Solar Flare: Science Fiction News

The Dragonbone Chair is the first book in Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow, Thorn trilogy of books (which actually is four books). With this series we are firmly in High Fantasy territory and its obvious that J.R.R. Tolkien was a huge influence in Williams work on this book.

Almost all of the common fantasy elements are at play here. We have giants, trolls and elves (by any other name). We have magic, princes…

A Man Rides Through is the second and concluding book in Stephen Donaldson’s Mordant’s Need sequence. While the first book was heavy on the setup and pretty slow paced, A Man Rides Through is the payoff to all of that.

The action picks up right from the start and really doesn’t slow down until the final chapter. Donaldson takes the opportunity to further explore the theories and morals of his invented…

Mirror of Her Dreams is book one of the two book Mordant’s Need sequence written by Stephen R. Donaldson. Unlike his Thomas Covenant books, this is a more traditional fantasy sequence in what is (at least on the surface) a traditional medieval type of fantasy world. As such it is probably much more accessible than Donaldson’s other work. It’s also much less harsh that much of his other writing.

Mirror of…

I was fortunate enough to be offered a pre-release copy of the DVD for Joss Whedon’s Serenity. I said yes of course. Serenity is the movie sequel to Whedon’s short lived tv series Firefly. Though no doubt most of my regular readers are perfectly well aware of that. In this first part of a two part review I take a look at the movie Serenity itself. Part two will look…

With the arrival of the movie version of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe almost upon us, I thought I might be interesting to re-visit CS Lewis classic children’s fantasy novel and see how it stood up to my memories. Not to mention my memories of the BBC adaptation from some years back.

The results were… mixed is probably the best description. The first thing I noticed on re-reading The…

A Feast For Crows is the fourth book in George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy saga A Song of Ice and Fire. This series has been (in my eyes at least) a real high point for fantasy in recent years. In a market dominated by The Wheel of Time and its derivatives, Martin’s work is no less lengthy but the quality is light years apart.

As A Feast For Crows stars,…

The Power That Preserves concludes Stephen R. Donaldson’s First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever. This time when Thomas Covenant is called back to the Land it is some seven years later and the ultimate end of Lord Foul’s prophecy is at hand. Yet when High Lord Mhoram summons him to Revelstone from his “real” world, Covenant refuses, choosing instead to save the life of a young girl in his…

The Illearth War is the second book in Stephen R. Donaldson’s First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever. While each book in this trilogy tells a story in its own right they are part of an overall plot which really should be read in the correct order. After spending a little time with Covenant in the “real” world where we discover that his life is slowly collapsing around him, we…

Knife of Dreams is 524th book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time fantasy series. Well actually its the 11th book, but it feels like a lot more than that by this time. The series is hugely popular, but all but the most dedicated of fans will tell you that over the course of the last 4 books things have gone badly wrong.

At the heart of the…

Tripping the rift is an animated comedy by the Sci Fi Channel. For some reason I’ve never actually managed to catch an episode of it until now. However the complete first season has been released on DVD and I was offered a copy to review so I grabbed the opportunity to see what the show had to offer.

The DVD set is very nicely packaged, with a total…