‘Blood Ocean’ – Weston Ochse (Abaddon Books)

Abaddon Books have developed a rather nice line in shared universes filled up with writers telling their own stories. It’s an approach that works particularly well for me as if I find myself falling behind with one series, in a setting, then there will always be another series coming along that I can jump straight into.
Take the ‘Afterblight Chronicles’ for example. I’m actually not doing too badly with the series overall but have found myself lagging behind with Paul Kane’s ‘Robin Hood’ trilogy, a crying shame as it’s proved to be a series well worth the read. At the risk of repeating myself, there’s only so much time in the day to read. I’ll catch up eventually (just need to read ‘Arrowland’) but that doesn’t mean I have to miss out on the ‘post cull’ setting in the meantime, not when writers like Weston Ochse are on hand to add to it.
Weston Ochse will be a familiar name to fans of Abaddon’s ‘Tomes of the Dead’ series with his book ‘Empire of Salt’ apparently being very well received. I say ‘apparently’ as I never got to read it myself. I was still intrigued though and that bumped ‘Blood Ocean’ up the pile a little further.
It was a bit of a shame then that ‘Blood Ocean’ turned out to be a disappointing read…

Kavika Kamalani is a Pali Boy, member of an ancient Hawaiian warrior tradition that has survived the plague and now makes its way in a post apocalyptic landscape. A Pali Boy overcomes death by embracing his fears and living large; if Kavika and his friends are to survive then that is exactly what he must do.
Kavika lives on a floating city where life is harsh at the best of time but when a friend of Kavika’s dies (harvested for his blood) the quest to find his killer makes things harsher still. There is a hidden agenda at work to make sure that life in the city stays exactly as it is and Kavika is about to bring it all crashing down but not before he undergoes a horrifying transformation…

It’s a really obvious thing to say but you can tell how well a book works, for you, by how much of it you want to read in a single sitting. For example, Ian Tregillis’ ‘Bitter Seeds’ was a book where I would read huge chunks of it and only stop when I absolutely had to.
‘Blood Ocean’ though was a book that took me a good couple of weeks to read through the first three quarters of the book. When you take into account that ‘Blood Ocean’ is only two hundred and eighty six pages long, in total, that’s really saying something. The last quarter was finished off a lot quicker but by then the damage had already been done.

The big issue that I had with the book was that a large chunk of it appeared to be all about scene setting. That’s not so bad in itself, you’ve got to have a little scene setting, but if it’s taken too far then it can be overpowering to say the least.
‘Blood Ocean’s’ scene setting (and character building come to think of it) was not only overpowering but didn’t seem to have anything to do with the story itself (when the plot was finally allowed to surface and do its thing). It felt more like Ochse was giving us a guided tour of the floating city in order to show us that he’d covered all the bases in terms of setting up a post-apocalyptic setting. Look, there are the cannibals! And look, I’ve got water dwelling scavengers as well! It all felt atmospheric enough but also detached from the plot at the same time. Not that there was a lot of room for the plot with this approach. Kavika was on a mission but it kept stopping in order to take in some new detail of his surroundings. So that was the flow of the book obstructed as well then… You could make an argument that elements of the plot are revealed gradually so as to keep an air of mystery. I’d say that if this was the case then Ochse needed to be a little more on the ball instead of getting lost in his surroundings… The overall picture is revealed but it’s torturous waiting for it to happen.

When things finally do start to happen, Ochse shows us what he is really capable of with Kavika’s transformation making for some very uncomfortable reading (in just the right kind of way). Don’t get too involved though as Ochse brings things to a halt again, having his cast discuss whether anything should be happening at all… It turns out that this is a deliberate ploy, aimed at pushing a central character into making changes. This works in terms of pushing the plot to a final climax but is a little too similar to Ochse’s ‘scene setting’ approach to be really effective.

The final scenes do go a long way towards making up for the interminable slowness of the preceding chapters but it felt like ‘too little too late’ for me. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the closing sequences though, a mixture of all out action set against a post-apocalyptic backdrop with intriguing hints of a wider world. These moments actually had a bearing on the direction of the plot as well which was a welcome development. If Ochse’s other work has more moments like this then I’d be more than happy to check them out but I’m a little dubious having read ‘Blood Ocean’. Has anyone else read anything else by Weston Ochse?

‘Blood Ocean’ is full of atmosphere and you’re left with a really clear picture of where you are in the setting. It’s just a shame then that you have to really fight past that if you want to find out what’s actually happening…

Six and a Half out of Ten

‘Pax Omega’ – Al Ewing (Abaddon Books)

Ever since I finished Al Ewing’s ‘Gods of Manhattan’, way back in January last year, I’ve been waiting for the follow up to see what happened next. How could I not? ‘Gods of Manhattan’ was nothing short of an awesome pulp read. You can see my review over Here or you can just keep going and read a couple of (much shorter) paragraphs where I said things like…

‘Everything comes together very well at the end with the chaos unfolding in the plot doing very well to draw attention away from a firm pair of writing hands at the wheel. There is plenty going on here but all of it serves a purpose.’
And…

‘I can’t emphasise enough how much fun I had with ‘Gods of Manhattan’, a read with no pretensions other than to give its reader a ride like never before. Not only does it succeed but it does so in some style.’
‘Gods of Manhattan’ is pretty much made for days like today where all you want to do is bask in some hot sun and read something fun. In fact, I recommend you do just that after you’ve finished reading the rest of this post :o)

I didn’t realise that ‘Pax Omega’ was going to tie things up, for Al Ewing’s part of the Pax Britannia series, so there was a little sadness going on when I finally picked up the book and started reading. That didn’t last for too long though; things may have finally come to an end but Ewing rounds things up in some style.

This is the part of the review where I would normally give you a little blurb on what the book is about. Not this time though. There’s potential for massive spoilers (with the way I normally do things) so all I’ll say here is that Ewing gets all ambitious on us readers, seeking to tie up the fate of several lead characters while telling us just how the world of Pax Britannia came to be how it is in the first place. If that wasn’t enough for today’s jaded reader, Ewing sets out to tie all of this into the fate of the entire universe. Still not enough for you? Seriously? Okay… Ewing sets out to do all of this in two hundred and sixty six pages.

Does Ewing succeed? Only up to a certain point, as far as I was concerned, but of course he does. Ewing is the kind of writer who loves a challenge like this and is up to the task of delivering. It’s Ewing’s willingness to raise the bar that has me long for the ride each and every time.

‘Pax Omega’ might only be two hundred and sixty six pages long but Ewing manages to fill it with content that would sit comfortably in a book twice the size. Some of what he tries to achieve does suffer as a result of this as issues and themes are tackled in a series of short stories ranging from the dawn of time to… The whole thing about time travel could have benefited from a few extra pages to actually let us know what it was on about. The addition of new characters does wonders in eventually fleshing out the wider universe of Pax Britannia but can be a little confusing within the confines of each tale.

Balancing this out though are Ewing’s typical frantically paced moments of action and adventure, all slightly askew to give us the ‘weird steampunk’ that worked so well in ‘El Sombra’ and ‘Gods of Manhattan’. The atmosphere is there and it’s chock full of sword fights, super powered encounters and science fiction on a grand scale. I found myself marvelling at the sword fights, bruised by the super powered encounters and mouth agape at the sci-fi. It’s all awesome stuff.

What has slightly turned me off Ewing’s work, in the past, is when he takes things a little too far and ends up throwing the reader out of the story entirely (I’m looking at that fourth wall being broken in ‘Death Got No Mercy’…) When you’re totally immersed in a story, being thrown out of it can jar just that little bit too much.
Well, Ewing doesn’t shy away from trying that same kind of approach again with ‘Pax Omega’. The good news though is that Ewing reins in his wilder metaphysical impulses this time round. It’s still very much a case of ‘anything goes’ but only in the story itself and that proves to be more than enough. Ewing is willing to put his characters through anything if it proves beneficial to the story and the results this time round really have to be seen to be believed. If you’re fan of Doc Thunder or El Sombra (or even a couple of others) then ‘Pax Omega’ will literally blow you away with their eventual fate. I know that I sat there, a couple of times, and went ‘what the f…?’

Things aren’t entirely resolved by the end of the book and this approach is more about leaving you really thinking about what you just read (rather than leaving the door open for further sequels, at least I think so). For a book that wears its ‘pulp traditions’ proudly, ‘Pax Omega’s’ sombre ending does make for some thoughtful moments after you put the book down. It’s a book then that rounds things off in the best possible way and all credit to Ewing for sticking to the path that he chose to follow here.
If you’ve already read ‘El Sombra’ and ‘Gods of Manhattan’ then, just like me, ‘Pax Omega’ is the book that you’ve been waiting for, superb stuff.

