Debut novelist Andrew Bannister comes to the genre with his talents fully formed in the ambitious, compulsively readable Creation Machine . . . [it] has everything: intriguing far-future societies, exotic extra-terrestrial races, artificial galaxies and alien machines dormant for millions of years. Bannister holds it all together with enviable aplomb.

Balancing bursts of action with expansive world-building, immersive prose and sharp dialogue, Bannister has written a colourful debut that conjures up the same kind of gnarly, lurid weirdness that made Iain M. Banks’ SF epics so memorable.

An excellent read that ticked the boxes for me. Augmented humans up to and including one as a cloud of nanomachines, Banksian drones and cruel politics. Grotesque and interesting alien life, and characters I cared about - all written in an engaging style.

A thrilling debut . . . delivers in spades everything I’m looking for in a Space Opera – imaginative settings, strange aliens, an arsenal of unusual weapons, and, most of all, characters I like and who I want to know what happens to them. This is a book that is fast-paced and stylish, but not one where its literary merits outweigh its sheer enthusiasm and sense of enjoyment . . . It reminded me of the first Peter F. Hamilton I read in its sense of epic-ness, or the first Iain (M.) Banks I read in its intelligent plotting and its sense of humour . . . I can’t recommend this one highly enough . . . should be a monster.

Bannister's a fresh, vivid and inventive voice, and Creation Machine's epic roller-coaster gives modern space opera a much-needed shot in the arm. The scale is Cinemascope, but he keeps a clear and intelligent focus on his characters, settings and ideas.

I really enjoyed Creation Machine: fast-paced, intelligent SF, action-packed and immersive.

Bannister's exemplary world building brings a sense of awe to Creation Machine - you can't help but marvel at his descriptive prowess . . . a beautiful space opera.

Great action, surprisingly morbid humour and great characters . . . enjoyable and accessible.

A spectacular plunge into the deep end of wide-screen space opera . . . such an engaging novel with a good plot, plenty of sense-of-wonder, style and brio propelling matters . . . with Creation Machine we could be witnessing the birth of a new star in the SFnal firmament. Sun glasses please, we are in The Spin.

If you enjoy fast-moving adventures set on strange planets and involving alien species, inventive technology, heroic class warriors, Machiavellian politics — and heavy drinking in space bars — you will welcome this new British writer with open arms. And, if you do, you’ll be pleased to hear that a sequel, set 10,000 years later, is due out any day.

It’s a poignant portrait, like stained glass; a rich picture made up of all the small stories that make up a marriage, that make up a life.

Tim Parks is a writer with acute perception of human nature.

Tim Parks, always sharp on domestic details… is good on the subtleties of office politics. And good on stormy passion, too.

Featured in 'Best Books for Children's and Teens 2017

This is an original and highly compelling read; heart-breaking on occasions, but ultimately uplifting

A heart-warming story about a space-obsessed boy's quest for answers

A poignant debut

emotional, raw, deeply moving and…funny too

...a really rather good YA crossover ... while Khorsandi's novel tackles some pretty big subjects, it does so while making you laugh out loud

I really couldn’t put this book down. It’s not just for young people but if you have a teenage daughter, please make her read it.

I am loving Shappi Khorsandi's Nina is Not OK, she is making me care about 'Nina' so much that I get anxious on her behalf

Thematically taut and compulsively paced.

A very good novel of anxiety, embarrassment and also, somehow, the depths of Englishness.

Marvellous, original and intelligent. Kunzru writes like a master storyteller... There's simply nothing [he] couldn't manage in prose

Publisher's description. Electrifying, subversive and wildly original, White Tears is a ghost story and a love story, a story about lost innocence and historical guilt. This unmissable novel penetrates the heart of a nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge and exploitation, and holding a mirror up to the true nature of America today.

Compulsively readable, masterly - a tour de force

Riveting from the very first page, I was completely addicted... A literary thriller and a timely, unsparing excavation of the very real spectre of race in America's past and present. White Tears is proof that Kunzru is one of the finest novelists of his generation...

Hari Kunzru is an incredibly versatile writer who is alert to the inequalities in the world... Powerful and complex, White Tears is a novel about abuses of wealth and power. Brilliantly orchestrated, unforgettable and devastating

Hari Kunzru is one of our most important novelists

Kunzru's engagingly wired prose and agile plotting sweep all before them

Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton shouldn't work, but its frail texture was a triumph of tenderness, and sent me back to her excellent Olive Kitteridge

A rich account of a relationship between mother and daughter, the frailty of memory and the power of healing

This physically slight book packs an unexpected emotional punch

A novel offering more hope

My Name Is Lucy Barton intrigues and pierces with its evocative, skin-peeling back remembrances of growing up dirt-poor.

Masterly