about how to convert a fictional setting for use in a role-playing campaign.
1962; mystery/thriller or romantic suspense. Nicola Ferris, on holiday from her job at the British Embassy in Athens, has been looking forward to getting away from it all in an obscure corner of Crete. But a day of random wandering brings her into contact with two men, one of them badly injured.
1989 historical detection, first in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Intelligent, beautiful, rich, and bored, the Hon. Phryne Fisher travels to Australia in order to find out whether John Andrews is poisoning his wife, her clients' daughter.
1930 classic English detective fiction; fifth of Sayers's novels of Lord Peter Wimsey. Philip Boyes, writer on atheism, anarchy and free love, died of quite a lot of arsenic; Harriet Vane, who had lived with him without benefit of clergy for nearly a year until they had quarrelled three months earlier, is accused of having poisoned him. Wimsey, seeing the trial, is convinced of her innocence, not to say smitten by her; when the jury cannot agree on a verdict, he makes it his business to save her from the gallows in the month before the new trial.
1988 mystery; seventh in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Sharon's sister Patsy has a new boyfriend, and a renovation project in the Sacramento Delta. But someone's playing tricks, sabotaging the project and scaring off the workers; Sharon takes a long weekend away from her job to help Patsy out.
2008 mystery; ninth in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). Jude drops into the local betting shop to take shelter from a sudden hailstorm; another customer staggers out, and turns up stabbed in an alley nearby.
2015 science fiction comedy, 10 episodes. In a corrupt neon future, the Moonbeam City Police Department tries to keep the peace. More or less.
2014 SF, first of the Solarian War Saga. Elfrida Goto works for the Space Corps, persuading asteroid-dwellers to accept resettlement before their asteroids are dropped into Venus as part of the terraforming project. But her telepresence robot is acting up, and then the space station she's living on comes under attack.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's police and legal systems.
2007 mystery; eighth in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). Carole always has her hair cut at Connie's Clip Joint, "same shape, but shorter". This time, Kyra, one of the juniors, hasn't turned up, and she turns out to have been left dead in the back room, strangled with the cord of a hair-dryer.
1936 classic English detective fiction; seventh of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. The Barnabas family publishing house is used to strangeness; the founder's nephew disappeared in broad daylight while walking between his house and the main road. Now Paul Brande, one of the cousins who run the firm, is found dead inside a locked room. US vt Legacy in Blood.
2006 mystery; seventh in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). Jude's been asked to extend her healing practice to a horse; but she doesn't expect to find the co-owner of the stables stabbed to death. Obviously it was the local "Horse Ripper", caught in the act. Or was it a jealous husband?
2006 military SF, fourth of the Kris Longknife books. Kris finally gets an independent command: a single-world "naval district" on the far end of anywhere.
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with magical items that store spellcasting energy.
2005 mystery; sixth in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). Carole's son is getting married, but the bride's parents are oddly reluctant to have any announcements made… and then the father is strangled.
1935 classic English detective fiction; third of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. In a private hospital, the Home Secretary was operated on for appendicitis: shortly afterwards he was dead, poisoned with hyoscine (scopolamine). And all sorts of people seem to have had motives.
2015-2016: Ichabod Crane, survivor from the American Revolutionary War, and Abbie Mills, FBI agent, continue to fight supernatural beasties in the present day. (Spoilers for all seasons.)
2004 mystery; fifth in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). Jude is helping out at the Hopwicke Country House Hotel, but the morning after a boozy meeting of the Pillars of Sussex, an organisation of local businessmen, one of them doesn't come down to breakfast… because he's hanging from a beam of his four-poster bed. Obviously a suicide…
2015 short science fiction, dir. Luke Gilford, Pamela Anderson, Dree Hemingway: IMDb.
An ageing fitness instructor is dissatisfied with her life, in particular feeling disconnected from the world, and looks for a way to fix it.
2003 historical detection, thirteenth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Phryne investigates a mummified corpse found in a carnival attraction.
2003; fourth in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). Bracketts, an Elizabethan house, is to be turned into a museum celebrating the life and work of the local poet Esmond Chadleigh, its most famous resident. Then a skull is dug up in the garden.
1994 science fiction, sequel to The Ring of Charon. This review contains spoilers for that first book.
2015 mystery novel adaptation, 11 episodes: AniDB, vt "Everything Becomes F" or "The Perfect Insider". Shiki Magata killed her parents when she was fourteen, but her mind was clearly disturbed, and she's a brilliant programmer; for the fifteen years since then, she's been confined to a few rooms within a research lab, with extremely restricted communication with the outside world. And yet, someone has managed to murder her.
2002 mystery; third in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). The couple who've just moved into the Big House in Fedborough, inland up the river from Fethering, throw a dinner party to try to get into the local social scene… which is somewhat spoiled when a limbless body is discovered in the cellar.
1935 classic English detective fiction; second of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. When Arthur Surbonadier is fatally shot on stage during the last act of The Rat and the Beaver, there's no question about who pulled the trigger: the shooting was part of the play. But there wasn't supposed to be live ammunition in the gun.
2016 science fiction crime drama, 11 episodes. Jimmy Pritchard is a 75-year-old, corrupt, disgraced, but unrepentant former sheriff. When he's murdered, secretive tech billionaire twins restore him to life, youth and extreme vitality (as a side effect of their own plans). Formerly known as Frankenstein, The Frankenstein Code and Lookinglass.
2001 mystery; second in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). While out exploring the South Downs, Carole stumbles on a human skeleton. Jude thinks she knows who it might have been.
This supplement adds to the standard GURPS magic system, with spells designed not just to injure or curse but to kill.
1938 fiction. Henry Warren, a successful banker, works all his waking hours, travelling across Europe to sort out financial deals, particularly share issues. His digestion is bad, and his wife's having an affair with a foreigner. When all the stress catches up with him, he winds up in the hospital of a northern town, one that's been without significant employment since the shipyard closed, and decides to do something about it. (US vt Kindling.)
2000 mystery; first in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). Carole Seddon, conventional, divorced, and retired from the Home Office, moves to the small seaside town of Fethering (inspired by the real Tarring in West Sussex). But her neighbour Jude turns out to be distressingly bohemian, and she finds a dead body while walking her dog on the beach… but by the time the police turn up, it's gone.
2009 steampunk fantasy. Darian Frey is the captain of the Ketty Jay and her crew of misfits, as they go about doing small-time jobs for small-time people. But they're all about to play for much higher stakes than they were ever expecting.
2016 science fiction drama, 10 episodes. Aliens have landed and conquered Earth, ruling through drones and human trusties. But there is, of course, a resistance.
1991 military fiction; second in the Carrier series. A complex plot sees Burmese, Thai and Chinese renegades orchestrating a breakup of SEATO for purposes unclear at first. Carrier Battle Group 14 is going to get caught in the middle.
This supplement clarifies and gives comprehensive examples of Wildcard Skills, a relatively under-used element of GURPS 4th edition.
1993 detective fiction; fifth of Cleeves's novels of amateur private detectives George and Molly Palmer-Jones. Elderly Ursula Ottway lives in a cottage on an estate in the Cumbrian fell country; when she finds her cats dead from eating poisoned bait, she threatens to expose her landlord, rising politician Marcus Grenville, since he's obviously been illegally poisoning raptors to improve the grouse shooting. The next day she's dead. But she was Molly's aunt, and George and Molly were on their way to visit.
1991 military fiction; first in the Carrier series. An American intelligence ship and her crew vanish on the high seas; the North Koreans admit nothing. Carrier Battle Group 14 is sent in to get them out.
2015-2016 superheroic fantasy, 10 episodes. In 1947, Peggy Carter, still working for a secret government agency, travels to Los Angeles to investigate strange goings-on there.
2016 SF/mystery; fifty-third (roughly) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. Dennis Mira went to confront his cousin Edward over plans to sell the family house, but found him tied up in a chair; then someone knocked Dennis on the head. Now Edward's missing. Fortunately Dennis is married to Charlotte Mira, police profiler and friend of Lieutenant Eve Dallas.
2000 mystery, eighth in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. Newly promoted to District Ranger on the Natchez Trace Parkway, Anna finds herself the object of resentment by her time-serving underlings, then discovers the body of a young woman (who "had accrued a surprising number of reasons to be done to death for a girl of her tender years").
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement gets away from the cycle of dungeon to generic-town and back again, and moves adventures into the great outdoors.
2013 science fiction/romance. Finn is a robot who looks and acts human; he arrives in young Cat Novak's life as her tutor, and stays as the years pass.
1999 mystery, seventh in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. With her sister hospitalised in New York, Anna stays on Liberty Island (where the statue is) and explores Ellis Island outside hospital visiting hours. Then a young girl falls to her death from the statue.
2016 superhero comedy (miniseries re-presented as film), dir. Chris Marrs Piliero, Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart: IMDb
Low-level superheroes Electra Woman and Dyna Girl move to Los Angeles to make the big time. But can they be true to themselves?
1934 classic English detective fiction; sixth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. The great artist John Lafcadio left twelve final paintings, to be shown one per year after his death. At the unveiling of the eighth, a young artist is fatally stabbed with a pair of decorative scissors.
1998 mystery, sixth in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. Lechugilla Cavern is a huge and largely unexplored cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park; when a friend and fellow ranger is injured there, Anna swallows her claustrophobia and goes in to help with the evacuation.
2007 science fiction. The starship Fenrir was lost ten years ago to a misjump, but its warp engine has just reappeared in open space… embedded in coral, and accompanied by three dead bodies and a fishing boat. Captain Mikhail Ivanovich Volkov takes the frigate Svoboda to find out where the Fenrir has been.
Pyramid, edited by Steven Marsh, is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's zombies.
1997 mystery, fifth in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. After the events of the previous book, Anna's sent to Cumberland Island Park for "pre-suppression" fire duty, and a bit of a lighter posting. But she and another ranger spot a plume of smoke, which turns out to be the fresh wreckage of the island's drug-interdiction plane.
1933 classic English detective fiction; fifth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. The Fitton family operate a run-down watermill in Suffolk, but may be the forgotten heirs of Averna, a tiny European principality that may suddenly be terribly important. US vtt Kingdom of Earth and The Fear Sign.
1996 mystery, fourth in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. Anna's called in to help fight a wildfire in Lassen Volcanic National Park, but the wind shifts and a firestorm overtakes the team. When they come out of their protective tents, one of them's been stabbed in the back.
1937 feminist alternate history. Seven centuries after Nazi victory, women are uneducated cattle, and men have eliminated history, books, and creativity.
1995 mystery, third in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. Visitors to Mesa Verde Park and the Anasazi cliff dwellings have been coming away with a strange and deadly illness.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's magic.
1931 classic English detective fiction; fourth of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. The very elderly Caroline Faraday has a house in Cambridge run on strict Victorian lines; her ageing son, daughters and nephew put up with the lack of freedom for the free bed and board, having variously failed at their own lives. But everyone's fairly horrible, and it seems that one of them is also a murderer.
1944 detective fiction; second of Brand's novels of Inspector Cockrill. At a military hospital during the Blitz, a patient dies under anæsthetic. Later, someone who'd claimed to know who was responsible is stabbed to death. Six suspects are left, and there's not a visible motive among them.
2008 fantasy. The isolated towns and villages of the volcanic Gullstruck Island rely on the Lost, who can project their senses at a distance, to keep them in contact with each other. Arilou is one such Lost, and Hathin is her helper. But it's all going to get vastly more complicated. US vt The Lost Conspiracy.
I went to this small Italian tapas-style restaurant repeatedly while in Manchester over Easter.
2015 futuristic fantasy, 13 episodes, sequel to 2012's K: AniDB. The Kings, magical masters who can also empower their clansmen, come together for a final battle.
1994 mystery, second in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. In the Isle Royale park off the Michigan coast, one of the dive operators turns up dead in a long-sunken shipwreck.
1961; mystery/thriller or romantic suspense. Mary Grey has no particular prospects, but she's a dead ringer for Annabel Winslow, the heir to the small farm of Whitescar, who's been missing for eight years. Con Winslow, who's been running the place as Annabel's grandfather gradually declines, sees a chance to pull a Brat Farrar, produce the "missing heir", and get the place whether or not it's willed to him. But Mary has her own plans.
1993 mystery, first in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. After the death of her husband, Anna fled from her life in New York to find solitude as a ranger in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, home to a few mountain lions among other species. But when a colleague is found dead, the paw prints round the body and claw marks on the throat seem to point a little too perfectly to a killer animal.
2015-2016 children's science fiction, 26 episodes: the five Tracy brothers pilot a variety of vehicles to rescue people in trouble.
1931 classic English detective fiction; third of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. The Gyrth Chalice is unique and unsaleable… but it seems that someone is setting up to steal it anyway, for a private collection. US vt The Gyrth Chalice Mystery.
