The 2018 Round-Up

As a new year dawns, it’s time to look back on my reading habits for the past twelve months, and pick out those books that really stood out for me this year. As I do so, it occurs to me that I didn’t do a 2017 round-up, thereby depriving my regular reader of the wisdom […]

HANNAH GREEN AND HER UNFEASIBLY MUNDANE EXISTENCE by Michael Marshall Smith

HANNAH GREEN AND HER UNFEASIBLY MUNDANE EXISTENCE Michael Marshall Smith (www.michaelmarshallsmith.com) HarperVoyager (harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk) £129.99 Hannah Green is eleven years old, and lives with her father in the small coastal California town of Santa Cruz. Hannah’s parents have recently split, her mother now working in London, and Hannah is beginning to feel that her life could […]

An Interview with MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH

Name: MICHAEL MARSHALL (SMITH) Author of: ONLY FORWARD (1994) SPARES (1996) KILLER MOVE (2011) WE ARE HERE (2013) HANNAH GREEN AND HER UNFEASIBLY MUNDANE EXISTENCE (2017) On the web: http://www.michaelmarshallsmith.com On Twitter: @ememess Michael Marshall Smith is a novelist and screenwriter. Only Forward, his groundbreaking first novel, won the Philip K. Dick and August Derleth Awards. […]

#CarrieAt40: Bringing the Weird Home by MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH

MICHAEL MARSHALL SMITH On the web: http://www.michaelmarshallsmith.com On Twitter: @ememess There’s no doubt that horror fiction — and commercial fiction in general — would have been very different without the novel Carrie. Of course there were writers who’d blazed the trail — Richard Matheson and Ira Levin are two obvious examples — but in terms […]

FEARIE TALES by Stephen Jones

FEARIE TALES: STORIES OF THE GRIMM AND GRUESOME Edited by Stephen Jones (www.stephenjoneseditor.com) Illustrated by Alan Lee Jo Fletcher Books (www.jofletcherbooks.com) £14.99 For most of us, the fairy tale is one of the staples of growing up. Bedtime stories for young children, it’s only when we reach adulthood that we realise just how disturbing they […]

WE ARE HERE by Michael Marshall

WE ARE HERE Michael Marshall (www.michaelmarshallsmith.com) Orion Books (www.orionbooks.co.uk) £16.99 On a visit to New York to meet his publisher, David bumps into a man on the street – the sort of innocent collision that happens all the time on busy city pavements – who follows him back to Penn Station and confronts him. He […]

KILLER MOVE by Michael Marshall

KILLER MOVE Michael Marshall (michaelmarshallsmith.com) Orion (www.orionbooks.co.uk) £12.99 Michael Marshall is something of a cult writer. His first three novels, as well as the vast majority of his short stories, were published under the name Michael Marshall Smith and were mainly classified as science fiction (the novels) and horror (the stories). In 2002 he dropped […]