Category Archives: Fiction

In the Chinks of the World Machine

Posted on August 22, 2018 by

In the Chinks of the World Machine provides a committed but very readable picture of the achievements of serious science fiction by women at the time of its publication in 1988. Sarah Lefanu was in a privileged position to write … Continue reading →

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Ian Fleming’s The Spy Who Loved Me

Posted on January 17, 2018 by

The Spy Who Loved Me was the only one of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels that I didn’t reread the second time round, in my early thirties. The reason I didn’t was probably the same reason the critics had panned … Continue reading →

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Hugh Lupton’s The Ballad of John Clare

Posted on September 9, 2017 by

Among the leading figures of the British storytelling revival, Hugh Lupton is one very worthy of ecocritical attention. Shows such as On Common Ground (performed with Chris Wood) and The Liberty Tree (performed with Nick Hennessey) passionately engage with the … Continue reading →

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The Dedalus Book of Greek Fantasy

Posted on July 31, 2017 by

Fantasy as a dedicated genre didn’t really exist in Greece till very recently. Many of the stories gathered in The Dedalus Book of Greek Fantasy, dating from the 19th century to the turn of the 21st, are by mainstream literary … Continue reading →

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Myths, Genres, and Forms in Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism

Posted on July 23, 2017 by

Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism is a landmark of literary criticism to which I found my way via its influence on the Tolkien scholarship of Tom Shippey and Margaret Anne Doody’s superb book The True Story of the Novel. Frye’s … Continue reading →

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David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks

Posted on July 2, 2017 by

I was keen to read David Mitchell’s new novel because I loved Cloud Atlas. Like that masterpiece, The Bone Clocks comprises six novella-length sections each narrated by a different character in a different time period. But these narratives are closer … Continue reading →

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Greg Bear’s Queen of Angels

Posted on May 4, 2017 by

My first encounter with Greg Bear’s fiction was the superb Moving Mars, at a time when I was reading everything I could find about the planet Mars. Queen of Angels, though set mainly on Earth, is considered to be part … Continue reading →

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Kim Stanley Robinson’s Forty Signs of Rain

Posted on April 27, 2017 by

Having tackled the environmental politics of Mars and Antarctica, Kim Stanley Robinson took on the challenge of global warming. Forty Signs of Rain is the first instalment of a trilogy and should not be judged as a stand-alone novel. Most of it … Continue reading →

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W.A. Harbinson’s The Light of Eden

Posted on April 21, 2017 by

Do you remember, if you’re old enough, the beautiful painted illustrations on the covers of fantasy and science fantasy novels in the 1980s? Each would depict a scene capturing both a moment in the story and the essence of the … Continue reading →

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Utopia without Fascism

Posted on March 27, 2017 by

The 1000-page bulk of Austin Tappan Wright’s Islandia had sat intimidatingly on the shelf since I acquired it. Only in the period of forced leisure after an operation did I get round to reading it. Long hours in bed gave … Continue reading →

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