Books on my radar...

The whole ‘themed month’ thing seems to have totally fallen by the wayside; I’m not giving up on it completely but I’ve found that a lot of (if not all of) the books on that particular pile aren’t screaming at me to be read right now. If that wasn’t bad enough, reading time has been hard to come by of late (for a whole load of reasons that you’re really not interested in hearing about) so you’ll have to wait a couple of days before the reviews kick in again. Sorry about that; normal service will hopefully review soon, promise!

That left me with a bit of a blank space to fill today until, as per usual, the ol’ reading pile hit me with a little inspiration. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself poring over your ‘to read’ pile making up little lists of books that have caught your eye (for whatever reason) and planning to read them very soon. Whether you actually do or not is another matter entirely and one that I know only too well! I was running my eye over the pile last night and a few books caught my attention. I’m not promising anything (especially after pretty much breaking a promise to read only books that I’ve promised to read this month!) but I wouldn’t mind giving all these a go before Christmas. I’m notoriously fickle with my reading right now so, like I said, it’s also entirely likely that something shinier will catch my eye in the meantime. We’ll see how it goes...

Before I get on to any of those books though, I’m currently working my way through Nick Kyme’s ‘Firedrake’ and having some fun while I’m there. It’s an entertaining read but, at the moment, Kyme hasn’t quite done enough with it to break into the ranks of my favourite Black Library Writers. I’m only just over halfway through though so there’s plenty of time yet for things to change. Look out for a review early next week. Mark, over at My Favourite Books, has written a review if you fancy a look.

Right, onto those books that have caught my eye...

‘Helfort’s War Book 4: The Battle for Commitment Planet’ – Graham Sharp

It doesn’t usually stop me but I’m normally a little wary about starting a series on the fourth book. The blurb here convinced me otherwise...

It was insane, it was suicidal, it was wrong -
and by God he was going to do it.

The Hammer Worlds have Helfort exactly where they want him. The ultimatum is brutal and precise. Unless the Federated hero surrenders, the Hammer World's prisoner Anna Cheung - the only woman Helfort has ever loved - will be handed over to a bunch of depraved troopers to be violated, then executed by firing squad.

Helfort can obey, or he can do what the crew proposes: sail his three frontline dreadnoughts into the Hammers' stronghold Commitment Planet, liberate Anna and the rest of the POWs held captive there, and continue the fight in the jaws of the enemy. Helfort's decision? Bring it on!

I just love the whole sense of honesty in this blurb. You know exactly what you’re getting here; there may not be a lot to ponder over but you can bet that the explosions will be really cool. Like the blurb says, bring it on!

‘The Silent Land’ – Graham Joyce

This one actually arrived in the post a couple of days ago but favourable reviews elsewhere have prompted me to check this one out fairly soon (as well as the fact that I really enjoyed ‘The Tooth Fairy’). Check out what Adam and Niall have to say. Once you’ve done that, have a look at the blurb for this one...

A young couple are caught in an avalanche during a ski-ing holiday in the French Alps. They struggle back to the village and find it deserted. As the days go by they wait for rescue, then try to leave. But each time they find themselves back in the village. And, increasingly, they are plagued by visions and dreams and the realization that perhaps no-one could have survived the avalanche. THE SILENT LAND is a brooding and tender look at love and whether it can survive the greatest challenge we will ever face.

I think I know where this one is going and I’m just going to have to read ‘The Silent Land’ and see if I’m correct...

‘The Last Page’ – Anthony Huso

I don’t normally pay too much attention to cover quotes but this one by Glen Cook grabbed me,

"A first novel of unusual scope, power, and imagination that, for me, had much of the sense of wonder feel of Kuttneresque science fantasy set in a grownup world filled of real people desperately trying to cope.  I loved it."

I haven’t seen much of Glen Cook online but from what I have seen, he isn’t normally this enthusiastic (yep, I’m thinking of the interview that Pat did with him)... I’ll be checking this one out just to see what all the fuss is about. Here’s the blurb in the meantime,

The city of Isca is set like a dark jewel in the crown of the Duchy of Stonehold. In this sprawling landscape, the monsters one sees are nothing compared to what’s living in the city’s sewers.
Twenty-three-year-old Caliph Howl is Stonehold’s reluctant High King. Thrust onto the throne, Caliph has inherited Stonehold’s dirtiest court secrets. He also faces a brewing civil war that he is unprepared to fight. After months alone amid a swirl of gossip and political machinations, the sudden reappearance of his old lover, Sena, is a welcome bit of relief. But Sena has her own legacy to claim: she has been trained from birth by the Shradnae witchocracy—adept in espionage and the art of magical equations writ in blood—and she has been sent to spy on the High King.
Yet there are magics that demand a higher price than blood. Sena secretly plots to unlock the Cisrym Ta, an arcane text whose pages contain the power to destroy worlds. The key to opening the book lies in Caliph’s veins, forcing Sena to decide if her obsession for power is greater than her love for Caliph.
Meanwhile, a fleet of airships creeps ever closer to Isca. As the final battle in a devastating civil war looms and the last page of the Cisrym Ta waits to be read, Caliph and Sena must face the deadly consequences of their decisions. And the blood of these conflicts will stain this and other worlds forever.

‘Corum’ – Michael Moorcock
Because I really enjoyed working my way through the ‘Runestaff’ series and fancy having a go at another of Moorcock’s ‘Eternal Champion’ series. This particular book collects ‘The Knight of the Swords’, ‘The Queen of the Swords’ and ‘The King of the Swords’. I’m not sure if this will come in three separate reviews or just the one though, we’ll see...

I may not read these books straight away but these are the ones on my radar right now. Any of them grabbed your attention? And what books have piqued your interest in general...?

‘Gilded Latten Bones’ – Glen Cook (Roc)

I’ve read more than my fair share of Glen Cook’s work and have had a great time doing so (and there’s more to read yet...). One area that I haven’t delved too deeply into though, as yet, is his ‘Garrett PI’ series; the ongoing tales of a private detective trying to make a living on the mean streets on Tunfaire. I had a very brief look with ‘Whispering Nickel Idols’ but found that the setting didn’t work me that time round. To be fair though, I was diving in right at the (then) most current book in the series so will quite happily admit that I was perhaps missing out on a lot of stuff that I could have picked up earlier on.
Also, I’ve got a real soft spot for the way that Cook just tells it how it is. None of that flowery stuff, this is the way it happened and if you don’t like it... well, you know where the door is. I’ve been missing that just recently so ‘Gilded Latten Bones’ seemed like the ideal way to get a good dose as well as seeing if maybe I was a little harsh on the series first time round...

Garrett is living the good life these days, swapping private eye work for regular security work in the Tate factory, although he’s wondering if there’s more to life than this. His girlfriend, Tinnie Tate, wouldn’t agree as she’s got her man just where she wants him. At least, this is all the case until his rooms are broken into by thugs paid to kidnap Tinnie (they’re not sure who hired them though...)
And then one of Garrett’s oldest friends is found full of knife wounds and not so far away from death’s door. Are the two cases related? Will Garrett survive to find out the answer to this question? One thing is for certain, Garrett is back on the streets and doing what he does best; fumbling blindly for clues until everything falls into place...

I don’t know if it was a case of ‘Whispering Nickel Idols’ not being the best place to start or if it was the way that this particular story panned out. It might have even been the fact that I’m a little more used to the setting now after having read Alex Bledsoe’s ‘Eddie LaCrosse’ books (do check them out by the way). Whatever it was, something just clicked for me while I was reading ‘Gilded Latten Bones’. The book isn’t without its flaws but I couldn’t get enough of it while I was reading. I’d say that fans of Garrett are going to lap this one up; it has certainly encouraged me to start seeking out the rest of the series.

‘Gilded Latten Bones’ is one of those rare books where both established fans and newcomers will get a lot out of the story. The book hearkens back to events in prior books but this is done in such a way that it doesn’t detract from the story itself and is accessible for newer readers such as myself.  If this wasn’t enough, the nature of the case lends a real ‘stand alone’ feel to the book. If you’ve read earlier books in the series then you will get more out of ‘Gilded Latten Bones’; don’t let that put you off though if you haven’t.

