Michael J. Ritchie's Blog, page 7

“Fever Knights” by Adam Ellis (2021)

“Welcome to the world of Fever Knights!”

We’re kicking off the year with a short one. I don’t always review graphic novels, but this one has a unique twist that I thought deserved mentioning, as I love it when someone produces something entirely new. Penned and illustrated by Adam Ellis, well known on Instagram and Twitter for his knack for telling believably creepy stories, this is a novel told through the medium of a video game strategy guide. If you’re unfamiliar with gaming – or, at least, u...

“The Time Traveller’s Guide To Regency Britain” by Ian Mortimer (2020)

“As your ship approaches the south coast of England, you’ll be looking out for land.”

Ian Mortimer is unlike other historians. To him, the Regency Period is not just about Jane Austen, Anne Lister, or Lord Byron. It’s about how much a Jane Austen novel would cost you, what Anne Lister did for underwear, or how Lord Byron would cut his toenails. This is history through the eyes of the people, not through dates, wars and coronations. His premise is thus: you’ve just travelled back in time, and thi...

“Fifteen Dogs” by André Alexis (2015)

“One evening in Toronto, the gods Apollo and Hermes were at the Wheat Sheaf Tavern.”

Let’s just crack on. We’re off to Canada to go dog walking.

The gods Apollo and Hermes are drinking one night and wonder how animals would behave if they had human intelligence. Hermes thinks they might be happy – Apollo disagrees. Wagering a year’s servitude, they bequeath intelligence to fifteen dogs in a shelter, who all immediately develop an understanding of who and what they are and break out into the nigh...

“The Stranger Times” by C K McDonnell (2021)

“The two men stood on the rooftop, watching the city toss and turn in its sleep.”

I never really understood those newspapers that print nothing but rubbish. Not rubbish in the way The Sun or The Daily Mail do, but ones that tell blatantly false tales about aliens helping build the Shard or Kurt Cobain working in a New York Burger King. You know, stuff that clearly isn’t a thing. It’s time to go through the headlines and find out more.

Hannah Willis is in desperate need of a job. With her marriag...

“The Unlikely Escape Of Uriah Heep” by H G Parry (2019)

“At four in the morning, I was woken by a phone call from my younger brother.”

This opening will not be a good look on me, but here we go. Have you ever read or seen something that you wanted to be bad? Has it then turned out to be good and, while you enjoyed it very much, there’s still a tinge of bitterness lingering? I hope that’s not just me. On we go…

Charley Sutherland was a child genius, speaking at eight months and reading the Russian classics by his fourth birthday. Not only was he readi...

“Dear Child” by Romy Hausmann (2019)

“On the first day I lose my sense of time, my dignity and a molar.”

I really need to find some cheerier books. But for now, on with this German thriller…

Thirteen years ago, Lena was kidnapped. Forced to live ina windowless shack in the woods under the strict rules of her captor, who is also the father of her two children. Everything in her life has been regimented since ending up here, all under the guise of protecting them all from the wider world. He will protect his family from everything.

B...

“We’ll Always Have Paris” by Ray Bradbury (2009)

“He fed the canaries and the geese and the dogs and the cats.”

It’s been too long since I read any Ray Bradbury. Time to change that with this collection from 2009 of stories he’d never got round to publishing. While I’ll freely say up front they aren’t necessarily his finest tales, they’re still laced with that Bradbury magic.

Only one, “Fly Away Home”, is obviously science fiction, set on Mars and deals with how people cope with the psychological stress of being so far from home. It’s a nice a...

“Mother’s Boy” by Patrick Gale (2022)

“The ship was under attack and horribly exposed by a clear night and a full moon.”

I don’t read an awful lot of historical fiction, but I’m always willing to try. And so we fly back a hundred years to Cornwall to meet a young poet.

Laura Bartlett and Charlie Causley meet in 1914 when she is working as a housemaid and he for the village doctor in Teignmouth, Cornwall. Instantly smitten, they embark on a romance which is interrupted by war. When Charlie returns, he is not the same man, now broken ...

“The Colours Of Death” by Patricia Marques (2021)

“The first time Isabel heard a voice in her head, she’d tried to talk back.”

This book marks two firsts for me. It’s the first novel I’ve read set in Portugal, which feels like an oversight given I’ve made my way through such other nations as Norway, France, New Zealand, India, and even Chad. Portugal is Britain’s oldest ally – you’d think I’d have crossed literary paths with it before now. Secondly, it’s also the first book I’ve read by someone I went to university with. That in itself ensured ...

“Seriously Curious” by Tom Standage (2018)

“What links detectives, scientists, economists, journalists – and cats?”

Just a quick one this time. This is another book from the Economist that deals with unusual questions and tries to make sense of the world with surprising facts that, often times, don’t feel like they’re at all linked. I’ve read another of these before, Uncommon Knowledge, and this was as interesting, and similarly features research from writers for The Economist.

The questions are divided up into several sections including...