WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Sci-fi reviews with MAT COWARD: June 11, 2024
Steampunk Victoriana, time travel and Martian nativism
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
HIGH VAULTAGE by Chris and Jen Sugden (Gollancz, £22) is set in a steampunk version of 1887, where the Victorian mania for innovation has got somewhat out of control. London covers the whole of southern England, and is so dynamic that seeing an overview of it triggers a recognised medical condition. Queen Victoria herself is a monstrous figure, having been rebuilt after every successful assassination.
Another beneficiary of revitalisation is Archibald Fleet of Scotland Yard. Sadly, the paperwork doesn’t yet exist to deal with an officer who has been dead but isn’t any more. While he waits for the authorities to reinstate him, he runs the capital’s first ever private investigation agency with Clara, a young lady of high breeding and boundless pluck who yearns for a life of adventure.
Science fiction comedy is a very tricky thing to pull off, but this is constantly funny and inventive, and at times hilarious.
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