Alex Perry's Blog

For whatever reason I havent got round to doing one of these for ages. Luckily I also lost a lot of my reading mojo a year or two ago, so its not as if I have hundreds of mini-reviews to catch up on. Still, this could be a long post, so strap into your listening-to-my-opinions-on-books-I-only-sort-of-half-remember-at-this-point seat and get comfy!

Based not in our world but one seemingly very similar, Senlin Ascends quickly veers into a sub-world which...

Apparently it’s World Mental Health Day today. Woo! Phaaaaaaa. (That was the sound of one of those party blower things.) Ceeee-le-brate good times, come on! Dun dun dun dun, dun, dun dun duuun!

People – and for once I’ll include myself in that category – sometimes use dates like this as convenient little nudges to write about our own experiences and assure each other that we’re not alone and that the support is there for those who need it. Being immersed in such positive vibes, it becomes eas...

I’ve been writing all my life, but it was only a few years ago, when I self-published The War of Undoing, prompting literally ones of pounds to roll into my bank account, that I began to feel okay about calling myself a writer. In a small way, I suppose, I saw this label as a reward for all the years I’d poured into that book, for having finally got it into a state where I could sell it (albeit at a permanent £1.99 price point) without feeling as if I was ripping people off.

But the truth is,...

Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

Pure, delicious, sit-back-and-let-it-consume-you fantasy. Not exactly the action-packed quest I went in expecting, but a leisurely-paced tale set mostly in and around Buckkeep, the home of the royal family of the Six Duchies, with all the intrigue and tensions you’d hope for from such a setting – along with an almost ludicrous quantity of dogs. Our mild-mannered protagonist FitzChivalry has many sides: half royal, half not, raised as a stable-boy, now...

I realise I only seem to post three things on this blog these days:

1) Nothing
2) Book reviews
3) Long-winded updates on the state of my own mental health

I will genuinely try to change that in the near future. There’s some quite exciting stuff going on with The War of Undoing and SPFBO 2017 which I haven’t even talked about here yet because I’m rubbish. I should also have another batch of book reviews up soon, when I finally finish up Robin Hobb’s delightful Farseer Trilogy. But for now all...

A crooked, nostalgic tale centering around a young man working at a video rental store, where disturbing video clips begin showing up on some of the tapes without explanation. Stylistically, Universal Harvester has a lot in common with the author’s debut Wolf in White Van – non-linear, cryptic, unsettling, and interested in people with unusual obsessions – but because of its horror story setup I can see many people (including me, to some extent) going...

Extreme honesty alert! If you don’t like reading unfiltered accounts of mental health stuff, don’t read this blog post. It even contains the words “my sex drive”, in that order. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

I know, I know. Mental Health Awareness Week was last week. I really meant to write this post then, but I was distracted by other things. Alternatively, by posting it today I’m making a statement on how we need to be aware of mental health all year round, not just for one week. Take your p...

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

I went into this book sceptical. While I enjoy fairytales, I feel like we’ve reached a point where the subversion of them is the norm, and the truly subversive thing to do would be to write some new ones instead of endlessly repurposing the ones we have. But The Book of Lost Things is an artifact of such power that this criticism melts before impact. It opens starkly, as the young protagonist loses his mother in some of the most painful pages I’ve...

Oh, January. Traditionally, my most garbagey month of the year. I’m not 100% sure why that is. Maybe it’s the fading afterglow of Christmas, with all its festive distractions and myriad excuses to mess about with friends. Maybe it’s seasonal affective disorder caused by the short days. In this case, I suppose it could be because one of the worst people in the world just became the president of America, or because my best friend just left to live in said dystopian nightmare land and I probably...

Hey there! I’d like you all to meet my new symbol!

This little guy tells you that I’ve already read a book some time ago before reading it again more recently – just so you don’t think I’ve got thirty-one years into life without having experienced the magic of His Dark Materials.

On that overly defensive note, let the book rambles commence!

I’d nearly finished this book when I discovered it’s the sequel to another book (A Wild Sheep Chase) which I hav...