The Minority Report by Philip K Dick (4🌟)

A short story by the Master if Science Fiction. Included in an anthology Brave New Worlds edited by John Joseph Adams.

A world were crimes can be e predicted and punished before they are committed. Excellent read. My favourite so far in this anthology.

The Citi Exhibition. Manga. Edited by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere (5🌟)

This book is a catalogue of the Exhibition at the British museum in 2019. It includes essays about manga, a bit of history, style, anime, etc. + extracts of manga and illustrations + interviews with creators and people in the industry.

A must read for any manga fan.

My favourite bits: Moto Hagio's The Willow Tree short story, and extract from Saint Young Men by Hikaru Nakamura, an essay about Genga' (dash) Project (which looks into the reproduction of manga manuscripts for exhibition and preservation), some history, including Hokusai and Kyõsai, and an overview of the contemporary market including alternative and obscure manga works (some of them have been published by Drawn and Quarterly).

The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (4🌟)

A Japanese mystery novel, first published in 1946.

This was a classic locked room murder mystery. The novel introduces detective Kosuke Kindaichi, who I believe, became the protagonist of more than 70 books! by Yokomizo. This was a fun, entertaining read. It reminded me of Poe and Christie. First we got the details of the murder, and events before and after. Then we got the great Ko-San arriving to unravel the mystery. Not a character novel but great mystery solving.

And also,... Yokomizo did something I truly enjoyed. He shared with the reader some of his favourite mystery novels and authors. This came as part of the plot and was fun thing to discover. Some mentioned were Maurice Leblanc Lupin series, Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes, The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Garston Leroux, The Canary Murder Case and The Kennel Murder Case by SS Van Fine, The Plague Court Murders by Dickson Carr, and more. Yokomizo also mentioned some Japanese classics like Edogawa Rampo (the only one I knew and have read), Ruiko Kuroiwa, Fuboku Kozakai, Saburo Koga, Udaru Oshita, Takataro Kigi and more...

Therapy by Sebastian Fitzek (3.8🌟)

Therapy is a gripping, psychological thriller. A page turner, full of unpredictable twists!

A woman contacts a retired psychiatrist in his country house. She wants his help and convinces him to treat her there and then. During the course of the therapy sessions the woman starts revealing events and clues which could be related to the disappearance of the psychiatrist daughter. The man gets desperate trying to find out more but the woman is obviously not well and completely unreliable.

In Therapy I found grief, confusion, regret and madness. Gothic-like settings, cold, rain and darkness. A protagonist searching for the truth and a mysterious woman who knows it, or so she claims. Fitzek plays with the reader making us doubt everything and everyone. A fun and engaging read.

Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton (4.7🌟)

Judas Unchained is the second book in the Commonwealth Saga. See my post on the first book Pandora's Star.

So much happens in this book (actually in both books) it will take me days to digest. However it was a great conclusion to the story and a great read. Not much to comment but to recommend this saga to any Science Fiction fan. It was worth the 4 weeks it took me to read the two books.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (4🌟)

A psychological rollercoaster or a ghost story, or both? A young governess notices two people wandering around the house where she works. However when she asks, she is told that the people she is describing are dead. To find out the truth she investigates the history of the house and the owner. She asks questions. The children she looks after say they don't see anyone, but she thinks they are lying. No one else in the house can see them. Are the visitations "real ghosts" or is the governess going mad?

No matter how much she wants to help, with every turn of the screw, the crisis worsens.

Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton (4.8🌟)

This a is well written, gripping story. Three hundred years in the future, humanity has colonised over 400 hundred planets. This was possible due to the invention of wormhole technologies which allow people to travel through space without spaceships. Wormholes also allow faster, almost instant communication between planet's light years away. Humanity is enjoying immortality with rejuvenation treatments which reverse the ageing process, and re-life procedures ( resucitation!) in which digital copies of people consciousness and memories are uploaded into new bodies made with DNA information.

Anyway this is only a snippet of this universe created by Hamilton. The action kicks with the discovery of what seem to be Dyson Spheres enclosing two solar systems. A decision is made to travel more than one thousand light years to investigate them. Political, economic and scientific struggle arise from this decision, but the focus of the story is set on answering a couple of questions. What kind of civilisation could have the technology to build a dyson sphere? And why would they do that?