I’ve read more than a thousand books since I started this book blog back in 2011. By now, I’ve forgotten what I wrote in most of the reviews and am left only with an residual emotional memory of the books, like cooking smells clinging to my clothes after a meal.
So, I decided to do a little time travelling by book blog and re-read the reviews I posted in March 2015.
If you’d like to time travel with me, I’ve I’ve picked the five books I have the strongest memory of. below with links to the orginal reviews.
‘Blind Faith’ is a speculative fiction novel that I’ve found myself coming back to many times over the past decade. It describes a depressingly plausible dystopian future-Britain in which privacy is a crime.
Although ‘Blind Faith‘ was a memorable book, it wasn’t a comfortable read. The text began to make me feel as hemmed in as the characters in the novel and as overwhelmed as the everyman hero. Ben Elton offered no comfort and no solutions, just a brutal warning.
My review is HERE
‘Written In Red‘ was the first book in Anne Bishop’s series ‘The Others’ which provided an original, exciting, emotionally-driven alternative reality that I became fascinated by. It was also an extremely effective audiobook. Meg, the main character, was impossible not to like. I also found myself cheering whenever the power-hungry humans were put in their place by The Others.
My review is HERE
‘The Girl With All The Gifts‘ was one of my picks for my 2015 Best Reads. It was a fresh, surprising and skillfully told take on a well-worn theme, that moved beyond scenario and plot to become a character-driven view on what makes us human and how the stories we tell each other change the world.
My review is HERE
‘Market Forces‘ is set in a near-future Britain where corporate warriors engage in mortal combat to win the right to run small, profitable wars in foreign countries.
As usual, Richard Morgan’s writing is taut, his storytelling is compelling, his sex scenes are highly charged and his action sequences are cinematographic.
It’s my favourite RIchard Morgan book, mostly because I see the premise as only a slight exagetation of reality and because the main character is driven by a deep anger at the world he is being so sucessful in.
My review is HERE
‘Half A King‘ was my first Joe Abercrombie book and it left me stunned. I’d seldom read something so packed with betrayal, violence, and dramatic plot twists which is also written by someone who draws vivid characters, creates a whole new mythology and has an ear for language and rhythm that lifted his prose almost into a song at times.
My review is HERE
Mike Finn's Fiction 