2011 military SF novella, a later insertion into the Kris Longknife series. After the triumph of the Battle of Wardhaven, Kris and crew go out to train allied fast patrol boat commanders.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time, tying in with the After the End series again, it's a grab-bag of articles about the post-apocalypse.
1964 science fiction, sequel to The Survivors/Space Prison. The survivors of the hell-world Ragnarok have handily won the war against the Gern, but they don't seem to be able to talk sensibly with either Earth or the former Gern-slave colony of Athena. And there's a new threat approaching…
1930 classic English detective fiction; second of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. Multiple attempts have been made to murder an American judge; Campion does his best to keep him safe.
2015 comedy, 13 episodes; most of the same team of misfits continue to try to keep their community college going.
2005 military SF, third of the Kris Longknife books. As a victim of fallout from a political attack against her family, Kris gets sent on a diplomatic mission, then comes back to a desperate struggle in defence of her homeworld.
2001 mystery, second in Whitelaw's Jordan Lacey series (private investigation in a small seaside town). Jordan investigates stolen water-lilies, vandalism, theft of a wedding cake, arson, and an errant husband. Oh, and a Second World War aircraft wreck.
2015 science fiction, 26 episodes: AniDB. Mecha pilots fight against the corruption of words.
1929 classic English detective fiction; first of Allingham's novels of Albert Campion. George Abbershaw, expert pathologist who unexpectedly finds himself in love, goes down for the weekend to the remote country house called "Black Dudley"; but the gathering is afflicted with murder… and then taken over by gangsters. US vt The Black Dudley Murder.
1990 science fiction. Larry Chao is a junior scientist at a gravity research station on Pluto, that's about to be shut down. He's just made a remarkable improvement in gravity manipulation, but the chief administrator won't take it seriously, so he fires off an unauthorised experiment to prove to the scientific community that there's real progress being made. At which point something very unexpected happens.
1931 English detective fiction, in fourteen chapters by fourteen authors. The body of retired Admiral Penistone is found in a small boat on the river, stabbed through the heart. Everyone has a story, and everyone has something to hide.
2015 SF/mystery novella; fifty-second (roughly) of J. D. Robb's In Death series, published as part of Down the Rabbit Hole, a multi-author anthology of stories loosely inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Apparently Darlene Fitzwilliams fatally stabbed her brother, then jumped off his fifty-second floor balcony. But there's no sign that she was the sort of person who'd do that.
2012 science fiction. Amy Peterson is a self-replicating ("von Neumann") humaniform robot, who has been growing up slowly as part of a mixed human/android family. Then her grandmother shows up, and she has to eat her.
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with "special" treasures: not just the big hauls, but something truly unique.
1934 classic English detective fiction; first of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. At Sir Hubert Handesley's country house weekend, five guests play a game of "Murder". But when the lights come up…
Some trailers I've seen recently, and my thoughts on them. (Links are to youtube.)
2008 humorous science fiction; first in its series. In the 25th Century the British Empire will soon be fighting the insectoid Ghast; but Captain Isambard Smith, square-jawed, courageous, and perhaps a bit dim, is called on to take an elderly refitted freighter on a courier mission.
1983, cozy American detective fiction; fourth of MacLeod's novels of Boston Brahmin Sarah Kelling and art investigator Max Bittersohn. Sarah and Max, teetering on the brink of getting engaged, visit Sarah's summer home on Cape Cod. But someone has covertly added a valuable antique mirror to the furnishings; and a nasty old gossip turns up with an axe in her chest.
2015 mystery novel adaptation, 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Beautiful Bones: Sakurako`s Investigation" or "A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako's Feet". Kujou Sakurako, osteologist and amateur forensic anthropologist, investigates the remarkable number of human bones to be found locally.
2009 urban fantasy. Evie Scelan isn't a magician: she just has a knack for tracking things by scent. But staying out of the way of the magical rulers of Boston isn't as easy as simply keeping her head down.
2015 SF mini-series, adapted by Matthew Graham and directed by Nick Hurran. In 2016, alien ships arrive on Earth, with the aliens saying they're come to bring utopia. But not everyone agrees that that's what they're offering.
2014; fifteenth in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing in small-town Sussex). After a rehearsal for a village-hall production of The Devil's Disciple, the lead is found strangled on the "absolutely safe" gallows.
2014 science fiction. The mixed human and alien crew members aboard a wormhole-building ship move from world to world, on their way to the job that'll let them move into the big time.
2007 young adult fantasy. Ryan, Chelle and Josh fish some coins out of the old well, to pay for a bus home. Then things get far too complicated, far too fast. US vt Well Witched.
2015 modern fantasy, 10 episodes; the scrappy team of magic-hunting Librarians fights against a resurrected Prospero who's planning to remake the world.
1985 mystery; sixth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. Someone's causing minor troubles for the inhabitants of a hotel in the Tenderloin, most of them recent Vietnamese immigrants; Sharon's employed by the Refugee Assistance Committee to look into it. Then things turn deadly.
2015 slice of life, four short episodes: AniDB, vt "She and Her Cat: Everything Flows". Miyu's cat contemplates their life together.
1861 non-fiction, popular science, transcriptions of early Royal Institution Christmas Lectures; Faraday starts from the basics of combustion and goes on to the frontiers of nineteenth-century chemistry.
2016 science fiction, sixteenth novel in the Vorkosigan universe. Three years after the death of Aral Vorkosigan, his widow Cordelia starts to move her life in a new direction. Oliver Jole, Admiral of Sergyar Fleet, finds himself caught up in unexpected ways.
1958 science fiction. When the aliens capture a colony ship, they take the slaves who can work and abandon the rest on an uninhabited world. That's their error. (Also published as Space Prison.)
2015 science fiction, ten episodes, sequel of sorts to the 2002 film. After the PreCrime programme is shut down, the three precognitives try to live normal lives. Of course, one of them ends up Fighting Crime.
1994 mystery, fourth of Douglas's novels about Irene Adler; here she returns to Prague, to solve a problem for the Queen. Espionage, the Golem, femmes fatales, and really nice dresses ensue. (Retitled as Another Scandal in Bohemia in recent reissue.)
2012 science fiction, second in The Expanse series. Ganymede, the main supplier of food to the outer system, is attacked and its fragile artificial ecosystem destroyed; Earth and Mars seem likely to go to war again.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about alternative framings of the dungeon again.
2015 slice of life, 4-koma manga adaptation in 13 episodes: AniDB, vt "Seiyuu's Life". Ichinose Futaba is a novice voice actress; along with her friends, she goes to auditions, gets together in a singing group, and generally tries to advance her career.
2014 military fantasy. The unnamed protagonist leads a unit of The Line in repelling an invasion by the Dark Lord in the next country.
2015 SF/mystery; fifty-first (roughly) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. Two serial killers have crossed the USA and landed in New York; Lieutenant Eve Dallas tracks them down.
2014-2015 urban fantasy, 16 episodes. The succubus Bo faces her biggest challenges yet, as her father tries to use her to take over the world.
Contemporary fantasy, fourth in the series. Peter Grant, Metropolitan Police constable and magician, looks into a number of cases that seem to be tying back to a Brutalist tower block in Southwark.
2009 mystery, third in the series. Constable "Thorny" Deepbriar goes to the local seaside town while his broken leg finishes healing, but he can't leave detection alone. Not only is someone stealing garden gnomes, but a body found on the beach is someone Deepbriar thought had died when he was a very green copper sixteen years ago during the war.
2012 horror, dir. Drew Goddard, Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth: IMDb / allmovie
Five teenagers go for a weekend trip to a remote cabin. It doesn't end well.
2008 alternate-history suspense/thriller, last in the "Small Change" trilogy. In the fascist Britain of 1960, former Inspector Carmichael still runs the Watch, the secret police charged with rounding up Jews, Communists, and other undesirables; his adopted niece, Elvira, is looking forward to her début.
2005 non-historical fiction. Mosca lives in a tiny rural village, but her exiled father taught her to read and to love words. She takes her first opportunity to escape, and finds herself (and Saracen the goose) mixed up in matters that will determine the fate of a great city.
2016 SF and fantasy. Patricia is a witch who can sometimes talk with animals, and Laurence is a budding mad scientist. Having met and split up during their hellish schooldays, they meet again as the world seems to be winding towards its end.
2016 supernatural mystery, sixth in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. A police raid following a tip-off about a brothel goes wrong: there's sex being had, but it all seems to have been consenting swingers, except for one registered sex offender. Then people start dying.
2015 non-fiction, popular science; short pieces introduce the scientific explanations for commonplace oddities.
This supplement deals with powers that break the rules, for Lovecraftian aliens, superbeings, and weird lone genius inventors.
2015 fantasy, light novel adaptation in 13 episodes: AniDB. Momonga stays on-line as his favourite VR MMORPG Yggdrasil is shut down, and finds himself not kicked out but stuck in the game world. And now the NPCs are acting like people…
2002 military SF, long-delayed final volume in the Antares trilogy. The combined human fleets are taking on the Ryall menace, to remove it once and for all. But is there any option short of extermination?
2015 crime, series finale; in a double-length episode, most of the original cast of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation return for one last case. Someone is sending suicide bombers into Las Vegas; can that someone really be Lady Heather? No, of course not.
2002 historical detection, twelfth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Phryne looks into trouble at a French restaurant, the disappearance of a young woman, and the murder of old soldiers.
2013 modern occult secret service novelette, between The Apocalypse Codex and The Rhesus Chart in the Laundry Files series. Bob Howard is sent to inspect a livery stables, because they're buying a worrying amount of meat.
This initial supplement in a new line deals with dwellers in the world after the end of civilisation.
2007 alternate-history suspense/thriller, second in the "Small Change" trilogy. Eight years after the "peace with honour" of 1941, as Mark Normanby's new government is cracking down on Jewish communist terrorists, a bomb goes off in a Hampstead suburb. Inspector Carmichael, compromised but useful to his political masters, investigates.
2012 modern occult secret service, fourth in the Laundry Files series. Bob has been promoted to management, and has to supervise a couple of freelance agents. Seems an American televangelist is getting too much into favour with the Prime Minister…
2000 military SF, first in the Valor/Confederation series. Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr's platoon of Marines is just back from a hard fight when their liberty is cancelled and they're sent off to escort a group of diplomats as they try to get a recently-discovered world to join the Confederation. Then things get worse.
2010 modern occult secret service, third in the Laundry Files series. Bob Howard becomes entangled in a cultist plot to steal the Eater of Souls.
1959; mystery/thriller or romantic suspense. Camilla Haven, on holiday in Athens, is lamenting that nothing ever happens to her. Then a stranger brings her "the car for Delphi", for "Monsieur Simon", for which someone has apparently already paid the deposit, and tells her that it's a matter of life and death…
2015 modern humour, shounen manga adaptation in 13 episodes: AniDB, vt "My Monster Secret". Kuromine "Leaky Bucket" Asahi is unable to keep a secret; when he goes to confess his love to the girl of his dreams, she turns out to be a vampire. But she'll be forced to leave school if the secret gets out…
2009 modern occult secret service novelette, between The Jennifer Morgue and The Fuller Memorandum in the Laundry Files series. The Laundry is down to a skeleton staff for Christmas… so Bob Howard is the one man who might be able to prevent the annihilation of the world.
2015 science fiction, 13 episodes. The crew of the destroyer USS Nathan James works to distribute the cure for the plague that killed most of the world's population. But not everyone thinks that's a good idea.
Collection of six short mystery stories from 1902-1903. Madame Sara, the best "beautifier" in London, is also a master criminal – one might even say a veritable Napoleon of crime.
2008 modern occult secret service novelette, between The Jennifer Morgue and The Fuller Memorandum in the Laundry Files series. Bob visits the asylum where broken Laundry agents go; all, unsurprisingly, is not well.
2005 futuristic fantasy. Detective Inspector Chen is a cop in the franchised city Singapore Three, in charge of magical and supernatural investigations. When a missing girl's soul turns up demonstrably in Hell, rather than Heaven where it should be, that's the first thread of a long and political investigation.
2006 modern occult secret service, second in the Laundry Files series. Bob Howard is sent to a Caribbean island to stop a billionaire from destroying the world with magic.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about the end of the world, linked to the upcoming publication of the After the End streamlined rules set.
2005 mystery, thirteenth in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. In Rocky Mountain, three young girls went missing a few months back, and were never found. But now two of them have walked out of the woods…
2015 pseudo-historical fantasy, novel series adaptation in 25 episodes: AniDB, vt "Heroic Legend of Arslan". Prince Arslan of Pars is the weak son of a tough and vicious king. But when the Parsian army is defeated by treachery, he may be the only member of the royal family left…
2004 modern occult secret service, first in the Laundry Files series; a short novel of the same title coupled with the novella The Concrete Jungle. Bob Howard is a techie working for an extremely secret part of the British intelligence community, trying to suppress knowledge that could destroy the world… and clean up when it gets out.