Nine and a Half out of Ten

‘No Man’s World: The Ironclad Prophecy’ – Pat Kelleher (Abaddon Books)

It was way back at the end of June last year that I reviewed the opening chapter in a new series from Abaddon and had a fine old time with it, certainly a fine enough time to have me eagerly awaiting it’s sequel. That book was Pat Kelleher’s ‘Black Hand Gang’; the tale of a regiment of fusiliers who find themselves swapping the battlefields of World War One for an alien landscape that is even more dangerous. You can read the full review Here or you can just keep reading this and see me regurgitate a quote from the review. This one in fact, ‘Black Hand Gang’ does suffer from erratic pacing at times and a narrative approach that can leave a reader floundering. Give it a chance though, ‘Black Hand Gang’ is also a thoroughly entertaining tale that promises great things for the future. I’ll be around to see if the series meets the standard that it has set itself.’

Well, I wouldn’t say that I waited patiently for ‘The Ironclad Prophecy’ to turn up; teaching Hope to do stuff (and then teaching her not to do stuff...) proved to be a lot more time consuming than I’d originally thought and I forgot about this one entirely. You wouldn’t believe how much has gone by the wayside just recently... When ‘The Ironclad Prophecy’ did show up though it didn’t take much for me to be reminded that this was a priority read and I moved it up the pile accordingly. I’ve just finished reading it and a lot of the issues I had with ‘Black Hand Gang’ aren’t there anymore... ‘The Ironclad Prophecy’ makes the step up, in terms of quality, and the end result is another gripping read.

It’s been three months since the Pennine Fusiliers found themselves wrenched from the Somme and deposited on an alien world where the smallest thing can kill you... and will given half a chance. Ammunition and supplies are running low and the alien Khungarri have decided that it is finally time for the Pennines to be culled. A great time then for the battalion’s only tank to fail to report back in from long patrol...
Corporal ‘Only’ Atkins and his Black Hand Gang are sent on an urgent mission to find the HMLS ‘Ivanhoe’ and bring it back to camp before the Khungarri press home their attack. While the camp tries to repel attacks (from both outside and within, the native fauna is insidious if nothing else) Atkins and his crew negotiate treacherous jungle and discover a secret that could have terrible ramifications for the battalion. That’s nothing compared to what they will have to deal with when they finally discover the ‘Ivanhoe’ though. The crew of the tank have become addicted to the psychotropic fuel they have been forced to used; the commander was insane long before then....

Well, that’s two out of two for Kelleher. I had a great time with ‘Black Hand Gang’ and I found that I couldn’t put ‘The Ironclad Prophecy’ down either. The book isn’t without its problems but the power of the story itself really comes to the fore and gave me no choice but to follow it through to the end.

In my review of ‘Black Hand Gang’ I mentioned that a little too much attention to detail spoilt the flow of the plot and had me floundering at just the wrong times. I’m pleased to say that ‘The Ironclad Prophecy’ is a completely different beast. Three months in this alien world appears to have been long enough for our brave Fusiliers to get to grips with the landscape, and the perils within it; we all know where we are now and this means that Kelleher can get on with telling the story itself.

And what a story it is! The reader is given a ‘race against time’ plot where literally everything hinges on Atkins’ ability to get his crew through a number of nasty situations and find the ‘Ivanhoe’. Kelleher doesn’t mince his words letting us know just what’s at stake here (the sub-plot concerning what’s going on at the camp details this in just the right way) and so the smallest threat to the Black Hand Gang takes on a much greater significance. There are lots of these threats to overcome as well, even innocent looking lichen can be deadly... Kelleher is swiftly building up a world that challenges his characters in such a way that you really want to hang around for the outcome. The outcome here blazes with action and suspense as Atkins and men take on the absolute worst that their new home can throw at them. These final scenes (World War One tank takes on all comers...) are more than worth the price of entry.

What I wasn’t so sure about though were some of the portentous things that Atkins and co. came across during their mission. I think there was a slight lack of balance here; when you’re constantly in the thick of the action, short breaks to take in things that will only affect future books don’t have that same impact. I’m fully expecting the secret in the edifice to really kick things off in the next book (same deal with the mysterious metal wall) but they didn’t really add much to the plot here. What we got here was the plot being slowed down again (when it didn't need to be), just for different reasons than before.

Is that such a big deal though when set against everything else that the plot is doing? It is but you can forgive it to an extent, especially now that Kelleher is moving away from the historical roots of the first book and into an alien world where anything can happen. This approach gives all of his characters a chance to really develop and move on in interesting ways; I’m talking mostly about the crew of the ‘Ivanhoe’ here where their addiction to the tank’s fuel sets them apart from the rest of the battalion in increasingly strange ways that make for compelling reading. Other changes are more mundane but no less interesting as the demands of their new environment are gradually forcing characters like Nurse Bell to adapt and make demands of their own.

‘The Ironclad Prophecy’ isn’t without its problems but they are slight and you almost feel a little ungrateful to be mentioning them at all when the rest of the book demands your attention in the way that it does. Bring on ‘The Alleyman’...

Nine and a Quarter out of Ten

‘Anno Frankenstein’ – Jonathan Green (Abaddon Books)

If you’re anything like me then you’ll find yourself with a clutch of favourite authors who you know publish their work on a very regular basis; so regular in fact that a large chunk of your reading schedule takes care of itself. It’s June? It must be time for another book from Author X, I’ll just pop the kettle on...
Now, as you all know by now, my reading schedule is pretty much shot to hell but that doesn’t stop me keeping an eye open for those favourite authors of mine and having all the best intentions of picking them up as soon as possible. Jonathan Green and his ‘Pax Britannia’ novels fall very firmly into this category. I’ve been having a lot of fun with these books ever since the blog began and I don’t see that fun stopping any time soon; I can’t get enough of this series and if you’re a fan of steampunk adventure then I reckon you’ll be the same.  When one of these books comes through the door then I know I’m in for a good read, even if it takes me a little longer than normal to get to it.
I got there in the end (in your face life!) and finished ‘Anno Frankenstein’ off yesterday. As good a read as ever but I had my reservations in places...

Ulysses Quicksilver, agent of the crown, was last seen following the insane Daniel Dashwood into the depths of the time vortex. Both have found themselves in the Germany of the Second Great War but each of them is there for very different reasons. Dashwood wants to share modern technology with Hitler’s forces and change the very shape of history. Quicksilver must stop him otherwise the world he knows (in the future now) will never have existed...
The Nazis are bolstering their ranks with the necrotic flesh of undead super soldiers and this is what Quicksilver must fight through if he is to win the day. Quicksilver has his own allies though. A team of undercover female spies are working their own brand of havoc behind enemy lines and Ulysses Quicksilver’s own father is there too, wondering just why the British Government has partnered him with the weakling scientist Dr. Jekyll. Anything could happen, especially when the hills around the Nazi castle reveal yet more surprises...

As much as I love to take a chance on new reads, I also love the knowledge that I can pick up certain authors and be guaranteed a good time. That’s just what I got with ‘Anno Frankenstein’, a book that I should have got round to sooner but was polished off in record time anyway.

The danger with reviewing books in a (relatively) long running series is that, almost inevitably, you’re going to run out of original things to say; especially if the writer in question has found his groove and is doing what he does best. Is this such a big deal though? Thinking about it, I’d have to say ‘actually it really isn’t’. You can only review what’s in front of you after all so here goes...

If you haven’t read any of the preceding ‘Pax Britannia’ novels then this really is the wrong place to get started. Not only is there a lot of back story that you’re missing out on but you’re also missing out on six books worth of devious villains, dashing heroes, well drawn steam punk weirdness and stuff getting blown up. You can’t fail to enjoy this stuff so go find yourself a copy of ‘Unnatural History’ and get going.

For those of you who have read and enjoyed the previous six books then you’ll be pleased to know that you’re in for more of the same here. In the best traditions of pulp fiction, Green sets the stakes incredibly high and then has his hero go about his job in the best possible way, all wise cracks and flirting but with a propensity for violence when it’s needed. These are the moments where you look at what’s happening on the page and think to yourself that it wouldn’t be out of place on the big screen, I’d love to see it. Set pieces flow into cliff hangers which result in more set pieces. It all happens so quickly that this approach doesn’t feel repetitive in the slightest, there’s no time for anything else but being swamped by everything that’s happening on the page.

It’s not all about the action though (although there’s plenty of it). Green handles the meeting between Ulysses and his father in a delicate way that lets us all know about one of the big dangers of time travel (especially given what Ulysses knows will happen in the future). You’re not really told an awful lot about Ulysses’ father but enough inferences are made for you to be able to build up a picture of your own.
On a slightly different note, I’ve always been a fan of the way that Green brings pop culture into this series and although it was a bit of a mixed bag this time round there was still plenty to make me chuckle. The ‘Star Trek’ reference was a little heavy handed and overdone but bringing the Incredible Hulk into the story was a touch of genius. The ‘Quantum Leap’ reference was inevitable but handled very well nonetheless.