As the story progressed, the main draw for me was the character of Garrett himself. Not only ins Garrett an interesting character to follow in his own right (more on that in a bit) but, for one reason and another, Cook doesn’t have Garrett do a lot of the actual investigating; preferring instead to keep him cooped up in the house where all the information gradually flows back to. It’s an interesting approach whereby a lot of the story seems to pass Garrett by and he’s constantly trying to catch up with what is going on. The upshot is a story that is in equal parts as fascinating as it is infuriating.

The fascination comes in seeing how Garrett’s character stands up to returning to his old life; Garrett’s enforced inactivity gives him a lot of time to reflect on this. It turns out that our Garrett is one to duck responsibility wherever he can but he now has no choice but to face up to the consequences that his actions have had on old friends. This makes for some very interesting moments where Garrett’s character is laid bare and he has nowhere to hide and a surprising upshot of this is Garrett’s realisation that he can have exactly the life he wants if he’s prepared to work at it. I really got into this progression, it was a lot of fun to see those wheels turn over in Garrett’s mind and there are a few poignant moments to be had on the way.

The downside is that you’re basically reading a story where the main character (the guy it’s all focussed on) is sidelined while the largest chunk of the action happens offstage. There are a couple of moments where the magic starts flying, in the best way, but these are the exception rather than the rule. As a result, the book settles into a routine where Garrett hears a knocking on the door and then talks to the person who enters. While you’ll be surprised at just how much this moves the plot forward, it does get repetitive very quickly and slows the pace down when perhaps things really wanted to get going. I didn’t mind it as such because it meant I got to hang out with characters that I really grew fond of; you might want to bear it in mind though.

The story itself is pretty much what you would expect from any novel involving a private eye thrown in at the deep end. There are a lot of twists and turns to the plot and Cook had me wanting to sift through all the clues and dead ends in order to find out what happened next (or even what was happening at all). I wasn’t so keen on what the ‘big cover up’ eventually turned out to be (there was a lot of build up for something that ended up being quite simple) but I had fun getting there and it does open up some interesting possibilities for future books.

‘Gilded Latten Bones’ was a stodgy read at times but a read that never earned anything less than my full attention throughout. Not only will I be reading Garrett’s future adventures but now I find myself in the position of having to catch up with those that he has already had...

Eight and Three Quarters out of Ten

One for 2011? ‘The Unremembered’ – Peter Orullian

Because the reading isn’t going as quickly as it normally does so I thought it could be cool to look at what I might be reading next year...

I found mention of this over at Aidan’s site and the cover art immediately piqued my interest. Seriously, check it out. Isn’t that gorgeous? There’s the kind of picture that I wouldn’t mind having on my living room wall. Unfortunately, the blurb doesn’t have quite the same affect...

The gods, makers of worlds, seek to create balance—between matter and energy; and between mortals who strive toward the transcendent, and the natural perils they must tame or overcome. But one of the gods fashions a world filled with hellish creatures far too powerful to allow balance; he is condemned to live for eternity with his most hateful creations in that world’s distant Bourne, restrained by a magical veil kept vital by the power of song.

Millennia pass, awareness of the hidden danger fades to legend, and both song and veil weaken. And the most remote cities are laid waste by fell, nightmarish troops escaped from the Bourne. Some people dismiss the attacks as mere rumor. Instead of standing against the real threat, they persecute those with the knowledge, magic and power to fight these abominations, denying the inevitability of war and annihilation. And the evil from the Bourne swells….

The troubles of the world seem far from the Hollows where Tahn Junell struggles to remember his lost childhood and to understand words he feels compelled to utter each time he draws his bow. Trouble arrives when two strangers—an enigmatic man wearing the sigil of the feared Order of Sheason and a beautiful woman of the legendary Far—come, to take Tahn, his sister and his two best friends on a dangerous, secret journey. Tahn knows neither why nor where they will go. He knows only that terrible forces have been unleashed upon mankind and he has been called to stand up and face that which most daunts him—his own forgotten secrets and the darkness that would destroy him and his world.

So, looks like we’ve got a case of ‘boy with a mysterious past has to save the world from evil’ going on here... The question then is not so much whether we’re getting something original here, more of a case of whether Orullian is going to be able to give us something fresh using the same old ingredients... I still find myself in the mood for a good ol’ quest story every now and then; I wouldn’t say ‘The Unremembered’ ranks as a highly anticipated release but I will check it out. Look out for this one in April next year (from Tor).

‘The Walking Dead’ (Part 1)

If you haven’t been reading the comics, or you’re even slower than I am at getting to watch the TV show, then there’s probably going to be a couple of spoilers lurking in here. You might want to consider that before diving in...

Still here? Good...

Robert Kirkman’s ‘The Walking Dead’ is quite frankly an awesome piece of comic book fiction, pulling no punches in showing us just what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a full on zombie apocalypse. There aren’t many books that make me gasp and go “Oh, f...!” ‘The Walking Dead’ does this frequently and that’s why I’ll be there until the bitter end.

When I heard that there was going to be a TV adaptation... Well, you should have seen the little dance I did up and down the stairs followed by the ‘zombie lurch’ to the kitchen. Normally I’d be a little concerned about my favourite books getting the TV treatment but not this time. Speaking as a fan, ‘The Walking Dead’ is so great that it would be practically impossible to screw up on the small screen. You would have thought, wouldn’t you...?

You thought right, the first episode was nothing short of enthralling and has me feeling that good things are assured for the rest of the episodes.

Sherriff’s Deputy Rick Grimes is shot in the line of duty and wakes up to find that a lot has changed while he was in hospital. Everyone else seems to have vanished for a start, apart from the half eaten corpse on the floor... It soon becomes apparent that the dead have returned to eat the living, all Rick is concerned about is finding his wife and son but is Atlanta really the place to find them or will he find something else waiting for him?

The first thing that struck me was how quiet this episode was. You can have as much wreckage strewing the landscape as you like but it’s the background noise that really lets you know what’s gone down; it’s really quiet because there’s no-one left. This almost complete absence of noise really sucked me in and when something did happen I jumped all the more. That’s not to say the producers didn’t do a good job with the landscape though with scenes like the outside of the hospital and all the abandoned cars heading out of the city really setting the right tone. Zombies are zombies wherever you go so there weren’t exactly any surprises in how they looked. They were used effectively though. As is the case in the book, it’s not so much about the zombies as it is the characters and how they deal with the zombies.

Andrew Lincoln does a great job as Rick, maybe a little darker than the ‘Rick in the book’ but it still works. There isn’t a lot for him to say (he’s on his own for large chunks of the episode) but you really get a sense of the determination that’s driving Rick on and how nothing’s going to stop him. The real star of the piece for me though was  Lennie James as Morgan Jones, the father who is hiding out in Rick’s neighbour’s place. The moment where he’s sat upstairs looking through the sight on his gun is heartbreaking...

The ending, in Atlanta, deviates from the book a little but the cliff hanger it leaves us more than makes up for that. You would not believe how much I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the next episode (even though I know how it’s going to go)!

The 'Whose stupid idea was it to have a themed month?' Competition Winner's Post.

I'm full of good intentions but also have an attention span similar to that of my six and a half month old daughter at the moment... The plan was to only read books this month that I'd specifically promised to read; all well and good but what do you do when you can't get into any of them and all the other books on the shelves suddenly look a lot more tempting...? This could be the 'shortest themed' month on record but if I don't add a few more books to the mix then I'll probably end up not reading anything at all! Oh well, we'll see how it goes...

In the meantime, I have a few competition winners to announce :o) Thanks to everyone who entered the 'Ulysses Quicksilver' and 'Tomes of the Dead' competitions over the last week. I had just over three hundred entries, all in all, so thanks for helping my email inbox feel all smug and well fed!
There could only be a certain number of winners though and they were...