2015, 14 episodes. If you're reading this you probably know what MythBusters is about, or you can go and find out.
1992 mystery, third of Douglas's novels about Irene Adler. In Paris in 1888, a stranger in Oriental garb falls poisoned at the feet of Irene's narrator, Nell Huxleigh. But why does he claim to know her? (Retitled A Soul of Steel in recent reissue.)
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a variety of ideas broadly intended for pre-gunpowder campaigns.
1987 SF, second in the Antares trilogy. The Altan and Sandarian space navies won't be able to fight the alien menace on their own, but they have a plan for getting back in contact with Earth.
2015 cooking story, shounen manga adaptation in 24 episodes: AniDB, vt "Food Wars". Yukihira Sōma works at his father's diner, then finds himself sent to an élite cooking school: not only is it tough to get in, but only one in ten graduate.
1997 humorous detective fiction; first of Alcorn's novels of Norman de Ratour, Recording Secretary at the Museum of Man, an anthropological museum somewhere in New England. Dean Fessing goes missing, and most of him turns up expertly cooked. That inevitably starts rumours of cannibalism, but there may be fire to go with this smoke…
2015, 13 episodes. A motley crew wakes up on a spaceship with skills but no memories. They try to find out who they were and what happened.
2015 romantic comedy, shoujo manga adaptation in 24 episodes: AniDB, vt "My Love Story". Gōda Takeo is a huge guy, clueless but with a good heart; when he saves Yamato Rinko from a groper on the train, they fall in love.
1900 collection of funny and fantastic stories of Imperial China.
1996 SF/fantasy short story collection of some of Drake's more humorous short stories.
ExoPlanets, designed by Przemysław Świerczyński, is a tile-placement game of developing life on alien planets for 2-4 players.
2015 modern fantasy, 4-koma manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Castle Town Dandelion". The king announces that he'll retire in a year; his children campaign to be elected in his place.
2011 detective fiction parody, collection of seven short stories. Colonel Sebastian Moran, a cad and a bounder, works for Professor Moriarty the consulting criminal.
2015 modern fantasy, shounen manga adaptation in 25 episodes: AniDB, vt "Circle of Reincarnation". High school student Mamiya Sakura can see spirits. It turns out that her classmate Rokudō Rinne is also working as a shinigami, helping lost spirits reach the wheel of reincarnation. But she's entered a dangerous world…
2015, 10 episodes. Space bounty hunters discover that being apolitical is really hard work if you have even the vestiges of a conscience.
2015 modern comedic fantasy, manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Everyday Life with Monster Girls". Various fantastic species suddenly exist, and some of them live with host families in Japan.
2011 science fiction, first in The Expanse series. With the asteroid belt colonised, tensions are rising between Belt, Mars and Earth. When ships start getting destroyed, war is inevitable; but who actually kicked it off, and why?
2015 fantasy romance, shoujo manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Snow White with the Red Hair". Shirayuki the herbalist flees the unwelcome attentions of the prince of her country, only to meet Zen, the junior prince of the next realm over.
1993 detective fiction; sixth of Cleeves's novels of amateur private detectives George and Molly Palmer-Jones. On a bird-watching boat trip, the sighting of a rare petrel is much more interesting than a birdwatcher who isn't where he should be. But then he turns out to have been murdered...
2015 modern fantasy, manga adaptation, 13 episodes: AniDB. Hibiki, who can see and talk with ghosts, goes to high school.
2015 science fiction. In the near future, helium-3 mining on the Moon is big business, but the shipments back to Earth are being hijacked.
2015 fantasy, 10 episodes. In a technomagical world, four heroes will hunt down the resurgent Prophet who was responsible for the last great war.
As always, spoilers abound.
1998, short pieces on the effects of Disney on Florida and other places.
Star Realms: Colony Wars, designed (like the original) by Darwin Kastle, is the first "big" expansion for Star Realms. On its own, it's for 2 players.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about organisations, following this year's releases of Boardroom and Curia and Dungeon Fantasy 17: Guilds.
1975 cosy detective fiction; first of Anderson's novels of the Earl of Burford and Inspector Wilkins. Some time in the 1930s, there's a house party at Alderley, including the Earl's political brother and the foreign dignitaries he's negotiating with, an American millionaire called Hiram, and various others. Nobody is quite what they seem, and that's even before jewels start going missing and guests start turning up dead.
2015 science fiction, 11 episodes. Kirsten Clark suffers from "temporal dysplasia" and can't feel the passage of time, but that makes her the ideal subject to be inserted into the memories of the recently dead.
2015, comedy, manga adaptation, 12 episodes: AniDB.
Continuation of the high school harem comedy. Hero is a yakuza heir, who to stop a gang fight has to pretend to be going out with tsundere heroine #1 (rival yakuza heiress), but really wants to be involved with kind sweet ordinary heroine #2.
2015 science fiction. At a regional American SF convention, things are going with the usual level of chaos… until the entire con hotel gets kidnapped by time-travelling androids.
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals not just with guilds but with organisations that interact with adventurers: the congregation, the cabal, organised crime, nobles, and the like.
2013 young adult science fiction, sequel to Earth Girl. Jarra is Handicapped, unable to leave Earth for any of the colony worlds where most of society now happens, but after a daring rescue she's a hero. Now her archaeological and historical skills will be tested in an entirely new field.
2015, 13 episodes. Horror comedy by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan: a masked killer is murdering members of the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority house.
1980 historical mystery. In 1327, Friar William of Baskerville and his novice Adso of Melk try to solve a series of murders at a monastery in northern Italy.
2009 mystery, the tenth book in Lovesey's Peter Diamond series. After a Civil War battle re-enactment on Lansdown Hill near Bath, one of the soldiers disappears. Later the police find a headless skeleton in the same area. Later still, a homeless man is found dead with a major head wound. Are the cases connected? DI Peter Diamond is determined that they are.
Melee, by Rikki Tahta, is the third of the games I was showing off at Essen 2015; it's an area-control wargame for 2-4 players.
2015 vaguely steampunk science fiction. In Rapid City on the Pacific Northwest coast, Karen Memery is one of the "seamstresses" at Hôtel Mon Cherie (sic). It's not a bad life, but she's about to get in the way of a powerful man on his way up even higher.
2015 fantasy novella in the World of the Five Gods (formerly known as Chalion). Lord Penric, an impoverished nobleman, is on his way to his betrothal when he comes upon a riding accident. Before he knows what's happened, he's inherited a demon, and everyone's looking at him as though he might explode at any moment.
2006 alternate-history mystery, first in the "Small Change" trilogy. In 1949, Britain is at peace with the Reich, which is still fighting in Russia. At Farthing, a country house in Hampshire, one of the architects of that peace is murdered. Jews and Bolshevists are immediately blamed, but Inspector Carmichael thinks it's more complicated than that.
This supplement updates and expands the Sparrial race, from the original GURPS Aliens, to fourth edition.
2015 military fantasy. As the war between Lascanne and Denland drags on, the gentlewoman Emily Marshwic finds herself fighting on the front.
As always, spoilers abound. See Wikipedia for production details
The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy Ace - Sophie Aldred
The show stayed on Wednesday evenings against Coronation Street, and the first episode of this series got the lowest ratings of any Who episode ever.
1991 mystery, second of Douglas's novels about Irene Adler. Bored in Paris, Irene takes on the mystery of a series of tattooed suicides. (Retitled The Adventuress in recent reissue.)
2015 fantasy/SF. Wasp is an Archivist, hunting, studying and binding ghosts for the goddess Catchkeep and Her priest in a world that has suffered some great catastrophe in the distant past.
2015, 10 episodes. Elliot Anderson suffers from crippling depression, paranoia and social anxiety, but still manages to hold down a cybersecurity job. Except now he's being recruited by an activist cracking group.
2004 military SF, second of the Kris Longknife books. Thanks to deft political manoeuvres, Kris is now a princess as well as a naval lieutenant. But when a friend goes missing while they're both on leave, she can't really do anything else but go and look for him.
2013-2015 science fiction, manga adaptation, 4 or 10 episodes: AniDB and here.
In a world of cyborgs and poor data security, Major Motoko Kusanagi tries to catch the bad guys. A prequel of sorts to Ghost in the Shell.
2015 science fiction. The people of a small English town cling on to life after an economic collapse, under the protection of the Process, an ultimate allocating algorithm. But the Process seems to be spending scarce resources on recreating a battlefield of the First World War…
In 2015 I read 132 books, on a par with recent years but lower than I really like.
1982 cosy American detective fiction; third of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy, set at an agricultural college in Massachussetts. Hilda Horsefall is 105 years old and still keeping the family farm going, until her farmhand is horribly murdered. But is it just part of a land-grab, and if so who's trying to do it? And how is the Viking runestone on her land connected to everything?
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's the near now, things that are just barely possible or not quite possible yet.
2015 Regency fantasy, first of a planned trilogy. "Zacharias Wythe, England's first African Sorcerer Royal, is contending with attempts to depose him, rumours that he murdered his predecessor, and an alarming decline in England's magical stocks. But his troubles are multiplied when he encounters runaway orphan Prunella Gentleman, who has just stumbled upon English magic's greatest discovery in centuries."
2013, dir. Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud; IMDb / allmovie
The former supervillain Gru is trying to be a good father. But supervillainous schemes are still afoot.
2011; fourteenth in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). Jude's new lover Piers is a tennis fanatic – real tennis – but when she turns up for a lesson one of the other club members is found dead. Heart attack, clearly, but why is everyone acting so cagey? Meanwhile Jude's friend Carole conducts a separate investigation.
1999 collected newspaper columns, written from 1985 onwards. Hiaasen gets his teeth into issues of local politics, corruption, finance and wildlife preservation, often all at once.
This Dungeon Fantasy supplement deals with the thing closest to a dungeon-delver's heart: money.
2014-2015, 22 episodes. Police procedural in the CSI mould: a team of forensic experts at the "Jeffersonian" consults for the FBI.
2004 mystery, twelfth in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. After four seasonal park employees disappear on the same day in Yosemite, Anna Pigeon goes undercover to try to find out what happened.
2015 supernatural mystery, fifth in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. In a network of man-made caves under Edinburgh, a journalist turns up with his throat cut. Why there, why then, and why him?
2015, 13 episodes: AniDB.
Also known as I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying. Continuation of the slice of life comedy dealing with the daily routine of a busy office lady and her otaku husband.
1981 science fiction. In the Todos Santos arcology, life is much safer than outside in Los Angeles, if somewhat sanitised: but it's still right next door.
1986 SF, first in the Antares trilogy. The colony world of Alta has been cut off from other planets for more than a century, since Antares exploded into a supernova. Now a ship has come through where there wasn't supposed to be a jump point…
1982, cozy American detective fiction; third of MacLeod's novels of Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn. At a private art museum, a guard falls to his death, having been complaining that his favourite Rubens is different these days.
This GURPS Transhuman Space supplement gives an overview of biotech, dealing with all the fiddly bits that aren't bioroids or smart uplifted animals (which were in Bioroid Bazaar).
2015 science fiction; a team of scientists is assembled to explore a newly-discovered planet. Saraswati Callicot is an exoethnologist, and the planet's uninhabited, but she's sent along to keep an eye on Thora Lassiter, the daughter of one of the powerful families who went a bit mad on her previous mission; she's been cured, but she might still be an embarrassment. Then things start to go bizarrely wrong.
1964 children's SF. Nik Colherne's face was badly burned in an accident, and as a resident of the Dipple he can't afford the advanced surgery that might fix it. The Thieves' Guild offers him a new face, if he impersonates a boy's fantasised hero. But it's all rather more complex than that.
2013 non-fiction, an informal history of the rise and fall (sorry) of the man-carrying balloon.
2015 science fiction, manga adaptation, 13 episodes: AniDB.
The Giftia androids look and act like humans, but they have a limited lifespan: 81,920 hours. After that, they need to be retrieved and shut down before bad things happen. Mizugaki Tsukasa goes to work for Terminal Services, and is partnered with the Giftia called Isla…
1963 children's SF. Naill Renfro sells himself into servitude to get drugs to make his mother's dying easier. After that, things improve slightly. Well, they'd have to, wouldn't they?
1984 mystery; sixth-ish in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco, and at the same time fourteenth in Pronzini's "Nameless Detective" private eye series. Both detectives are at a convention of private eyes in San Diego, McCone also visiting her family and an old friend who's now head of hotel security. But then the dying starts.
One Night Revolution, by Ted Alspach after Akihisa Okui, is a game of hidden identities, deduction and deception for 3-10 players.
1961 children's SF. Troy Horan was thrown off his planet during the big war. Now he lives hand-to-mouth in the Dipple. But a casual job with an importer of exotic pets leads to unexpected intrigue and danger.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a collection of unusual ways of looking at things.