There was one issue that I had with the book and, funnily enough, it was an issue that I’d had with the preceding book ‘Dark Side’. For me, part of the appeal of Ulysses Quicksilver’s adventures was the gloriously gawdy, yet dark, steam punk backdrop of Green’s British Empire. The character and this backdrop dovetail superbly but the plot is gradually moving away from the backdrop and things somehow feel like there isn’t so much to sink your teeth into and be a part of. You’re there for the story but there isn’t that same level of detail in the background that makes you want to stick around a little before turning the page. I can’t really complain, given what else is on offer, but I’m left hoping that the action heads back to Magna Britannia very soon.

That to one side though, ‘Anno Frankenstein’ is another rip-roaring instalment in the adventures of my favourite British secret agent. I can’t wait for the next book but it’s not like I have much choice in the matter...

Nine out of Ten

‘The Satan Factory’ – Thomas E. Sniegoski (Dark Horse Books)

It’s no secret here that I love pulp fiction and the more ‘old school’ it is the better as far as I’m concerned. I have to wait until I get to work before I can have my morning coffee (seriously, have you tried drinking a coffee on the train during rush hour...?) so the next best thing is the literary equivalent of a shot of caffeine that gives you a heavy dose of action and adventure.
My ‘Hellboy’ reading brought the character of Lobster Johnson to my attention and he seemed like just the kind of masked crime fighter to satisfy my need for early morning pulp reading. We’re looking at a man who takes on the might of organised crime (and sometimes the occult) armed only with infra-red goggles and an automatic pistol. And it’s in Depression Era New York as well, you can’t get a lot more ‘old school pulp’ than that can you? The answer is ‘no you can’t’ and the resulting read ticks all the right boxes...

Jonas Chapel was a respected physician and heir to a fortune before gambling and drink saw him land firmly on the wrong side of the mob and finally saw him hiding out in Mexico from inevitable mob justice. Chapel is discovered and his execution is halted only by the discovery of an old witch and the cursed skeleton that she guards. This skeleton has the power to transform men into monsters and Chapel sees the chance to return to New York and stake his own claim for power.
Now monsters stalk the streets of Manhattan, the ultimate weapon in gang warfare and a constant source of terror to the innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. Only one man can possibly halt the tide of what eventually become a living hell on earth. The Lobster is on the prowl and he will not stop until justice has been served...

Carrying on that whole ‘reading pulp fiction is like drinking coffee’ thing (but not for too long, promise!)... Once you’ve had that quick buzz off a cup of coffee you’ll find that it doesn’t last for very long and you’re left feeling kind of hollow and probably in need of another cup depending on the kind of day that you’re having. It’s the same deal with pulp fiction, I can fill myself up on the stuff but that feeling’s never going to last for long and I’ll be after another hit sooner rather than later. This is very much the deal with ‘The Satan Factory’; a book that doesn’t leave a lasting impression once you’ve put it down but is one hell of a rush in the meantime.

While you’re reading ‘The Satan Factory’, it quickly becomes very clear that this book has all the ingredients required to be a thoroughly entertaining read with a lot to recommend it. Sniegoski quickly sets the scene with a backdrop showing the seedier of life in the Depression Era, just the right setting for occult evil to thrive in fact and this also quickly becomes very clear when you see what happens to certain players in this drama. When you’ve got a threat that combines demonic menace with a number of major New York crime families... well, you need someone of the appropriate stature to tackle this threat. And that’s where the Lobster comes in.

You don’t really get to find out much about the Lobster himself other than that he fights crime and does so very well indeed. I’m torn between whether the author assumes prior knowledge of the character, on our part, or whether he’s going for the whole ‘mysterious hero’ affect. The end result is that of ‘mysterious crime fighter’ so I guess the authors approach works.
The Lobster is a little too good to be true; always pulling through to defeat whatever is in front of him. In one sense that’s the point of the whole tone of the book but it does detract from any tension that Sniegoski raises. You know the Lobster will pull through so you can’t quite buy into the sense of danger that comes about in each cliff hanger...
Having said that though, Sniegoski uses the character of the Lobster to good affect over the course of the book. The Lobster hates evil and will go to any length to stamp it out; this makes for some exciting and spectacular moments where evil must be faced and fought. ‘Spectacular’ is definitely the word to use here as Sniegoski throws everything at his hero, blows it all up and then proceeds to throw the burning remnants at his hero as well. The constant rattle of gunfire and explosions drive the plot forward at a ferocious pace and it’s very easy to get caught up and on board.

The single minded approach of ‘The Satan Factory’ delivers the goods as far as entertainment goes but also ultimately prevents the book from being something that will stick around in your head after you’ve finished reading it. The format demands action and adventure (which you get) but there isn’t a lot of substance to back it up, with a plot that’s very lightweight and straightforward. You could say that this is the whole point of this sub-genre (and you’d be right) but there is other pulp fiction out there that has a lot more substance to it and makes for a more satisfying read; Al Ewing’s ‘Gods of Manhattan’ worked very well for me in this regard. If you’re happy to accept the book on these terms then I think you’ll have fun with it, worth bearing this in mind though...

‘The Satan Factory’ was a lot of fun while I was reading it and I can see fans of ‘Hellboy’ having the same kind of fun that I did. It’s a great read for the commute to work or a ‘quick pick me up’ during your lunch break. Anything more than that though might just be asking a little too much of it (and maybe that’s the way it is meant to be...)

Eight out of Ten

‘Gods of Manhattan’ – Al Ewing (Abaddon Books)

It was way back in August 2007 that I reviewed Al Ewing’s debut Abaddon piece ‘El Sombra’, a book that I regret losing now as it totally delivers on its promise of honest pulp fun with a liberal dose of Nazi death robots. Can you tell that I enjoyed it (because I did)? In fact I’d go so far as to say that it completely rocked and the first thing that I did upon finishing was to email Abaddon and ask if we were going to see any more adventures from my new favourite masked swordsman. Unfortunately the answer was ‘no’ but this was balanced out by the fact that I got to read the excellent ‘I, Zombie’ and ‘Death Got No Mercy’ instead. I did wonder though if El Sombra was going to go the way of certain other Abaddon titles (that perhaps didn’t do so well) and be quietly retired. I should have known that you can’t expect a man like El Sombra to go quietly...
I was very surprised (and excited at the same time) to see El Sombra make his return in ‘Gods of Manhattan’. It took me a little longer than anticipated to finally crack the book open and (as has been the case with certain other books) I had to kick myself for not doing it sooner. ‘Gods of Manhattan’ is one hell of a read...

While Ulysses Quicksilver is busy protecting the Empire of Magna Britannia it’s a whole different world on the other side of the Atlantic... Superheroes walk the streets of Manhattan, battling super villains as well as the last remnants of Hitler’s Reich (seeking to undermine America from within). Top superhero in Manhattan (and probably anywhere else in the world) is Doc Thunder, possessed of near invulnerability and impossible for criminals to stop. Monk, his sidekick, isn’t so lucky though and when an attack leaves him bleeding out in hospital Thunder knows that a game is afoot far deeper than any he has ever played before. A new vigilante is in town that is ready to use his pistols to make sure that crime is stamped out permanently, what are his real motives? Are any of the criminals that Doc Thunder saw dying actually dead? And just who is the masked Mexican swordsman pursuing his own agenda through the blood pouring onto the streets of Manhattan...?

After Al Ewing got all metaphysical and broke the fourth wall, in ‘Death Got No Mercy’, I have to admit that even though I was looking forward to reading ‘Gods of Manhattan’ there was still a part of me that approached the book with some trepidation. Using that approach really threw things out of kilter for me and I didn’t want to see that happen again here. It turned out that I didn’t need to worry, Ewing is all about keeping things simple here and just concentrating on the plot to hand; what the very lucky reader gets as a result is an thoroughly gripping read that never fails to entertain.

‘Gods of Manhattan’ is only a mere two hundred and thirty eight pages long but, if you didn’t check the page numbers, you would be forgiven for thinking that there’s twice that here with the sheer amount of plot that Ewing manages to cram into a relatively short space. If there’s a back to be stabbed or someone to be double crossed then you can safely say that’s what will happen. Maybe this lends a slightly predictable air to the proceedings but when you’re looking at a pulp fiction read then that’s almost the point isn’t it? Heroes are there to win through at the very end and the villains’ plots to take over (or even destroy) the world are there to be shot down in flames right at the very death. It’s not spoiling things to say that this is how it ends because the real fun lies in getting there and Ewing does have a few surprises to throw our way when we are least expecting it. Everything comes together very well at the end with the chaos unfolding in the plot doing very well to draw attention away from a firm pair of writing hands at the wheel. There is plenty going on here but all of it serves a purpose.

