Another Space in Time

As the book starts we are already on the other side of a dystopian meltdown. The rebuild, worldwide will be painfully slow, but progress will be made. The story is set in one small area, the area that will be served by one new power station. Some of the wealthy, in their gated communities have come through a worldwide conflagration relatively unscathed, not so most of the population. There is a lot of excitement, heaps of intrigue, and a very clever interplay of characters in the plot. Sometimes the detail was actually too clever for me, to mathematically complex, but I breezed on to find, as I suspected, that the maths of who did what to whom and when didn't particularly matter. The story is in the series of results from the complex interplay of competing and variously empowered players. I don't hesitate in giving this book five stars, but the proof-reader needs eliminating and replacing before the next book, just as unceremoniously as are so many of Miller's characters...

My initial enjoyment was thrown a bit by some unnecessarily sloppy grammar, but don't let this put you off. The book develops into good quality thriller. However, the version I read does need one more edit. For some reason the standard of editing improved with a few strange reverses as the chapters rolled by. The plot is very exciting, though in places the unsavoury activities didn't actually need even the depth of description they got. Some of the descriptions of physical assault walk the line between suspense and horror. But yes, the script does depict the terrible realities that victims of perverted sexual crimes sometimes face. It is clear from early on in the story that Black has a good grasp of the technologies that drive the plot, and an interest in some of the wider debates driven by Edward Snowden et al., our general worries about cyber terrorism and financial exploitation by criminals inside and outside our governmental and financial institutions. At first, I thoug...

There aren't too many science fiction books that are quite so positive about near future sciences that may well allow the 'cloning' of the human mind. I got the strong impression that Wolf is contemplating/dreaming a life for himself as an artificial intelligence when his body gives up the ghost, the 'soul'. We see the dream of a 'heaven', a life beyond the disposal of our corpses, a continued existence in the digital world. We see Wolf's hopes for adding the other senses, than just easily achievable hearing and sight; namely touch, sensation, sentient feeling to his future non-biological self. He guards against the evil inside us all by allowing the earliest freed mind, his Adam, to set strong moral parameters to all future behaviour patterns. Wolf seems to be considering his own moral architecture as the ideal, as seen in the many personal 'political' imperatives he works into the plot. The book comes through to me as being deeply unreligi...

This is an exciting fiction thriller, set in real life, real time events. The book has an important sub-text that explores the collapse of social norms in a population under extremes of stress. The backdrop to the plot is the catastrophic environmental disaster inflicted on the City of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. This is a classic modern thriller read, with the expected adrenaline surges sure to hit most readers at the end of every chapter. There are also many of the twists common to the 'Whodunit' genre, in this story that centres on paedophilia, depravity, the treatment of the old, the struggles of the poor and corruption in high and low places. Extra poignancy is given to the plot by the author's personal life experiences in and around the streets of that most exotic of cities. The great many real characters on which Findorff has based his fictional ones have helped him weave such an exciting and disturbing story. This work is less scary in a bloodthi...

Wow- Four main themes, plus what could be a heap of short stories in one of the most innovative and original works I have read in a long time. I couldn't possible pin point this work to a genre, as the metaphysical, the fantasy, the thriller, the speculative, and the literary combine and melt into each other. This is written on four levels of consciousness- the self disguised, the self as another, the self as omnipresent, and the self in a parallel existence. If that sounds heavy- it isn't. Really well written books are open to most readers, not just to genre, academic and literary world toffs. This is a brilliant general readers book. I have almost never read a novel in one sitting, I am a very slow and precise line reader, but I came very close to doing so this time. Newland's vision, writing in the first person as the writer Prunella Smith, worked for me on so many different levels. I forget most books within days, sometimes less. I won't forget this one. S...

First off, let me say that I didn't much like the book and certainly not the main character. That doesn't mean this isn't a good read, this is. The mix of not quite literary, not quite paranormal and at times over romantic wasn't my cup of tea. That may be in part because I am a male reader. I hasten to add that I found no hardship in reading every word, and in piecing together every loopback in the chronological progress. I enjoyed the long prose, the well worked descriptions, the first person narrative and the deep and convoluted analysis of main character as writer. A lot of the book reads like classic memoir. I like the way Bell so well conveyed the characters confusions through the slow construction of the plot, almost like building a house jumping between bricklaying on different floors in total defiance of gravity. Those that are expecting a classic paranormal read will be disappointed, because the abnormal never really rises far beyond what might be int...

First thing: - Just in case anyone doesn't know, this isn't a biblical studies book. As such that it is, some may find religious offence in the free interpretation. This is a liberal historical fiction based on the authors private view of what just might have happened behind the brief scripture sentences. I am not conventionally religious, but even if I was I'm sure that I would still find this writing very entertaining. It is reasonable, though, to warn the religious scholar rather than reader of fiction as to the nature of the content. Second thing: - I felt cheated by getting such a short-changed version of the whole story. I felt that the author was more concerned about stretching commercial value than giving the reader a treat. I've been unable to throw off the feeling that I've been offered a half portion. This great read just stops, so demanding more money from those wishing to complete the journey. There simply isn't a great deal of factual stuff ...