2015 SF, sequel to Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword. Fleet Captain Breq is still on Athoek Station, but there are plenty of problems even without the civil war coming closer.
2015 contemporary romance, light novel adaptation, 12 episodes: AniDB. Sequel to 2013's Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru - My Teenage RomCom SNAFU. Cynical loner high school kid and the rest of the Volunteer Club continue to try to help other people and work out their own problems.
2008 mystery, second of the "Thorny" Deepbriar series. In rural Yorkshire in 1957, Thorny the village bobby is still trying to get into the CID. But his superiors want him walking the beat where he is. He'll need to pull off an impressive feat of detection, but how can he do that in a village where nothing much happens?
2008 non-fiction, an informal history of the shipping container. Until the Second World War, almost all non-bulk freight was breakbulk, loaded one piece at a time into a ship's hold. Fifty years later, pretty much everything long-distance was going in containers. How did the change come about?
2014-2015, 24 episodes. In modern New York, (a completely different) Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson consult for the police.
2015 SF, sequel to Lines of Departure. The alien Lankies have moved into the solar system, and a random assortment of ship crews from the two previously-warring powers must decide what to do next.
2014 SF/mystery; forty-ninth (roughly) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. Just before Christmas, a personal trainer is found in his home, with a nasty head wound and a knife in his chest. He seems to have been a thoroughly nasty person, but for Eve Dallas the homicide cop's job is still the job.
2015 modern fantasy. Magic is in the world, but "'mancers" only use it to cause chaos – and it's still true that nothing is free. Flex is a drug, distilled magic, but the mundanes who take it are even less able to deal with the backlash than the 'mancers are. Paul Tsabo, ex-cop and once known as the only mundane to have killed a 'mancer, tries to track down the terrorist who's filling people with Flex and sending them out to destroy themselves and others.
This GURPS Action supplement expands character creation with greater flexibility in power level and skills, while keeping much of the simplictiy of the Action series.
2007 collection of short horror stories in the style of H. P. Lovecraft and M. R. James. Kyle Murchison Booth just wants to be left alone to work on his antique books and letters. But supernatural events keep happening to him.
2012 young adult science fiction. Jarra is Handicapped; something in her immune system revolts at alien worlds, so she's limited to living on Earth with the other people who can't go to the stars and be part of proper civilisation. What's worse, all the offworlders look down on "apes". But that's not going to stop her doing her best to have a good life.
The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy Mel Bush - Bonnie Langford Ace - Sophie Aldred
1954 science fiction juvenile. Lummox is the Stuart family pet, brought back a hundred years ago from who-knows-where by great-grandfather the space explorer. He's large, and occasionally hazardous to property, but basically docile. But now he's gone on a rampage, and the forces of law and order want him put down…
2011 humorous science fiction. Lord Thomas Kinago, foppish distant cousin of the Emperor and son of the First Space Lord, is sent on his obligatory short tour of military service. Meanwhile, a cluster of worlds on the edge of the Imperium is being taken over…
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's a grab-bag of alternative and house rules for GURPS.
2001 historical detection, eleventh in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Miss Lavender, an author and illustrator of overly-twee fairy stories, has died after receiving threatening letters. Phryne is called in by the police as someone who might be able to spot something amiss in the sea of cuteness that is Miss Lavender's home, and finds rather more motives than anyone could reasonably have expected.
2015 fantasy of sorts: third volume of the memoirs of Lady Trent, alternate-Victorian naturalist specialising in dragons. Aboard the Royal Survey Ship Basilisk, Lady Trent travels round the world to study dragons wherever they may be found.
Coup: Rebellion G54, by Rikka Tahta, is a game of hidden identities, deduction and bluffing for 3-6 players.
2015 science fiction. Jacob Kelley's old friend shows up at his house, babbling about artificial intelligences in the quantum computer that is the universe. Later, the old friend is found dead – having apparently been murdered the night before he turned up – and Kelley is put on trial for his murder.
1996 alternate-world military fiction; seventh in the Carrier series. "Tombstone" Magruder is still CAG aboard USS Thomas Jefferson, which is sent to the Black Sea for peacekeeping operations in the context of the ongoing Russian civil war.
2014-2015, 23 episodes. Famous writer Richard Castle continues to work with NYPD homicide detective Kate Beckett, though by this point it's fairly clear that he didn't come here for the hunting.
1981, cozy American detective fiction; second of MacLeod's novels of Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn. While the family affairs get straightened out, the recently-widowed Sarah needs an income; she remodels her house to take in boarders. But one of them falls under a subway train, or maybe he was pushed…
1999 thriller. On board the International Space Station, a microbiological experiment has gone wrong. Dr Emma Watson tries to keep the rest of the crew, and herself, alive in an increasingly challenging environment. (Nothing to do with the 2013 film of the same name.)
2015 modern Lovecraftian horror. Becca Philips, photographer and urban explorer in post-hurricane Boston, was mostly raised by her crazy occultist grandmother. But now things are showing up in her photographs that really shouldn't be there.
2000 mystery, first in Whitelaw's Jordan Lacey series. Asthmatic ex-policewoman Jordan Lacey starts a private investigation business in the seaside town of Latching, West Sussex. Will there be enough work to pay the bills? Surprisingly, yes.
This GURPS Dungeon Fantasy supplement expands the Barbarian archetype with new options and powers.
1990, first of Douglas's novels about Irene Adler, opera singer, adventuress, and foil to Sherlock Holmes.
2014 science fiction, seventh in the Alex Benedict series that began with A Talent for War. Alex Benedict the relic-dealer and Chase Kolpath the pilot go hunting for the last cache of artefacts from Earth's early space age.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about items one can make with magic.
2009 war story, second in Holland's Sergeant Jack Tanner series. In May of 1940, Tanner is in a training company on the south coast, but will soon be going to France with the BEF. But an old nemesis from his days in India has shown up again.
2003 mystery, eleventh in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. At Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, seventy miles off the end of Florida, Anna replaces a chief ranger who went mad. A boat explosion and anonymous body parts are troubling enough; but then Anna starts to see ghosts…
The Doctor - Colin Baker Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant Mel Bush - Bonnie Langford
2001 military SF, third in the Jump Universe series. At the same time as the events of The Price of Peace, Ray Longknife's exploration ship has comprehensively misjumped to where a much earlier lost ship founded a colony. But they aren't the only things on the planet.
This GURPS supplement explains how to convert spells from the standard GURPS magic system into power effects.
2008 mystery. A woman is found on the beach at Selsey, drowned – forcibly. But she isn't going to be the only victim.
My copy of the Kalidasa expansion to Firefly arrived yesterday. What's inside?
1958; mystery/thriller or romantic suspense. Linda Martin gets a job as governess to the young Comte de Valmy, at his château in the French Alps. But why did her employer seem so keen that she not be able to speak any French?
2000 military SF, second in the Jump Universe series. The Unity War is over, but that doesn't mean things are peaceful; Commander Izzy Umboto of the cruiser Patton is chasing down pirates, and worse.
2013, dir. Mike Slee, Mark Strong, Jock McLeod; IMDb / Wikipedia
A brief history of the Great Martian War, combining interviews with veterans and archive footage.
1981, cosy American detective fiction; second of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy, set at an agricultural college in Massachussetts. A few days before the Annual Competition of the Balaclava County Draft Horse Association, the college's farrier has been murdered. And the prize pig has gone missing. Is it a school prank gone horribly wrong, or something more sinister?
2015 modern occult secret service, sixth in the Laundry Files series. As CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN continues, more and more people are developing occult powers, and they envision them according to their own mythologies. Which means superheroes. Mo O'Brien, combat epistemologist and wielder of the last Zahn violin, now has to run a super-crime-fighting squad.
1999 military SF, first of a series that comes both chronologically and in publication date before the Kris Longknife books. Four soldiers on opposite sides of the war between the Society of Humanity and the Unity do their best to stay alive in the face of enemies both of the conventional kind and in their own ranks.
Suburbia Five Star (or 5★ if you follow the cover style) is the second expansion to Suburbia.
2014 supernatural mystery, fourth in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. A body is found in the North Esk, dead of a fall, and tattooed all over. A prominent politician shoots his wife and children, then himself. Tony McLean is more interested in the former, but gets the latter on his plate as well.
2014-2015, 22 episodes: the immortal Henry Morgan works as a medical examiner in modern New York to fund his research on ending his own life. Wikipedia
2004 military SF, first of a series of twelve books so far with at least two more planned. Kris Longknife, daughter of the Prime Minister of the long-settled world of Wardhaven, joined the Navy to get away from politics. But as the old alliance of humanity falls apart, it's not going to be that easy.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about created, and creative, creatures in a horror context.
2007 mystery, the ninth book in Lovesey's Peter Diamond series. A woman is found hanged in a park in Bath; a few days later her partner turns up in the same state. A suicide pact?
1965, dir. Harvey Hart, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Mark Richman; IMDb / allmovie
San Francisco, 1891. Playboy Brett Kingsford is secretly an occult detective. When his best friend's fiancée comes to him describing her husband-to-be's strange mental state, he starts to look into it.
1981, cosy American detective fiction; first of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Dittany Henbit and the Lobelia Falls Grub-and-Stakers Gardening & Roving Club. In a small town in Ontario, the local villain has a plan to build houses on a wilderness area. But one of his patsies ends up shot.
The Doctor - Colin Baker Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
2009 military SF, last in a five-book series. Ky Vatta has her fleet, and is ready to move against the pirates as soon as they attack. But she doesn't know all their plans.
I recently bought a tennis-ball catapult, for the benefit of a visiting dog. It's not as good as I'd hoped.
2012 collection of six short stories.
2011 SF. Nyx is a bel dame, an assassin tracking down and killing deserters for the government of Nasheen. Then things go wrong. Now she's being employed for a covert recovery mission, but everyone's hand is against her.
This GURPS supplement deals with teaching, learning, and games based on either or both.
2014 SF anthology about the run-up to the end of the world.
1981, cosy American detective fiction; second of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Madoc and Janet Rhys. In a remote country house in Canada, old Granny Condrycke has died peacefully in her sleep. With the house cut off, the family decides to go ahead with Christmas festivities. But Madoc Rhys, a Mountie who's there accidentally undercover with his fiancée Janet, reckons there was more to it.
2010, dir. Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud; IMDb / allmovie
The supervillain Gru finds that he needs three little girls for his latest nefarious scheme: to steal the Moon. But he's not as much of a hard case as he thinks he is.
2007 military SF, fourth in a five-book series. Kylara Vatta is putting together an anti-pirate navy while her cousin Stella is rebuilding the family firm.
2014-2015, 21 episodes: Wil Wheaton and other minor celebrities play boardgames.
2013 thriller, third in Brookmyre's Glasgow crime series. Jasmine Sharp's protector, the vanished and reappeared gang enforcer Glen Fallan, is arrested for the murder of his old enemy Stevie Fullerton; DS Catherine McLeod is happy to see Fallan put away, but wants to do this by the book, and there are disturbing inconsistencies.
2011 contemporary fantasy, a "re-imagining" of the Twilight series. Five years after Luminosity, Elspeth Cullen, daughter of Bella and Edward, tries to stay alive.
2014-2015 fantasy, light novel adaptation, 25 episodes: AniDB. Sequel to 2013-2014's Log Horizon. The players of a virtual-reality fantasy game are trapped inside it, and have to learn to live in their new world.
2014 SF, sequel to Terms of Enlistment. Humanity is losing the war against the aliens, but Andrew Grayson might as well re-enlist: there's nothing else for him to do.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's about things that threaten adventurers in a fantasy game: some monsters, but also societal menaces.
1910 children's fantasy. Philip, feeling abandoned after his older sister and sole family member marries, builds a model city from things around the house, then finds he has been sucked into it.
2015 action comedy, dir. and starring David Sandberg: IMDb / allmovie
The toughest martial arts cop in Miami goes back in time to kill kung fu Hitler.
1972 comedy, first in the Mortdecai Trilogy. Charlie Mortdecai is a cheerfully corrupt, vaguely aristocratic and thoroughly cowardly art dealer, who finds himself called on to act as an unwilling assassin.
2012 historical detection, fourth in Dean's Dido Kent series. Dido is forced to act as companion to her elderly and wealthy aunt, but the house they visit has its own problems: a young lady has disappeared, perhaps to Gretna Green, but her guardian is curiously unconcerned about her.
I haven't given up!
The Doctor - Peter Davison The Doctor - Colin Baker Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding Vislor Turlough - Mark Strickson Kamelion - Gerald Flood and Dallas Adams Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
1998 lesbian noir mystery/romance; first in Griffith's series about Aud Torvingen, bodyguard and borderline psychopath in Atlanta. An art historian's house is burned to the ground, with him in it; six kilos of cocaine are found in the garage. A drug-related execution, or something odder?