All of this is driven by characters who may subscribe heavily to ‘pulp tropes’ but are still a pleasure to follow throughout the book. It was great to see the return of El Sombra and finally pick up the story of a man torn between two very different personas (and the situations that this condition throws him into). When you hear that laugh you just know that something great is going to happen!
Doc Thunder also made for an interesting character to follow with his invulnerability offset by dark secrets that the book brings to the fore. These may not come as much of a surprise but the real fun is in watching how he deals with them.

If you’re a fan of Marvel or DC comics then ‘Manhattan Gods’ also has a lot to offer as it’s clear where Ewing has got a lot of his inspiration, for his superheroes, from. Reading ‘Manhattan Gods’ is like walking down a rogues gallery of iconic comic book heroes but Ewing sensibly errs on the side of not overplaying this hand too much; preferring instead to give us quick snapshots of these heroes before turning them loose into his bustling and almost nightmarish vision of Manhattan. I think he gets it spot on here with an interesting spin on established heroes who are perfectly suited to this particular environment (I don’t want to give too much away but I think you’ll like the heroes picked by Ewing to star here...)

You can’t have a superhero novel without at least one ‘smack down’, it’s pretty much the rule. It’s certainly a rule that Ewing is happy to follow as he punctuates the intrigue with plenty of action that takes large chunks out of the surrounding landscape. If we’re looking for a comparison here then I would have to go with ‘Superman vs. Doomsday’; yes, it’s that kind of a stand up fight and well worth the price of entry.

I can’t emphasise enough how much fun I had with ‘Gods of Manhattan’, a read with no pretensions other than to give its reader a ride like never before. Not only does it succeed but it does so in some style. Now to track down a replacement copy of ‘El Sombra’...

Nine and Three Quarters out of Ten

‘Pax Britannia: Blood Royal’ – Jonathan Green (Abaddon Books)

Christmas is a time for lots of things and, for me, one of those things is to go back and revisit a favourite author or two when the weather outside is frightful (and the fire is so delightful...) Jonathan Green sits firmly on that particular list with his ‘Pax Britannia’ series being just the right reading for this time of year. If you’re looking for something highbrow then you might just want to look somewhere else but if you’re looking for a highly entertaining read that’s a lot of fun then you’ve come to the right place! The hero is appropriately dashing and if the villains had moustaches then you can bet that they would be twirling them devilishly. The ‘Pax Britannia’ books are guaranteed to take you away from the tedium of everyday living and dump you right in the middle of a steampunk London where every shadow holds a knife and enemies of the Empire plot against the throne. You can tell that I highly recommend these books...
This brings me onto ‘Blood Royal’; a book that I’ve been saving up to read while things gently wind down towards the New Year. ‘Evolution Expects’ was clearly setting up events for future books and, while this lessened the impact of the book itself, this approach had me looking forward to seeing what happened next. I’m pleased to say that, with ‘Blood Royal’, Jonathan Green has turned in his best instalment yet.

Following the events of ‘Evolution Expects’, large chunks of London are barred to the public as they are now home to vicious insect/human hybrids that are barely contained behind makeshift barriers. That’s not going to stop Ulysses Quicksilver though! When a kidnapping goes horribly wrong and a friend’s daughter is spirited away to the locust nest in St. Paul’s Cathedral only Quicksilver can save the girl and the day. This adventure soon proves to be only a small part of something much larger though and Quicksilver once again finds himself embroiled in a plot that could have grave consequences for the Empire... What was Dr. Gallowglass working on before his untimely death and why does the trail lead to a remote region of Russia? And what is the connection to a very familiar looking killer stalking the streets of Whitechapel with a knife...?

I had my reasons for putting ‘Blood Royal’ to one side until now. I wanted to have fun with my Christmas reading this year and I knew that’s what I’d be getting with this book; it made sense to wait until now for the read. Having said all that though, I still found myself wondering I hadn’t picked this book up a lot earlier. It’s one hell of an entertaining ride and I’m not going to wait as long before picking the next book up!

Usually, when an author throws everything (he can get his hands on) at the plot it will be at the overall expense of the story. Not everything will stick, for one thing, and that inevitably leads to a fragmented book that doesn’t flow anywhere near as well as it should.
Not so with Jonathan Green and ‘Blood Royal’. Throughout the course of the book, Green really does throw everything bar the kitchen sink at the plot. Are you looking for a tale with a long dead serial killer rebuilt in cyborg form? It’s here. Were you looking for a tale of biological warfare involving vampires and werewolves? ‘Blood Royal’ comes up trumps there as well. By this point you’re probably thinking that ‘Blood Royal’ cannot possibly contain Mongol warriors riding Pterodactyls, can it? It can...
The beauty here is that everything Green throws at the plot not only sticks but sticks in such a way as to work with the plot instead of merely being decorative. What you get as a result is a plot that moves at a frantic pace whilst making complete and utter sense. Each madcap spectacle flows seamlessly into the next and I was totally caught up in the rush of trying to get to the bottom of a very mysterious murder. It’s very obvious who the murderer is but, at the same time, it’s a lot of fun to see this particular character in a new setting. I think we’ll be seeing more of him in the future...

Green’s ‘scattershot’ approach to the story also has the welcome affect of giving his readers a much more in-depth view of the world of Magna Britannia and the elements that keep the Empire running. The plot may be a little light weight and pulpy but the detail in the background offers clear evidence that this is a world that has been carefully planned and thought out. It’s a firm setting for the plot to rest on and the story benefits from being able to do its own thing without having to justify some of its wilder excesses.

Just like watching your favourite ‘Indiana Jones’ film on Christmas afternoon (‘Temple of Doom’ if you’re asking...) ‘Blood Royal’ has it all going on and at such a speed that you are almost physically compelled to keep reading. Apart from a couple of the ‘journey’ passages that is. Sometimes things just don’t happen on a long trip but that still means things can get a little on the boring side; especially when the rest of the book is such a riot of action. Tying it all together though is that dashing hero of the British Empire Ulysses Quicksilver. As always, Quicksilver is just the right kind of character to drive a plot like this with his ability to take charge of the moment and get things done. He also has a nice line in repartee and dazzling swordplay; you can’t really ask for too much more from your leading man!

‘Blood Royal’ is another thoroughly entertaining read from Green that will set the standard for the rest of the books in this series. I’m hoping for more of the same from ‘Dark Side’ and will let you know how it goes...

Nine and a Half out of Ten

‘Children’s Crusade (The Afterblight Chronicles)’ – Scott Andrews (Abaddon)

It’s getting to that time of year, once again, when the simple act of just getting through the day gets tougher and tougher. It’s dark when you leave the house in the morning and its dark when you come home; the only light you get is the strip lighting in the office that always leaves you with a headache. It’s cold and wet and you’ve got no choice but to leave the warmth of your bed behind as you have no laptop and cannot work from home. Sounds to me like you need a dose of adrenaline to liven things up and give your day a bit of spark...

This is where Abaddon come in with their mission to publish books that do just that. These books may not be deep but they are full of energy and things exploding in the best possible way; something that has kept me coming back ever since I read their first book (‘The Culled’). Whether it’s Paul Kane or Scott Andrews’ work, the post apocalyptic world of the ‘Afterblight Chronicles’ supplies a liberal dose of pyrotechnics and action and has become a series where I know that I’m guaranteed a fun read. Would that be the case with Andrews’ latest though? Not only did ‘Children’s Crusade’ keep its side of the bargain but it also supplied a few shocks when I was least expecting them.

In a world devastated by the Cull, it has always been the children who are most at risk from the various gangs and cults that have sprung up in the wastelands. Things are different now; organised teams are patrolling the countryside and taking children to a fate far worse than any they would have encountered on home soil. If the location of St. Mark’s school for Boys and Girls hasn’t been found already, it soon will be.
School Matron Jane Crowther not only wants to protect her charges but she also wants to rescue the children who have been taken. If Jane is to do this however she must face the one thing in this new world that she fears the most, the horrors of her own past. One thing is certain; the bullets are going to fly like never before...

‘Children’s Crusade’ not only ties up the loose ends from the previous two books but brings ‘The Culled’ and Paul Kane’s two books into the mix as well. What you get for your money then is pretty much the definitive conclusion to the ‘Afterblight Chronicles’ (at least this arc, I don’t know if there are more books planned). You might want to bear this in mind if there are other books in the series that you haven’t already read. My copy of ‘Arrowland’ arrived after I’d read ‘Children’s Crusade’ and I now know how the story there ends. You may also feel like you’re revisiting books in the series that you’ve already read as old ground is covered. I wasn’t too concerned though as I was having a great time reading the book itself.

