This year marks 100 years since the first demonstration of television in London. Elizabeth II sent the first royal email in 1976. The first meeting of the Lancashire Association of Change Ringers took place... Read more »
Godfall by Van Jensen (Bantam, £20)The debut novel by a popular comic-book writer is set in a small town in Nebraska, after the landing of a three-mile-long alien figure dubbed “the Giant”.... Read more »
The opening sentence of this remarkable novel announces that the reader is in for an intriguing experience. “On the fourteenth day of July 1924, when the tchinovniks of the Ministry of Winter... Read more »
Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, £25)Yuri Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut who was the first man in space, is reborn as a private eye on board the starship Halcyon as it draws... Read more »
Circular Motion Alex Foster (Grove)Alex Foster’s novel treats climate catastrophe through high-concept satire. A new technology of super-fast pods revolutionises travel: launched into low orbit from spring-loaded podiums, they fly west and... Read more »
This felt like the year that AI really arrived. It is on our phones and laptops; it is creeping into digital and corporate infrastructure; it is changing the way we learn, work and... Read more »
Most people could tell you that Francis Crick, together with James Watson, discovered the double helix structure of DNA, and shaped our understanding of how genes work. Fewer know that Crick also played a... Read more »
There Is no Antimemetics Division by qntm (Del Rey, £18.99)There have been stories before about mysterious alien entities existing, hidden, within our world, and secret government departments tasked with protecting humanity. This... Read more »
All That We See Or Seem by Ken Liu (Head of Zeus, £20)In this thriller from award-winning author Liu, Julia Z wants to leave behind the notoriety she gained as a teenage... Read more »