1984 mystery; fifth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. A major player in the flea-markets wants help dealing with a stalker, but his business is not as honest as it could be, and soon people start turning up dead.
2014-2015, 22 episodes: in the years before Batman, Gotham City is a cesspit of crime. But one cop is trying to make a difference.
2008 war story, first in Holland's Sergeant Jack Tanner series. In April of 1940, British forces in Norway make a fighting retreat in the face of the oncoming German invasion. Jack Tanner, of the King's Own Yorkshire Rangers, must also deal with poor officers, being cut off from friendly troops, and a civilian who has to be smuggled out of the country.
2014 technological fantasy. On the island of Kavekana, the main business is idols: all the convenience of a god, but none of the commitment or free will of the real thing. One of them has died thanks to a bad financial deal, but the priestess Kai tried to save her, and heard something odd as she did.
2013 science fiction. Six months' hyperspace travel from Earth, a small scientific team explores the lightless under-ice ocean of the planet Ilmatar.
2012 modern fantasy. For a few years, people have been manifesting magical powers; in the US, the military has taken control of it all. Some powers are allowed, some aren't. Oscar Britton, Army helicopter pilot, is about to develop one of the ones that isn't.
2012 mystery, twelfth in King's series about Mary Russell, wife of Sherlock Holmes. In Morocco in 1924, rebellion is in the air, and fell plots with international ramifications are being prepared.
2008 steampunk fantasy romance. Taya is an icarus, one of the couriers who strap on wings and buoyant metal to carry messages and small packages across the mountainside city of Ondinium. But a mid-air rescue brings her to the attention of the city's leaders.
2014 mystery, third in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. Bodies are found hanging in their homes in Edinburgh, apparently suicides. But how did they all come to do it in just the same way at the same time?
2013 SF. Andrew Grayson is a long-term welfare recipient, and there are only two ways out: hope to win a lottery for the colony worlds, or sign up with the military. He's going for option B.
My copies of the Jetwash and Esmeralda ship boosters for Firefly arrived on Friday. What's inside?
2010 contemporary fantasy, a "re-imagining" of the Twilight series. Bella Swan is a "rational self-knowledge junkie", so when she meets vampires, she starts thinking about them rather than blindly falling in love.
2010 historical detection, third in Dean's Dido Kent series. On a visit to a supposedly-haunted ruined abbey, a young lady slips and falls, saying in her delirium only "I saw her – it was her". Was it the Grey Nun of legend?
2014 military SF, second in the Ark Royal series. The outdated and over-armoured carrier Ark Royal did what the newer ships couldn't, taking the war to the alien invaders and even capturing an enemy starship. Now it's time for a larger raid into alien space.
1999 historical detection. Tenth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Phryne is in Sydney, nominally to watch a cricket match, at the request of two university students, whose friend has been accused of stealing exam-papers: an obvious setup. But it seems that there's more to it than that.
2013 SF, by the only non-slate nominee for the Campbell this year. Unaging aliens and their human hosts struggle across the Earth.
2010 mystery, seventeenth in the series about Kate Shugak, part-time private investigator in a national park in Alaska. The gold mine has come to the Park, and that's changing everything; but murder is still murder.
2006 SF, third in a five-book series. With the space pirates moving in earnest to extort protection money from interstellar trading polities, Kylara Vatta starts to build a fleet to take them on.
The first Dungeon Fantasy Monsters book dealt with all sorts of creature one might find while kicking in doors and killing the things behind them. This one is more specialised, dealing specifically with slimes.
2000 non-fiction, a collection of anecdotes by officers of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm.
Four nominees in this category that conform to my criteria. I'm not much of a comics reader as a rule, but there's a pleasing diversity of styles.
2015, 13 episodes: AniDB
Parody of contemporary slice-of-life and romance. Aki Tomoya tries to create a computer game (in one of the standard Japanese models, with good art and multiple-choice gameplay) with the assistance of various schoolmates.
2011; thirteenth in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). Jude and Carole go to a private viewing by a consciously controversial artist at a local gallery, but the evening ends in violent death. The police reckon it's suicide, but…
2012 horror, dir. Brad Parker, Jesse McCartney, Jonathan Sadowski: IMDb / allmovie
A tourist trip into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone goes horribly wrong.
For this year's Hugo awards there are three semiprozines in contention that satisfy my voting criteria. One didn't bother to provide a sample in the Hugo packet. This is one of the other two.
2011 SF, first of a five-book series. Ia is a precognitive who foresees the collapse of human civilisation… unless she takes a specific path, which starts with becoming a space marine.
2015 science fiction. On an island off the Washington coast, there's a disease outbreak, but a religious community living there doesn't seem to be worried about it. And it all has something to do with the immortals.
2004 SF, second in a five-book series. Kylara Vatta survived her first solo trading venture, but now someone's taking on the family firm. UK vt Moving Target.
2001 espionage thriller. Caroline Carmichael, CIA intelligence analyst, thought she'd lost her husband in a plane bombing. Until he showed up in a photo of the people who had just kidnapped the Vice-President of the USA during a terrorist attack in Berlin.
There's only one non-slate novelette on the ballot this year, so that's what I'm reviewing here: The Day The World Turned Upside Down, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. "Space Atlas" covers places to take a campaign… in space.
2003 SF, first in a five-book series. Kylara Vatta is thrown out of space navy academy, then gets a job taking one of the family firm's oldest ships on its final voyage to the scrapyard. Of course it all gets more complicated than that.
2013 cosy mystery, fifth in Bradley's series set in the early 1950s about child detective Flavia de Luce. The corpse of the angelic-looking young organist has been hidden in a saint's tomb that hasn't been opened for years. But how and why did he die?
2015 contemporary slice of life, 12 episodes: AniDB. A middle school girl with a knack for cooking learns that everything tastes better if you share it with someone special. vt Gourmet Girl Graffiti.
1937 children's fantasy. Six stories of wonder, three of them dealing with the modern magician Mr Leakey.
This supplementary volume in the Monster Hunters series tweaks the game to allow the foes to be aliens rather than supernatural monsters.
2014 urban fantasy, sequel to London Falling. As protests brew into riots during a hot summer, important people are being murdered in a bizarre and impossible way. Fortunately, the Met has four officers who specialise in the impossible.
1979 drama, dir. James Bridges, Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon: IMDb / allmovie
A TV news reporter uncovers dirty secrets at a nuclear power plant.
1994 alternate-world military fiction; sixth in the Carrier series. "Tombstone" Magruder is still CAG aboard USS Thomas Jefferson, which now gets involved in the Russian civil war of 1994+4.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's religion, particularly of the actively supernatural sort. This isn't something that tends to come up much in my games, so the applicability of this issue is relatively low for me.
1994 non-fiction, volume 10 of the Brassey's New Battlefield Weapons Systems and Technology series. A practical primer on the design and operation of nuclear weapons, their effects, and their simulation.
2015 futuristic fantasy, 12 episodes: AniDB. After the Great Tokyo War, Japan is balkanised; each area is protected by its own vigilante squad. Four girls set out to deal with some of the problems.
1995 non-fiction. In October 1957, the core of Windscale's Pile 1 caught fire, burned for three days, and spread radioactive contamination across what was then Cumberland. This is the official history of the incident and its aftermath.
2009 historical detection, second in Dean's Dido Kent series. Rich invalid Mrs Lansdale has died, of an overdose of laudanum. Her nephew stands to inherit. But did he do it?
Eight zombie campaign frames sketched out in moderate detail.
2014 translation of 2006 SF from China. In the long shadow of the Cultural Revolution, various people try to work out why scientists are committing suicide.
2015 modern fantasy, 12 episodes: AniDB. Sequel to 2012's Kamisama Hajimemashita; vt "Kamisama Kiss" or "Beginning of Life as a God". Ordinary schoolgirl Nanami has become a shrine deity, and is still trying to learn how to do her job.
2012 mystery, first in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. A prominent city elder in Edinburgh is killed, but less than a day later his killer commits a public and messy suicide. Case closed, and the police are happy. But McLean won't let it lie, especially when the same thing happens again.
2015 SF, 13 episodes. In the future, humanity has been nearly wiped out by a plague. James Cole is sent back in time to 2015, just before it started, to try to prevent it.
1957; mystery/thriller or romantic suspense. Jennifer Silver goes to the Pyrenées to visit her widowed cousin, who's staying in a convent and thinking about taking orders. But when she arrives, she finds her cousin has suddenly died and been buried. Or has she?
2014 comedy, dir. and starring Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi: IMDb / allmovie
Four vampires share a flat in modern New Zealand. Comedy happens.
1980, cosy American detective fiction; first of MacLeod's novels of Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn. In Boston, an old family vault is opened for the first time in thirty years… to reveal the corpse of a well-known burlesque dancer.
1990 military SF. In the 22nd century, the Japanese empire which controls Earth and the colony worlds sends a task group to suppress a three-way colonial revolt. It doesn't help that many of the colonists are exiled Boers.
2011 thriller: five short stories about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox, former soldier and current private bodyguard.
2014, 24 episodes: AniDB
Sports. Onoda Sakamichi, cyclist with huge natural talent, continues his racing career. (Sequel to Yowamushi Pedal.)
2014 fantasy. Maia is the fourth son of the emperor of Elfland, exiled to a rural estate and forgotten about. But now the emperor is dead along with his other sons, and Maia becomes the new emperor, thrown headlong into court politics for which he is unprepared.
Pyramid is the monthly GURPS supplement containing short articles with a loose linking theme. This time it's combat: fighting of all sorts.
1999 SF. More than a thousand years after Greatwinter destroyed civilisation, new cultures have grown up in what was once Australia. But what is the secret at the heart of the Library?
2007 mystery. In rural Yorkshire in 1956, Constable "Thorny" Deepbriar is a village bobby who's always longed to try his hand at detection. Now he's going to get his chance.
2005 SF, sequel to The Getaway Special. With cheap hyperdrive available to the world, things are falling apart; two people try to work out their options.
2015, 12 episodes: AniDB
Mecha series, continuation of last summer's Aldnoah Zero. The Martians are still invading Earth, but things have bogged down.
2005 mystery. A publisher's house is burned down, with him in it. What's the connection with the local circle of unpublished writers?
2014-2015, 25 episodes: AniDB; vt Cross Ange: Rondo of Angel and Dragon.
In a magical/tech society, the princess is discovered to be a non-magic-user, stripped of her rank, and exiled to the high-casualty, low-empathy defenders of the kingdom.
2008 historical detection, first in Dean's Dido Kent series. In 1805 at Richard Montague's engagement party, he suddenly puts off his fiancée Catherine and leaves for parts unknown. And a woman's body is found in the shrubbery. Catherine's spinster aunt Dido tries to clear up the mystery. US vt Bellfield Hall.
Schoolgirls with the spirit of WWII Japanese fighting ships take on an alien navy.
2014-2015: John Constantine, broken magician, must protect the innocent from magical threats.
1989 horror, prototypical urban fantasy. Sonja Blue, vampire killer of vampires, is locked up and medicated in a mental hospital. But that isn't going to stop her for long.
2014, 22 episodes: AniDB vt Your Lie in April
Modern romantic comedy. Kousei was a child prodigy at the piano, but gave it up. Two years later when he's in high school, he randomly meets Kaori the violinist, who insists that he should be her accompanist in a competition.
2013 urban fantasy. Rhian, a young woman from the valleys with some unusual talents, finds herself in east London, where ancient magics are mixing with modern in a distinctly unpleasant way.
1977; ninth of Winton's novels. The Artful Bodger (Commander R. B. Badger, RN) is now in charge of the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth.
2014, dir. Lynn Shelton, Keira Knightley, Chloë Grace Moretz; IMDb / allmovie
Megan is approaching thirty, but her career and personality more or less went on hold when she left high school ten years ago. One night, as she's fleeing from an unwanted marriage proposal and other complications, some high-school kids ask her to buy them beer, and she gets on with Annika better than with her own peers. Things move on from there. vt Say When in the UK and Ireland.
1997 historical detection. Ninth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). A man drops dead of strychnine poisoning in a bookshop; the owner's the obvious suspect. But Phryne is unconvinced.
This supplement is not called "GURPS Organisations", but it might as well have been.
The Doctor - Peter Davison Nyssa - Sarah Sutton Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding Vislor Turlough - Mark Strickson Kamelion - Gerald Flood
2003 suspense. Seven years ago, two eleven-year-old girls stole a baby, which died; maybe one of them killed it. Now they're out of juvenile detention… and a young child has gone missing.
2014-2015: the crew of the Las Vegas Crime Lab continue to use forensic science to solve crimes.
2014 modern occult secret service, fifth in the Laundry Files series. Everybody in the Laundry knows there's no such thing as vampires. Why are they so very sure?
2012 mystery, second in Oswald's Inspector McLean series. Twelve years ago Tony McLean caught the Christmas Killer, whose last victim was McLean's fiancée. Now that man's been killed in prison, but another young woman's corpse has just turned up, killed in the same way. A copycat? Or did McLean get the wrong man?
