By Naomi Novik I have to credit Helen O’Hara, Deputy Editor of Empire Online, for her recommendation of this book; on the Empire podcast, when answering readers’ questions about what good books haven’t been adapted into film, she mentioned this book (with a description of ‘Napoleonic wars with dragons’) and…
By Mercedes Lackey I like to think that I’m fairly well read, or at least read enough about the areas I’m interested to have some knowledge of a wide variety of different genre-related materials, so it’s slightly embarrassing to admit that, before reading these books, I had never heard of…
By Kim Newman I have thoroughly enjoyed Kim Newman’s alternative world vampire stories, with their wonderful blending of history and characters from literature and film, so I was looking forward to sampling the next instalment. Dracula Cha Cha Cha is another delightful addition to his ongoing storyline and it continues…
By Jonathan Maberry When I was recently lavishing praise on Gorlan Parlov’s art in Marvel Universe Vs Punisher, I didn’t talk too much about the writing, which is unusual for me. When looking for some information about Maberry, I discovered his website and that he is an award-winning novelist: in…
Kim Newman's Anno Dracula is a wonderful novel blending fiction and history, with characters appropriated from novels and films, into an alternative timeline (in which Dracula wasn't killed but has become consort to Queen Victoria and brought vampires into English society) detective story about a Jack the Ripper killing vampire…
Turbulence by Samit Basu, Titan Books. Published 7 July (£7.99). Basu is not an author I was aware of before I read this novel, but he’s not a novice writer: he published the first book of his fantasy series, The Gameworld Trilogy, at 23 and has also worked on comic…
The Good, The Bad And The Multiplex: What’s Wrong With Modern Movies? By Mark Kermode Mark Kermode is one of the most passionate and enjoyable professional film critics working today; I listen to the podcasts of his show with Simon Mayo, and I thoroughly enjoyed his first book, so it…
By Ben Aaronovitch Peter Grant is a young constable in the Metropolitan Police Service; while standing guard over a crime scene of a murder in Covent Garden in the middle of the night, he talks to a witness to the crime. The only trouble is that the witness is a…
I am under no illusion that my writing about film is worth reading to anyone apart from me, but I still like capturing my thoughts about films. However, after reading the writing about film of David Thomson, my feelings of inadequacy have multiplied a million-fold and I never want to…
By Lois Gresh and Robert Weinberg I’ve been reading comic book superheroes for a long time now. An unrelated fact is that I trained as a scientist (I have a PhD in biochemistry). In all that time, I have never had a problem with the use of science in superhero…