Keith Stevenson's Blog, page 6

Review - Utopia Avenue - David Mitchell

 Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Mostly harmless. Mitchell leaves no cliche or (rolling) stone unturned while mining his past works for ever-diminishing returns.

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Review -The Wall - John Lanchester

The Wall by John Lanchester My rating: 2 of 5 stars The Wall is about Kavanagh, filling his national service on the coastal wall that girdles the UK to keep out the Others after the world has gone to pot from the Change, which saw sea levels rise around the world and, we guess, massive environmental damage and human displacement. I say 'we guess' because the world building is short on detail. So

Review - Tiamat's Wrath - James SA Corey

Tiamat's Wrath by James S.A. Corey My rating: 5 of 5 stars James SA Corey postponed the release of Tiamat's Wrath so they could concentrate on getting it right. It was worth the wait. Persepolis Rising (book 7) was a difficult book, bringing in a significant time jump for the lead characters and ending on a huge downer with the crew of the Rocinante fragmented: some captured, some on the run. One

The Art of Worldbuilding

I talk about worldbuilding the Lenticular, including how to use Pinterest and language to create depth and texture, over on Kerry Rogerson's blog.

Review - The Buried Ark - James Bradley

The Buried Ark by James Bradley My rating: 5 of 5 stars The first Book of the Change, The Silent Invasion, channelled classic YA speculative fiction like the Tripods and Tomorrow series and ended with one hell of a cliffhanger. See my earlier review on Goodreads. The Buried Ark picks up the action immediately after the end of Book 1. Callie is in the Zone and penetrates deeper into the

Review - La Belle Sauvage - Phillip Pullman

La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman My rating: 2 of 5 stars Well that was disappointing. I loved the His Dark Materials books and their combination of imagination, action and big ideas and I looked forward to diving into Pullman's world again with the first in a prequel trilogy. The story of La Belle Sauvage starts promisingly enough. Lyra is a baby and has been ordered into the protection of a

Christmas reading!

My annual shout out on some amazing stories to enjoy. Perspolis Rising - James SA Corey Hot of the press, I'm reading this right now, but if you haven't read any Expanse books (or seen the TV series on Netflix) get into it. This is book 7 and the adventures of the crew of the Rocinante have been fantastic up to now.

Writing and... Pinterest

Up until about six months ago I’d only used Pinterest to show scans of 20th-century science fiction book covers, many of which I’d had since I was an early teenager, and as another channel for promoting my book reviews and my first novel, Horizon. But as I’m creating the many alien beings, environments and spacecraft for the Lenticular Series I’m currently writing, I’ve realised Pinterest is a

Missing Planets

In 2006 our nine-planet solar system dropped to eight when Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet. The reason for the downgrade was the discovery of other similarly sized objects in the Kuiper Belt: a region of space extending beyond the orbit of Neptune to a point fifty-five times the distance between Earth and the Sun or, put another way, fifty-five Astronomical Units (AUs). The Kuiper Belt

Happy Star Trek Day!

Here's a pic of my single episode appearance (as a redshirt, of course).