2015 SF/mystery; fiftieth (roughly) of J. D. Robb's In Death series. At the end of 2060, Homicide Lieutenant Eve Dallas comes up against a new threat: a murderer who's such a fan that he's killing people who've offended Dallas. And there are a lot of them.
2014, 12 episodes: AniDB
Modern magic. After the sun turns black and Arata's girlfriend disintegrates before his eyes, he now has to go to magician school.
2003 mystery, the eighth book in Lovesey's Peter Diamond series. Is a killing on a beach connected with the murder of a celebrity film director?
This specialised GURPS supplement deals with unusual sensory powers, from the reasonable to the cinematic.
2012 urban fantasy. The big crime boss is finally arrested, curiously easily, but explodes in a shower of blood while he's being interviewed. In trying to work out what happened, four coppers accidentally step into a much larger world.
2014-2015: Ichabod Crane, survivor from the American Revolutionary War, continues to fight in the modern day against the imminent Apocalypse.
1990 SF. On a passenger liner in hyperspace, the speed of light is a mere ten metres per second. But humans are still humans.
1980, cosy American detective fiction; first of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Madoc and Janet Rhys. In a small Canadian town, the local old biddy has died of eating her own contaminated preserves. But was she really that careless?
2013 Florida Weird. On Key West, former Miami cop Andrew Yancy has a human arm in his freezer. But there's a reason for that. Yancy thinks the story about the arm's owner dying in a boating accident is full of holes, and sets off on an unofficial investigation.
2014, dir. Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith; IMDb / allmovie
In this spin-off from the Madagascar series, four penguin secret agents attempt to foil the plot of the sinister Dr Octavius Brine. Or at least to find Cheesy Dibbles to eat.
2013 SF, seventh in the Academy series and a prequel. Priscilla Hutchins is just completing interstellar pilot training, but already demand for pilots is dropping. And terrorists are threatening the terraforming project. Spoilers.
2014-2015 superheroic fantasy. In 1946, after the presumed death of Captain America, his girlfriend Peggy Carter works for a secret government agency.
2014, 12 episodes: AniDB; also known as "Electric Town Bookstore".
Workplace sitcom based in a manga/DVD/game/etc. shop, poking fun at the fandom and conventions of the genre.
1978, popular history. Tuchman recounts the history of France and some nearby countries in the latter part of the Fourteenth Century, with particular focus on the nobleman Enguerrand de Coucy.
1897: the spoiled son of a millionaire, washed overboard from a steamer, is rescued and put to work by the crew of a Grand Banks cod-boat.
2014-2015; the Library is where all the magical artefacts in the world are stored to keep them (and the world) safe. After three TV movies, the story has been resurrected as a weekly series.
1993; fifth in the Carrier series. "Tombstone" Magruder, CAG aboard USS Thomas Jefferson, continues to fight against the Russian invasion of Norway in 1993+4.
2009 historical mystery. In Boston in 1773, Abigail Adams (wife of lawyer and future president John Quincy Adams) tries to solve the murder of one woman and the disappearance of another.
1868 mystery; often considered the first detective novel in English. The huge diamond, looted from India, goes missing after a birthday party. Who took it? And how was the trick managed?
2014, 11 episodes: AniDB
The perfect society of 2012-2013's Psycho-Pass encounters a new threat.
1855 novel, first of Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire. The warden of Hiram's Hospital, an almshouse supported by a charitable bequest, comes under attack for keeping too much of the now-substantial income to himself.
1956; mystery/thriller or romantic suspense. In 1953, the fashion model Gianetta Drury has over-worked herself, and leaves London just before the Coronation to spend some time in a remote hotel on Skye. But it's not the peaceful retreat she'd hoped for.
2008 SF/romance, second in the Grimspace series. In the previous book, Sirantha Jax was instrumental in bringing down the evil corporation that ran everything. But nature abhors a power vacuum.
2014, 13 episodes: AniDB.
High school boy is asked to be the acting manager of a failing amusement park populated by fantastic creatures.
2011; twelfth in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). Carole Seddon takes over the rental of a beach hut along the shore from Fethering, only for human remains to turn up underneath it.
2012, dir. David Gelb, Jiro Yoshino: IMDb / allmovie
Ono Jiro is the oldest chef ever to get a third Michelin star; his restaurant in Ginza only seats twelve people.
2014; a collection of Ben Goldacre's short writing, mostly for the Guardian.
2014 SF mini-series. In the 1950s, a project was begun to build an interstellar generation spacecraft as a lifeboat for humanity should the Cold War turn hot. Now they're half-way through the mission and they've just had their first murder. Meanwhile, on Earth, someone's looking into long-buried secrets. Possible spoilers ahead.
1949 mystery. Simon Ashby is about to come of age and inherit the family estate Latchetts (sadly fallen, but still worth a bit). Eight years ago, after the sudden death of their parents, his older twin Patrick committed suicide, or so everyone thought; but now someone claiming to be Patrick has turned up to take over again.
2014; 19th book of Jack Reacher. Some bad man has had a long range shot at the chief man of France, but few men are good enough to have a go, and Jack put one of them in clink some years back. So some spies bring him on board to help catch the bad man, and be bait.
2014, 13 episodes: AniDB Also known as I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying. Slice of life comedy dealing with the daily routine of a busy office lady and her otaku husband.
1995: Isis Whit is the Elect of God and heir-designate to the small cult of Luskentyrianism, the granddaughter of its founder; she's lived all her life in its holdings near Dunblane. But now one of the members in London has fallen out of contact in an odd way, and it's up to Isis to travel outside and try to get her back.
2003 comic fantasy. Paul Carpenter applies for a job as a "junior clerk" at J. W. Wells, not knowing just what it is that they do; but it seems to be something really quite strange. He'd chuck it in if he hadn't fallen for his fellow junior clerk…
Ninth thriller in the series about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox, former soldier and current private bodyguard. Children of the super-rich are being kidnapped in the Hamptons, and Charlie is hired by the mother of one of the potential victims. But it's all more complex than it looks.
2014, 13 episodes: AniDB Mars was seeded with engineered cockroaches and mould. Five hundred years later, they ate the first manned mission. The second one had only two survivors. Now it's time for the third.
2001 SF, expansion of 1985 short story. A scientist invents a hyperspace drive that's easy to build and use, and tells the world. Things don't go as smoothly as he expects.
2014, 24 episodes: AniDB, follow-up to 2012's Sword Art Online. The survivors of the VR MMO Sword Art Online go on to new adventures.
1979, cosy American detective fiction; first of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy. In a New England agricultural college, the local busybody has had an accident, or been murdered. But was it really over the question of Christmas decorations?
"Modern" (i.e. post-WWII) naval warfare is surprisingly underserved by the wargaming community. There's Harpoon, of course, which I know and love, but it's a bit heavy on detail for many people. Shipwreck!, written by Martin Bourne and published in 1999 by Vandering Publications, is the "other" game, and it takes a much lighter approach.
2008 SF/romance. Sirantha Jax is a jumper, one of the rare humans who can navigate FTL ships through grimspace. But her ship crashed, her pilot/lover died (along with everyone else on board), and she may be going mad.
2014, 10 episodes: AniDB. Sequel to last spring's Hitsugi no Chaika.
The daughter of the evil mage-emperor is still collecting his remains in order to give him a proper funeral.
Contemporary fantasy. Peter Grant, Metropolitan Police constable and magician, investigates the death of a man found stabbed on Baker Street station.
2014 SF; sequel to Honour's Knight. With most of the powers in the known universe arrayed against her, Devi is still infected with the virus that could solve everything (or bring it all crashing down).
2013, dir. Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson, Caitlin Stasey, Sianoa Smit-McPhee: IMDb / allmovie
Outcast girl Maddy manages to get onto the cheerleading squad after its leader dies in a bizarre accident. But she has revenge in mind, for what is not yet clear, and that's only the beginning.
1910; melodrama. In the middle of the 17th century, Claudia Particelli is mistress to the Cardinal (Prince-Bishop) of Trento, and everybody will come to a Bad End.
1971 collection of earlier fiction; various stories of action during the Second World War.
Modern Tokyo is infested by ghouls, who eat humans. Kaneki is about to become their latest victim.
Mostly I finish the books that I start. Sometimes I don't. These are the ones I didn't finish this year.
22-minute comedy loosely based on the real lives of the folk-rock-parody duo of Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome.
2014 SF; sequel to Fortune's Pawn. Devi is now security chief on the tramp space-freighter she signed on with, but clearly something very strange is going on.
2014, 11 episodes: AniDB; also known as Zankyou no Terror and Terror in Tokyo.
In an alternate present, terrorist bombs start going off in Tokyo. What is the mysterious Sphinx, and why are they doing it?
2005 SF/mystery. Turing Hopper, an AI emergent from research assistant software, looks into the affairs of a techie who's been hit by a car and is now in intensive care. Was it an accident?
1901: an orphaned Irish boy, growing up on the streets of Lahore, puts his natural talents to better use.
1997; third of Hayter's mysteries about TV journalist Robin Hudson. Robin's just trying to find her intern and other co-workers for a girls' night out, but somehow it doesn't seem to come together.
2004 SF/mystery. Turing Hopper, an AI emergent from research assistant software, follows up on a lead to an old enemy.
1984; fourth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. McCone investigates the disappearance of a famous photographer's roommate, which leads to secret goings-on in a decaying coastal town.
Some people may review the new Star Wars trailer. I find this one more interesting.
2014, 13 episodes: AniDB
Teenage romance and premonitory powers in contemporary small-town Japan.
2003 SF/mystery. Turing Hopper, an AI emergent from research assistant software, has just lost a friend and employee: he's been murdered. The police reckon it was random drug-related violence; she tries to find out more.
2012: Isaac Vainio used to be a libriomancer, someone who can reach into books and pull out the objects depicted there; but things went bad and now he works at a small town library. Until the vampires show up. Minor spoilers will follow.
1998, dir. Peter Howitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah: IMDb / allmovie
A woman just fired from her job does, or does not, catch a particular Underground train, and does, or does not, catch her boyfriend in bed with another woman; her life diverges from that point, and we see both halves.
1907; romantic melodrama-cum-mystery story. Who killed Robert Courthope? Why did Philip Warren flee from the scene?
1992; romantic suspense. Catherine Weaver is a makeup artist for low-budget films who's driving to visit her pregnant friend on a rainy night, when she hits Victor Holland who's just stumbled onto the road having been shot. Then things start moving.
Some time in the future, two convicts working on the Moon discover something strange: a flower, blooming on the surface. Then things get weird.
2009: Okrent examines the history of invented languages, and in particular the rare instances that weren't immediately forgotten.
2014, 13 episodes: AniDB, sequel to Free! (2013).
High school sports club anime: the sport in this instance is swimming.
Sequel to Ancillary Justice. Breq, now a Fleet Captain, travels to a backwater world to help assure its survival in the civil war.
Ross Baker is having a bad day. He'd just lain down for an experimental brain scan, and now he seems to be a cyborg soldier in an endless war. And it's going to get a lot stranger than that. If you plan to read this book, know that I thought it fairly good (I'd rate it with Pandæmonium as minor but worth reading, much better than When the Devil Drives) and stop reading now to avoid the spoilers.
In a small village by the Devon coast, a very strange fellow has moved into the old pill-box on the cliff. Excitement ensues.
Ben Goldacre explains at length how pretty much everything about drug research and selection is rotten.
Mecha series. The Martians are invading Earth, and their technology is overpowering. But some Earthlings are able to fight back.
In an attempt to get details of the latest Chinese missile submarine, an American attack boat is sent in to shadow her. Spoilers.
2014, dir. Gabe Ibañez, Antonio Banderas, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen: IMDb / allmovie
After the vast majority of humanity has been killed by solar storms, robots keep the remainder alive in a small numer of cities. But some robots seem to be breaking their rules.
The Doctor - Peter Davison Adric - Matthew Waterhouse Nyssa - Sarah Sutton Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding
After the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarian Empire goes to war. Josef Švejk, a dealer in stolen dogs, does his best to get by.
Sixth mystery starring Meg Lanslow, contemporary blacksmith. Meg and her boyfriend have bought a huge old house very cheaply, on condition that they clear out and sell the accumulated junk left by the previous owner. But during the sale, a dubious dealer in antiquities turns up dead…
Tenth in Barr's Anna Pigeon series, murder mysteries in US National Parks. Back on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi, a body's been found in an old plantation house, left in a manner suggestive of sexual homicide.
2014, 12 episodes: AniDB, also known as Blue Spring Ride.
Contemporary school story adapted from shōjo manga. Futaba reinvents herself as she enters high school, only to find that her middle-school crush Kou has also reinvented _him_self.
