First published by Uncanny A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy in May 2017. Finley has just been bitten by a vampire. Now he has to deal with becoming a vampire himself, and an unregistered one at that. He certainly didn’t ask to be turned, and most definitely never filled out the proper paperwork. Plus […]
At some point in the past I read Sunshine. And I loved it. I don’t remember when I read it, I didn’t review it on the blog or if I did it got lost in one of my moves along the way. I think it was the first time I remember reading Robin McKinley1 . […]
Book 1 in the Iron Druid Chronicles Atticus O’Sullivan is not what he appears to be. He is not 21 years old. He is not American. His name isn’t even Atticus, but when you are trying to keep your real self a secret, both from humanity and from the old Celtic gods then it pays […]
A James Asher book #1, also published as Immortal Blood James Asher, retired spy and scholar, comes home one day to find a vampire in his house. A vampire who has his entire household asleep, and under threat. For if Asher does not hunt down whoever, or whatever, is killing the vampires of London then […]
In the 1400s the Turks claimed boys from the lands they conquered. Vlad was one such boy. Held as a royal hostage he was beaten and whipped, and turned into a soldier, one of such ferocity that he became known as Vlad the Impaler. But that was years ago, since those dark days he has […]
The last of my RIP reads, and my All Hallows Swap book. What if Van Helsing had lost? What if Dracula had won that battle, married Queen Victoria, and taken power? What would Victorian England make of vampires coming out of the shadows, into high society, and becoming fashionable as well as powerful? Anno Dracula […]
I read this for the Coursera online course, I’ll post the short essay I wrote for the course in a few days. Dracula is one of those books that everyone has heard of. Everyone is familiar with the character of the Count, and most people have probably heard of Van Helsing and Mina at the […]
An Alexia Tarabotti novel, The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Fifth Seeing as this it the fifth, and final, book in this series, knowing anything about the plot probably counts as spoilers for the previous books. So consider yourself warned. It has been three years since the end of Heartless and in that time Lord and […]
The Strain Trilogy #3 I really enjoyed the first book in this series, The Strain worked really well as a competent vampire story. It was creepy and horrible and very readable. The second book, The Fall, I didn’t enjoy quite so much, but I still liked it. Solid, but still very readable. But this one, […]
17 Orchard Lane, in Bishopthorpe is a quiet, residential spot. Home to the respectable types; doctors and architects. You know that sort of *respectable* English street. But one of the families resident here is keeping a secret. A secret the parents are keeping even from their own teenage children. Clara and her older brother Rowan […]
An Alexia Tarabotti novel, The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Fourth The first book in this series introduced us to our heroine, Alexia Tarabotti, and in some ways the very first line of this book is a spoiler for that one because Alexia now has a different surname. But from the moment you started reading Soulless […]
The unnamed central character of this short story finds himself suddenly craving blood. He can’t understand it, he is a normal person, a normal man, why on earth is this happening to him. He tries to rationalise it, maybe he has an iron deficiency? Or maybe it is a totally misdirected sex-drive? And yet, he continues to find himself being drawn towards blood. Bloody raw steaks, the next-door neighbour’s chickens…