Like I said, ‘Children’s Crusade’ is a ‘work of conclusions’ and Andrews doesn’t hang around in getting things rolling. The pace rockets along at the speed of the bullets, arrows and grenades that punctuate the narrative with moments of high tension and action. Andrews is also keen to conclude things in that most final of ways for a large number of his cast, both supporting members and the main leads. A couple of deaths came completely out of the blue for me and emphasised just how well Andrews has been quietly going about the business of creating characters that grow on you but are still only mortal. The harsh realities of post-apocalyptic living are never more apparent than in the way that the cruellest of curve balls are thrown at two of the leads. Another main character also dies but, given Andrews’ character study of this particular person, you can very much see this coming in an ‘only one way to achieve redemption’ kind of way. No surprises here but still a powerful ending that’s handled well.

Given that the nature of the book seems to be tie up loose ends from other books, and bring everything together, there isn’t a lot of room for ‘Children’s Crusade’ to have a plot in its own right. There’s a rescue attempt where Jane Crowther must face a nemesis from her past (complete with twist that I saw coming)... and that’s about it. Is it enough though? While there were bits that I wish had been explored in a little more detail (including a real missed opportunity for an explosive confrontation between two characters) there was enough going on that I couldn’t really complain whilst reading. The sound of gunfire, explosions and the screeching of tyres can fill in a lot of gaps and keeps things moving very smoothly in this instant.

‘Children’s Crusade’ does come across as being a little on the ‘light’ side as it sacrifices a more in depth plot to concentrate on tying up the series as a whole. What I found though was that the book makes up for this by really playing to its strengths, resulting in pages that I found I had to turn. ‘Children’s Crusade’ is a fine ending to this section of the ‘Afterblight Chronicles’. I’m hoping for more to come from Scott Andrews in this series.

Eight and a Half out of Ten

‘No Man’s World - Black Hand Gang’ – Pat Kelleher (Abaddon Books)

As a History A-Level student I went on a field trip to the First World War battlefields of the Somme; something that cannot fail to leave it’s mark on anyone who goes (even a bunch of eighteen year guys who were trying to find out where the nearest pub was to the hostel, I don’t think we ever found out...)
One part of the trip I’ll always remember is visiting the Hawthorn Crater where 40,000lb of explosives were detonated as part of the offensive to capture German positions. As with most British plans during the war, it worked well in principle but not in practice with the Germans easily driving off the British advance... Such monuments to man’s inability to get to grips with a whole new kind of warfare are dotted all over the Somme. What if they were monuments to something else entirely though? That’s Pat Kelleher’s spin on things and the result is a gripping start to a new series from Abaddon...

On November 1st 1916, nine hundred men of the Pennine Fusiliers vanish in the middle of their advance on the German positions in Harcourt Wood. They awake to find themselves in the middle of an alien world where the natives are aware of their presence, and hungry...
Getting back home is the number one objective but this must be balanced out with replenishing dwindling supplies, maintaining some semblance of morale and surviving first contact with an inscrutable alien race. All these perils though might just fade into insignificance however when the soldiers are faced with a threat within their own ranks. It might just be that the Fusilier’s arrival on this planet was someone’s plan all along...

I’m pretty much like this the whole year round but it’s always the summer months that bring out a real need in me to indulge in some good old fashioned pulp fiction. You know the stuff that I’m talking about here. Books that you can read in the sun but can easily put down when it gets too hot and you want to reach for that second beer. That is exactly what ‘Black Hand Gang’ is but with one difference, at least as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t put this one down, not until I’d finished reading it. It wasn’t a perfect read but there was never any question of my stopping with it.

Pat Kelleher has clearly gone to a lot of effort and research to give his readers a look at life in the trenches that is as authentic as possible. He has played around with some of the place names etc (and his prologue adds a subtle hint of ‘what if…?’ to the proceedings) but what the soldiers go through in the book is pretty much what their real life counterparts would have experienced. Kelleher pays tribute to these men by not holding back with the conditions that their own commanding officers forced them to fight under. Officers saw shellshock as cowardice and punished it accordingly, there’s plenty of that here and it’s all the more pointless when you see what the men are running from.

Having got his readers filthy in the mud of the trenches, Kelleher then proceeds to use this authenticity to make what is to come even more bizarre and out of this world. Kelleher only gets it half right but what he does hit the target it’s definitely worth sticking around for. He really nails not only what it must be like to experience an alien world for the first time but what it must have been like for a soldier of the First World War (who might never have gone beyond his village until he joined up) to experience that world. There’s a real stand off between claustrophobia and agoraphobia as the men are at constant alert with no idea of what might come over the horizon… When they finally meet the natives the scene is set for explosive action as the soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force meet… you’ll have to wait and see. It’s done brilliantly and I’m looking forward to more of the same in future books.

Sometimes it goes a little awry… I seem to have a thing about too much background detail at the moment, especially when it gets in the way of the story. ‘Black Hand Gang’ falls foul of this on more than one occasion with perhaps a little more detail of alien forests etc than is needed for the story to flow smoothly. That the story tends to flow very smoothly the rest of the time makes these moments even more infuriating; you know what the story is capable of and it leaves you wondering why it seems to have taken a backward step.
If this wasn’t bad enough, you’re getting all of this through the perspective of soldiers who often don’t have the slightest idea what they are looking at. If they don’t know then you’re not going to know either as Kelleher sure as hell isn’t going to tell you. Why should you know when they don’t?
While this approach does make an alien landscape even more alien it can also leave the reader as confused as the characters they’re reading about. There’s nothing to connect with other than a bunch of guys who are just as confused as you are but I guess we all get to find out what’s going on together!

When Kelleher gets the story away from these moments, it’s clearly one that I’ll be around for more of at least. Black magic, alien beings and a dirty great tank! ‘Black Hand Gang’ is very much a book that sets up future sequels but those three ingredients mean that it’s a lot of fun to read in the meantime and there are intriguing possibilities for the future (as well as a degree of closure that you wouldn’t normally get in the opening book of a series). Kelleher may be writing pulp here but he takes time to give us characters that we can care about. The ending comes with a couple of cliff-hangers and one of these in particular left me feeling really sorry for a main character. That’s not something that happens an awful lot and I’m all the more eager to find out what happens to him next.

‘Black Hand Gang’ does suffer from erratic pacing at times and a narrative approach that can leave a reader floundering. Give it a chance though, ‘Black Hand Gang’ is also a thoroughly entertaining tale that promises great things for the future. I’ll be around to see if the series meets the standard that it has set itself.

Eight and a Half out of Ten

‘The Bloodstained Man’ – Christopher Rowley (Tor)

I wasn’t all that keen on Christopher Rowley’s ‘Pleasure Model’ but somehow found myself going back for a second helping with ‘The Bloodstained Man’. I guess the bottom line is that the morning commute to work just isn’t the time or place for anything too highbrow. Something that will keep me awake is what I’m after, I want explosions described so well that you can almost hear them!
The problem is though, I also want some kind of story to go with the spectacle and ‘Pleasure Model’ didn’t deliver on that score. Is it even possible for a pulp novel to be too ‘pulpy’? That’s certainly the impression I got with Rowley’s first offering in this series. I found myself back for more though and I got pretty much what I was expecting...

Detective Rook Venner, Mistress Julia and the gene grown human Plesur are on the run from government troops that want to kill them and a shadowy organisation that wants the information in Plesur’s head. If only Venner knew what this information actually meant...
The only option for our heroes seems to be to hide out in the flooded New Jersey territories but they’re about to find that this particular hiding place is even more dangerous than what they had left behind. Separated from each other, Venner finds himself an unwilling contestant in gladiatorial games while Julia finds herself at the mercy of a gangster with only one thing on his mind. Both of them need to get themselves out of trouble before Plesur lands even further in it...

As I said at the start, is it possible for a pulp novel to be too ‘pulpy’? If it gets in the way of the story then I’d say that the answer is a resounding yes. And that’s what we get over the course of ‘The Bloodstained Man’.
There is plenty of style on display here, all skilfully rendered by Rowley. If you’re not getting shootouts that look effortlessly cool then you’re up against sex scenes that skirt the edges of decency (just enough for you to get that sense of the degrading but no more). You could almost be watching a film here instead of reading a book, a feeling that is sadly emphasised by Justin Norman’s slapdash approach to the interior art this time round. When Norman’s good he’s really good. At other times though, it feels more like he’s rattling off some quick storyboard art instead. The difference in quality really does show... The bottom line though is that ‘The Bloodstained Man’ is a slick affair that moves forward at a nice pace.

