an excellent book

Exceptional military fantasy

The Coolest Fantasy Story You'll Read This Week

Extremely strong debut, flintlock fantasy at its best ... there’s a new military fiction cowboy in town and his name is Django.

I absolutely loved it. Wexler balances the actions of his very human characters with just the right amount of imaginative "magic" to keep me wanting more

Wexler has produced something unusual in the fantasy line, with a setting reminiscent of the early Victorian period, out on the bleeding edge of Empire, a world of dust and bayonets and muskets... and magic. The characters are fascinating and - all- of them have secrets ... I read it at a gulp and look forward to more

A spectacular epic

...Django Wexler does what needs to be done in the opening volume of a fantasy epic: he introduces the characters and sets the scene, then successfully peels back the layers and raises the stakes. If you enjoy military fantasy and/or flintlock fantasy, The Thousand Names is definitely worth a look.

And such detail on the military life! ... From camp conditions to battle tactics, to the lines of grand strategy, the authenticity of the military fantasy is here in full flower. We get set piece conflicts of all sorts, drills, the perils of trying to form a fighting force from raw units, and believeable campaigns, even given the genius of the commander. This is far and away the best and strongest selling point of the book.

The Thousand Names is an assured debut from Django Wexler and a must-read if you enjoy an action-packed, page-turner.

...an ambitious, well-written opening act. I can’t wait for book two, and I think most readers will feel likewise after reading this.

... I was very impressed with The Thousand Names and immediately dove into the sequel The Shadow Throne. Recommended.

Wexler’s polished military fantasy, first in the Shadow Campaign series, distinguishes itself from other epic doorstops with its unique setting, intricate plotting, and layered characters…This excellent series debut is for fans of Peter Brett, Daniel Abraham, and Joe Abercrombie.

The scenes of military life and combat tactics are well crafted.

Brilliant…a celebration of human ingenuity [and] the purest example of real-science sci-fi for many years…Utterly compelling.

Don’t be put off thinking this is a sci-fi book – it’s so much more than that. Utterly brilliant.

One of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long time, an incredible story about an astronaut marooned on Mars. This is no science fiction tale: the technology is beautifully researched and based on what is currently envisioned for a manned flight to Mars. It feels so real it could almost be nonfiction, and yet it has the narrative drive and power of a rocket launch. This is Apollo 13 times ten. I could not put this book down.

Gripping…shapes up like Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe as written by someone brighter.

The tension simply never lets up, from the first page to the last, and at no point does the believability falter for even a second. You can't shake the feeling that this could all really happen.

Weir has fashioned in Mark Watney one of the most appealing, funny and resourceful characters in recent fiction ... gripping

one of the best survival stories you’ll ever read (think Robinson Crusoe on Mars only more extreme).

Sharp, funny and thrilling, with just the right amount of geekery.

Apollo 13-meets-Robinson-Crusoe-on-Mars, and I guess for those who enjoyed the films Gravity or Moon, this one will be a literary equivalent ... I was, in the end, totally won over by this book in its celebration of how humans can deal with anything the harshness of science and extreme environments can pose, and it kept me reading longer than I meant to

one of the most thrilling and absorbing novels I have ever read

Riveting...a tightly constructed and completely believable story of a man's ingenuity and strength in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Weir combines the heart-stopping with the humorous in this brilliant debut novel... the perfect mix of action and space adventure.

An exciting, insightful science- based tale [that] kept me turning the pages to see what ingenious solution our hero would concoct to survive yet anotherimpossible dilemma

A potent brew of fame, sexual power, hypocrisy and bad men.

A powerful novel.

Actress is a fabric of musings… The characters in Enright’s novels are absorbing because they seem recognisable in an unassuming way: they’re as lovely, boring and complex as the people outside the books.

Enright, herself a former actress, captures all the comedy and pathos that comes from living the strange, unreal life of an actor.

A raw, tender portrayal of a woman undone by her work, and the men who control it. Seamlessly wrought, it is quite bewitching.

Actress is a poignant tale of the vicissitudes of fame and its effects on the loved ones of the famous.

Compelling.

The next stage in an illustrious writing career… stuffed full of dark wit, memorable lines and striking images.

Enright is to Dublin as Didion is to California.

I've just started reading Anne Enright's Actress. I very much enjoyed her previous novel, The Green Road. This one has glorious lines even in the opening pages.

I would definitely recommend Actress by Anne Enright, it is her at her very best.

Few reviews said how absolutely hilarious [Actress] is. Enright skewers beautifully those creepy provincial aesthetes of Dublin of the sixties and seventies.

Enright is formidable in combining the concrete detail of lives – think of the extraordinary array of sibling portraits in her last novel, The Green Road – with an acute understanding of the inchoate lives of families: the push and pull of loyalty; the projection of desires; the smothering of disappointment and unhappiness. Here she conjures [a] rollicking story.

A rich, impressively imagined work about a stage and screen star who may never have existed but seems considerably more human than many real-life figures as seen through their own eyes or those of any but the finest biographers.

This story is about mothers and daughters, but also secrets in families and women in Ireland. It's an easy read, with a quintessentially Irish tone... It's brilliant.

Anne Enright's brilliant novel is a darkly glittering account of the cost to both the mother and her daughter of Katherine's complicated fame.

A gem from a former Booker winner.

Anne Enright['s]...writing is simply glorious. Comedy and tragedy in one.