⭐⭐⭐⭐ I’ll be honest: this one took me a little while to click with. Not in a bad way, exactly — more that I had to adjust my expectations. The opening didn’t immediately grab me in the way some Discworld stories do, and for a bit I felt like I was circling the edges of … Continue reading A Scrappy, Sharp-Edged Fairytale
⭐⭐⭐⭐ I just finished There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm, and I have to say, it’s exactly the kind of weird that gets me excited about fiction. From the very first entries, there’s this uncanny, almost clinical tone that makes you feel like you’re reading a classified briefing rather than a story, and I … Continue reading Bending Minds and Reality
⭐⭐⭐⭐ I went into The Judge’s House expecting a quick, slightly dusty Victorian ghost story, and what I got was something far more quietly unsettling than I anticipated. It’s short, sure, but Stoker absolutely understands how to make brevity work in his favour here. There’s no wasted space, no meandering setup — just an atmosphere … Continue reading Judgement Without a Jury
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Jingo is one of those Discworld novels that sneaks up on you. You go in expecting a fairly straightforward bit of satire — nationalism, flag-waving, the absurdity of war — and you get all that, but you also get something sharper and more uncomfortable than it first appears. On the surface, the plot is … Continue reading Laughing All the Way to the Battlefield
⭐⭐⭐ When I first read The Lost World years ago, I remember absolutely tearing through it. I loved it almost as much as Jurassic Park, which is no small thing. At the time, it felt like a worthy continuation: more dinosaurs, more danger, more of that Crichton techno-thriller momentum that made his work so addictive. … Continue reading A Nostalgic Reread That Doesn’t Quite Hold Up
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ T. Kingfisher’s What Moves the Dead quietly unsettles you rather than going for big shocks, and that’s exactly where it shines. A retelling of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, it keeps the bones of the original story but dresses them in something far stranger, funnier, and biologically grotesque. The atmosphere is … Continue reading A Creepy, Clever Reimagining That Gets Under Your Skin
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I first picked up His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet on the recommendation of one of my university lecturers. At the time, I was working on a project with some thematic overlap, and, honestly, it felt like perfect timing. I’m still working on that project now, and reading this novel has been both … Continue reading A Gripping Blend of Crime, History, and Psychological Depth
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Stephen King’s Insomnia surprised me in the best way. I went in expecting a fairly straightforward horror story, but it turned into something much stranger and more ambitious. Ralph’s sleeplessness starts off feeling uncomfortably real—King captures that foggy, irritable, slightly surreal feeling of being overtired so well that I could practically feel my own … Continue reading A Restless, Haunting Journey Through Derry
⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’m honestly not quite sure what to say about Morsels by Abe Moss. It’s one of those books that isn’t bad at all — the writing’s solid, the pacing works fine — but for some reason it just feels very… average. “Meh” really sums it up. I didn’t dislike it, but I never felt … Continue reading Decently Readable, But Mostly Meh
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Dead Famous by Ben Elton is one of those books that takes a little while to find its rhythm. The opening feels like you’ve been dropped straight into an episode of Big Brother — full of big personalities, forced banter, and that strange mix of boredom and spectacle that reality TV does so well. … Continue reading A Wickedly Funny Murder in the Big House
Gareth Ellis - Author 