Tove Jansson's second book about the Moomins. Original title Kometjakten.
Revolution! Anarchy is the new 5-6 player expansion to Revolution!.
The author of the webcomic xkcd works out back-of-the-envelope answers to odd scientific questions.
This highly influential book on screenwriting lays out a standard structure to which all saleable scripts should conform.
Eighth thriller in the series about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox, former soldier and current private bodyguard. A man's son joined a cult, and later got killed; he went in to find out what had been so tempting, and decided to stay. Now Charlie's on the team that's getting him out. But it's all rather more complicated than it looks…
Robert Mason flew Hueys for a year in Vietnam. This is his story.
2014, 12 episodes: AniDB; also known as Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun.
Parody series about young girls' (shōjo) manga. Chiyo has a crush on fellow high school student Nozaki, but through comical misunderstanding discovers he's a manga writer and artist – but this has to be kept a secret from the rest of the school.
1954; mystery/thriller or romantic suspense; first published novel by Mary Stewart. Charity Selborne is on holiday in Provence, and meets young David Shelley and his stepmother Loraine Bristol. Somewhere in the background is David's father, recently acquitted of the grisly murder of his best friend, and believed by many to be mad…
Contemporary fantasy. Peter Grant, Metropolitan Police constable and magician, investigates the sudden deaths of jazz musicians.
2014, 12 episodes plus a special: AniDB; sequel to Mushishi (2005-2006).
Mushi are supernatural creatures which are invisible to most people, but which have an effect in the mundane world. Ginko, a mushi-shi, is someone who can see them, and who solves problems for people who are affected by them.
Eleventh in King's series about Mary Russell, who… well, this is basically Sherlock Holmes fanfiction, but against all the odds it manages to work. Strange things have been happening around a film crew; Russell joins it to work out what's going on.
Third in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. McCone investigates the murder of a painter and decorator in a rough area that's being gentrified.
Seventh thriller in the series about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox, former soldier and current private bodyguard. Charlie's estranged father turns up unexpectedly in the USA, and seems to be bent on professional self-destruction under the eyes of the media. Why?
2012, dir. Lorene Scafaria, Steve Carell, Keira Knightley: IMDb / allmovie
The world will be hit by an asteroid in three weeks, and there's nothing more that can be done about it. Dodge and his neighbour Penny set out to get him to his high school sweetheart, and her to her family in England.
Fourth in the Carrier series. "Tombstone" Magruder is now deputy CAG aboard a Nimitz-class carrier, and Russia is invading Norway.
Hard-boiled fantasy. Down the mean streets goes Eddie LaCrosse, a swordsman who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.
After civilisation is nearly destroyed by an invasion of virus-controlled creatures, only the children born with a small dose of the virus are an effective weapon against them. So they're paired with adult handlers, and sent off to the fight.
Second of Hayter's mysteries about TV journalist Robin Hudson. This time her new gynæcologist has been found, handcuffed and then shot in the head, and there's no shortage of people who might have wished him ill.
While the destroyer USS Nathan James is on exercise in the Arctic, a plague has killed over 80% of the world's population. Now her captain must decide how to proceed.
Naval technothriller. Argentine troops invade key locations in Antarctica, and the only force in a position to do anything about it is a new US Navy destroyer.
1932, dir. Ernest B. Schoedsack, Joel McCrea, Fay Wray: IMDb / allmovie. Also known as The Hounds of Zaroff for its British release.
A famous hunter is shipwrecked, then makes it to the shore of a supposedly deserted island. But his host has plans for him.
Short story. An expert hunter, washed overboard from his ship, makes it to an island where his host explains how he makes hunting a real challenge: his prey is human beings.
Sequel to Sisters of the Raven. The new female wizards, and the king their patron, have to cope with dream-communications of suffering from abroad, a possible magical assassin, some new kind of plague that is wiping out villages, and the king's re-coronation ordeal (which was easier to fake back when magic was reliable).
My copy of the Blue Sun expansion to Firefly arrived yesterday. What's inside?
Fourth of Buchan's books about Richard Hannay; 1920s thud-and-blunder.
Here's what I've read in August.
Sixteenth mystery in the series about Kate Shugak, part-time private investigator in a national park in Alaska. Gold's been found on park lands, and that means mining, and that means objections from the locals. The mining company's hired a minor celebrity to be their spokeswoman. But that doesn't solve everything.
Novella; eleventh in Lippman's contemporary mystery series about Tess Monaghan, private investigator in Baltimore. Restricted to bed thanks to difficulties with her pregnancy, Tess passes the time watching people in the park outside, particularly a young woman in a green coat (with a greyhound in a matching one). One day, the greyhound passes by on its own…
A nostalgically strange series about the dandiest man in space.
Technological fantasy. Sixty years after the Aztec-like city-state of Dresediel Lex was "liberated" and its gods killed, someone seems to be trying to break the hold of the company that replaced those gods.
2014, dir. Brian Horiuchi, Frank Langella, Rosario Dawson: IMDb / allmovie
As a runaway biological weapon devastates the world, three couples consider the meaning of love.
Sixth thriller in the series about Charlie (Charlotte) Fox, former soldier and currently private bodyguard. Charlie guards a woman whose ex-boyfriend is causing trouble after a lottery win, but it soon becomes more complicated than that.
Thirteenth in Fairstein's contemporary mystery series about Alexandra Cooper, sex crimes prosecutor in Manhattan. When a burned, decapitated body is found on the steps of a church that used to be a synagogue, there could be any number of reasons. When a second body is found at another church, things start to come together.
Two shut-ins, a brother and sister game-playing team, are arbitrarily transplanted into a magical world where all conflict is resolved by games. They take to it well.
Contemporary fantasy ("urban fantasy" gives the wrong idea now, even if it's much more appropriate to this book than to many published under that banner). New constable Peter Grant is about to be sent off to the paperwork unit, but while he's standing guard over a murder scene in the small hours a ghost starts to talk to him. Then things get stranger.
Quite a lot of games have some sort of hidden identity component: for example, Lords of Waterdeep and Discworld: Ankh-Morpork both deal each player a random role which then gives them a secret way of winning the game; Battlestar Galactica and Shadows over Camelot, while nominally cooperative, may assign a traitor role to one or more players; and the UFO faction in Illuminati can even covertly choose which victory condition to aspire to. But some games are entirely about the hidden roles and working out who's got which, and I seem to have been playing a lot of them lately.
Lightweight but lengthy fantasy, the first in the Dhulyn and Parno series.
Situation comedy based on a manga artist, his assistant, and various other workmates.
SF/mystery. Turing Hopper, an AI emergent from research assistant software, is worried about her programmer: he seems to have vanished, and the records she can find aren't helping. So she turns for help to the two humans who are aware of her nature.
Robin Hudson had a promising career as a TV journalist, but blew it with some public embarrassment. Now her ex-husband has a younger and prettier fiancée, her job for not-CNN involves investigating a sperm bank, and she's about to be blackmailed. Then the blackmailer turns up dead…
2012, dir. Brandon Cronenberg, Caleb Landry Jones: IMDb / allmovie
In a world where the cult of celebrity involves taking on their diseases… pretty much everything that can go wrong with such a setup does.
Self-published industrial fantasy romance. The relict of a bishop inherits her mother's great airship, and tries to avoid becoming the mistress of the Emperor.
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Doctor Who - Peter Davison (briefly) Romana - Lalla Ward K-9 (voice) - John Leeson Adric - Matthew Waterhouse Nyssa - Sarah Sutton Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding
Fourth mystery book about Bernard Rhodenbarr, professional burglar in 1970s New York.
2013-2014, 24 episodes: AniDB
On the Star of the East, Oda Nobunaga fights his local battles against other warlords (with Giant War Armour, of course). But the Star of the West is approaching, and the stakes are about to get vastly higher.
Airliners over the Atlantic are being shot down by submarine-launched missiles. How can this be stopped? Spoilers.
Here's what I've read in July.
Classic detective fiction; fourth, roughly, of Tey's novels of Inspector Alan Grant. An unreasonably beautiful young man visiting from America goes to the country to stay with casual acquaintances in a village that's been Discovered by writers and artists, causes social ructions, then disappears. What happened, and was it murder?
First of a projected seven-book fantasy series. In a decaying imperial city, a thief and con-man just wants to be left alone to get on with his business. But people keep interfering.
Eleventh in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). A local bric-a-brac shop is burned down, but the body found inside it was shot first. Carole Seddon and Jude investigate again.
Young people with superpowers in modern Tokyo? Well, that seems to be the premise at first. It soon gets much stranger.
Sixth (though the order doesn't really matter) of the collections of Paul Jennings' short humorous pieces, mostly from The Observer, published in 1958.
2014, 12 episodes: AniDB; also known as The Kawai Complex Guide to Manners and Hostel Behavior.
Romantic comedy; high school boy lives in boarding-house with a variety of Characters, one of whom is a cute female bookworm.
In the mid 2000s, China tries to buy seven Kilo-class diesel submarines from Russia. The Americans aim to prevent this. Meanwhile, something odd is going on at Kerguelen Island.
2011, dir. Steven Soderbergh, Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon: IMDb / allmovie
A contagious disease spreads across the planet; civilisation starts to fall apart.
In the latter days of the Second World War, a U-boat group leader tries to maintain morale and keep his crews alive.
2013-2014, 38 episodes: AniDB
Weakling anime fan Sakamichi Onoda finds there's nobody else interested in forming an anime club at his new high school, so ends up joining the bicycle racing club instead. Seems he's got a hidden talent for cycling that even he didn't know about.
Last of a six-book series. In the distant future, a long-frozen space-navy captain tries to lead his fleet home. I'm going to deal in spoilers both for this book and for the whole series.
Bernard Rhodenbarr, the closest New York in the 1970s can get to a gentleman burglar, is back for his third mystery book appearance. This is the one where the formula changes a bit.
A few years after the big magical war against the evil emperor, a pair of retired soldiers wander the land looking for work. They meet a young sorceress carrying a coffin on her back, and she employs them to help her find the remains of her father so that she can give them a decent burial. Oh, did she mention her father was the evil emperor?
In a city powered by steam heated by a fire-god, that fire-god has suddenly died. An inexperienced mage looks into what happened. Gladstone is nominated for the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer.
In the late Edo period, Perry's black ships were fought off by giant mystical mecha. Twenty years later in Nagasaki, a young yakuza boss has just unified the town under his rule by beating up everyone who objected. But he's got bigger things on the way...
In a now-alternate 2002, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier suddenly disappears at sea, apparently in a nuclear accident. What happened?
Third of the "Dickson McCunn" novels: superior thud and blunder. The affairs of Evallonia, the mitteleuropan country that provided motivations in Castle Gay, are now in the foreground, as forces gather round the potential restoration of its monarchy.
These are my thoughts on the remaining Hugo packet submissions for Best Editor, Short Form. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so. There will also be spoilers here.
Fantasy anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan. Twelve new stories that "encompass as wide a range of types of fantasy story as possible". Nominated for Best Editor (Short Form).
Here's what I've read in June.
SF anthology edited by John Joseph Adams. Twenty-two stories on the general theme of mad scientists. Nominated for Best Editor (Short Form).
2005, dir. Ben Rekhi, Christopher Masterson, Ajay Naidu: IMDb / allmovie
After a presumed terrorist attack pollutes the water supply of Los Angeles, three groups of people do their best to keep going as society collapses.
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated novellas. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so. There will also be spoilers here.
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated novelettes in 2014. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so. There will also be spoilers here.
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Romana - Lalla Ward K-9 (voice) - David Brierly
These are my thoughts on the Hugo-nominated short stories in 2014. If you're planning to vote, you may wish not to read these notes until you have done so. There will also be spoilers here.
Fifth of a six-book series. In the distant future, a long-frozen space-navy captain tries to lead his fleet home. Spoilers will follow.
In 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands; a Royal Navy task group was sent to take them back. This is the memoir of the task group's commander.
2013, "Dabba", dir. Ritesh Batra, Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur: IMDb / allmovie
An old-fashioned epistolary romance, conducted via notes passed in a lunchbox. Plot discussion, which may be considered to include spoilers, follows.
As wizards, hitherto exclusively male, gradually lose their magical power, some women discover that they are gaining it.
Eighth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia); a homage to the novels of Agatha Christie.
Bernard Rhodenbarr, the closest New York in the 1970s can get to a gentleman burglar, is back for his second book appearance, and the formula sets in: while our hero the burglar is hiding from his victim who's come home unexpectedly, she gets murdered.
Fourth of a six-book series. In the distant future, a long-frozen space-navy captain tries to lead his fleet home.
2013, dir. Bong Joon-ho, Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton IMDb / allmovie
After the world has frozen, all that's left of humanity lives aboard a train eternally circling the planet.
In the late 1850s, Ellen Paget is employed as a governess in Paris.
