Books shelved under “Mystery”

A few weeks ago, Bruce Sterling shared his thoughts on hacking and activism three years after first discussing the Wikileaks scandal. One thing he said really stuck with me:

Even the electronic civil lib contingent is lying to themselves. They’re sore and indignant now, mostly because they weren’t consulted — but if the NSA released PRISM as a 99-cent Google Android app, they’d be all over it. Because they are electronic first, and civil as

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I’ve read a few of Anne Perry’s Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels now, in no particular order. This is one of those mystery series, much like Lindsey Davis’ Falco series, where I’m content to dip in and out of the canon as I may. I’m fascinated by Victorian literature and life in Victorian England, and Perry has impressed me with her Victorian mysteries in the past. Midnight at Marble Arch is no exception. In this…

This book has been on my to-read list for four years, and I’m glad I finally got to it. Tanya Huff delivers strong urban fantasy set in a Canadian city. She sets up an interesting family of magic users, where the women and the men participate in complicated rituals that allow them to work charms. Alongside, she sends us a light mixture of supernatural creatures to pad out the character sheet—a leprechaun, some dragons and…

I missed my Xbox while I was in England. I had access to one for the first half the year, during which time I managed to be completely disappointed by Assassin’s Creed 3. Then I moved, and Xbox-playing became a faded memory for a while. So when I came back home for the summer, one of the first things I sat down to do was play Xbox—and specifically, to play Mass Effect through from…

Every so often I read a book that I wish I had written. Right there, in those pages, is a universe that I don’t just enjoy but that I’m actively envious of. Three Parts Dead is not quite one of these books, but it comes close. It’s the kind of book I could see a me from a parallel universe not too far away could have written. It satisfies my current hunger for fantasy that…

The description of The Shadow of the Wind reminds me of Foucault’s Pendulum, another literary-themed thriller in which the protagonists find that the events in a conspiracy-theory manuscript they acquire are coming true. When ten-year-old Daniel acquires a book, also called The Shadow of the Wind, he attracts the attention of all manner of mysterious people who want the book—or its author—including a disfigured man going by the name Lain Coubert, the name…

Roommates lending books they love can be a dicey proposition. It wasn’t that I was worried I would dislike Skallagrigg; I just worried I wouldn’t like it enough. This feeling stayed with me for the first part of the book, because it didn’t seem very straightforward at first. There was cryptic foreshadowing that would make sense towards the end. Thankfully, after the first few chapters, the book changes tack and becomes much easier to…

I read some series like River Song travels with the Doctor: out of order. I’ve dipped and dallied with various books in the Falco series, but most recently I read Venus in Copper before going back to the source, Falco #1: The Silver Pigs. Here we meet Lindsey Davis’ private eye: Marcus Didius Falco, an informer in the first-century Roman empire. Falco is constantly on the hunt for new clients and new income, lest…

For the past three years, I’ve paid for the privilege of voting in the Hugo Awards. I do this not because I love voting in the Hugo Awards (though that’s cool) but because, for the past few years, they have made available a voter packet containing digital copies of most of the nominated works. All I need do is purchase a supporting membership at the year’s WorldCon, which is always cheaper than if I were…

I wasn’t too familiar with Dame Agatha’s forays into novels not associated with Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. I’d read some of her Parker Pyne work, but that was about it. I really enjoy the Poirot mysteries in particular. My roommate lent me this slip of a story, and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it at first. I’m still not sure now. Endless Night is a sneaky little devil of a story,…

Not going to lie: I totally re-read this just because the movie is coming out soon. The trailer, with its stylized images and Florence + The Machine song, has me a little excited for it. But this is a review of The Great Gatsby the book. I read it when I was high school (just to read it, not because we had to study it) and didn’t like it too much. Now, I feel…

Come with me on a journey to the isle of Blessed, a remote island somewhere above the Arctic Circle. On this island, and only on this island—only on its western half, in fact—grows the Dracula orchid, a dragon-like flower that bequeaths health and longevity. For centuries, the inhabitants of Blessed have cultivated this flower and reaped its benefits. They have also covered up a dark secret.

Got shivers? Good. You should. I don’t.

Midwinterblood is…

Rest assured, this is a China Miéville book. I was a little worried when I first started reading, because everything made sense. The plot and narrative seemed very straightforward, and I wasn’t confused. His description, though sometimes inventive, resided well within the realm of comprehensible. In short, this didn’t immediately blow my mind the way Miéville’s prose often does. There are mind-blowing things that happen later on, but Kraken is remarkably accessible. (“Remarkably accessible”—how’s that…

We all have triggers, certain topics in our beloved genres that instantly make us sit up and pay attention. Artificial intelligence is one such trigger for me; identity is another. (Both touch on philosophy of the mind, a field that fascinates me, and I suspect this is why they intrigue me.) There is scant AI in Chasm City, but there is plenty of reflection on identity and the ramifications of using technology to alter…

Did you know George R.R. Martin wrote novels before A Game of Thrones? Yes, it’s true! And you can read them! On paper, even! The Armageddon Rag is a 1980s tale of a journalist-turned-novelist recapturing the zeitgeist of the 1970s music scene. Spurred by a mysterious, sacrificial killing of a music promoter, Sandy Blair discovers that there might be more to it. Someone has a plan to reunite the band Nazgûl—particularly troubling since its…

I wasn’t overly fond of Debris, Jo Anderton’s first book in this series, and I approached Suited with trepidation. I wasn’t sure Anderton had what it would take to grab me and make me enjoy this book. And as I started reading, and the characters felt flat and uninspiring, I resigned myself to another dull review. Then it got interesting. The characters began changing. The stakes got higher. And by the end of the…

I swear I’ve read some of these before, but they’re the type of books that are made of the same mould. Marcus Didius Falco is a “private informer” in the first-century Roman empire. Recently back from a stint in Britain on the emperor’s business, Falco finds himself in jail for crossing the emperor’s chief spy. Thanks to his mother and his girlfriend, he gets his freedom—and a new apartment—and immediately sets about acquiring a new…

In everyone’s life there is always at least one door. You know the door I mean. It’s the one that you’ve never opened, even though you’ve always wanted to. It could be the front door of the creepy, abandoned house at the end of your street. It could be the strange door at the top of the stairs in your school, the one that doesn’t lead to the roof and probably leads to a boring…

“Humans were dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that.”

That is perhaps how Dickens might have begun Saturn’s Children, if Dickens had somehow conceived of a near-future world in which humanity is extinct but its human-like robot servitors have kept on going. Charles Stross isn’t quite so economical in explaining this underlying fact, but he’s almost there. Through references to “pink goo” and “green goo” and the lack of prokaryotes…

Have you made a deal with the devil? Worried about how your soul will be conveyed to its eternal torment upon the expiry of that deal? Not sure you can trust the Grim Reaper with so important a task? Never fear: the Collectors are here! And they are going to take you straight to Hell.

Chris F. Holm mashes up the concept of the damned, human soul collector with the tradition of noir pulp fiction.…