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SCIENCE FICTION

MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

US Special Forces and the CIA collide in Cold War Berlin

US Special Forces and the CIA collide in Cold War Berlin

Veterans of intelligence agencies and the special forces crowd the ranks of spy novelists. Some have rightfully been hailed as masters of the craft—John le Carré, for example. Or, more recently, David McCloskey. Others have written worthy and suspenseful novels that illuminate...

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NONFICTION

Popular Fiction

A brilliant novel of love, hope, and the Rwanda genocide

A brilliant novel of love, hope, and the Rwanda genocide

Today, Rwanda is one of the brightest lights in Africa. The economy is booming. Corruption is rare. Government delivers services. The streets of Kigali, the capital, are clean. It's even easy to open a business. Thirty years ago the country was in chaos, as this award-winning...

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Explore My “BEST OF the category” selections

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK?

When people ask me that question, I never know what to say. In a lifetime of reading, I’ve read many thousands of books. And I’ve reviewed well over 2,000 of them on this site. Picking just one as a “favorite,” or even a handful of them, makes no sense to me.

The problem is, I read for many different reasons. Perhaps you do, too. And I read many different sorts of books. Mysteries and thrillers. Popular fiction, especially historical fiction. Science fiction.

And nonfiction, history in particular. You’ll find hundreds of reviews in every one of those categories on this site.

Look to the right for a rotating random selection culled from throughout this site.

Happy reading!

 

Lethal Seasons

The Apocalypse unfolds in this gripping science fiction novel

Imagine the apocalypse. The word may conjure up visions of a nuclear holocaust, a killer pandemic, an asteroid collision, or cyberwar so intense that it sets back civilization by a century or more. Usually, when we ponder an apocalyptic future we think of a single, overriding cause—and a change so...
Cover image of "SS-GB," an alternate history of WWII

In an alternate history, the Nazis occupy England

In the literature of alternate history, Nazi Germany often wins World War II. Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, Fatherland by Robert Harris, and Jo Walton's Farthing Trilogy (Farthing, Ha'penny, and Half a Crown, all reviewed here) are prominent examples. There are many others, of...
Cover image of "Super Sad True Love Story," a dystopian satire

Dystopian satire that’s both funny and troubling

Take a walk with Gary Shteyngart in the USA 10 or 15 years down the road. The dollar is pegged to the yuan, and a tyrannical right-wing government is in power. The divide between High Net Worth Individuals and Low is a chasm that cannot be spanned. The country is bogged down in a losing war in...
Cover image of "Present Danger" by Stella Rimington, one of the best spy novels recently

Do all the best spy novels come from Britain?

John le Carré. Eric Ambler. Graham Greene. Ian Fleming. Len Deighton. Frederick Forsyth. Somerset Maugham. Charles Cumming. Ken Follett. Alex Gerlis. Philip Kerr. Is that enough names to make the case that the best spy novels come from Britain? (Okay, maybe just in the English language.) Not that...
Cover image of "Sweet Taste of Liberty,"

Reparations for slavery—in the 19th century

Over the past decade, beginning with the police murders that triggered the Black Lives Matter movement, discussion of reparations for slavery has surfaced in public discourse across the United States. After all, some four million African-Americans were enslaved in 1860. And their descendants, the...
Hard-boiled detective: The Cut by George Pelecanos

A hard-boiled detective for the 21st century, with grit to spare

A review of The Cut, by George Pelecanos. @@@@ (4 out of 5). Spero Lucas navigates the dark streets of Washington, DC, with the ease of Philip Marlowe in L.A. In The Cut, we see Lucas at work on an ill-advised project for a big-time marijuana dealer: to recover three stolen shipments of pot for a 40% cut of their value.

Cover image of "48 States," a near future dystopia

Fascism tightens its grip in a near future America

Day by day as I write, evidence continues to surface about just how close we came to losing democracy in the United States. Right-Wing extremists and religious zealots nearly disrupted the peaceful transfer of power on January 6, 2021. They're still trying. And it's not too much of a stretch to...
Cover image of "The Woman Who Smashed Codes" by Jason Fagone, a book about a famous woman codebreaker

The woman codebreaker who caught gangsters and Nazi spies

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes When Richard Nixon asked Chou En-Lai in 1972 about the impact of the French Revolution, the Chinese Premier famously said, "It's too early to tell." That terse response is generally understood to illustrate the Chinese ability to take the long view of...
Cover image of "NeuroTribes," a book about autism

The story of autism, brilliantly told

Only in the last two decades has a consensus about autism developed among the psychiatrists, psychologists, and neurologists who traffic in the science of the mind. Even today, thousands, perhaps millions, flock to the defense of the quacks and charlatans who perpetuate the myth that autism is...
Cover image of "Sparks," which explores the truth about Chinese history

Digging out the truth about Mao Zedong

History exerts a powerful force on the present. Why else would battles rage over the historical record around the world? In the United States, for example, some insist slavery was the central driver in our history, while others fight back fiercely. And in Russia, where the Putin regime seeks to...

My Most Popular Reviews

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Mal Warwick - Book Reviews

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