Tag Archives: Fantasy

Book Review – ‘Kingston to Cable’ – Gary Greenwood

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There’s a new reviewer in town. Claire Fayers squares off against the latest offering from fantasy and horror writer Gary Greenwood. Who will be left standing?

Western crossovers seem to be gaining in popularity. First we had Western-martial arts comedy (Shanghai Noon), then Korean Western (The Good the Bad and the Weird). Cowboys and ninjas fought in The Warrior’s Way and, as I write this, Harrison Ford is doing battle in Cowboys & Aliens.

Kingston to Cable by Gary Greenwood takes the Western, shakes it up a bit and dumps it in a fantasy setting. The world is one of isolated towns separated by vast expanses of inhospitable territory and the opening scene is the most classic of all Western classics: a stranger rides into town.

Or, rather, a Stranger. In Kingston, Strangers are a recognised class – wanderers with names such as Slake and Hook and Justice. They stay in the town Station, drink in the town bar, stay for a few days or a few weeks, and move on. Some of them are pursuing their own agendas, some just appear to enjoy causing trouble. Many are reputed to have magical powers, which explains the townspeople’s reluctance to get involved with them.

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Television Review – My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

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We were a little surprised when Olivia Cottrell first asked to write a review of the new My Little Pony series. After all, she’s not exactly the girly-girl type. But then, from the sound of it, neither is the series… 

When you hear ‘My Little Pony’, what springs to mind? Chances are you’ll think of the pastel, plastic doe-eyed monstrosities that were advertised with an equally vapid cartoon- strictly the territory of little girls, and not particularly discerning ones at that. However, if you’ve spent a little time on the Internet recently, you might have noticed the growing popularity of a modern version of the cartoon. Entitled My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, this new series has enchanted a new demographic of 18-35 year old males (among others) and consequently taken the Internet by storm. Fan art, fan fiction and pony-dedicated websites abound in every corner of the web. So what has made this show so popular? Has the Internet finally gone mad? And what on earth is a Sonic Rainboom?

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Game of Thrones Review – Ep 9: ‘Baelor’

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War. Huh! What is it good for? Reviewer Kieran Mathers finds out, and wonders whether the show will deliver on all its promises. Be warned that there are mild spoilers ahead. And, for those of you not yet up to speed, check out our Game Of Thrones primer.

How to talk about this episode without ruining it? Not mention the end, I suppose. Fans of the book, you know what’s coming and they don’t change it one bit. Those of you who have not read ahead … well, you’ve got such a treat coming. It’s the one moment in this show that I wish I hadn’t known about in advance. It’s brilliant, and one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen from a major TV show. I don’t know if the popularity of this show will continue, but if it fails after the properly commissioned second series; well, at least they have their integrity. Bravo, everyone involved, bravo.

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Book Review – ‘A Dance with Dragons’ – George R.R. Martin

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The latest Game of Thrones sequel has been a long time coming. Can it maintain the momentum of George R.R. Martin’s winning streak? Our reviewer Kieran Mathers, no stranger to the kingdom of Westeros, finds out…

If you’ve not yet read Kieran’s reviews of the Game of Thrones TV series, you can start here. And come back tomorrow, for the latest instalment!

Numerically, this book is very impressive. It weighs 2.5kg and has over a thousand pages. It costs over £25. It is written from the perspective of eighteen characters. It took over six years to write and picks up plot lines over eleven years old. It features voyages of thousands of miles, a cast of hundreds of thousands, deaths by the thousand. It is the defining case when referring to modern epic literature.

And … I don’t think it’s actually that good.

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Game of Thrones Review – 1.08: ‘The Pointy End’

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If you want a job done properly, do it yourself. But, as Game of Thrones plunges ever closer to its bloody climax, Kieran Mathers wonders if authors are the best people to adapt their own works. Our usual mild spoiler warning applies.

This week’s episode was written by the man himself, G.R.R Martin, author of the entire A Song of Ice and Fire series. Normally, I’d wonder why they called on the author to adapt his own material, as it calls for different skills – you don’t see Joanne Rowling writing the scripts for the Harry Potter movies, for example. But in this case it works. Martin has a huge amount of experience in writing screenplays for shows such as The Twilight Zone and I think it’s clear that, like Douglas Adams, he also understands the difference in format.

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Book Review – ‘Dead Souls’ – Editor: Mark S. Deniz

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Our book review thread is back! P.G. Bell dives into Dead Souls, a collection of short tales that charts the murky depths of mankind. 

Reviewing short story anthologies can be a tricky business. Each tale has to be judged on its own merits while the anthology as a whole – with its various authors, tones and voices – has to be considered as a cohesive unit. Many anthologies make life easier by opting for a particular theme, motif or character around which to group their stories but Dead Souls is a little more abstract.

As editor Mark S. Deniz makes clear in his foreword, the anthology uses its title (taken from a song by Joy Division) as its starting point, launching an examination of “human nature through short stories about people, people who do terrible things.”

That sounds clear enough, and you could be forgiven for assuming the book sits firmly in the horror genre, especially given Reece Notley’s gorgeous, if disturbing cover.  But it soon proves to be a rather more nebulous beast.

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