First in Block's slightly less-well-known series. Bernard Rhodenbarr is a burglar, and a good one. It's bad enough when the cops walk into the apartment where he's doing his latest job. But then one of them discovers a recently-dead body nearby.
Third of a six-book series. In the distant future, a long-frozen space-navy captain tries to lead his fleet home.
Ninth in Barr's Anna Pigeon series. In Glacier National Park, a trip to move sampling traps for bear DNA is disrupted by an odd bear attack, and the next morning a woman is found dead and mutilated… by human tools.
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Romana I - Mary Tamm K-9 (voice) - John Leeson
The invasion of Europe, seen entirely from the Soviet point of view.
Here's what I've read in May.
2013, dir. Francis Lawrence, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson: IMDb / allmovie
After winning the Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen is a post-traumatic wreck. The perfect time to send her on a publicity tour! Spoilers for book and film will follow.
Second of a six-book series. In the distant future, a long-frozen space-navy captain tries to lead his fleet home.
In September 1944, then-Brigadier John Hackett commanded the 4th Parachute Brigade during Operation Market Garden. He was wounded at Arnhem and captured, and spent several months hiding with members of the Dutch underground.
Second in Brookmyre's new literary direction, moving from the tartan insanity of his earlier books to strictly conventional crime writing.
2014, dir. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks: IMDb / allmovie
In a world where… one man must… and it's all made of Lego.
Andrew Rilstone recounts his reactions to the 2005 revival of Doctor Who.
The USSR launches a limited nuclear strike against the USA. Things get worse.
2013, dir. Dean Parisot, Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker: IMDb / allmovie
Frank Moses, former CIA special operator, is still retired, and trying to be domestic; but once again the past just won't leave him alone.
First of a six-book series. In the distant future, a long-frozen space-navy captain may tip the balance in a century-long war.
In a tale that begins with the Italian armistice of 1943, the reluctant soldier Angelo bounces around war-torn Italy, serially drafted into one army after another. He is a very poor soldier. If only he had the dono di coraggio.
Twenty years after the Second World War, a crippled veteran travels to the Pacific to try to find out what happened to his family during the evacuation of Singapore.
2011, dir. Steven Soderbergh, Gina Carano, Michael Angarano: IMDb / allmovie
An agent betrayed and framed by her boss sets about taking him down.
Some time in the 1980s, the USSR invades Europe.
Here's what I've read in April. Hmm. I really ought to post the book reviews a bit faster so that I don't get so far behind.
Some time in the 1980s, a terrorist attack on oil infrastructure leads the USSR to invade Europe.
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Leela - Louise Jameson K-9 (voice) - John Leeson
2012, dir. Julian Roman Pölsler, Martina Gedeck: IMDb / allmovie
A woman staying in a remote lodge discovers that an invisible barrier is separating her from the rest of the world. (In German, viewed with subtitles.)
Diamond Dust is the seventh book in Lovesey's Peter Diamond series, and one that makes for a very substantial change in tone.
Late in the Second World War, the crew of a midget submarine gets into trouble off the Italian coast.
2010, dir. Stephen Frears, Gemma Arterton, Luke Evans: IMDb / allmovie
Tamara Drewe, formerly the ugly duckling and now a glamorous journalist, returns to the village where she grew up… and everything is upended.
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen Leela - Louise Jameson
In 1945, Britain had a large and often hastily-constructed fleet which was clearly close to obsolete, and very little money with which to update it. This is the story of what happened next.
My hopes for the Pirates and Bounty Hunters expansion to Firefly were that it would increase interaction between players and make runaway victories more difficult. My copy arrived yesterday. At first glance, how does it do?
2013, dir. Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, Idina Menzel, Kristin Bell: IMDb / allmovie
The new queen flees from her coronation, plunges the country into winter, and disappears; her sister goes to find her.
In 2016, China and an alliance of South-East Asian nations go to war over the Spratly Islands.
Astronaut Mark Watney is on Mars. Alone; the rest of the crew thought he'd died in the dust storm that they were escaping from. Now he's trying to work out how to survive.
Doctor Who - Tom Baker Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
2013, dir. Ruairi Robinson, Liev Schreiber, Elias Koteas: IMDb / allmovie
Towards the end of a manned mission to Mars, things start to go wrong.
Anthology from 1998 of alternate histories based on different decisions by military leaders; edited by Harry Turtledove, Roland Green and Martin H. Greenberg.
2013, dir. Caradog W. James, Caity Lotz, Toby Stephens: IMDb / allmovie
Some time in the nearish future, researchers try to build a self-directed robot soldier/assassin. It doesn't go well.
Second of the Dickson McCunn novels, though he has only a minor part in most of it. Two of the former Gorbals Die-Hards, Dougie and (no longer Wee) Jaikie, go off on a walking holiday, and get involved with a kidnapped press baron and two separate lots of Sinister Foreigners.
2011, dir. Gonzalo López-Gallego, Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen: IMDb / allmovie
The found-footage story of the secret final Apollo mission in 1974.
Here's what I've read in March.
Jerry Mitchell, aboard an Ohio SSGN, goes on a mission to extract two Iranians with knowledge of the nuclear weapons programme from that country. Mild spoilers will follow.
Tenth in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series. Several pubgoers go down with food poisoning, and other events start to make it look like a concerted campaign against the pub. But who's doing it? And why?
2012, dir. Colin Trevorrow, Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass: IMDb / allmovie
A journalist and two interns, trying for a human-interest story, interview a man who's placed an advertisement for a companion in time travel.
Concealed in Death is the forty-eighth story of J. D. Robb's In Death series, and a huge improvement on its immediate predecessor Thankless in Death. It drops many of the science-fictional trappings of the setting to deliver a powerful and well-told story.
Third in the Carrier series. "Tombstone" Magruder is a naval aviator aboard a Nimitz-class carrier, as the USA gets involved in a major conflict with India.
In the 1950s, retired MTB commander Philip Vivian gets into trouble while struggling to run a small yacht charter business.
Some time after the events of Dangerous Ground, Jerry Mitchell heads north again in USS Seawolf. Mild spoilers will follow.
1996, dir. Jan de Bont, Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton: IMDb / allmovie
A team of atmospheric scientists chases tornadoes. Action ensues.
Fourth of Winton's novels and in the loosely-connected series. The Artful Bodger (Commander R. B. Badger, RN) takes over public relations for the Royal Navy, and gets involved in running a horse in the Derby.
A Los Angeles-class submarine, USS Memphis, goes on an intelligence-gathering mission off Novaya Zemlya.
In 1997, an Improved Los Angeles-class attack submarine, USS Cheyenne, joins the war against China.
After the total nuclear war, the captain of a missile destroyer leads his crew through the irradiated world and towards a new life.
I am going to talk about plot details, so if you care about not knowing that sort of thing you probably shouldn't read this review.
Doctor Who - Jon Pertwee Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
Kershaw examines ten choices made during the years 1940-1941 that, in his opinion, substantially affected the course of the Second World War.
Here's what I've read in February.
Sub-Lieutenant Clive Royce is assigned to a Motor Torpedo Boat working off the east coast of England during the Second World War.
The Same Page Tool is a series of questions to try to get players and GMs onto the "same page" in terms of the sort of behaviour they expect in a game.
Seventh in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series.
Some time in the future, most major countries have space fleets and interstellar colonies. Ark Royal is an outmoded carrier left in a parking orbit, not broken up only because of her famous past, and her captain's a drunken embarrassment. Then the aliens arrive, and blow straight through the more modern fleet…
Doctor Who - Jon Pertwee Jo Grant - Katy Manning
Three men find themselves successful, but un-challenged, and bored with their lives. They decide to take on a challenge: they will poach from well-defended estates in Scotland, and warn the owners that they're coming, by sending letters over the name "John Macnab".
Young adult novel, read because a film based on it is coming out soon and I want to be able to complain about the film-making separately from the writing. (And because last time I did this I read The Hunger Games, which I quite enjoyed.) Here be spoilers.
This is the story of the well-known deception operation in the Second World War: dropping a dead fake courier into the sea near Spain, in the hope that his deceptive paperwork would be taken seriously by the Germans and misdirect them as to the location of Allied landings in the Mediterranean.
The ninth and so far final book in Lackey's Elemental Masters series. This time our heroine is a circus acrobat fleeing from an abusive husband.
Stealing the idea from Vatine, here's what I've read in January.
The eighth book (or, if you believe the publisher, seventh) in Lackey's Elemental Masters series. This time our heroine is a Welsh fisherman's daughter, and as one might expect from the title and that set-up the main supernatural beings are "selch", a variant of selkies.
First of a projected trilogy. I learned about it from a half-chapter free sample in the back of Ancillary Justice.
I'm a recent convert to Too Fat Lardies (in spite of one of their regular contributors being a chap I knew at school), so the only game of theirs I've played so far is Chain of Command. I am hugely impressed with it; at a glance it seems very random, but as I played it I came to realise that I was having to make the same hard decisions as a commander on the scene.
Anyway, since that is the only Lard system I play (doubtless this will change), most of the Christmas Special isn't directly useful to me. So what is? (Ignoring "it might be useful later" or "ooh, that's interesting", at least for now...)
A classic, of course. But one I hadn't read until now.
(First written in January 2014)
Doctor Who - Jon Pertwee Liz Shaw - Caroline John
This first novel marks Leckie as someone to watch.
At the Sharp End is the campaign supplement for the excellent Chain of Command platoon-level wargame.
Eighth and final book in Ferrars' Andrew Basnett series.
(First written in December 2013)
Doctor Who - Patrick Troughton Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines Zoe Heriot - Wendy Padbury
I picked up this collection of novellas for the Robb story, as I was clearly intended to. All the stories here are loosely based on, or more properly inspired by, fairy stories (something of a coincidence given the Elemental Masters series I've also been reading).
(First written in June 2013)
Doctor Who (sic) - Patrick Troughton Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines Victoria Waterfield - Deborah Watling Zoe Heriot - Wendy Padbury
The seventh book (or, if you believe the publisher, sixth) in Lackey's Elemental Masters series; for a change, it's not just more of the same.
The tenth book in Leon's Commissario Brunetti series, as with other series entries I've been reading lately, offers more of the same: descriptions of the seamy underside of Venice interspersed with lightweight police work.
(First written in November 2012)
As before, spoilers abound. See Wikipedia for production details
Doctor Who (sic) - William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton Ben Jackson - Michael Craze Polly - Anneke Wills Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines Victoria Waterfield - Deborah Watling
1965, dir. Michael Anderson, George Peppard, Sophia Loren: IMDb / allmovie
This is a highly-fictionalised account, a triple-stranded story of the German V-weapon development programme, the British efforts (the actual Crossbow) to work out what was going on and develop countermeasures, and as part of that a mission to insert agents into the rocket development and construction programmes.
Ready Player One is a young adult SF novel, the first by this author. Set in the future, it deals with its protagonist's efforts in a pervasive virtual world to win a contest based in the videogaming and related culture of the 1980s.
(First written in April 2012)
Doctor Who (sic) - William Hartnell Vicki - Maureen O'Brien Steven Taylor - Peter Purves Katarina - Adrienne Hill Sara Kingdom - Jean Marsh Dodo Chaplet - Jackie Lane Ben Jackson - Michael Craze Polly - Anneke Wills
The Vault is the sixth book in Lovesey's Peter Diamond series. I'm definitely liking Lovesey: like any good author of detective fiction, he plays fair with the reader, giving all the necessary clues while hiding them under a chaff-screen of red herrings and misdirection.
(First written in February 2012)
Doctor Who (sic) - William Hartnell Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford Barbara Wright - Jacqueline Hill Ian Chesterton - William Russell Vicki - Maureen O'Brien
Thankless in Death is the forty-sixth of J. D. Robb's In Death series. It's also, for me, the first disappointment.
(First written in December 2011)
I've recently started watching Doctor Who from the beginning. I've seen occasional episodes and stories here and there (e.g. back when I had a television and the BBC would do anniversary specials), but my experience as a regular viewer starts towards the end of the Sarah Jane Smith era.
I'm not going to worry about listing alternative titles or any of that guff. See Wikipedia for that. I am interested primarily in the progress and development of the show as a show rather than in constructing complex fanwank explanations for why decisions that were made differently the second time they came up, or dodgy effects shots, aren't really mistakes.
So here are my thoughts on re-watching the first series... spoilers abound, obviously.
As one can see from the title, this is the nineteenth full novel in Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. And, well, it feels like a nineteenth novel: it's tired.
Yes, I'm talking about the book, or more accurately the collection of newspaper columns, not the film. The film is a wartime story, made as part of the Allied propaganda effort. The columns are earlier and more interesting:
Firefly is a 1-5 player boardgame of travelling through space, taking jobs, trying to make enough money to keep flying. I played it on the Sunday of Stabcon and bought a copy before the game was over. What's good about it?