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Robin Johnson – Broken Holmes

Robin Johnson – Broken Holmes

After being a member of the technical crew for a performance of this piece of drama, I was intrigued enough by what I saw to buy a copy of the script so that I could peruse the writing in a more leisurely manner. Having only read one of the Sherlock Holmes stories all the way [...]

Anne McCaffrey – Freedom’s Challenge

Anne McCaffrey – Freedom’s Challenge

Genre: Science Fiction (3rd in a series) Basic Plot: It’s been quite a while since the first drop landed on the planet of Bontany. The humans, Deski, Rugarians and the sole Catteni alike were managing to live in relative peace, especially with the protective ‘bubble’ around the planet, placed there by the mysterious ‘farmers’. Then [...]

William Y. Tindall – Samuel Beckett

William Y. Tindall – Samuel Beckett

I don’t usually make a point of reviewing ‘academic’ books for a set of very good reasons. I guess the main of which is the fact that I doubt any of my readers would particularly want to read about some obscure critical theory that was written up decades ago. But upon reading a critical theory [...]

Oscar Wilde – The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde – The Importance of Being Earnest

Noted by the author himself as being a ‘trivial play for serious people’, The Importance of being Earnest embodies one of those rare occasions when the writer doesn’t seem to take themselves too seriously. The general plotline follows two men, Algernon and Jack, who both seem to lead double lives in a sort of country-mouse, [...]

Graham Greene – The End of the Affair

Graham Greene – The End of the Affair

When I first began reading this novel, I was reminded of a book I was forced to read at college, namely Enduring love by Ian McEwan. After groaning inwardly at the similarities (needless to say, I didn’t get on with the latter book at all) I continued reading, and I was extremely glad that I [...]

Charlotte Gilman – The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Gilman – The Yellow Wallpaper

As far as the Daughters of Decadence and the Fien de Siecle go, I’m really not sold on most of their writing. But encountering The Yellow Wallpaper is encountering much more than the other stories; stories about women being pains in the asses, or rebelling against common norms of Victorian gender roles; all fairly straightforward. [...]

Graham Greene – Brighton Rock

Graham Greene – Brighton Rock

The plot of this novel follows a gang war in the dark underworld of Brighton, being led by the ruthless Pinkie who has killed Hale, a journalist. The killing of this character is the catalyst for Ida Arnold, a friend of Hale, to investigate and begin the chain of events leading to the book’s climax. [...]

Robert Harris – Fatherland

Robert Harris – Fatherland

Since Phillip K. Dick’s ‘The Man in the High Castle’, writers have often wondered ‘what if’ big historical events hadn’t turned out the way they did, and where would that leave us? This is the subject my latest review, Robert Harris’ ‘Fatherland’, a book that looks at the decisive moment in recent history- the end [...]

H.G. Wells – The Island of Dr. Moreau

H.G. Wells – The Island of Dr. Moreau

If you thought genetic engineering was a recent thing, then you’re dead wrong. When most people consider the roots of science fiction to lie with Jules Verne, whose legacy includes stories of submarines and journeying to thetars s a long time befor technology and B movies could get that far, I compare him to a [...]

Lynn Nye & McCaffrey – The Dragonlover’s guide to Pern

Lynn Nye & McCaffrey – The Dragonlover’s guide to Pern

Normally I do my best to read a piece of literature without first having any sort of preconceptions about how good or bad it’s going to be. If I think I’m going to be bias, I simply either don’t read the book, or just wait until those conceptions have passed. (I think I’ll be waiting [...]

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