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As a YA story this was light reading, but I love McIntosh's characters. this was really good, and it'll be going on my own child's pile of books to choose from. the message is of course the important thihng, but the action and the humour were real, too. very well done indeed.

I found this surprisingly engaging. It's been years since I read any of his children's stories, but it was still very pleasant to come back to this style. There's no easy definition for the intent behind the work, which meanders magnificently throughout and honestly really does defy classification, but I felt buoyed throughout and my attention was completely held all the way through.

Oh yes. I laughed out loud in spots and that's precious I'm not quite old enough to have been there, but this was very much the next best thing. Great fun!

Oh, a pillar of British comedy and no doubt about it. Dwarf is right in there with happy memories of episodes of The Next Generation and Blake's 7 from my childhood.

This omnibus edition gave me plenty of laughs and it's hard to think that I reread the individual volumes over a decade ago and haven't picked them up since. A highly entertaining way of spending a few hours without a doubt

Heavens. I had no idea that this sort of slice-of-life book, about effectively a manservant, could be so utterly captivating and ... moreish! It was like pringles! You just had to carry on!

I got an almost Mackey Chandler vibe at points and was sad to see it come to an end. Not my usual stuff, but actually very much enjoyed.

as progression fantasy goes, this was interesting. Tower Defense is something I've not seen handled before, so if you accept the idea that the GM basically sets you up with scaling resources from the beginning you're good to go. This is a bit like suspending disbeleif in typical fantasy books I suppose: this doesn't have to happen in your general progression because the MC goes and does stuff around the world, rather than the world being forced into his small area of it.

That aside, I enjoyed the writing. My second Australian one, too.

As YA fiction goes, this is fast, fun, and intense. It does feel quite rushed in spots, and the ending leaves one wanting book 2 straight away, but it's very much the sort of thing I'd enjoy with my kid as they entered the realm of teendom.

I was gripped by this from the very outset. There are a number of twists and revelations that serve to keep us interested, and of course there's a huge message about the positives of science, thinking for oneself, and analysing data rather than accepting blase assurances. Peter's not done too many sequels, many of his First Contact novels stand by themselves, so I'll be interested to see where this one goes next. Thought-provoking, pretty hard science fiction with a more mental bent this. Loved it.

I tend to avoid novellas because I read so quickly, they often feel over with before they started. This took me under an hour, and although of necesity it was short, it was also quite captivating.

i'm not sure that Alex - our protagonist - really does much; I found the teen girls far more fleshed out in their actions, and it seems, toward the end of the work, as though it's as much his team than Alex himself doing anything interesting. A couple of points - the mysteriously silent covert lab, Alex's mental chat with Anwen and of course the speeding up of things by the end struck awkward chords. But by and large it's a quick, clever read, even if it does posit a finite endpoint to Covid in the very near future.

Absolutely perfect. I was hooked within 7 minutes of cracking it open. Not a deep and meaningful read, but as we're told in the author's notes at the end, sometimes, a pop song is what you need. This delivers tremendously and I enjoyed every page. The action was fast. The characters, great fun. The synergy of the whole book was just a jolt of happy escapism, and I'm hugely glad to have read it.

I actually read books 2 through 9 of this saga well over a decade ago. if you like Kirk and want to see a simplistic, totally deniable yet strangely compelling look into a future that only happened in one man's mind, they're pretty good. This is the opener, and although it was cheesy and clearly just shoehorned stuff in to set things up for the latter books, it was tolerable.

So I couldn't quite see how this would end until it rushed up on me, and then it all fell into place. So yea! an ending I can be happy with and a trilogy that given me hours of enjoyment. The audio version are brilliant - not my thing, but I can appreciate the artistry - and the idea, characterisation and execution were spot-on. A splendid series to add to the collection.

I have no idea why I didn't finish this series at the time. It's brilliant, the story is just massive and grows in scope here rather worryingly to be honest and I really, really hope the ending of the third book will be satisfying ...

I started but aborted this when it came out, and I have no idea why. I loved the Themis files (although I don't remember buying book 3). Here, I almost enjoyed the afterword and the relating of the real world facts and figures more than the story: I suspect that's because the age-old good versus evil via your offspring trope has been done to death, so no matter how skilled (and Neuvel is clearly very much that), can lift the idea in my mind.

still, the humour works, you really want to see them succeed. Looking forward to book 2.