Review of Hamilton’s Manhattan in Reverse

Peter Hamilton is best known for his extensive space opera sagas, which generally extend over several volumes, feature numerous characters and commonly feel like the author is making it all up as he goes along and has only a vague understanding of what the ending is going to be. However, Hamilton has in the past proved that he is capable of writing coherent and enjoyable shorter novels and, indeed, short stories with the same qualities.

Read the full review here.

Dark Deeds in History

The anthology Dark Deeds in History, edited by Dorothy Davies, has now been published and is available for sale. The reason I mention this, of course, is that it contains one of my stories: “Magistrate Li and the Case of the Beggar Monk.”

I will probably mention this again when the book is available at Amazon.

Review of Erikson’s First Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach

Steven Erikson has outlined episodes of the history of his Malazan Empire over the course of ten often quite lengthy and always complex and multi-dimensional novels – all of which I have reviewed for this site and all of which I have enjoyed immensely. Among the thousands of pages and millions of words are scenes that evoke nearly all human emotions – yet one aspect seems often to be ignored (perhaps by myself as much as anyone else) is the humour that supports the stories of grim squaddies facing almost certain death with only the unknown and probably repulsive magic of a hedge wizard to help them.

Read the full review here.

World’s Best Short Stories: Introduction

In this series of articles, I will write about the best short stories from around the world and from all eras of history. The definition of what a short story is has varied from society to society and across time. For example, the origin of short stories, in many cultures, lies in fables and mythical accounts that have a normative role and purpose.

Read the full article here (http://bookstove.com/book-talk/worlds-best-short-stories-introduction/).

Review of Ho Anh Thai’s Behind the Red Mist

Most of the anthologies of short fiction produced by Southeast Asian authors I have read tend to depend on very short pieces depicting the surface of everyday incidents, sometimes with the obtrusion of the supernatural, which have the general tone of deprecating the present day, the decay in standards and personal ethics and so forth. I am glad to find that Ho Anh Thai transcends this (truth-bearing) stereotype enormously in thematic terms, although the linguistic gulf makes it difficult to appreciate the use of language and characterization.

Read the full review here.

Review of Salmonella Men on Planet Porno

The prolific Japanese author Yasutaka Tsutsui has only had a few works translated into English and published internationally, notably the novels Hell and Paprika, which I have reviewed elsewhere on this site. Salmonella Men on Planet Porno offers non-Japanese reading readers the opportunity to sample Tsutsui’s short fiction for the first time. The 13 stories included, nicely translated by Andrew Driver, represent what appears to be the most commonly recurring themes in Tsutsui’s work, which include sex, fantastic worlds, the pressures of the bourgeois lifestyle in contemporary Japanese society and more sex.

Read the full review here.

Review of Kawaguchi’s Mistress Oriku

The Meiji Period of Japanese history (1868-1912) saw both the development of industry and modernization and, also, the raising to the heights of many Japanese artistic endeavours. With the restoration of the Imperial Household to the capital city of Edo (Tokyo), it must have seemed at least to some extent to have been a golden age, as well as a bridge between the semi-mythic past and the ultimate defeat and humiliation of the future.

Read the full review here.

Review of Rajasaari’s Vapour Trails

There are, these days, many thousands of westerners (and some from developed Asian countries) who have settled down in the north-eastern part of Thailand known as Isaan. That region is both the most populous and the poorest, since it is based on a salt pan which undermines the fertility of the land and means only a single annual rice harvest is possible and this depends on the timing of the monsoon.

Read the full review here.

Review of The SEA Write Anthology of Thai Short Stories and Poems

The SEA (Southeast Asia) Write awards are given annually both to artists within members of the ten nation ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) organisation. In the first twelve years of its life (1979-90), awards in Thailand were given to the authors of six collections of poetry and six collections of short stories and it is representations from each of these that forms this anthology, translated into English by a variety of scholars.

Read the full review here.

Review of Stross’s Wireless

There is often something malevolent in Charles Stross’s work–sometimes it comes in the form of an external, objectified monster from beyond space and time (in the Laundry series of Lovecraftian mystery) and sometimes an abstract but no less vicious notion such as class antagonism or the cunning of history. Malevolence is well-represented in this collection of the prolific author’s work–most of which are appearing in such a convenient format for the first time.

Read the full review here.