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For more than 50 years John Clute has been reviewing science fiction and fantasy. As Scores demonstrates, his devotion to the task of understanding the central literatures of our era has not slackened. There are jokes in Scores, and curses, and tirades, and apologies, and riffs; but every word of every review, in the end, is about how we understand the stories we tell about the world.

Following on from his two previous books of collected reviews (Strokes and Look at the Evidence) this book collects reviews from a wide variety of sources, but mostly from Interzone, the New York Review of Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Weekly. Where it has seemed possible to do so without distorting contemporary responses to books, these reviews have been revised, sometimes extensively.

125 review articles, over 200 books reviewed in more than 214,000 words.

The Presences mean something different to each of Jubal’s colonists. In some, these towering crystals inspire awe, in others fear. A small band must break through the long silence between humanity and the Presences to strike a new alliance – and bring about the end of a tyrannical dynasty.

Sheri S. Tepper’s world has the depths of galaxies. Her characters come alive like stars burning in the black of space. The tale she tells will leave you astounded.

John Raven – the ex-cop with a taste for exotic adventures and voluptuous adventurers – is unexpectedly thrust into the thick of the action.

His Andalusian holiday turns out to be no picnic when he finds himself at the crossroads of the snow-white heroin trail and the blood-red trail of international murder . . .

‘A swift, stylish novel’ Publishers Weekly

Benny Rice is not what he seems to be. His tests for rebirth reveal all the necessary traits – compassion, health, energy, potential for creativity – but with the intelligence of a moron, which disqualifies him. But Benny’s test scores must be re-examined in a crisis that endangers the existence of rebirth – and threatens more than Benny’s life!

Dirk Wallace is handed a simple assignment – find out who’s blackmailing Mrs Thorsen’s daughter. Before long, Wallace realises that he’s up against some very organised crime.

And when things turn nasty, there’s only one thing to do. Wallace and his assistant quit the Acme Detective Agency and go it alone. There’s a score to be settled. And Dirk Wallace doesn’t want to have to play by the rules.

When Karl Rainer Andor came to Berlin for the last time it was sacrifice, not victory, that was uppermost in his mind. He intended to use the plutonium bomb he had elaborately planted to effect the reunification of Germany, but he didn’t expect to survive.

The ‘allied’ powers are concerned as much with scoring off each other as with finding the bomb – or with seducing or frightening Andor into telling them where it is. And eventually they are faced with the impossible task of evacuating the historic capital of Germany.

Anna, white-haired and grey-eyed, is born into the luxurious and mysterious family of Scarabae, a family of inhuman age and consuming passions. As she matures, it becomes clear that she shares some of their blood, for at three she appears sixteen, and holds knowledge known only to her dead sister Ruth… Suddenly Anna, along with a score of other children, is kidnapped and carried away to the end of the earth, to the pyramid hidden in the Southern ice that is home to the terrible immortal named Cain.

Tucker Loomis is a hard and dangerous man with a ruthlessness all West Bay fears and respects, and an improbable amount of money. Wade Rowley is a common man who aspires to honour but gets caught up in the footwork of a skilled swindler.

In a pitiless game, with a few harsh rules and just one way of keeping score, the wrong man will die. And another will get away with more than murder.

‘Lively, gritty … complex and convincing’ New York Times Book Review

Lou Fingerhut’s boxing career is finished, but a golden opportunity drops into his lap, one that could see him right for life. Soon he and his old ring mates, Goldie and China, are caught up in an ever-expanding net of crime and violence, chalking up a score of four murders and a jewel robbery.

With the police moving in at one end and a rival underworld gang at the other, it dawns on them that they’re in deeper than they could have imagined possible. Will they ever break out of this game alive?

Terminally ill Polish refugee Henryk Lamprecht, a decoder for British Security, has a score to settle with the Russian who killed his wife and daughter. As he is close to death, he has no time to lose when an opportunity he has been waiting for turns up.
But now, through a chance meeting with his old friend Zaleski, ex-cop John Raven is involved, and so is Lamprecht’s English sweetheart. And so the game of cat-and-mouse begins . . .

‘Donald MacKenzie is a born storyteller’ Guardian

His real name is Ul Quorn, but he is known throughout the Solar System as the Magician of Mars. With sheer scientific mastery and cunning he once terrorised the entire population of all nine planets – until Captain Future put an end to his evil deeds.

Now Ul Quorn has broken loose from the escape-proof Interplanetary Prison – a feat that was believed impossible. His plan to obtain wealth and power is more ingenious than ever before and more deadly to the System.

Soon he will be master of the Universe. But first he must settle a score with Captain Future…

As always, Jesse Falkenstein and Sergeant Clock have a score of cases on their hands, but Jesse is mainly interested in the murder of Margaret Brandon, a trance medium. He was her lawyer and liked her, and someone had gone to great efforts to make her death seem accidental.

But with so many suspects – the egocentric writer, the young lout, the nephew in line for an inheritance – both Falkenstein and Clock are at their wit’s end until their old acquaintance Mr Walker sends his comments from Hawaii – which might be just what they need to get a lead . . .

‘My favourite American crime-writer’ New York Herald Tribune

Helga Rolfe is blonde, beautiful, and bright enough to control her own multi-million pound empire. But not to control her secret weakness: sex. Former lover, Archer, knows it. He has an old score to settle with her and he needs cash. When handsome gigolo Christopher Greenville crosses his path, he’s found the way to both.

With Archer’s coaching, Chris cons Helga into wanting him badly enough to propose marriage, and when Archer fakes Chris’s kidnapping, she is ready to pay the huge ransom. But events take a frightening twist when the local Mafia join the action …

Against all expectations, Krispos has won the crown of Videssos. But how long could he hope to keep head and crown together?
For trouble was brewing in every quarter. Civil war erupted under Petronas, the late Emperor’s uncle. A brilliant general and a canny politician, Petronas had a very personal score to settle against the upstart Krispos.
And even as rebel troops took the field against the untried Emperor, outland raiders swept down from the northlands in a tide of carnage. The power stemmed from foulest sorcery, and Videssos’ wizards could not counter its evil curse.
Krispos’ reign showed every sign of being brief – and very bloody…

A chance sighting in a café in Amsterdam gives solicitor Rosa Epton an unwelcome shock. At a nearby table sits an ex-client who should be behind bars, having recently been sentenced to five years in prison. So what is Eddie Ruding doing in Amsterdam a few weeks later?

On her return to England, Rosa makes a few discreet enquiries, only to draw a blank. But just as she has decided to try to put the matter out of her mind, a newspaper report shocks her into action. Eddie Ruding has been found dead, his crumpled body lying at the foot of the walls of Wandsworth Prison.

Rosa, however, is not the only person on the dead man’s trail. Everyone from inquisitive journalists to MI5 appears to be taking an interest – and none so much as the dead man’s mother, a cockney matriarch with a score to settle.

QUARANTINED PLANET

“On Dephene, the native life -form is peculiar and unique. All protoplasmic life is equal to and one with the mimics.” On screen, the shape changed, altered into the shape of a man.

Then it changed. It shrank, dropped, lifted a snouted head in the semblance of a dog. It grew, spread wings and became a large bird which hopped and pecked. The wings vanished and a tall and lovely woman smiled from where the bird had halted. A dozen changes, a score until the mind reeled.

“These Mimics represent a threat to every world in the entire galaxy. Their power of mimicry would enable them to adopt the outward form of rulers and high officials. A man could never be certain that his companion was what he seemed to be.”

When Kennedy went to Delphene the speculation became pure nightmare, for both he and his crew were being duplicated over and over – and so was the worlds-conqueror he sought to block.