Steamed – Katie MacAlister
Penguin Signet, 2010
334 pages
RRP: US$7.99
ISBN: 978-0-451-22931-1

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

As those who’ve been reading my reviews for a while will know, I really enjoy reading Katie MacAlister’s writing. Her books are funny, sexy, always interesting and slightly off-beat. Steamed is no exception. Telling the story of a steampunk aficionado who is somehow transported into the world of his imaginings, Steamed is a comic and sensual romp around airships, corsets and velocipedes.

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Mall of Cthulhu – Seamus Cooper
Night Shade Books, 2009
235 pages
RRP: US$13.95
ISBN: 978-1-59780-127-0

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

I picked up Mall of Cthulhu because it looked like a laugh. Ted, A hapless coffee-emporium slave who is still recovering from slaying vampires at a sorority party ten years ago and his best friend Laura, an FBI agent who spends most of her time on paperwork, stumble across a Cthulhu cult trying to open a portal to R’lyeh in a suburban shopping mall. Hilarity ensues.

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Saturn’s Children – Charles Stross
Orbit Hachette Livre, 2009 (reprint)
372 pages
RRP: AU$19.99
ISBN: 978-1-84149-568-2

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Saturn’s Children is about Freya, a humanoid robot designed as a concubine for the human race. Unfortunately, the human race has been extinct for 200 years and the new aristos don’t have much of a fondness for humanoids.

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Angel Rising – Dirk Flinthart
Twelfth Planet Press, 2008
53 pages
RRP: AU$10
ISBN: 978-0-9804841-1-3

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Angel Rising is a novella set in the world of New Ceres, a human colony that has embraced the social rules of 17th Century Earth, and rejected or at least regulated all modern technologies. However, no prior knowledge of this world is necessary for enjoyment of Flinthart’s contribution to the New Ceres group story.

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Dead Witch Walking – Kim Harrison
Harper Collins, 2007
432 pages
RRP: AU$20.99
ISBN: 9780007236091

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Dead Witch Walking is the first in Kim Harrison’s prolific The Hollows series about Rachel Morgan, a witch (and bounty hunter) who lives in an alternate Cincinnati where vampires, ghosts and other interesting paranormal types roam. Rachel’s job is to apprehend paranormal criminals for Inderland Security; we first meet her as she is stalking a tax-evading leprechaun.

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