But Will I Like It?

3, 296.

At the time of writing, that is the number of Gateway eBooks published and on this website.

Quite a lot, isn’t it?

So how, one might reasonably ask, does a reader even begin to make sense of that many books, let alone chart a path through all of the authors and their works?

We’ve tried to provide some guidance through the spotlight titles on the Home page, through the Recently Recommended list in the sidebar and via our blog and Twitter activity, and now we’re trying another method: mini-reviews. We know some voracious readers, you might not be surprised to learn, and some of them have volunteered to write us short reviews of books they’ve enjoyed. We hope they’ll make it easier for readers to make decisions on where to start and what to read next in the vast echoing caverns of the Gateway.

And what better introduction to a maze than a rat . . .

Steam-powered black-smoke-belching domestic robots, filling themselves up from the living-room coal scuttle, may seem improbable, but in a way that’s just what modern robots do. Today the coal is burnt in a powerstation to create the steam that drives the turbines that produce more than half the electricity that charges the batteries, via the living room electric sockets, that power the robots. The gloriously anarchic Slippery Jim DiGriz is a rat, a stainless steel rat, a crook in a future where crookedness has been genetically removed from the entire human population. He provides the excitement that keeps the cops sane, gives them exhilarating car chases, invigorating shoot-outs and impossible crimes to solve. He keeps entire planetary businesses in work to provide security services to keep him out, insurance businesses to cover losses he might inflict, general industry to replace things he might steal. He runs enough for Tom Cruise, is devious enough for Benedict Cumberbatch, has enough humour for Nathan Fillion, shoots enough for Arnie (without killing anyone) and has more morality than the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

With his CV he’s a wanted man. Wanted, caught, enlisted, empowered. Slippery Jim DiGriz is going to be a cop.

One you’ve read this, and the rest of the series, and Deathworld, and Make Room! Make Room! try Burkett’s Sleeping Planet.

Keep an eye on the blog for more mini-reviews over the coming weeks!