'Best of Tomes of the Dead'

Carmen Wing, Kent, UK
Angie Thomas-Davis, Cardiff, UK

'The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus'

Susan Wood, Edinburgh, UK
Anna Bakes, East Yorkshire, UK

Well done to all the winners, your books will be on their way very soon. Better luck next time everyone else...

One for 2011? 'Midnight Riot' (Ben Aaronovitch)

A really quick one today as I'm off out to buy armfuls of flowers in a minute (no, really... I might have to hand my 'Man Card' back at this rate!) but I got an advance copy in the post yesterday and the first couple of pages really hooked me. Del Rey are publishing this, in the US, in January next year (Gollancz are publishing it in the UK, not quite sure when though) and I reckon it could be one to look out if you like your urban fantasy to be a little more thoughtful than the usual fare. Check out the blurb...

Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he’ll face is a paper cut. But Peter’s prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter’s ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.

Like I said, the first couple of pages have pretty much guaranteed that I'll be reading until the end. What do you think?

‘The Fall’ – Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan (Harper Collins)

I wouldn’t say I’ve given it a great deal of thought but, then again, I don’t really need to. The bottom line is this, vampires do not sparkle. Not only do vampires not sparkle but they certainly don’t spend time getting into intense relationships with humans either. Why is this? Because they’re vampires dammit! The only time a two hundred year old  vampire will be even remotely interested in a high school girl (or feisty yet vulnerable vampire hunter, you know the drill...) is when he needs to grab a bite to eat. How is being able to ‘sparkle’ going to help a vampire get his food (other than when people like me are laughing so hard that we can’t run away)? It isn’t and that’s why vampires don’t sparkle. Vampires are animals only interested in domination over the food chain...
This thinking has slowly but surely driven me away from most urban fantasy and back towards the vampires of horror fiction. The only problem is that there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot of vampire fiction out there (at least, as far as I can tell). Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s ‘The Strain’ looked like it was going to buck this trend last year but I never got hold of a copy to see if this would prove to be the case. I wasn’t going to make that mistake a second time so when ‘The Fall’ was published back in September I made sure to get myself a copy to read.
It’s taken me a while to get round to ‘The Fall’ but it was worth the wait. That’s not to say it wasn’t without its faults though...

Following the events of ‘The Strain’, human incompetence and greed has seen the vampire infection take root in New York City and start to breed. The city is slowly falling apart under the strain and citizens must battle a menace that they can barely bring themselves to believe in.
Ephraim Goodweather couldn’t get the city officials to act on his suspicions and now he must do what he can to hold things together and deny the vampires their final foothold. However, despite the help of a motley gang of allies, Goodweather has a battle on his hands that will be lost one way or another. The vampire master is putting the final touches together on a plan decades old, a plan that no-one else will be able to fully grasp until it is too late. If this wasn’t enough for Goodweather to deal with, he must also work out how to stop his vampire ex-wife from doggedly pursuing their only son...

Every now and then I like to jump straight into the middle of a series and see how the book in question stands up in its own right. I never expect things to go one way or the other here; it’s just an interesting exercise really. In the case of ‘The Fall’ (middle book in a trilogy) I’d advise you all to go back and start right from the very beginning. There are brief passages that recall events from ‘The Strain’ but, overall, the assumption is made that you’ve read the first book and are good to go with the second. You can tell that ‘The Fall’ picks up things a matter of minutes after the closing events of ‘The Strain’ and the pace of those opening chapters doesn’t leave a lot of time for hangers on who have only just joined the party. That’s fair enough really, there’s a lot going on and there’s no time for needless info-dumps is there?

What had me more than a little bemused then was Del Toro and Hogan’s insistence on spraying the text with a whole load of other info-dumps. We’re talking about the history of a certain neighbourhood, character (I’m thinking of Angel here) or government organisation. This has the inevitable affect of slowing things up, more often than not when you know that things are about to get interesting. The pacing suffers badly at times and I was left wondering quite what the rationale was when the authors decided to go with these info-dumps instead of something that would have made the book more accessible to a casual reader picking the series up for the first time.

Once I got past this irritating feature though, I found ‘The Fall’ to be a very entertaining read; certainly a book that kept me reading with a description of vampire infestation that had me thinking of Robert McCammon’s ‘They Thirst’. The crumbling of life in Manhattan is portrayed superbly and really had me invested in finding out what happened to the characters who were trying to make their way through the chaos. When it all goes down, the fight scenes are also well choreographed and worth the price of entry. Del Toro and Hogan do well to have the vampires as physically superior but still able to die from a variety of means (apparently Del Toro was involved in the ‘Blade’ films and you can really see this here). This makes the fights more well matched and able to maintain interest in the reader. The authors are not afraid to get really down and dirty in these moments and you can almost feel the punches as they are thrown.

The outcome isn’t really in any doubt but that’s more to do with the fact that ‘The Fall’ is setting things up the finale in the next book. However, I didn’t like the inclusion of Goodweather’s diary entries in the book (there to explain how humanity initially collapsed in the face of the vampires). The fact that he’s writing them at some undetermined point in the future suggests an outcome to the story that I really don’t want to know just yet. I’d rather read the finale and find out myself...

‘The Strain’ isn’t without its flaws but (for the most part) rises above these to become a thoroughly entertaining vampire tale that shows it’s anaemic urban fantasy brethren just how it should be done. I may not have the time to go back and read the first book but I will definitely be around to see how it all ends...

Eight and a Half out of Ten

Cover Art - 'Pirate Sun' (Karl Schroeder)

Do you have the slightest idea what’s happening here? Nope, me neither... Isn’t it great though? Lots of crazy stuff blowing up and some guy on a jet bike who looks like he was out for his morning ride and has been caught by surprise by unfolding events around him. It happens to us all sometimes...

Luckily, the title is on hand to let us know that this is ‘Pirate Sun’, book three of Karl Schroeder’s ‘Virga’ series. Check out the blurb,

In the balloon world of Virga, Venera Fanning has fled from Spyre, and Chaison Fanning is suddenly rescued from prison. He falls in with two others from the same clink, Darius Martor and Richard Reiss, and Antaea Argyre of the Virga home guard. They set off, Chaison to confront the ruler who left him to rot for a crime he didn’t commit, and Antaea for her own complex reasons involving the still-mysterious world outside the bubble of Virga. Chaison still hopes to reunite with Venera, of whose adventures he has no inkling. All are caught up in the webs of those who want the key to Candesce, and the power that would come with it, for themselves.

I’m not normally one for ‘hard sci-fi’ but I did have a lot of fun reading Schroeder’s ‘Queen of Candesce’ way back in 2007. The series seemed to drop off the radar for a bit (well, my radar...) but is back with an omnibus edition of the first two books and ‘Pirate Sun’ in trade paperback, ‘The Sunless Countries’ in hardback and a fifth book to follow in 2012. I’ve got some serious catching up to do with this series (I never read the first book...) but, if ‘Queen of Candesce’ is anything to go by, I think I’m in for a good time. In the meantime, have any of you been reading this series? And what do you think of the cover art? I’m going for ‘confusing but cool’...

Macmillan Audio's Towers of Midnight autographed copy giveaway!

From the press release...

To celebrate the recent release of TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT—which will be hitting the Nov 12 NYT Bestseller List at #1—Macmillan Audio will be offering Wheel of Time fans the chance to win a free copy of the ToM audiobook edition, signed by co-author Brandon Sanderson. The contest begins this morning and will run through the weekend, ending midnight on Sunday. Three winners will be picked at random and notified Monday morning.

TO ENTER: Visit Macmillan Audio’s fan page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MacmillanAudio and post on our wall what you love most about the Wheel of Time.


I actually got this email yesterday evening, so the competition has already begun, but you've still got plenty of time to enter. While you're all posting stuff on the Facebook wall, I still need to read 'The Gathering Storm'...

