Book Review: The Beautiful Bureaucrat
/A slim new novel works hard at being clever, with mixed results. Justin Hickey reviews "The Beautiful Bureaucrat"
Read MoreStarship Captains Do It On Impulse (Unfortunately)
/In fan-favorite Ernest Cline's new book, a young man raised on video games and cheesy sci-fi movies finds that they just might be the key to Earth's salvation. But is the 80's nostalgia of Armada self-defeating?
Read MoreSteep, Bloody Engagements
/The success of the documentary Blackfish has thrown a spotlight on orcas not as the "killer" whales of the ocean but as victims; a dazzling new natural history broadens the picture to show us truly magnificent alien beings.
Read MoreLovin', Touchin', Squeeezin'
/It has three hearts, eight tentacles, and a brain of startling and utterly alien complexity - it's the octopus, and a heartfelt book takes readers inside the cephalopod world.
Read MoreBook Review: How To Carry Bigfoot Home
/Giant eels, dragon-scammers, and of course Sasquatch himself feature in Chris Tarry's delightfully gonzo debut short story collection
Read MoreUnconditional
/An Orwellian dystopia, a deposed humanity, and a cat passionately in love with a dog - Justin Hickey reviews Robert Repino's fiendishly clever novel Mort(e).
Read MoreThere's the Door, Spaceman
/DC Comics gives writer/artist Darwyn Cooke's masterpiece The New Frontier, a shrewd and powerful re-imagining of DC's iconic superheroes, the glorious hardcover edition it deserves. Justin Hickey re-reads.
Read MoreBook Review: The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac
/In the very engaging latest from Sharma Shields, one family has a very unusual encounter with the legendary Bigfoot
Read MoreStop Their World Spinning
/Against a pervasive American sports culture, author Steve Allmond pits a devastating critique of the savage violence - and staggering toll in injuries and deaths - of football.
Read MoreTitle Menu: 8 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Classics Hollywood Should Ignore
/As Hollywood looks to science fiction and fantasy novels for the 'source material' of its newest CGI spectaculars, Justin Hickey picks ten sci-fi/fantasy books he hopes the studios never find and ruin ...
Read MoreAll Manner of Damned-Fool-Bravery
/A disaffected British colonial officer with a yearning for heroism is relegated to a doomed imperial outpost where he meets a native boy with a yearning for heroes - and from this unlikely pairing, Nick Harkaway's Tigerman weaves its fantastic, moving story.
Read MoreBook Review: California
/After a handily vague apocalypse, a forlorn hipster couple bickers in the woods in Edan Lepucki's much-hyped debut novel
Read MoreWilson 2.0
/Daniel Wilson's first book, Robopocalypse was a straightforward adventure story about robots rising up against their human makers. His new book takes that simple premise and expands on it in complex and timely ways.
Read MoreCoral Waxwork Classic
/Rjurik Davidson's stunning debut - an epic of espionage, magic, and beasts migrated out of mythology - isn't the sixth in a series, or the tenth, or the fifteenth; it's that rare thing in the genre: a stand-alone novel
Read MoreEcho Chamber Blues
/Marvel Comics is mopping up at the box office, but what of its rival DC? Our resident expert fisks the also-rans and reminds us about an epic story still waiting to be adapted.
Read MoreThingamajig Unbound
/B. J. Novak, the gamine and unassuming star of the American version of The Office, has written a collection of short stories, and that collection, remarkably, got published. Justin Hickey decides to judge it on its merits.
Read MoreWhat Passes for Hope
/One could argue, from the evidence of cable TV ratings, that we've entered the age of the anti-hero. But why are they so popular? Adam Sternbergh's debut novel provides some unexpected answers.
Read MoreBook Review: We All Sleep in the Same Room
/There's more than mere misery in the expertly-managed passage of events in Paul Rome's debut novel
Read MoreSpray-Paint It Black
/Vintage records, black dogs, and lost souls fill Dead Set, a teen novel for readers (of all ages) who are sick of half-hearted Hunger Games clones.
Read MoreShow Me the Body
/Throughout its history, humankind has been both terrified by and obsessed with monsters - hence the booming 'cryptid' industry, traversing the globe in search of legendary beasts like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. A new book looks at the science and psychology behind our modern bogeymen.
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