Having a lot of style is all well and good but I came away feeling like there was nothing of substance to back things up. There’s a mystery in the background, waiting to be solved, but it doesn’t get a chance to come to the fore as people are too busy looking cool and blowing stuff up. With such a key and integral part of the plot relegated to the background there’s nothing left to give the book any real structure. What we’re left with is a confusing series of events that propel our characters towards a finale that the author hasn’t deemed important enough to be given much (if any) airtime...

The characters get the same kind of treatment. As was the case with ‘Feed’ (reviewed yesterday); Venner, Plesur and co are too busy conforming to various pulp tropes for the reader to get a real picture of who they actually are. I know this is a pulp novel but surely that doesn’t mean that the characters can’t take on their own identity as well as being hard-bitten, glamorous yet vulnerable and so on...
When I start to feel that a character could be anyone (with no real identity of their own) that’s when I start to lose interest and I don’t think the whole ‘pulp’ excuse really cuts it...

‘The Bloodstained Man’ isn’t really the second part of a trilogy as such and, having read the first book, I’d say that what we’re looking at here isn’t really a trilogy at all. What we’re getting here feels more like one large book that has been split into three smaller parts. The two books flowed nicely into one another but with no cliff-hanger as such. There’s more of a cliff-hanger, at the end, than there was last time round but there still wasn’t that sense of urgency that would have set things up nicely for the finale. It was more a case of ‘I know what will happen next so I’m not too worried about it...’ As was the case with ‘Pleasure Model’, ‘The Bloodstained Man’ plays to its pulp roots so heavily that you can more or less predict what will happen next (although I’m willing to be proved wrong!) With only one book left I’ll probably finish the series but I’m not invested in it at all. Having three distinct books might have given the plot some much needed impetus but the complacent way that the first two have flowed into one another robbed the series of the urgency that it needed.

In the great battle between style and substance, ‘The Bloodstained Man’ came out firmly in favour of style. What was a victory for style though felt like a bitter defeat for the story itself. It may be too late for the trilogy but I’m hoping that things pick up for the final chapter...

Six out of Ten

‘Pleasure Model’ – Christopher Rowley (Tor)

‘Heavy Metal’ magazine is one of those magazines where you’re never quite sure if you can get away with looking at it while you’re with your wife. On the one hand, it’s geeky enough that you can plead a ‘Sci-Fi/Fantasy moment’ and have a quick read. On the other hand, it’s full of semi naked women (artistically drawn but still...) It’s a close call to make and you’ll always find me erring on the side of caution!
So what led me to pick up ‘Pleasure Model’ then? Anything that unashamedly classes itself as ‘Pulp’, and doesn’t take itself too seriously, will always catch my eye and get a read (especially with life leading me towards lighter reads at the moment). The cover art lays it on the line as to what you can expect to find inside and the blurb confirmed it. I was in but as it turned out, ‘Pleasure Model’ was a book that was both equal to and less than the sum of it’s parts all at the same time...

The mean streets of New York have thrown up another unsolvable crime for Detective Rook Venner to solve, if he can stay alive for long enough. Murder is a nasty business but it’s even nastier when every lead is a dead end and you know that you’re not being told the full story. Venner’s big break comes when an eye witness to the crime is discovered; the only problem is that she’s a pleasure model, an illegal gene grown human whose sole purpose is to give her owner satisfaction. Plesur is next on the murderer’s hit list and Venner’s job is to keep her safe whilst trying to solve the case. Neither of these are as easy as they look though. In the face of the awesome firepower levelled at Venner by unseen foes, the real danger may be that he is falling for his star witness...

The thing about pulp fiction is that you know exactly what you are getting with a book in this sub genre. The story may not make sense but it doesn’t really have to. What you come for is the noir atmosphere and the adrenalin rush of bullets being traded between hard bitten detectives and jaded women with a secret weakness for cops. There may be a mystery as well that will be solved by the last page...
‘Pleasure Model’ fails on this last note but seeing as it’s the opening shot in the ‘Netherworld’ trilogy then you can forgive it for keeping some of it’s tricks up it’s sleeve for later instalments in the series. What you do get though is a dark and sleazy atmosphere that oozes up from the streets and straight into the homes of the high and mighty. The reader is left in no doubt as to the nature of this tale; one part bewildering mystery and one part tentative exploration into sex and corruption. Justin Norman’s interior art adds to the atmosphere in the best possible way, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of his work...

As far as the sex and corruption go, ‘Pleasure Model’ falls somewhere in between not pulling it’s punches and coming across as strangely coy about the sexual power games that it seeks to explore. There are some fairly graphic moments but occasions that you would expect to get similar treatment are glossed over. In a book that’s only two hundred and thirty eight pages long this approach is to be expected but the result here is a book that feels like it doesn’t know what to be and doesn’t have much of a sense of purpose driving it forward. I did find it a pleasing irony though that the most sexual of all the characters was the one who was the most innocent. Rowley does well to maintain Plesur’s purity throughout the story, even if he has pulp fiction tropes on his side. Venner’s character is just that little too law abiding for his time with Plesur to ever raise the kind of questions that the book needs it to.

Any opening book in a trilogy has a lot to do in terms of setting up the plot to carry on into future books and ‘Pleasure Model’ is no different in this regard. It doesn’t quite do the job though...
While everything is set up for the sequel (questions waiting to be answered etc) there doesn’t seem to be that sense of urgency at the end to carry the reader on into the next book. The relative brevity of the book could be the issue here again although the lack of any kind of cliff hanger leaves the ending feeling a little flat.

This is rather a shame as the rest of the book leading up to this point is full of bullets, bombs and exotic weaponry that sneaks up on both the reader and the characters. While the plot is a bit too lightweight (you know what’s going to happen) you can’t deny the raw power of armed confrontation and pursuit that carries this book along like a tidal wave. There is always something happening that fills in the spaces between other things happening and you can’t help but be carried along with it.

It’s a shame then that this isn’t really enough. ‘Pleasure Model’ is an exciting enough read to pique my interest in the sequel but this is tempered by the fact that the overuse of pulp fiction tropes make this a book where you could almost write the ending yourself and have it match what’s on the last page. Maybe that’s the whole point of pulp fiction but this overreliance was a hindrance to my engaging with the book and while this didn’t kill the story for me it certainly gave it a good kicking...

Six and Three Quarters out of Ten

Mini Reviews?

Earlier this year I found myself in the enviable position of having a little stockpile of books that I could review while I was reading the thicker stuff. Me being me though, I ended up reading a whole load of other stuff and leaving the stockpile to gather dust in the corner... The way it stands now, you’re not going to get full on reviews of these books as I’d have to read them all over again and I don’t have the time. What you will get though are the impressions that have stayed with me since I read them. The people at ‘Fantasy Book Critic’ have already coined the ‘capsule review’ phrase so I can’t really use that which is a shame as it’s a great phrase. Call this post what you want really but here’s what I thought of the following books...



‘Necrophenia’ – Robert Rankin (Gollancz)
This one took a while to get going but once it did Mr Rankin was on top form. I got the impression that the story suffered slightly this time round by his tendency to go off on an epic tangent whenever it suited him... ‘Necrophenia’ is brimming over with irreverent humour though and it’s chock full of zombies as well so I was happy.



‘Quarantined’ – Joe McKinney (Lachesis Publishing)
I loved ‘Dead City’ so jumped at the chance to read ‘Quarantined’, things weren’t as good this time round. For me, McKInney’s strengths lie in his ability to portray the meltdown of a city the way he did in ‘Dead City’. This wasn’t the approach he took in ‘Quarantined’ though (with San Antonio being locked down after an attack of bird flu) and his tale of a city going through the aftermath of a crisis lacked the punch of his former work. It was a case of comparing ‘something waiting to happen’ with ‘things that are happening in your face right now’... The ‘murder mystery’ element of the plot was fun to follow though.



‘Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ & ‘Restaurant at the End of the Universe’ – Douglas Adams (Pan MacMillan)
You know how it is, you meet a friend that you haven’t seen in years only to find that you have nothing in common and getting back in touch was a mistake. That was me and these two books. I hadn’t read either of these books in a long time (years) and despite them still being as well written as I remember, they just weren’t funny anymore. Had I read them too often as a kid and killed the jokes? Maybe, maybe not. I wasn’t laughing though and haven’t bothered to pick up the others.



‘Broken Arrow’ – Paul Kane (Abaddon Books)
I love reading Abaddon’s ‘Afterblight Chronicles’ and ‘Broken Arrow’ was no exception. It’s lightweight but fun and a very accessible retelling of the ‘Robin Hood’ story. Maybe not the best book in the ‘Chronicles’ but still worth a read if you’re a fan.



‘Winter Duty’ – E.E. Knight (Roc)
If there was ever a reason for not starting a series at the eighth book then this book is it. I thought I’d give it a go and see what happened. What I got was a confusing mish mash of names and references to past events that I had no idea about. If that wasn’t bad enough, the tone was so dry as to leave me dehydrated and the constant recounting of troop deployments did nothing for me at all. Not a great reading experience...

