Tag: speculative fiction

The Starving Bride – book review

The Starving Bride, by Catherine Chidgey

The brilliant Catherine Chidgey has gone over all gothic again in her recurring theme of slightly futuristic, weird British seaside amusement parks. I’m not sure she’s doing the places any favours, and for that I salute her. Horrible institutions, tacky and sad, harking back to a bygone age where people were fed pathetic entertainment and nasty hot dogs without irony. The theme of this one is “A Simpler Time” which sounds a bit Trumpian. Make these miserable little seaside towns great again. I’m a bit concerned that Chidgey’s recent books, from Axeman, Pet, Book of Guilt and now The Starving Bride, all focus on the manipulation of vulnerable people. Please, Catherine, enough psychological darkness. Would you please write us a beautiful, classical LOVE STORY? You know – a passionate couple, torn asunder by forces outside their control but (will they? won’t they?) do eventually get their happy ever after. Surprise us. It’d be brilliant.

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The Curiosity – Book review

The Curiosity, by Stephan Kiernan

I’m going to give a bookie suggestion right up front. If you’re keen on reading a great story where we bring a man back to life from history, Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time is the one. It was one of my favourite books of 2024. Stephan Kiernan’s The Curiosity was published a decade earlier, same sort of story, with a modern woman falling for a reanimated gent with all his old-fashioned charms, but it has none of the raunchy chemistry that makes Bradley’s book such a hit. The Curiosity is interesting in parts, but…

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The Animals in that Country – book review

The Animals in that Country, by Laura Jean McKay

Brilliant and intriguing book. And me someone who has avoided fantasy for decades. Don’t read the blurb about ‘talking animals’—this is not Dr Dolittle— read the excited hype from right across the review spectrum and watch the awards list grow.

Jean is an unlikely heroine. She’s a rough bit of work: a hard drinking, chain smoking, promiscuous, internet-troll of a grandmother who makes bad choices. Her colleague Andy is one, she calls him when she wants booze or sex. He’s ‘hairy and stringy, skin stretched over his big belly’ with a jealous boyfriend on the side. Jean’s love for her six-year-old granddaughter is her one redeeming feature, though I wouldn’t trust her to look after any child of mine.

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