‘The Even’ – T.A. Moore (Morrigan Books)

One of the things I love about running this blog is how it regularly throws books at me that I would never have thought to check out but end up really enjoying. Of course, the flip side of this are the books that I would never have thought to check out and end up not getting on with at all... Still, you never know which way it’s going to go until you give it a try.
Luckily for me (especially in this themed month of ‘books that I’ve promised to read’), T.A. Moore’s ‘The Even’ ended up falling firmly into the first camp. It’s a tiny read (an incredibly slim one hundred and sixty four pages long) but still manages to pack a lot into those few pages. While it doesn’t necessarily succeed with this approach I still had a great time with the story and would be more than happy to read more in this setting.

In the point where reality and unreality almost collide lies the city of The Even; an ever-changing metropolis of forgotten gods, mystical fey and even a few humans, all ruled over by the capricious demon Yekum. Eternity is a long time to live in the same city, even if it is constantly changing, and certain jaded immortals are looking to bring about the Apocalypse; the only thing that The Even hasn’t seen happen yet.
The only person standing in their way is Faceless Lenith, the forgotten Etruscan god of death and hopeless gambler. When she is offered the chance to clear all her debts Lenith agrees to help a mysterious benefactor rescue a demon from the Land of the Dead. There is far more to this job though and Lenith must decide whether her own weary cynicism is enough reason to let The Even finally die...

I’ve mentioned this before but one of my favourite things about speculative fiction are the cityscapes that it throws up for me to walk through. The ‘whys’ of that are perhaps something for another time but suffice it to say that I will enjoy finding my way through the winding alleyways of places like New Crobuzon, Villiren and Ambergris. The Even is a totally different kind of city to these three places but it shares a lot of the same traits and has swiftly become a place that I’m looking forward to visiting again and again.
Cities anywhere (fictional or otherwise) have their own characteristics that mark them out as unique in comparison to others and Moore brings this knowledge to The Even, marking it out as a place where you’ll feel like you’re visiting it for the first time. I’ll admit that a city full of forgotten gods isn’t exactly an original setting but, in the case of The Even, you’ll feel like it is this time round. Moore achieves this by concentrating on the sense of ennui that drifts around the more powerful gods (one in particular) who have done it all and need to fill up the rest of eternity. By contrasting this with the regular denizens, who have plenty to do trying to survive, Moore gives us a city at odds with itself in a unique way and a setting that’s worth sticking around for. Lenith stands out as perhaps the one character that really understands The Even and it’s her acceptance of this that drives the plot forward in the best way, towards a conclusion with a neat little twist in the tail.

Having said all that, the plot does suffer a little in terms of the space it has to grow in and the fact that, at least as I saw it, more attention was paid to developing the background scenery than fleshing out the plot. There’s nothing wrong with the plot per se; like I said, there’s a neat twist at the end and everything fits together very well. It just felt a little bare and linear to me. Lenith may not have the time to do much else but even the minor diversions in the plot feel like part of a journey from A to B rather than a journey that’s a little more varied. The ending is left open for more to come though, from The Even, so maybe this approach will change.

‘The Even’ isn’t without its flaws (a lack of balance and a plot begging to be fleshed out more) but a flawed gem is better than no gem at all and that’s what this book is. I was captivated and now I want to read more.

Nine and a Quarter out of Ten

One for 2011? ‘The Warlord’s Legacy’ – Ari Marmell

After Christmas last year, I thought it could be fun to have an advance look at books due out in 2010 and the first of these was Ari Marmell’s ‘The Conqueror’s Shadow’ (preview here and review here). I had some fun doing this so thought I would kick things off a little earlier this time round. Fittingly enough, first up for the preview treatment is Ari Marmell’s ‘The Warlord’s Legacy’, sequel to ‘The Conqueror’s Shadow’.Check out the blurb (beware of spoilers though if you haven’t read the first book already)...

Corvis Rebaine, the Terror of the East, a man as quick with a quip as he is with a blade, returns in this highly anticipated sequel to Ari Marmell’s acclaimed The Conqueror’s Shadow, a debut hailed for its refreshing take on dark fantasy and surprising flashes of sharp, sarcastic wit. Now Marmell raises the stakes in a story that has all the humor and excitement of its predecessor, plus a terrifying new villain so evil that he may well be a match for Rebaine himself.

For let’s not forget how Corvis Rebaine came by the charming nickname “Terror of the East.” Certainly no one else has forgotten. Corvis Rebaine is no hero. In his trademark suit of black armor and skull-like helm, armed with a demon-forged axe, in command of a demonic slave, and with allies that include a bloodthirsty ogre, Rebaine has twice brought death and destruction to Imphallion in pursuit of a better, more equitable and just society. If he had to kill countless innocents in order to achieve that dream, so be it. 

At least that was the old Rebaine. Before he slew the mad warlord Audriss. Before he banished the demon Khanda. Before he lost his wife and children, who could not forgive or forget his violent crimes. Now, years later, Rebaine lives in a distant city, under a false name, a member of one of the Guilds he despises, trying to achieve change non-violently, from within the power structure.

Not even when the neighboring nation of Cephira invades Imphallion and the bickering Guilds prove unable to respond does Rebaine return to his old habits of slaughter. But someone else does. Someone wearing Rebaine’s black armor and bearing what appears to be his axe. Someone who is, if anything, even less careful of human life than Rebaine was.

Now Baron Jassion, Rebaine’s old nemesis, is hunting him once more, aided by a mysterious sorcerer named Kaleb, whose powers and secrets make him a more dangerous enemy than Rebaine has ever known. Even worse, accompanying them is a young woman who hates Corvis Rebaine perhaps more than anyone else: his own daughter, Mellorin. Suddenly Rebaine seems to have no choice. To clear his name, to protect his country, and to reconcile with his family, must he once again become the Terror of the East?

‘The Conqueror’s Shadow’ was perhaps a little too sarcastic for it’s own good, the characters all ended up sounding very similar to one another. Despite this though, I had a lot of fun reading ‘The Conqueror’s Shadow’ and am looking forward to picking up the sequel sometime soon, it’s certainly an entertaining read. How about you? Did you read ‘The Conqueror’s Shadow’ this year? What did you think?

If you live in the US then you can expect to see ‘The Warlord’s Legacy’ in January 2011 (from Del Rey); Gollancz are playing ‘catch up’ over here in the UK so you’ll be waiting a little longer. Give ‘The Conqueror’s Shadow’ a go in the meantime ;o)

Mike Carey Signing at Forbidden Planet (London)

Worth checking out if you’re in London on the 26^th of November....

From the press release,

MIKE CAREY SIGNING AT FORBIDDEN PLANET

Friday 26th November 5:30 – 6:30pm

Forbidden Planet is pleased to announce a signing by Mike Carey. He will be signing The Unwritten Vol 2 at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JR, on Friday 26th November 5:30 – 6:30pm

Tom Taylor's father created the Tommy Taylor fantasy series, boy-wizard novels with popularity on par with Harry Potter. The problem: Dad modeled the fictional epic so closely to Tom's real life that fans are constantly comparing him to his counterpart. When a scandal reveals that he might really be a boy-wizard made flesh, Tom comes into contact with a mysterious group. Now, to protect his own life and discover the truth, Tom will travel the world, visiting places where fiction has shaped reality. In this volume, Tom arrives at Donostia prison in southern France and falls into the orbit of another of his stories, ‘The Song of Roland’. Unfortunately, it's a story that ends with a massacre...

Mike Carey’s work in has encompassed everything from a biographical comic of Ozzy Osbourne to the astounding and Eisner Award-nominated Lucifer. The list of credits and titles to his name is as sparkling as it is long – and the publication of his Felix Castor series of novels have proved that he can move format without losing his insight, skill or passion. Mike has a first-class degree in English from Oxford and pre-dated his illustrious comics career with 15 years as a teacher.

I absolutely love Carey’s ‘Felix Castor’ books but have yet to give his comics/graphic novels a real go (my current total equals one ‘Hellblazer’ graphic novel so far...) Has anyone here read ‘The Unwritten’? Is it a good place to get started or do you think that there is something better that I should go for first...?

