A beautifully-written fantasy adventure with steampunk elements from SJ Hull. I have to admit I was very excited when I learned that SJ Hull had released his debut novel. We went to university together, and though that was over ten years ago now, even back then I knew he was very interested in the fantasy genre, and it didn’t surprise me in the slightest that he’d written his own…

As a sci-fi fan, you’d probably expect that I had already read Frank Herbert’s Dune a long time ago. Sadly that’s not the case. It’s yet another of those books I strangely missed. Knowing this, and knowing that Denis Villeneuve’s movie adaptation was on the horizon, it was one of the first books I had in my sights when I decided to get back into reading…

Coming not directly after A Wizard of Earthsea, but after Le Guin found success in the science-fiction genre with The Left Hand of Darkness, this second book in the Earthsea Cycle was apparently an unintended sequel.

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for science-fiction, and the book which established Le Guin as a major player in the genre, The Left Hand of Darkness is a truly fascinating read. The book has strong feminist themes and explores the concept of androgyny against the backdrop of an alien first-contact scenario…

This being the very first time I’ve read Asimov’s work for myself, I had absolutely no idea what to expect going in. Isaac Asimov is one of the heavyweights of science-fiction; a pioneer for many of the ideas and concepts that we take for granted in the genre today…

The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills… One of my beta readers for From the Grave of the Gods asked me one day whether I had read the Wheel of Time series. Of course, at that point I had barely heard of it, but he recommended it highly. I also started hearing great things about it from Booktubers such as Daniel Greene. I was intrigued, so I thought I would see what all the fuss was about...

I was very late to the Culture party. The first time I heard of Iain M. Banks was when The Hydrogen Sonata came out in 2012, and that, only in passing. Years went by and I kept hearing snippets of things about the Culture series, from people who respected it highly. So on the strength of that, I decided to pick up one of the books, and what better place to start, I thought, than at the very beginning?

Well, where to begin with this one… To say that I feel less-than-qualified to review this book is an understatement. But, as evidenced by this post’s existence, I’m going to do it anyway…

I’d like to kick off this whole blogging thing by first giving some love to some other authors whose books I have read, enjoyed and recommend…