Jul 10, 2014
We're in Ancient Rome, and we're waiting for the lions, with Naomi Mitchison's fine novel The Blood of the Martyrs. Not everyone in the cells is a Christian, and not everyone waiting to see the blood start flowing in the arena is a pagan. These are the early years of the Christian Church seen from ground level, where...
Dec 6, 2013
It's the late 17th century, and Lady Otterby's spendthrift husband is betraying his friends and spending any money he can borrow as if honour was going out of fashion. Una L Silberrad's The Honest Man is a sober City merchant who will ride calmly into their lives to pick up the pieces, and let the rest go to the dogs....
May 23, 2013
In Kipling's The Naulakha, Kate goes to New York to train as a nurse. In Louisa May Alcott's Good Wives, Jo goes to New York to work independently as a writer, and turns into a hack journalist for the blood and thunder magazines of the 1860s. But she needs to be saved from this terrible profession, so enter Professor...
Aug 23, 2012
Deep in space, women and men are equal. Elizabeth Moon's Once A Hero isn't about women and men at all, but about soldiers and treachery, leadership and command, truth and lies. Esmay Suiza rides horses reluctantly because she'd much rather be safe in space, where she belongs. For readers who just want a great space navy...
Aug 9, 2012
If you can't walk, see, move or breathe unaided, you can still fly through the galaxies as a brain ship, encased in titanium, and totally in charge of your own environment, serving the sentient world in intergalactic transport. You can be a hospital ship, a charter flight for actors, and a transporter of 30,000 babies...