‘Battle for the Abyss’ – Ben Counter (Black Library)

On the whole, the Black Library’s ‘Horus Heresy’ series has done a sterling job of outlining the course of events that led to Mankind’s most devastating civil war and the emergence of the brutally oppressive regime that governs the Imperium of the forty first millennium. I may have my issues with certain books but the quality of the overall series is such that you’ll always find me eagerly looking forward to the next instalment (which, unless I’m mistaken, is Dan Abnett’s ‘Prospero Burns’; look it early next year...)
It’s typical of me then (with my ‘so many books, so little time’ attitude) that there’s a gaping hole in my ‘Horus Heresy’ reading that comes right near the very beginning of the series. This isn’t such a big deal in itself as most of the series can be read ‘stand alone’ (although you’re going to get a lot more out of it if you go for the big picture) but it’s still a ‘hole’ and some holes just have to be filled; that’s what this month is all about!
The plan then is to finish off my ‘Horus Heresy’ reading this month, that’s only three books so I should be able to do it! First up is Ben Counter’s ‘Battle for the Abyss’...

Warmaster Horus has fanned the flames of rebellion but any fire will take time to spread, the galaxy won’t be engulfed by warfare just yet. This sense of false security is what ultimately aids the traitor Word Bearer marines when the mighty warship ‘Furious Abyss’ is launched, in sight of Terra itself, on a mission to break perhaps the mightiest legion of all. When loyalist forces finally learn of the ‘Abyss’, it may already be too late to make a difference but the attempt will be made anyway.
Loyalist forces race to intercept the ‘Furious Abyss’ but their journey takes them through the Warp, a dangerous trip at the best times but now more deadly than ever... The fate of an entire system hinges on their success.

‘Battle for the Abyss’ was a fun read and just the thing to get me through a weekend where taking it easy was the order of the day. Having said that though, whereas most of the ‘Heresy’ books leave me feeling satisfied to one degree or another, ‘Battle for the Abyss’ left me feeling strangely hollow and in need of something a little more substantial.

I think half the problem, for me, was the marked similarity that ‘Battle for the Abyss’ had to James Swallow’s ‘Flight of the Eisenstein’. Both books are essentially about loyalist marines trying to avert catastrophe by making a perilous journey through the warp and dealing with the denizens of Chaos en route. The broader context does differ but that’s what’s going on at the root of it all. If I’d read ‘Battle for the Abyss’ first then I’d more than likely be saying something different here (so perhaps it’s not the books fault as such) but as it was, I couldn’t help thinking that I’d read this story before. Swallow did it better as well, realising that there is only so much that you can make out of a journey through warp space and making a lot more of the ‘real space’ passages than Counter did. Counter brings his protagonists out of the Warp for a brief fire fight then throws them back in again for more of the same with various daemons and warp entities. The pace is certainly frantic enough and the terror of the Warp well portrayed but it did fall slightly on the wrong side of being repetitive.

Another area where I felt ‘Battle for the Abyss’ was a little lacking was its connection to the rest of the ‘Horus Heresy’ series. I know that I’ve already mentioned that one of the strengths of the series is that its component parts stand alone but there’s also a strong connection to the rest of the series that just didn’t seem to be there with ‘Battle’. Thinking about it, I’d say that this is probably down to ‘Battle’ focussing on a prelude to one of the side plots of the Heresy rather than a main event. Any Warhammer 40K fans are more than welcome to correct me here but that’s how it felt when I was reading the book. Things just felt a little too removed from the main business for the book to gel with the rest of the series and that sense of disconnection really played on my mind.

You know what though? Despite these issues I found that I had to keep reading ‘Battle for the Abyss’. As I’ve already mentioned, the pacing is frantic and pretty much grabs you by the scruff of the neck to drag you along for the ride. Space Marines are invulnerable when placed against ‘normal’ protagonists so the only way to make things interesting is to have them go up against each other. Counter gives us some bone crunching moments as Marines go at it and marries this into the former rivalries between Legions that are now turning into all out hatred. It’s in these moments that Counter does well to tap into the feeling of brotherhood betrayed and lost. There are some lines that can never be crossed once you take that first fateful step over them and Counter really captures that feeling of something irrevocably broken. ‘Battle for the Abyss’ may not gel with the rest of the series particularly well but what’s inside made me want to read more of the books.

If all that wasn’t enough for you, Counter does an amazing job of showing us the ongoing battles between the ‘Furious Abyss’ and the ships pursuing it. You really get an idea of the scale of combat involved between these behemoths and Counter captures that balance between seemingly innocuous damage done to the outside of a cruiser and the absolute chaos that it wreaks within. I want to read more like this.

‘Battle for the Abyss’ carried some notable flaws that left me feeling ultimately unsatisfied but I had good fun reading it through to the end. Confused? I was but, like I said, it was just the thing to get me through the weekend. I probably wouldn’t rush to get hold of Counters other work (although ‘Galaxy in Flames’ was very good) but I’ll give them a go if I see them.

Seven and Three Quarters out of Ten

‘Hellboy: Masks and Monsters’ – Mike Mignola et al (Dark Horse)

When I was collecting ‘Ghost’, back in the mid nineties, one of the things that always bugged me was the fact that I hadn’t got to the table quite quickly enough to be there right from the beginning. The storyline was more than enough to keep me going but I always wished that I’d had more of it than those little hints you get at the bottom of the page (you know the ones... ‘as seen in issue 28’, ‘you’d know all about this if you read issue 2’ and so on). That being the case, I absolutely jumped on the ‘Ghost/Hellboy’ two part mini-series when it came out in 1996 as a way of finally getting a whole story to read. It also helped that I was finally getting a chance to see what Hellboy himself was all about; I’d heard a lot about the character but never read any of his stuff...

I enjoyed the story but the ‘Great Comic Book Purge’ (a sad time...) pretty much consigned it to what eventually became a dim and distant memory; a memory so dim and distant in fact that when I was offered a review copy of ‘Masks and Monsters (the ‘Ghost/Hellboy’ team-up is part of the book) I jumped at the chance, just to see if it was as good as I remembered it being way back then. It was also a great way of getting into ‘Hellboy’ a little more. I’ve heard great things about the character but have still barely scratched the surface of what he’s all about...

‘Masks and Monsters’ collects two Hellboy ‘team-up’ stories. In the first, Nazis and Elder Gods are fought in the steamy jungles of South America by an almighty line-up consisting of none other than Hellboy, Batman and Starman. In the second, Hellboy heads off to the city of Arcadia in search of a rumoured spectral vigilante. The city’s secrets run deep beneath its streets though and what he is about to find is far more dangerous than any ghost...

For the relative newcomer (like me), ‘Masks and Monsters’ is a great place to step on board and find out what Hellboy is all about. You may not get to find out as much as you want, more on that in a bit, but all that leaves you with is the urge to go and start reading! You might well be seeing a lot more ‘Hellboy’ on the blog in the near future...
The bottom line is simple. Hellboy hates Nazis and isn’t too fond of Elder Gods (and associated other supernatural threats) either. His work with the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence involves rooting these threats out and making sure that they are no longer a threat; all of this is done with a large stone fist and a wry attitude, a mixture that makes for an exciting and sometimes humorous read. It’s certainly enough to have me looking for more.

The stories themselves are immediately engaging but suffer from the format that they were originally released in. With all the will in the world, there’s only so much story that anyone can fit into a two part mini-series and the stories here are a fine example of this. There’s plenty going on but time constraints mean that it all feels a little rushed with no time for side plots, of any substance, that would flesh things out, particularly in the first story.

The Hellboy/Batman/Starman team-up is a riotous explosion of Nazi mayhem that is fun but feels like it’s had a whole kitchen sink full of stuff thrown at it to see what sticks in the time available for the story. Full of spectacle but not an awful lot else. I was also left wondering if you could really include Batman in the team-up as he barely features in the story. It is fun though and Mike Mignola’s distinctive artwork is as much a joy to get lost in as it ever is.

