Quick Book Reviews Blog

  Kazuo Ishiguro represents a unique breed of authors, the kind capable of thinking outside any box imposed by genres or expectations. In his first novel since winning the Nobel prize in Literature, titled Klara and the Sun , he tells the story of a solar-powered artificial intelligence companion and all learns during its life amidst a dysfunctional family.

Mike Carey is working hard to establish the mythos of the Hungry Plague Series , with the second book, titled The Boy on the Bridge , telling a standalone story set in the same common universe. This time around, we're following a clever boy who journeys on the quest for a cure in a post-apocalyptic land devastated by a plague where humanity only hangs by a thread and monsters are roaming the wilds.

M.C. Glan's Fading Humanity The idea that one day we'll be forced to leave Earth and look for a shelter elsewhere is certainly not without foundation. With each and every second we are further exhausting the non-renewable resources that make our civilization turn round, and even if we manage to move on to completely recyclable energy and solve all the critical worldly issues (such as hunger and diseases), we'll still have to deal with a dying sun.

Judging by the amount of post-apocalyptic literature that's being published every year, I'd wager to say that we just can't wait for the end of the world to come around for the chance to prove that we are indeed important renegades who can save the world, lead humanity and all that jazz. Let's face it though: the overwhelming majority of us would be ground to dust in virtually any post-apocalyptic scenario, whether it's an alien invasion, a virus or some good old-fashioned zombies. We seldom take the time to imagine what life in this kind of society would be like and look at it from beyond the confines of our own narrow viewpoint.

The alien invasion trope is perhaps one of the most often portrayed invasion scenarios in popular culture, and it's quite possible that it won't get stale anytime soon; as long as we haven't encountered anyone out there in the great beyond, the possibilities remain limitless. With so many books revolving around the topic, it really does take something special for an author to get themselves noticed, but debuting writer J. Patrick Black has certainly done that with his first novel, Ninth City Burning .

The idea of separating society into criminals and law-abiding citizens has taken hold in virtually every country, and it certainly makes a lot of sense: either you break the law and cause harm, or you don't and stay out of trouble. Of course, in practice things often turn out to be different, with lawbreakers escaping consequences while law-abiding citizens suffer unjust harm.

There are many ways to go about imagining the post-apocalyptic scenario, and most people tend to see it as a relatively desolate wasteland. However, there are authors out there who envision the fall of man to be something more gradual, eventually spiralling out of control into increasingly vile decadence, giving rise to violence, hatred, social class divisions, diseases, and ultimately, extermination. Paolo Bacigalupi takes us to such a universe in his acclaimed novel The Windup Girl .

Ellis Rogers is a man who has always played it safe, more or less, trying to walk down the right and peaceful path, harming nobody and helping those around him. However, it seems destiny decided to spit in the face of his when it dropped a terminal illness straight down on his back. With nothing more to lose, Rogers decides to take a leap of faith and actually test out the time machine he has been building in his garage. Much to his surprise, the thing really does work, and it takes him far into the future, where the cure for his illness may very well exist.