‘Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead’ – Steve Perry (Del Rey)

You all know the score by now, if there’s a book or film with zombies in it then the odds are that I’m either reading/watching it or will be very soon. The only noticeable exception was E. Van Lowe’s ‘Never Slow Dance with a Zombie’; I liked the title but even the presence of zombies was not enough to get me to read another tale of high school girls learning to accept themselves for who they are. Sorry but it’s just not going to happen, not on this blog!
In order to try and keep things a little fresh (I don’t want to read the same thing over and over again, even if it’s about zombies!) I try and look for zombie fiction that’s a little different; something that stands out from the rest of the herd. When I saw that Steve Perry had Indiana Jones going up against zombies I just knew that I had to give it a go. Indiana Jones is cool, so are zombies. What could possibly go wrong? As it turned out, ‘The Army of the Dead’ wasn’t all it could have been...

It’s World War Two and the attention of both German and Japanese intelligence agencies are focused on a small island just off Haiti. It’s here where the fabled ‘Heart of Darkness’ can be found, a black pearl reputed to give strange powers to those who hold it. Such an artefact could prove very useful to the war effort and must be captured at all costs. However, some people believe that the best place for the Black Pearl is in a museum where everyone can see it; this is where Indiana Jones comes in...
Along with his friend ‘Mac’ McHale, Indy must penetrate the Island of the Dead and reach the Black Pearl before the Germans or the Japanese. However, they are not alone on the island. A powerful Voodoo priest also has his eye on the pearl and will stop at nothing to claim it. The army of zombies at his command tips the balance in his favour, how can Indy kill something that is already dead...?

‘Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead’ is a fun read, no doubt about it. Perry totally captures the spirit of the first three films (I haven’t seen the fourth so can’t really say what that one was like), bottles it and then transfers it to the written page in a blaze of gunfights, beautiful women, hair raising escapades... and the supernatural. Perry doesn’t overdose, and burn out, on it either. The pacing is well maintained throughout and there is always an ominous threat in the background (whether it’s the Nazis, Japanese or zombies) to keep things nice and tense. This is definitely a book that grabs the attention with a deft blend of pulp fiction and magic. You would have thought that Indy had seen it all already but there are still a few surprises left in store for him! If you’re a fan of the films then you are sure to find something that you will enjoy here.

As far as zombies go, I’ve never really read much about the Voodoo undead (the ‘Simon Garth’ tales are good, ‘Way of the Barefoot Zombie’... less so) so it was refreshing to finally give it a go. By way of preference, I’ll still stick with post apocalyptic corpses shambling through deserted streets but there is definitely something to be said for the zombies of Voodoo lore. Perry gives his reader a close encounter with the undead where the only thing scarier is the priest who controls them. When this is set against a backdrop of a bleak rain drenched island the result is an atmospheric piece that holds your attention and plays games with your nerves.

Perry has written a winner of a book so it’s a real shame then that his hands are tied by the limitations of the franchise that he is writing for. The bottom line is that we all know how this story has to end, especially seeing as it’s placed in between certain of the films. While we may not know the exact specifics of the conclusion we do that Indy will make it through alive, he has to. It would have been cool to see Perry able to really go for it and take some risks with the character. ‘Zombie Indiana Jones’ anyone?
This isn’t the case though and what we get as a result is an admittedly exciting tale that has the shine taken off by a foregone conclusion.

‘Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead’ is a great addition to the canon that is ultimately hobbled by the sheer iconic success of the lead character. ‘If it ain’t broke then don’t try and fix it’ seems to be the rule here. Despite this though, it’s a fun read and a great way to spend a lazy afternoon...

Eight and a Quarter out of Ten

‘Death Got No Mercy’ – Al Ewing (Abaddon Books)

As a rule, I’m not normally the kind of person who picks up a book based on the cover alone. At the very least I’ll have a look at the blurb or maybe see what people are saying on-line. Every so often though there’s an exception to the rule, the artwork may not be great but there will be something about the cover which tells me that this is a book I have to read. Like ‘Death Got No Mercy’ for example.
Just look at that cover. Is there anything that’s cooler than a guy taking on a grizzly bear with only his bare fists, a ‘hard as nails haircut’ and a truck load of attitude? I don’t think there is either and that was the reason I had to pick this one up and give it a go. I mean, come on! It’s a guy fighting a bear! (Did I say that already? I don’t care, it’s brilliant!)
It turned out that the high I got from the cover didn’t last through the whole book but I still had a great time reading it...

Cade is a man who you wouldn’t even dare go near in a pub, let alone spill his drink! He’s certainly not going to let anything like the aftermath of an apocalyptic virus get in the way of his daily routine. When one of his companions (Cade doesn’t have friends) runs out of insulin the only option is a trip down to San Francisco, to pick up some more, and the only man who can make that trip is Cade himself. No-one else has ever returned. Cade may not be ready for what lies inside the city limits but the religious fundamentalists, cannibal cults and psychotic hippies certainly weren’t counting on someone like Cade coming to visit...

Al Ewing’s ‘I, Zombie’ was one of the more visceral stories that I’ve read and I thought that reading this would have been ample preparation for ‘Death Got No Mercy’. While Ewing takes the same approach in his latest book, I still wasn’t quite ready for Cade’s one man wave of destruction across a major city and what he leaves behind him. Like death itself, ‘Death Got No Mercy’ is brutal and gets right in your face with it’s depictions of life in the aftermath of ‘The Cull’ (a virus that has killed nine out of every ten people) and what the survivors are prepared to do in order to carry on surviving. This is a book that has no mercy whatsoever, in terms of it’s reader’s sensibilities, and is the better for it. I’d go so far in fact as to say that this is probably the best chapter of the ‘Afterblight Chronicles’, so far, as Ewing pulls no punches in telling us how it really is.

‘Death Got No Mercy’ runs on a plot that starts out compelling and becomes even more so as the stakes are raised for Cade. Things do veer off into cartoonish territory as Cade is built up to be practically invincible and the moments of spectacle intensify accordingly. While this makes for some exciting moments some of the tension is lost as it becomes clear that Cade will always make it through (although I wasn’t sure what would happen when he fought the bear...) Ewing sidesteps this small issue by showing us the more devious side of Cade’s nature (he’s not all about using his fists and will set people against each other) as well as showing us some of the events that have made Cade the man he. Ewing asks the question of whether a person can be born a killer, or if their life moulds them into one, and doesn’t give an opinion at all. Cade is who he is and it’s up to the reader to answer the question themselves. I liked the way this was left open ended as the result was that the question didn’t overshadow the story itself.

It was a real shame then, for me, that ‘Death Got No Mercy’ really fell down when it got all existential and had Cade ‘meet his maker’ partway through. Not only did this really interrupt the flow of the book but it didn’t have much bearing on the plot itself. I was also left wondering why Ewing went to all the trouble of drawing such a believable world only to pull it all down like that and show the reader what lies behind it. Maybe a re-read would shed a little more light on it (and this is certainly a book I’ll be going back to) but it didn’t make a lot of sense this time round...

Despite these niggles, I’m still standing by ‘Death Got No Mercy’ being the best thing to come out of the ‘Afterblight Chronicles’ so far. Fans of the series are in for a treat. If you’re after a short sharp dose of post-apocalyptic fiction then you could do a lot worse than pick this up.

Eight and Three Quarters out of Ten

‘Operation Motherland’ - Scott Andrews (Abaddon Books)

It’s been one of those weeks where not only am I being woken up by the sun (blazing through the curtains and right into my eyes...) incredibly early in the morning but all the sparrows in the street are conspiring to do their level best to make sure that I don’t get back to sleep. I mean seriously though, what kind of sadistic little creature makes it his business to sit on my window sill, at half four in the morning, and start singing his little heart out? Sorry, I’m digressing before I’ve even had a chance to get started!
Being all bleary eyed in the morning isn’t the best condition to be in if you want to be reading something complex and involved. I got round this by making my latest read something that isn’t complex in the slightest and one that totally woke me up with a full on concoction of car chases and explosions. It worked for me... :o)

In the aftermath of the events of ‘School’s Out’, sixteen year old Lee Keegan travels to Iraq on the trail of his missing father. He finds his father but also a lot of other things he never bargained for as even ‘The Cull’ (an extremely virulent disease that has decimated the human population, if you haven’t read the first book...) could not stop the war that has engulfed Basra. The least of Lee’s worries is death by electric chair...
Back in England, Jane Crowther (former matron of St. Mark’s school for boys, if you haven’t read the first book...) is fighting to protect her young charges from post apocalyptic threats as well as each other. However; Lee’s actions in Iraq, a president’s plans for global domination and mention of the mysterious ‘Operation Motherland’ will bring the war to her doorstep once again. If anyone does survive, what shape will they be left in afterwards...?