For my money, the Hellboy/Ghost story is a lot better although I would probably say that (being a fan of ‘Ghost’). While there are still the same issues with space for the story to breathe, what you have here is a story that makes up for this by taking a little more time to focus on the characters themselves and their interactions. Something very interesting starts to form here and it’s a shame that Ghost’s own storyline took her away from the opportunity to develop things further. The sense of Arcadia’s bloody history is also given good exposure and ties past and present together nicely to give us a story that does the best job it can in the space that it has. Scott Benefiel’s artwork was always going to come off second best against Mignola’s (for me anyway) but captures the essence of the tale almost perfectly.

‘Masks and Monsters’ was a little on the rushed side but you can’t really blame the book itself for that, it’s more the fault of a format decision (for the comics) that was made years ago. Not only was ‘Masks and Monsters’ a good place to get a feel for what ‘Hellboy’ is all about but it also fills in a gap for fans of ‘Ghost’; recommended reading if you fall into either of these categories.

Nine out of Ten

Giveaway! ‘Pax Britannia: The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus’ (Jonathan Green)

The Abaddon giveaways continue on the blog with the ‘Ulysses Quicksilver’ omnibus, comprising ‘Unnatural History’, ‘Leviathan Rising’ and ‘Human Nature’. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, if you’re after an entertaining Steampunk read with lots going on then you really can’t go wrong with these books, check them out and thank me later...

Once again, thanks to Abaddon Books, I have two copies of ‘Pax Britannia’ to give away on the blog. Once again however, this competition is only open to readers from the UK. Sorry about that everyone else... If you’re in then the drill is exactly the same as it was yesterday. Just send me an email (address at the top right hand side of the screen) telling me who you are and what your postal address is. The subject header here needs to be ‘Pax Britannia’.

I’ll be leaving this one open until the 14^th of November and will announce the winners as soon as possible afterwards.

Good Luck!

Giveaway! ‘The Best of Tomes of the Dead’

It’s no secret around here that Abaddon’s ‘Tomes of the Dead’ series is one where I’ll always pick up the latest book and am more or less guaranteed a good time every time I do. I’m looking forward to reading about Viking zombies very soon!

In the meantime, Abaddon have released their first collected edition of ‘Tomes of the Dead’ tales and it’s worth checking out for tales from Al Ewing, Rebecca Levene and Matt Smith. Like I said, worth checking out anyway but (thanks to the people at Abaddon) I happen to have two copies of ‘The Best of Tomes of the Dead’ to give away here on the blog...

Interested? Do you live in the UK (I’m afraid this competition is only open to people living in the UK...)? If you answered ‘yes’ to both of these questions then you know what to do next. Simply drop me an email (address at the top right hand of the screen) telling me who you are and what your postal address is. Your subject header needs to be ‘Oh no, Zombies!’ That’s all you need to do, I’ll take care of the rest...

I’ll be leaving this one open until the 14^th of November and will announce the winners as soon as possible afterwards.

Good Luck!

‘Pegasus’ – Robin McKinley

Sometimes being involved in a blog tour can work out really well as it gets you in touch with an author that you’ve never read before and you discover a great read; that was definitely the case when I was introduced to Tim Lebbon’s work for example. Other times, you’re left with a book that really didn’t work for you and you’ve pretty much promised it coverage as part of an author’s blog tour. This is the case right now with me and Robin McKinley’s ‘Pegasus’... I don’t think my post will feature as part of the tour highlights but wanted to say something anyway.

Here’s the blurb,

Because of a thousand-year-old alliance between humans and pegasi, Princess Sylviianel is ceremonially bound to Ebon, her own Pegasus, on her twelfth birthday. The two species coexist peacefully, despite the language barriers separating them. Humans and pegasi both rely on specially-trained Speaker magicians as the only means of real communication.

But its different for Sylvi and Ebon. They can understand each other. They quickly grow close-so close that their bond becomes a threat to the status quo-and possibly to the future safety of their two nations.

I first came across this book over at Aidan’s blog where he had a little moment of waxing lyrical about the lovely cover art. I can see where he’s coming from, it does look gorgeous doesn’t it? The blurb also sounded intriguing, certainly intriguing enough to give it a go when offered a copy. Unfortunately, that was about as far as it went for me.

I should say at this point that I’ve heard a lot of good things about Robin McKinley and her work from other bloggers who have grown up reading her books. If that describes you then you’ll probably get a lot out of ‘Pegasus’, same deal if you have ever dreamed of being telepathically bonded to a flying horse. I didn’t fall into either of these categories however so was perhaps at a disadvantage right from the start. I also have to admit that my ultimately putting the book down unfinished is as much to do with me, and where I’m at right now, as it was the book itself. I’m after escapism and that means a book has to grab me straight away, this didn’t happen here.

What I got instead was an interesting enough back story (humans coming to the lands of the Pegasi) that was at odds with McKinley’s introduction to her main character. Maybe this would have all changed later on in the book but there just didn’t seem to be anything about Princess Sylvi that made her stand out as a character in her own right, she was just there to be bonded with a flying horse and kick the story off. Like I said, I’ll happily attribute this to my own impatience but I was really after a character that would be engaging straight away...

I also found McKinley’s introduction to Sylvi more than a little haphazard in the way that we visited past events from her life with little or no warning that this was going to happen (at least as far as I could tell). I kept finding myself wondering how these events were meant to link up only to realise that there was reminiscing going on and I hadn’t realised, something that really interrupted the flow of the plot for me. In the end, I gave up trying to follow it.

I’ve only read one other book by McKinley so it may well be that this is just her style and something she’s done over the years. If this is case then it may well be that you’ll get a lot more out of it than I if you’re a fan or happy to go with the flow and see where it takes you. ‘Pegasus’ certainly looks like there’s a story in there worth reading but it’s not one that I’m prepared to fight my way into right now. If anyone wants to let me know what I’m missing, maybe I’ll give it another go sometime...

Christmas shouldn't come early... but today it does!

As a rule, I usually hate it when Christmas flexes its Yuletide muscles and barges its way into November (and even October). I mean, it kind of lessens the fact that Christmas is meant to be a 'one off' time of year and something a little special.

Sometimes though, Christmas really does come a little early and I'm almost duty bound to tell everyone because it's simply great. Amanda's getting all festive over at her blog and giving away free book bundles. There's something there for everyone and it's open to everyone as well, none of this 'you can only enter if you live in the Republic of X' malarkey! :o)

I wouldn't hang around if I were you, have a click Here and see if there's anything that takes your fancy...

‘Autumn’ – David Moody (Gollancz)

It was about four years ago and I’d just finished reading Brian Keene’s ‘The Rising’ and ‘City of the Dead’. Having enjoyed these two books immensely, the only course of action left open to me was to go out straight away and find myself more zombie fiction to get stuck into (the results of that journey can be found here and there, on the blog). The one book that kept getting mentioned was David Moody’s ‘Autumn’, a book that everyone seemed to be saying was a ‘zombie classic’; you can imagine how pleased I was to see that you could actually download the whole book for free on the author’s own website...

Of course, this was way before I realised how difficult I find it reading large chunks of text on a computer screen. As much as I was enjoying the read (and I was) it was a bit too much of a strain for my poor old eyes. I was also reading it at work but that’s another story... :o)
I had to quit the read but was heartened to hear (a couple of years later) that the success of Moody’s ‘Hater’ meant that the ‘Autumn’ series would finally be published in a format that wasn’t going to give me a headache when I read it. I have to admit that I wondered quite what the point of publication was when the book was available for free download but David clarified a couple of things on that score (in an interview on this very blog) and I was good to go! It’s been a long time waiting for the hardback edition of ‘Autumn’ but, in the end, it was worth the wait.

In the space of twenty four hours over ninety nine percent of the population is killed by a virus of unknown origin. There are no symptoms and no warning, by the time you realise something is wrong you are already dying an agonising death.
Not everyone dies though and these survivors are left to find their way in a world that has suddenly and irrevocably changed; survival is the order of the day and it’s not going to be easy. This is even more the case when previously dead bodies get up and start walking...
The dead are harmless at first but, as time goes by, this begins to change. In a world where the living are vastly outnumbered by the walking dead, can our heroes build a new life for themselves? Can they even survive to try...?

