Science Fiction Books > less than 5 GBP Science Fiction Books

Does my second head make me a deviant?

Advantages: Thoughtful, intelligent sci-fi...
Disadvantages: ... some occasionally long-winded speeches

The Chsysalids by John Wyndham is a post-apolaclyptic vision of a world where people are obsessed with conformity to the norm, or in their words, "the image of God". Anyone who does not conform to this image becomes an outcast, and the women who are categorised as Deviants are sterilised before being sent off. The "image of God" has 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes, 1 nose, 5 digits at the end of eat hand and foot… etc. You get the idea. The narrator of this ...
...is, so is safe from the religious-minded people around him, chief of whom is his father. Not so lucky is a girl he meets who has a physical deviation, and this causes him to wonder whether it really is the will of God being done by the zealots here… As David realises the danger his special talents wrought from his differences could cause, and becomes aware of others with the same talents, he is drawn instinctively away from his family. He knows that ...

CaptainDisaster 31.08.2005 · Read full review
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Review of The Chrysalids - John Wyndham

Whimsically Equine (Tim the Tiny Horse - Harry Hill)

Advantages: funny and gentle
Disadvantages: slight

...make an attempt at reviewing Tim as a stand-alone. I am happy to say that it acquits itself well. Tim is a horse, blue and so tiny that he lives in matchbox with a tic-tac box for a conservatory. A single Hoola-Hoop makes his lunch (he prefers barbecue beef flavour) and a fly (called Fly) is his best friend. Tim doesn't do much - apart from a few not very successful attempts at making it big in the media he seems to spend his days watching television ...
...necessary for enjoyment. For example, Tim has a bit of obsession with a newsreader called Anna Ford: I don't have a television so I am not familiar with Ms Ford (I checked and she's real and not a character in Tim's milieu), but I can still appreciate Tim's heartache. There is a wealth of astute observations of our modern lives in Tim's adventures and some of them brought tears of recognition to my eyes. I particularly enjoyed Tim's foray into the ...

magdadh 20.05.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Tim the Tiny Horse - Harry Hill

Restaurant and galaxy book

Advantages: funny story, very well written
Disadvantages: no disadvantages

...because I feel they are the chief books of Trampers to the galaxy. The CBOTTG are books that when the words are read the writing marks you in a thrilling and funny way. I never cause an almost terrible thing to happen like the reading of the Hitchhiker books to pass from my life. That is a most unverifiable thing I would be doing. Although the writer of this book was reputed to be a crotchety writer, I found his ideas were very substantial. His books ...
...With the five novels, belonging to the Hitchhikers guide trilogy, Douglas Adam gave his life to writing them in a very different way to other books which was to first begin in 1979 and to finish in 1992. The books have been read by millions of readers and they have been a very pleasant read, so I hope they will be read for hundreds of years. I am not sure, if future novels will ever be written like this but I had never once actually seen something ...

lovelyben 18.09.2006 · Read full review
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Review of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams

The Granddaddy of the Daleks

Advantages: Beautifully written, exciting plot twists, a remarkable feeling of realness
Disadvantages: The plot may be too slow for some, the history is quite distant now

...1897), 1898's "The War of the Worlds" by HG Wells is effectively the great-granddaddy of every alien invasion story. And it reads like Thomas Hardy. The unrelenting reality strikes the reader from the very beginning, with that portentuous and famous "no one would have believed ... " first chapter. "War of the Worlds" was a novel written for various reasons, but perhaps most importantly it was a parody. In the previous twenty years or so, "invasion ...
...aliens invaded and behaved to the British the way the British had behaved to other countries in their Empire) and melding it to the structure of these xenophobic penny dreadfuls, HG Wells came up a very memorable and novel idea. Despite the tremendous suspension of disbelief required to envisage creatures from Mars invading in giant armoured tripods, Wells makes this a lot easier for the reader by setting his invasion in a "true" setting - certainly, ...

GlasgowWho 24.06.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells

He's Not Selling Any Alibis

Advantages: A decent, entertaining piece of fiction
Disadvantages: None really, but a little strange -ooooooooh

...sure it’s very nice. Certainly the picture Robert Rankin paints of it in his novel, “The Antipope”, depicts an extremely interesting place to visit - full of places of interest and colourful (to put it mildly) local characters. I’m guessing the book is set in the very early seventies, the only clue we get is that two pints of “Large”, the preferred local draught, costs 10/6 (10 shillings and sixpence – ask ...
...that one of the central characters has been dead for a few hundred years the exact timing of the novel's “present day” seems a trifle irrelevant. Much of the action takes place in The Flying Swan, a local pub run by Neville, the part-time barman. Although never actually stated, we are left with the impression that Neville has been, and will be, a fixture in the bar for many years. Two of his work shy regulars, John O’Mally, a drunken ...

Thamisgith 18.02.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Antipope - Robert Rankin