A sentient black hole passes through the solar system, and decides that it wants to have a friendly chat with the people of Earth. Or maybe it just wants to eat the planet and suck our brains, instead? Benford specialises in old-skool “scientist as hero” science fiction, and Eater is just that. A group of astronomers studying the Eater get drawn into the politics surrounding its approach. As well as trying to figure out the Eater’s motivations and capabilities, they also have to navigate the hazards of earthy power struggles, and a society on the brink of collapse in the face of a potential apocalypse. Unfortunately, Benford doesn’t catch the balance quite right with this one. It’s too heavy on the science, and the characters’ reactions don’t get much beyond fruitless emotional pleadings. It’s a fast read, but apart from the core idea, a forgettable one.

There are some books that an established author can get published but which, coming from a novice, would never see the light of day. It’s not always a question of quality, either. A “concept” book may only be saleable with a big name attached. This is a case in point.

The concept behind Changing Planes is that, given the right set of physical stimuli, a person can travel to other “planes” of existence, populated by intelligent nonhuman races. The stimuli in question include tiredness, boredom, and slight nausea. In our society, they’re best found in airports, waiting for delayed airplanes. In theory, you can spend the two-hour layover in O’Hare as a week-long holiday on some alien planet.

The book itself is a description of some of the other “planes”. Each description is almost entirely plot-free, and some are pretty heavily polemical. But the ideas are different enough, and intriguing enough, that Le Guin manages to sustain the idea for the entire book. She would be well-advised not to do a sequel, though.

Incompetence takes place in a near-future Europe, where anti-discrimination laws have been taken to extremes: no one can be denied employment (or discriminated against) on any basis – even simple incompetence. The results include blind airline pilots and a police chief with serious anger management problems (and a loaded gun). The plot is your basic espionage/thriller: the main character, a secret agent, travels through Europe trying to find out who killed his colleague, and incidentally getting framed for various crimes, beaten up, and having his shoes stolen along the way.

The book is of mixed quality. Some of the vignettes and short scenes are excellent (Such as when the main character talks his way onto a plane without a ticket by pretending to have short-term memory problems . He simply replays the same conversation with the stewardess until she gives up and lets him on board.) But in the end, the fast pace becomes frenetic, and all the amusing touches can’t disguise the book’s lack of such essential ingredients such as characterisation, or any complexity of plot.

If you like Grant’s other magnum opus (the TV series Red Dwarf), then you will probably like this book. If not, well, maybe give this one a miss.

Since becoming a parent, I’ve developed an almost allergic reaction to bad things happening to young children (babies, infants, and toddlers) in fiction and film. I first noticed this reaction when I was reading Michael Marshall Smith’s The Straw Men. There is a point about half-way through the book that literally took my breath away, and it took me a while before I was willing to carry on reading it. I had a similar reaction to No Second Chance.

The book starts with Dr. Marc Seidman being shot. He surfaces from unconsciousness twelve days later, and learns that his wife was shot and killed, and that his six-month-old daughter is missing. Then the ransom note arrives.

Like all of Harlan Coben’s books, No Second Chance is fast-paced and tightly plotted. In style and tone, it closely matches Tell No One. In that book, the protagonist thought his wife was dead, and fought throughout the book to find out what really happened to her; in No Second Chance the hero is struggling to get back his daughter. Both characters are completely devastated by their losses, and are driven to desperation by hopes of getting their loved ones back. Consequently, No Second Chance felt less fresh and original than Tell No One. Although I didn’t predict the final twist, it was obvious there was going to be one. I found it stretched the ending out just that little bit too far, though.

It’s a quick, thrilling read, but it’s not one of Coben’s best.

Three young people have been missing since Midsummer’s Day. Postcards from them have been arriving from all over Europe, but one of their mothers thinks that something is wrong. She thinks they aren’t travelling at all, and that the police should make efforts to track them down. Kurt Wallander has a nagging feeling she might be right, but it is only when his long-time colleague and friend Svedberg is murdered that his fears take a more sinister shape. He discovers that Svedberg had been conducting a secret investigation into the disappearance of the youngsters for a month already without telling anyone else. Was he killed because he was getting too close to the truth?

As well as being a well-constructed police thriller, I also found this a very intimate book. At the start, Wallander is diagnosed with diabetes. He also spends most of the book consumed with self-doubt and near-panic that he can’t cope with the stress of the investigation. Everyone around him knows that he is more than capable, but he has trouble seeing it himself. Consequently, he works himself into the ground to try and prove his worth, not only to his colleagues, but also to himself. He never grants himself a moment’s peace. I recognised a lot of myself in Wallander’s character, and reading the book actually felt therapeutic. It may not resonate with everyone in the same way, but even without the personal echoes, it’s still an excellent crime novel and a well-observed character study.