After trying to work my way through what seemed like an excessive number of pages on the screen (can’t remember exactly how many but it was a lot!) I was surprised to find that ‘Autumn’ only numbers some two hundred and forty six pages in its hardback format. I guess I shouldn’t have been all that surprised. Both ‘Hater’ and ‘Dog Blood’ are works where the passion and energy in the prose are highlighted and emphasised by the relative shortness of each book. ‘Autumn’ doesn’t quite have the same level of energy (and for very good reason, zombies just don’t move as quickly as Haters...) but it isn’t far off and is none the less a compelling read for it.

All the best writers of zombie fiction know that there is only so much you can do with a rotting corpse that happens to be able to walk. What you have to focus on instead is keeping an air of mystery about the whole thing whilst looking at how your main characters react to it all. Moody has done this to great affect with ‘Hater’ and ‘Dog Blood’; now he shows us that he was already great at this approach when he first wrote ‘Autumn’.

The prologue and first three chapters of the book don’t waste any time; the second you start reading you’re tipped head first into a society collapsing under the weight of something inexplicable yet deadly. Moody leaves you in no doubt as to what this means for victims and witnesses alike as he drowns the opening pages in an unceasing wash of blood and terror. You don’t know why it’s happening, you don’t need to know. What is important is that it is happening on the page right now and it’s serious. These opening pages are what will ultimately define the characters in the chapters to come and Moody provides a solid platform for this development to kick on from. Something this intense cannot fail to have an affect on someone and Moody takes time for a real detailed look at just what this means. I would say that one character’s development felt a little shoehorned into what Moody obviously had in mind for him and this meant that things felt forced when they should have flowed more naturally. The other two main characters are handled well though and the ensuing group dynamic made me want to keep reading. I had a good idea of where it would end (and I was right) but the journey was still a lot of fun. I don’t know whether the sequel will focus on the same characters but I’ll definitely be around to find out.

You don’t get to know the origins of the virus so it stands to reason that you won’t get to find out an awful lot about the zombies either. What Moody does give us though is a gradual ‘evolution’ that not only fleshes out the zombie mythos in an interesting way but also changes the tempo in a way that keeps the plot fresh and moving briskly (people’s reactions change when the dead start doing things differently). If you ever wondered if the dead really would get straight up and start eating people then this may well be the book for you.

A beginning that grips you right away, an ending that has you eager for the sequel and a whole load of stuff in the middle that is more than worth the price of entry; all set against a beautifully disturbed landscape. ‘Autumn’ is a very English apocalypse reminiscent of ‘Survivors’ or ‘Day of the Triffids’ and required reading if you are a fan of zombies. Highly recommended.

Nine and Three Quarters out of Ten

‘The Body Snatchers’ – Jack Finney (Gollancz)

I don’t read an awful lot of science fiction, so I’m at a bit of a disadvantage before I even get going really, but I still find myself looking at the list of ‘SF Masterworks’ books and wondering what’s so special about some of them. What’s so great about them that merit inclusion on such a list? When I read H.G. Wells’ ‘Food of the Gods’ last month, I couldn’t help thinking that the list compilers were just trading on Wells’ name rather than the book itself...

Jack Finney’s ‘The Body Snatchers’ though... I’d never read the book, until now, but I knew it had to have a decent claim to ‘Masterwork’ status purely because of the two movies that came off the back of it. I’d have a hard time choosing between the 1956 edition of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ and its 1978 remake; I have a sneaking feeling that the remake just edges it but they are both classic sci-fi material and there’s no denying it.
The questions I had though were around how Jack Finney’s original work matches up to the films. Did the films improve on the book or are they diluted versions of the original? And having finally read ‘The Body Snatchers’, does it deserve ‘SF Masterwork’ status? My answers to these two questions were ‘I think so’ and ‘a resounding yes’...

There’s something going on in the sleepy town of Santa Mira although you wouldn’t think it at first glance. People are getting on with their lives and going about their business as they did the day before and will do the day after. Or are they? Dr. Miles Bennell is getting an increasing number of visits from patients who are sure that family members and friends have been replaced by imposters. A suspected wave of mass hysteria becomes something far more sinister when a friend of Bennell’s shows him something that can only lead to one possible conclusion. There are aliens hidden amongst the townsfolk of Santa Mira and their numbers are growing...

I’ve heard that the original ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ film was a commentary on the anti-Communist McCarthy era in 1950s America so would assume that the same can be said about the source text. Not knowing an awful lot about that era I’m loath to make the same comparison so read ‘The Body Snatchers’ on the basis of what it ultimately is; a tale of infiltration, possession and paranoia in small town America.

In this regard ‘The Body Snatchers’ easily achieves ‘Masterwork’ status as far as I’m concerned with a smooth flowing tale that effortlessly builds up the fear and tension way past the point where you would expect the climax (along with an alien life form whose approach is well conceived and thought out). Finney makes it all too clear that knowing the cause of a problem is far removed from actually being able to solve it. Bennell and his friends may have worked out what’s going on but they still have to live in a town where it’s impossible to trust your neighbours and friends. How can you when you don’t know if they are human or alien? And even if you can tell the difference, just what are you going to be able to do about it when there’s no way out of town and the phone lines have been cut?

Finney doesn’t appear to do much with this scenario, keeping things simple and telling them just the way they are. This simplicity somehow adds to the urgency of the plot, it’s almost like there’s no time for flowery language with what’s at stake! The urgency is also highlighted by the seemingly idyllic surroundings that the story plays out against. How can something so horrifying be happening somewhere so tranquil? And if something like this could happen in Santa Mira, where else could it happen? Finney invites us to wonder whether this could happen in our street, an invitation that I found very easy to take up. You know it couldn’t really happen but as Bennell himself says, ‘once in a while, the orderly, immutable sequences of time itself are inexplicably shifted and altered’. Strange stuff does happen and Finney’s greatest gift to his readers is to leave them with the sense that there just might be a little more to his story than meets the eye. You may well find yourself paying a little closer attention to the people around you after finishing ‘The Body Snatchers’...

The only real issue that I had with the book was the way in which Finney concluded Bennell’s dealings with the pod people and the decision that the aliens made based on that. Finney had gone to great lengths to portray the alien life form as plant based and with no other real urge than survival through usurping the local flora and fauna. There was a real mindless ‘matter of fact’ behaviour to its progress that appealed to me through its incompatibility with humanity and then Finney went and turned it all on its by having the pod people react to Bennell’s ultimate attempt to repel them. Maybe the pod people took on more of humanity than they realised but it still felt like it went against all that Finney had been building. The two films did better with the subject matter, in this respect, by making it all about humanity’s ability to deal with this threat.
Having said that though, I loved one particular part of the story’s ultimate conclusion; I don’t want to give it away but it was a great bit of window dressing to bring the curtain down on.

That one small flaw aside, ‘The Body Snatchers’ is a book that well and truly deserves to sit on the ‘SF Masterwork’ list. It’s a great concept that is delivered superbly (for the most part). If you enjoyed the films then you really need to go back and see where it all began...

Nine and a Half out of Ten

Guest Blog! S.G. Browne talks about the influences behind his new novel 'Fated'.

A few weeks ago, I was asked if I would like to be part of the blog tour to mark S.G. Browne's new book 'Fated', of course I accepted! The plan was to read/review 'Fated' but I wasn't able to get hold of the book in time. If you read my review of 'Breathers' though, you'll know that I'm looking forward to getting my hands on 'Fated'; look out for a review later in the month...

In the meantime, Scott also kindly agreed to provide a guest post about the inspirations and influences that started him writing and ended up with 'Fated'. Here goes...

I’m often asked about my influences.  The authors and books that have inspired me or inspire me still.  And while the answer is an easy one, the thing is that I’ve grown up on movies and television as much as on books.  Maybe even more so, as I didn’t read much for pleasure until the summer before my sophomore year in college.

That’s when I discovered Stephen King.

