The Red Scholar’s Wake – Aliette de Bodard

"'The Red Scholar is dead.'" Xích Si's life as she's known it has come to an end. Captured by pirates, even if the impossible happened and they let her go, she'd be arrested as soon as she got home, tainted by association and ever suspect. Her future can only hold indentured servitude, or death. But …

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

Alithea (Tilda Swinton) is a narrative scholar, that is, she studies stories. She's hugely pragmatic and down to earth (not least indicated by her Northern accent, natch; an element I found hugely irritating), although given to some flights of fancy. Thus when she manages to unleash a literal genie from a bottle while visiting Istanbul …

The Glitter End – Vivian Conroy

"'Watch out for the top of the door!'" We first met Delta Douglas back in Last Pen Standing, when she moved to a sleepy former Gold Rush town to open a craft supplies shop with her best friend. We rejoin them, two murders later (!), as the tourist town of Tundish hits the slow autumn/winter season. …

The Cleveland Heights LGBTQ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club – Doug Henderson

"Ben stood in the basement and called upstairs, 'Mom, have you seen my dice bag up there?'" Phew, that's a title and a half! And really, the second part could have just been 'D&D group', although that might have put a few people off the book, I suppose. However, having 'discovered' D&D myself for the …

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon – Tan Dun (2000)

A year after Chinese wire-fighting first made it to American big screens in a big way (in The Matrix), the Western cinema viewing world was wowed with something it hadn't really encountered before. Familiar martial arts movies had been the kind that starred Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan, high on the action and testosterone, with …

Death on the Page – Essie Lang

"'Did you just say that Savannah Page is staying overnight here, in the castle?'" Trouble on the Books wasn't my favourite cosy mystery of last year, but I thought I'd give the series another chance. I think book 2 is a bit stronger, although still not my favourite in the genre. Shelby Cox is settling …

The Scarlet Pimpernel – Emmuska Orczy

"A surging, seething, murmuring crowd, of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate." During the French revolution, c1792, a band of English noblemen make daring raids across the channel to …

Yesterday (2019)

When the entire world suffers a mysterious power outage, Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is unfortunate enough to get hit by a bus. As he recovers, he slowly starts to realise that somehow the world has forgotten various, every day things: certain brands don't exist any more, certain ideas. But, most excitingly for a struggling musician …

The Binding – Bridget Collins

"When the letter came I was out in the fields, binding up my last sheaf of wheat with hands that were shaking so much I could hardly tie the knot." Imagine a world where you can have memories taken out of your head, bound into a book and no longer troubling you. Novels are merely …

Tolkien (2019)

It seems crazy that there hasn't been a biopic of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, almost certainly the most famous fantasy author of the 20th Century (if not all time, but only because these young folk have no sense of history ;)). Then again, his life wasn't the most gripping of sagas - his 'jam' (as …