Writing historical fiction can be daunting and exciting in equal measures. Especially when it is about times little known. Like the times before the birth of Christ. Right. The dark before the dark ages.
Author Angus Watson uses this opportunity along with painstaking research findings from his life body of work - to give us the tales of the Iron age in his debut book - Orbit's latest, Age of Iron set in South Great Britain circa 61 B.C. Sound interesting ? You bet it is.
A ride on the dark side of time - before the world had settled into it's rails - and set in the wildly exciting and highly conflict-ridden realms of an unexplored Great Britain - how wonderful is that, thought I as I requested for a Galley Copy of this book.
Whitefire Crossing, the first book in the Shattered Sigil is Courtney Schaffer's debut that came way back in 2011. I've had my eyes on this one since then. And yet I never got around to reading this book. I had heard all good things about Courtney's terrific debut – combining her love for mountaineering with the undying passion for anything fantasy. So I'm really glad I finally read this one. This book also happens to be my first ever audio-book that I finished listening to. So hey, claps go!
Jeff Vandermeer is a name that has been on my reading horizon for a long time now. Funnily enough, his name surfaced when I was doing research around writing workshops and found that Jeff and Ann, the writer-duo conduct a fantastic writing workshop retreat every year. And then of course, his name frequently pops up related to terms like the "New Weird" – a reawakening of the Lovecraftian horror themes with post-modern sensibilities. A new age Legend.
The Martian by Andy Weir: Robinson Crusoe stranded on Mars.
The Martian by Andy Weir - his first ever novel, earlier self-published then picked up by Crown to be released early 2014 has become a runaway success story.
I actually would like to thank Crown for bringing back the focus to this lighthearted sci-fi novel about the compelling story of survival of this astronaut stuck on the surface of Mars for close to eighteen months. I would have entirely missed this gem had it not been for the intelligent marketing behind this title.
Anyways - Andy delivers a compulsively readable account of Mark Watney - a modern day Robinson Crusoe - stranded on the planet of Mars when his mission went horribly wrong - and while rest of the crew manage to escape and get back onto the spaceship "Hermes" - Mark is left for dead.