Although I’d read Carrie years before, I didn’t become a fan of King until the summer of 1985, when I picked up The Stand.  That was the first time I ever had to stop reading a book to mourn the death of a character.  From that point on, I was hooked on King, and horror in general, and started consuming a steady diet that consisted of King, Koontz, Straub, McCammon, and F. Paul Wilson.  Then I read The Talisman.  While not my favorite novel by either King or Straub, I found myself so caught up in the story unfolding within the pages that the world outside of the book ceased to exist.  And I thought: “I want to make other people feel this way.”

That was the first time I realized I wanted to be a writer.

After graduation, I moved to Hollywood and got a day job and wrote for a couple of hours in the morning before work and at night and whenever I got the chance.  With a few exceptions of stories that were more darkly comedic, the majority of the short stories and novels I wrote over the next twelve years tended to be straight supernatural fare.  Ghosts and alternate realities and things that went bump in the night.

And then, in 2002, I read Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk.

Up until that point, I’d never read a novel that combined comedy and satire and the supernatural.  At least not in the way that resonated with me the way Lullaby did.  After finishing the novel, I thought about the handful of short stories I’d written that were a blend of dark comedy and the supernatural and I thought:  “He manages to pull this off.  I wonder if I can, too.”

That was what inspired me to take “A Zombie’s Lament,” my two-thousand-word short story I’d written a year earlier, and turn it into my fourth novel, Breathers, which became my first published novel.  It also provided me with the direction in which I wanted to take my writing, shifting from straight supernatural to dark paranormal comedies with a social context that pokes fun at humans and human nature.  And the writing that inspired me along this new path mirrored that.

In addition to authors such as Chuck Palahniuk and Christopher Moore (A Dirty Job, Bloodsucking Fiends), over the past decade I’ve been inspired by screenwriters Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich), Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums), David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees), and the comedies of the Coen Brothers (Fargo, The Big Lebowski).  I also love the writing and humor of the television series Seinfeld and Arrested Development, which I often find dark, subversive, and laugh-out-loud funny.

When shifting to my inspiration for Fated, there isn’t one moment or book or author I can point to and say, “Look over there.”  It was more a combination of several events that eventually coalesced into a singe idea: a journal entry in 2003 about a character who can see the future because he’s Fate; a scene written in a shopping mall in 2004 from the point-of-view of the same conceptual character; and the splitting of the often married concepts of fate and destiny into two characters.

The separation of fate and destiny came about as I began writing the first chapter, which takes place in a shopping mall much like the scene I wrote in 2004.  For the most part, people think of the concepts as one in the same.  But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like fate and destiny should be different concepts.  After all, fate carries these negative connotations (a fatal disease; a fate worse than death), while destiny implies a much happier outcome (he was destined for greatness; it was her destiny).

Plus, you never hear about anyone being “fated for greatness” or suffering “a destiny worse than death,” so it just made sense that there should be a distinction between the two.  And that Fate would be overworked and frustrated dealing with his single-term Presidents and one-hit wonders, while Destiny tormented him with her Super Bowl MVPs and Pulitzer Prize winning authors.

That distinction was one of the most important influences for Fated, as it formed one of the central concepts upon which the story is based.  Of course, I realized that Fate and Destiny couldn’t exist without associates, friends, and co-workers.  So I created characters that included Karma, Death, Lady Luck, Honesty, Love, Secrecy, and most of the Deadly Sins, among others.

I had a lot of fun personifying abstract concepts and imbuing them with unique characteristics.  I laughed a lot.  And that’s what I enjoy doing most in my writing: making myself laugh.  If I happen to tickle someone else’s funny bone, then that’s a bonus.  And if I can make someone laugh, maybe even get them to lose themselves in the story, then I feel like I’ve done a good thing.

Thanks Scott! Like I said, keep an eye open for my review of 'Fated', probably in the next couple of weeks or so. Here's the blurb to be going on with,

Over the past few thousand years, Fabio has come to hate his job. As Fate, he's in charge of assigning the fortunes and misfortunes that befall most of the human race - the 83 per cent who keep screwing things up. And with the steady rise in population since the first Neanderthal set himself on fire, he can't exactly take a vacation. Frustrated with his endless parade of drug addicts and career politicians, it doesn't help watching Destiny guide her people to Nobel Peace Prizes. To make matters worse, he has a five-hundred-year-old feud with Death, and his best friends are Sloth and Gluttony. And worst of all? He's just fallen in love with a human. Sara Griffen might be on Destiny's path, but Fabio keeps bumping into her - by accident at first, and then on purpose. Getting involved with her breaks Rule No. 1 - and about ten others - setting off some cosmic-sized repercussions that could strip him of his immortality...or lead to a fate worse than death.

If it's anything like 'Breathers' then I'm in for a good read.

Orbit books goes digital first with multiple award-winning SF novel.

Last one to the party again...

Am I the only person in the world who hasn't got round to reading Paolo Bacigalupi’s 'The Windup Girl'? It feels like it sometimes, especially when no-one seems to have a single bad thing to say about it. Now, thanks to Orbit, it looks like I'm going to be the last person in the UK to read 'The Windup Girl' when it's released, and all because I don't have an e-reader (or whatever they're called, young people these days etc etc)
Check out the press release from Orbit...

TIME MAGAZINE named THE WINDUP GIRL as one of the ten best novels of 2009 and the book has won an extraordinary five of 2010's major international SF awards: the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook Award and John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

To take advantage of the huge buzz for this book, Orbit is taking the unusual step of releasing the ebook edition immediately, as the fastest way of getting this important work to a UK audience. The print edition will be out later, from 2nd December, in B-format paperback. The extraordinary word-of-mouth excitement for this work will ensure a tremendous response on UK publication.

The story is set in a chilling near future Thailand, where calories count as currency with the world’s foodstuffs becoming depleted. It is an action-packed adventure with a complex plot weaving conspiracy and forbidden relationships. But it’s also a politically acute commentary on our own world.

Winner of five major SF awards, The Windup Girl is Paolo Bacigalupi’s debut novel. And it’s both a heart-stopping dystopian thriller and a razor-sharp vision of our near future. Orbit is absolutely delighted to welcome this multiple award winning author onto the list, who is being hailed as one of the most visionary authors writing in this field today.

Paolo had this to say on his UK publication: ‘I'm amazed, gob-smacked, delighted, and frankly overwhelmed that THE WINDUP GIRL has received such a positive response from readers and critics. And I’m now very excited that The Windup Girl will be coming to a UK audience.’




I guess I'll be waiting a little while longer to read this one... :o) While I'm waiting, what am I missing out on? Is 'The Windup Girl' really as good as everyone is making out?

Themed Reading for November!

You don’t normally see a lot of ‘Themed’ weeks or months happening here for the simple reason that I find it really difficult to stick to any one kind of book for too long. Even a week of reading zombie books was tough, tough enough in fact that I found myself having to read some straight horror (with the merest mention of zombies in it) just to keep things fresh and keep me going. And the less said about the infamous ‘Paranormal Romance Week’ the better...


I think I’ve cracked it though with this month promising a theme with enough variety to power me through until the end of November. It’s a simple theme, inspired through posts made by Larry and John about certain books that they accept for review (I can’t find the exact links though, which is annoying...) I do very much the same kind of thing as they do. Some books come to me unsolicited for review while others I either specifically ask for or say ‘yes’ when they’re offered to me. They all go in the same pile but a whole load of these are books where I’ve made a promise to review them but just haven’t got round to it (for whatever reason; take your pick, I’ve got loads of excuses right now...)

And so the themed reading for this month was born. For the whole of November I’ll be concentrating solely on reading books that I specifically agreed to read and review. The beauty here is that there is enough variety in this ‘sub-pile’ to guarantee that I won’t get bored and want to abandon the theme altogether; there are some books that you may not have heard of and a load where you probably have (including at least three very well known books that could do an admirable job of being draught excluders...) I won’t finish everything but I’m going to have a damn good go! :o) A promise is a promise after all...

To kick things off, do you have any books that you’ve promised to read but haven’t got round to yet? Doesn’t matter whether you’re a book blogger or a blog reader who borrowed a book years ago and then promptly forgot about it; this is the place to leave your comment...