Science Fiction
The mystery of Area X: Absolution, by Jeff VanderMeer, reviewed
We are never told the exact location of this highly toxic zone in Florida, but any scientist investigating it has been monstrously affected, either physically or mentally
A major operatic rediscovery: Birmingham Opera Company’s New Year reviewed
This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time. One of the most thrilling aspects of the Tippett…
The balance of power between humans and machines
Robert Skidelsky dismisses the possibility of our annihilation by a superintelligent computer system, since ‘science tells us that we cannot create such a being’. But does it?
Private obsessions
A world of private fetishes, obsessions, childhood memories and literary passions is dazzlingly revealed in 13 short stories
Among the giants
A dramatic rejuvenation drug is being distributed to a wealthy elite, enabling them to tower over the other inhabitants of the mysterious lake city of Othrys
Travels in time and space: Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel, reviewed
It’s a bold writer who confronts a major historical moment such as a pandemic before it’s over, but Emily St.…
Here in Texas, Hell has frozen over
Austin ‘If I owned Texas and Hell,’ General Phil Sheridan famously said, ‘I would rent out Texas and live in…
A James Bond film with added physics no one understands: Tenet reviewed
Tenet is the latest high-concept, time-bending blockbuster from Christopher Nolan and it’s the film that (unofficially) reopens cinemas in the…
Robert A. Heinlein: the ‘giant of SF’ was sexist, racist — and certainly no stylist
Like someone who has bought a first computer, then reads the manual from front to back but never actually gets…
David Cairns explains how we learned to love Berlioz
According to his friend and fellow-composer Ernest Reyer, the last words Berlioz spoke on his deathbed were: ‘They are finally…
The Book of Joan: part apocalyptic tale, part erotic poem
Does J.G. Ballard’s ‘disquieting equation’, ‘sex x technology = the future’, still hold? Not in Lidia Yuknavitch’s novel, which imagines…
Brilliant essayists, dark and fair
Read cover to cover, a book of essays gives you the person behind it: their voice, the trend of their…
No pain, no gain
It is an unexpected pleasure when fiction has a soundtrack to accompany the work of reviewing. H(A)PPY is ‘best enjoyed…
Don DeLillo foresees the imminent death of death
Cults, the desert, natural disasters. Artists, bankers, terrorists. Cash machines, food packaging, secret installations. Mediaspeak and scientific jargon. Crowds and…
The heavens are falling
The dystopian novel in which a Ballardian deluge or viral illness transforms planet Earth has become something of a sub-genre,…
‘I was facing truths I didn’t particularly want to look at’: Michael Moorcock interview
Cult novelist Michael Moorcock on fantasy, his father, and the London he loved and lost
God, aliens and a novel with a mission
They say never work with children and animals. They could just as well say don’t write about aliens and God.…
MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood - review
The two opening volumes of Margaret Atwood’s trilogy have sold over a million copies. One of them managed to be…
