Laurentine Spy Review

The Book Smugglers have reviewed Emily Gee's new novel, The Laurentine Spy.

"I could not ask more from a character piece and putting aside the expectation that I had for a pure fantasy novel and the surprise I felt for getting more romance than I asked for, The Laurentine Spy was a great read indeed... Verdict: A great, exhilarating and dramatic read with a lot of romance."

BIOHELL - the ZX SPECTRUM game of Andy Remic's uber SF novel!

Just got this in the inbox from Andy Remic!

PRESS RELEASE - BIOHELL for the ZX SPECTRUM game release

That's right, Biohell for the Speccy is available this Friday 1st May from my website www.andyremic.com. It's a free download, and the first person to send me the solution and password gets a copy of my first five books, whilst the next three runners up get a copy of my latest novel Biohell, published by Solaris Books. And yes, I know the game ain't as gud as a new Joffa Smifff game, but it was all done as a bit of fun and any feedback and comments are appreciated!!

FIRST REVIEW of BIOHELL for the 48K ZX Spectrum
by Jonathan Cauldwell

In Biohell, technology may be part of the solution, but it is also part of the problem. You see, the world described in Biohell is a bleak one. The future isn't bright, nor is it orange (actually, the Spectrum doesn't do orange, only red or yellow, but I digress.) The future is grim. Pollution, death and decay are all that are to be found amid the twisted metal and concrete ruins of the city. Mutilated body parts litter the streets, shells of burnt-out cars lie smoking in the rubble, and zombies prowl the alleyways looking for victims. One wonders where the author finds his inspiration - has he visited Mansfield on a Saturday night?

Within minutes of first loading this game up, I managed to die in two equally unpleasant, yet quite different ways. Both deaths were subsequently avoided over the following games after a little further exploration, but the question remains: did I really want to live in such a desperate scenario? The gritty reality portrayed in LS Lowry's paintings is nothing compared to the landscape of horror and despair painted by Remic's detailed descriptions.

Amid the blood, [poo] and burnt-out cars, the zombies (they must be Commodore 64 owners), and the tower blocks there is a mission to be accomplished. Unfortunately, I haven't found it yet as I'm still lost in a series of tunnels. On reflection, perhaps that's the safest place to be. Temporary sanctuary from the next grisly encounter Remic has in store for me.

THE GAME

BIOHELL is a fast-paced hardcore first-person epic graphical text adventure, utilising guns and bombs to progress across a nano-molecular zombie-infested city game-world where you, FRANCO HAGGIS, must battle AIs, aliens and, of course, horrible zombie mutations. The game utilises advanced AI for behavioural patterns in advanced violent textual adversaries, superlative 8-bit advanced 3D bump-mapping, a full range of 8 (yes 8!!) colours and advanced shading techniques, advanced textual parser and many advanced Spectrum features!! Hell, this game is just totally advanced!!

BIOHELL – THE STORY

The City: an entire planet teeming with corruption, guns, sex, and designer drugs. Humans are upgraded by the injection of microscopic nanobots, courtesy of a new technology from the Nano-Tek corporation, but when this highly desirable technology heads onto the black market, millions of people inject themselves with pirated biomods - and transform into zombies. Now they roam the streets, out for blood, packing shotguns and bombs. The Combat K squad are dropped into this warzone to uncover what's turned the planet into a wasteland of murder and mutations, and soon their focus is on the darkness at the Nano-Tek corporation itself...

The next SPECTRUM/ REMIC project, if you can believe this, is writing the Spectrum 48K version of HALF LIFE 2, by VALVE SOFTWARE. I am currently just negotiating the rights with Gabe Newell!! Watch this space!!

Kind Regards to ALL!!

Review of "The Laurentine Spy"

Fantasy Book Critic has written a fabulous review of The Laurentine Spy, the new novel from Emily Gee.

"One such great read was Emily Gee’s “The Laurentine Spy” which hooked me so completely that as soon as I finished reading the novel, I immediately reread it again to pick up any nuances that I might have missed the first time around. Then I read it once more just for the pure enjoyment of it..."

"Irons in the Fire" Musings

Juliet McKenna, author of the fabulous new fantasy novel Irons in the Fire, has been introduced in this guest spot over at Joshua Palmatier's blog.

With Irons in the Fire being my tenth novel, I’ve noticed something new about the way people say, "But I haven’t read your other books." What they’re actually asking is, "Must I read all your other books for this one to make sense?" Which is a fair question.

The answer is no. Irons in the Fire begins a new series, carefully written to be entirely comprehensible to anyone coming fresh to my work. This was something I and the editorial team at Solaris agreed on in the early stages. Once the final draft was written, we checked by finding a Solaris staffer who hadn’t read my other books. Indeed, he’d been banned from them once we signed the contracts. So he could find out if this new book made sense to a newcomer to my fictional world. I’m delighted to say it did. Better yet, he’s been on tenterhooks for the second and third instalments.

So what’s it about? Well, the unfolding of The Lescari Revolution does have roots in my earlier writing. My first series, the Tales of Einarinn, features men and women living on the edges of legality and society, including some mercenaries. They get caught up in the rediscovery of ancient magic and a lost land over the ocean and the consequences on different people, good and bad. That’s good and bad people, as well as good and bad consequences.

Check out the rest of the post.

Review of "Biohell"

My Favourite Books have reviewed Andy Remic's latest kick-ass tome, Biohell.

Each of the Combat K squad are drawn into this maelstrom through a combination of vengeance, love and betrayal, forced to put aside their differences in order to survive. They’re certainly not the chisel jawed heroes of classic sci-fi adventures; they’re flawed, immoral, fallible and occasionally demented, but they fit the world they live in.

Biohell was a treat to read, a refreshing blast of unadulterated, violent fun. It does what it says on the box!

SF Site Review "The Accord"

There's a great and in-depth review at SF Site of Keith Brooke's stunning new SF novel The Accord.

...a novel that combines elements of love story, thriller, and work of ideas, yet gains its impact from being more than the sum of these. And it all works. It works brilliantly. In The Accord, Keith Brooke has created a dazzling work of the imagination.