Scifi

Rome Burning is book 2 in this 3 book saga set in a world of an unfallen Roman Empire. Again Sophia's very descriptive writing takes you on a journey of both architecture and humans as we follow Una and Sulien and young heir Marcus.

Country boy Jack is looking for adventure and fortune in Toy City formerly Toy Town, Eddie Bear is trying to work out why his very rich nursery rhyme characters are being brutally slaughtered! There appears to be a serial killer on the loose!

Billie Winkie, Private Eye has gone missimg - who can possibly help Eddie Bear? Step forward country boy Jack, little understanding what exactly he's getting into!

Most people will have heard of a Science Fiction film called Bladerunner, I wonder just how many know that it was based on a book called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I have seen the film and read the book, in that order too, and I have to say that I enjoyed both of them for different reasons.

Children of the 23rd Century is a first novel by Mel Hogan. I loved it and could not put it down. When is the next one in print? I want more! I have met Mel and found him an amazing man, a musician, who on his last trip to Australia met with an accident which resulted in him being stuck in one place to recover with nothing to do and so this book came into being and evolved.

The story for me begins at the start of the second chapter where Ethan Knight has just graduated from the Flying Academy and is chosen to go on a very special mission.

I will get straight to the point in this review - this book overwhelmed me with emotions. With powerful writing the words pull themselves off the page and place themselves in your mind, like a puzzle trying to search for the truth. The magic and adventure in this book is the strongest and most aggressive in the trilogy. Loss and love go and hand in hand, you cannot have one without the other. The journey you have taken with Sonea is ending, but for which cause. There are still questions to be answered and will the truth help or just make things worse.

A great second book in the trilogy, once again the magic and adventure begins. However more is to come. With Sonea's knowledge of magic growing every day she begins to understand and grow. But Sonea is such an outcast what choices does she have, faced with a question that she doesn't understand in a world that is unknown.

As soon as the first pages are read the obsession begins. This book is filled with magic, adventure and heart stopping moments as you follow the main character Sonea, her life quickly changes from lower class to one of the most powers beings in Imardin.

Even though this book is amazing in all its writing and story-lines there are times when your not grabbed by the words and just have to read on, but do not worry, like most of Trudi Canavans books there is always something round the corner.

There have been so many adaptations and retellings of HG Wells' War of the Worlds on radio, film and music that it is easy to forget about the original novel upon which the whole phenomenon is based. Orson Welles' 1938 radio rendering had many of the more gullible elements of the USA's north-eastern states fleeing for the hills; Jeff Wayne's popular 1985 musical was a top-selling LP; and more recently Tom Cruise posed and grimaced his way through Steven Spielberg's modern-day-America retelling.

When I started to read this I kind of made the mistake fo reading the foreword and in the process of doing so I spoiled the ending, so readers beware!

I found myself to be pleasantly surprised by how easy the book was to read, the story flowed in many ways, what I would call hardcore science fiction novels do not. I've tried to read Peter F. Hamilton (What is it with the initial in the middle, we have Arthur C. Clarke too) and found him far too dry.