Some people treat kids with kid gloves. But not Nick Cutter who, in his horror novel The Troop (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), subjects a bunch of scouts to an unspeakable horror you wouldn’t wish on someone twice their age. Though in talking to Cutter — whose real name is easily found online — it’s clear this Canadian writer actually likes children…well, when it comes to his books, at least.
For many writers, penning a story about an astronaut stranded on Mars would ultimately lead to some such sci-fi elements as little green men or an ancient civilization destroyed by some unknown danger.
But in his first novel, The Martian (paperback, Kindle), Andy Weir is taking a different approach; a more realistic one that eschews sci-fi tropes, and makes this more of a thriller and a disaster movie in book form.