Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife – Sam Savage
Orion, 2008
192 pages
RRP: £10.99
ISBN: 9780297854586

Reviewed by Lev Lafayette

If all books were this good reviewers wouldn’t be needed. The setting, character and plot summary on the back cover would suffice. Usually, I am perhaps a somewhat harsh critic, recognising the empirical truth of Sturgeon’s Law with the bell curve of cultural products indicating that the overwhelming majority of novels simply do not reach the standard of greatness – and I love greatness in the arts. But this novel is different; it is a great novel. I have had it my possession for three days and I’ve read it four times; I’m getting obsessive and that is not at all to my normal temperament by any stretch of the imagination.

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The Last Witchfinder – James Morrow
Hachette Livre Phoenix, 2007
564 pages
RRP: AU$22.95
ISBN: 978-0-7538-2153-4

Reviewed by Lev Lafayette

This is, to put simply, a brilliant piece of historical fiction that combines fact and theme, poetic license and in-depth knowledge. As the title suggests, the story is set in the seventeenth century. The heroine of the story, Jennet Stearn, daughter of the Witchfinder General, learns natural philosophy from her aunt, Isobel, who is eventually executed as a witch. A young Jennet takes the opportunity to swear an oath to herself to end the statute of witchcraft, as her father is sent to the colonies (as Isobel was a “lady”) as both punishment and “reward”. He soon finds himself embroiled in hunting down Satanists in the rather famous township of Salem.

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Hidden Empire (Saga of Seven Suns #1) – Kevin J Anderson
Simon & Schuster Pocket Books, 2005
662 pages
RRP: AU$18.95
ISBN: 978-0-7434-3065-4

A Forest of Stars (Saga of Seven Suns #2) – Kevin J. Anderson
Simon & Schuster Pocket Books, 2004
696 pages
RRP: AU$19.95
ISBN: 978-0-7434-3066-1

Reviewed by Lev Lafayette

To say the least, Kevin J. Anderson is an extremely prolific author. With dozens of published novels, his tales include works for Star Wars, Dune, The X-Files and even a co-authored piece with L. Ron Hubbard. His biggest claim to fame to date was The X-Files novel Ground Zero, which was voted Best SF Novel of the Year by SFX Magazine. He has also written several novels with original settings, including the Gamearth Trilogy. The Saga of the Seven Suns series is perhaps his most ambitious work to date, spanning seven novels, each several hundred pages long, along with a graphic novel prequel. To date, The Saga of the Seven Suns consists of Veiled Alliances (prequel, 2004), Hidden Empire (2002), A Forest of Stars (2003), Horizon Suns (2005), Of Fire and Night (2006), Metal Swarm (2007) and The Ashes of Worlds (2008). This review covers the first two novels which have been recently re-released by Simon and Schuster under the Pocket Books imprint.

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Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said – Philip K. Dick
Hachette Livre Gollancz, 2007 (reprint)
247 pages
RRP: AU$22.95
ISBN: 978-0-575-07995-3

Reviewed by Lev Lafayette

It is pleasing to see that Gollancz has released yet another reprint of Philip K. Dick’s Flow, My Tears, the Policeman Said, one of his more famous and accessible short novels, receiving the Campbell Award in 1975, and being nominated for a Hugo and Nebula in the same year. One wonders given the adaptation of Dick’s novels to film (A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Minority Report etc), whether this will also be the case – there is little doubt that it could make an excellent film, although the theatre adaptation in Boston apparently received mixed reviews.

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