The best to read any Abaddon book is to leave your sense of disbelief at the door and just dive straight into the plot. It’s generally very fast moving and will carry you past awkward moments such as ‘Can people survive being in a tank that has just fallen out of an aeroplane?’ and ‘How did they manage to stow away in said tank in the first place?’ (You can tell where I had issues with the plot can’t you?) Despite these moments, amongst others, ‘Operation Motherland’ does exactly what it sets out to and that is to be a rollercoaster ride of post apocalyptic gunfights and explosions. A steady dose of impossible odds, evil villains, square jawed heroes and in your face combat kept me turning the pages. I didn’t have a lot of choice really as everything happens so quickly that you have to turn the pages just to keep up.

It was good to catch up with Lee Keegan and Jane Crowther and find out what they had been up to since the last book. The demands of ‘Post-Cull’ Earth weigh heavily on these two characters and Andrews spares no expenses in showing us exactly what this means. Things do get quite graphic in places (scenes of torture) but the plot is moving so fast that you won’t get a chance to be too unsettled by this. This has the perhaps unwanted effect of lessening the impact of these scenes...

I’ve been a big fan of the post apocalyptic landscape shown in ‘The Afterblight Chronicles’ and ‘Operation Motherland’ continues to show this to good affect. Things are slowly starting to pick up but this is still a very dangerous world to live in and the appearance of factions like the ‘Cleaners’ make this only too apparent! I also enjoyed the little nod to Paul Kane’s ‘Arrowhead’ which strengthens the continuity in what is essentially a shared world.

That’s not to say that the book isn’t without its faults though... I’ve already mentioned that ‘Operation Motherland’ is a book that will have you thinking ‘hang on, that couldn’t have just happened...’ While it is a book that achieves it’s set aim, ‘Operation Motherland’ is also a book that requires you to not think too hard about what you’re reading and just go along for the ride. This is ok if you know what you’re letting yourself in for but, if not, be warned...
‘Operation Motherland’ is also a book that relies on it’s pace to cover holes in the plot that a slower read would expose, not going to say too much here as it would give away what happens in the book...

‘Operation Motherland’ is a book that succeeds in being an adrenalin and mayhem fuelled ride but it may come up short if you ask any more of it. It’s still a fun read though, I’ll be back for more.

Seven and a Half out of Ten

‘Anno Mortis’ – Rebecca Levene (Abaddon Books)

A scantily clad female gladiator trying her best to look like Racquel Welch in ‘One Million Years BC’ (which I really need to watch again sometime soon...) can only mean one thing. Yes, Abaddon have a new book out and this time it’s for their ‘Tomes of the Dead’ range, tales of humanity under attack from the ravening (and brain eating...) hordes of the undead...
This week has been all about ‘quick reads on the tube’ for me and, at roughly three hundred and fifty pages long, ‘Anno Mortis’ managed to sneak into that category! Work has left me feeling a little out of it and not really up for getting into anything too heavy and Abaddon are usually good for those kinds of books as well.
All in all I thought I’d be onto a winner with ‘Anno Mortis’ and for the most part I was. It wasn’t all plain sailing though...

It’s 40AD and the mad Emperor Caligula rules over the Roman Empire with a grip that is demented as he is. If this wasn’t bad enough, things are starting to happen in the backstreets and catacombs that, if left unchecked, will spell disaster for the empire. Slaves are disappearing and so are the bodies of the dead. And what are the mysterious shipments that arrive from Egypt in the dead of night?
A mad emperor’s dreams lead to chaos and blood on the streets of Rome; only a gladiator, a spoilt young noble and a mysterious stranger stand any chance of setting things right before death spreads out from the Empire and engulfs the world...

I tore through ‘Anno Mortis’ in just over a day’s commute and normally that’s a good sign as it means that the book has totally held my attention and I’m desperate to see how things turn out before I get off the train. Well, that’s usually the case but this time I found myself skimming through pages where not an awful lot was going on to get to the bits where something was happening. For every ‘breakneck’ passage that got the blood pumping it felt like there were pages saying, “something great is going to happen but not quite yet, it’ll take a while but... stick around anyway?” Chases through catacombs seemed to drag out longer than necessary and (apart from some notable execeptions, more on those later) the book runs into difficulty trying to maintain tension when characters are being pursued by the undead, most of whom can’t actually run that fast...

When things do get going though ‘Anno Mortis’ is just the kind of light reading that I’m after with a plot full of clever twists and spectacle. I’m slowly working my way through a lot of zombie fiction but one thing that I haven’t come across until now is zombie chariot racers... Don’t think about it too much; just go with it, it’s well worth the trip. Levene’s answer to the stalemate resulting from the undead not being able to scale Rome’s high walls also deserves a mention (as I think it’s genius). Catapult one of the living over a wall and you’re going to kill them, catapult a zombie over a wall...
If all this isn’t enough then there is plenty of ‘backs to the wall facing down hundreds of the undead’ slice and dice action that any fan of the series (so far) will definitely appreciate. The mixing of Norse and Egyptian legends, to create an all encompassing world view (for the enemy to go up against) is also cleverly done and makes for interesting reading.

The biggest problem that ‘Anno Mortis’ has is a ‘stop/start’ approach to pacing that left me flicking through what felt (at times) like a lot of unnecessary filler. Once you get past this though, ‘Anno Mortis’ does what Abaddon books do best and offers a gory slice of zombie action that made my commute that little bit more bearable...

Seven and a Half out of Ten

‘Arrowhead’ – Paul Kane (Abaddon Books)

A ‘shared world’ has been racked by a plague that has only spared people of a certain blood type, there’s a lot of scope for crazed motorcycle gangs and bloodthirsty cults but what about the regular people who just want to get on and create some kind of life for themselves? ‘Arrowhead’ sees these people building villages around the city of Nottingham and slowly beginning to do things like barter with their neighbours for goods etc. It’s all quite idyllic really but then a Frenchman comes in with a bunch of mercenaries and sets up house in the castle. He declares himself ‘sheriff’ and starts demanding taxes from the poor villagers. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? What those villagers need is a hero who will return their goods to them before the winter comes and they end up starving. Oh look, here he comes now...
Yes, Abaddon’s world of the ‘Afterblight Chronicles’ has a hero who steals from the rich and gives it all to the poor which makes for a pretty decent tale from where I’m sitting...

Most stories of this ilk pay their dues to the original source but perhaps don’t make it so obvious that’s where they’re getting their ideas from. ‘Arrowhead’ goes for a direct retelling of the original Robin Hood story albeit with a little more emphasis on the blood and guts instead of tales of ‘merry japes and merry men’. This approach fits in well with this rather dark and desolate landscape but I found that part of me was hankering for some more light hearted moments sometimes. I couldn’t really complain too much though as the ‘Afterblight’ series is pretty up front about what it promises the reader, good for fans of the ‘post-apocalyptic’ sub-genre but maybe not one for people who are after something light-hearted! It was fun to spot the ‘Robin Hood parallels’ though and watch pieces of the puzzle fit into place!

Abaddon books are normally a fast paced and quick read; ‘Arrowhead’ is no exception to this rule with a lot happening (mostly all out war) in just over three hundred pages. While I appreciate that characters and plot can have a big influence on where the story goes (and the plot of ‘Arrowhead’ does make sense regarding some of the directions that it goes in) it sometimes felt that things were a little bit rushed when they could have benefitted from being drawn out a little more. In ‘Arrowhead’ a lot of stuff happens in a very short time which makes for an exciting read but I was left with questions about certain characters and situations where answers would have resulted in a more satisfying read... For example, there were hints of something a little supernatural in the relationship between Stokes (Robin Hood) and De Falaise (the Sheriff) and their shared dreams which I found myself wanting to know more about, especially as this didn’t seem to fit in with what the series is about (people trying to make their way in a post-apocalyptic world).

I can’t complain too much though as ‘Arrowhead’ is an entertaining read that proved to be just the right length for a couple of commutes on the tube. There’s plenty going on, in terms of spectacle and intrigue, that kept me going and if you’re already a fan then I think you’ll be hooked too. Kane also really gets inside the heads of his ‘good’ characters (Robert in particular) which made me feel that little bit more empathy for what they were going through, even when they made decisions that were a bit dodgy... The villains are appropriately villainous and I’m hoping that Tanek’s mysterious disappearance means that we’ll be seeing more of him in future books (he’s a nasty piece of work with scope to come back and be just as nasty in the future...)

For me, ‘Arrowhead’ makes up for the below par ‘Dawn over Doomsday’ (in the same series) and despite it’s shortcomings still hints at a promise of good things to come. I’ll be sticking around to see if this is the case.

Seven and a Half out of Ten