Cover Art vs. The Blurb...

Sometimes you see a cover and you immediately think, "I'm having some of that!" That's what I thought when I saw the cover for Rowena Cory Daniells' 'The King's Bastard'. Check it out...



Gorgeous isn't it? :o) But then you turn the book over to a blurb that really dampens your enthusiasm, much like Rowena Cory Daniells' 'The King's Bastard'... Here it is,

Only seven minutes younger than Rolencia's heir, Byren has never hungered for the throne. He laughs when a seer predicts that he will kill his twin. But the royal heir resents Byren's growing popularity. Across the land the untamed magic of the gods wells up out of the earth's heart. It sends exotic creatures to stalk the wintry nights and it twists men's minds, granting them terrible visions. Those so touched are sent to the Abbey to control their gift, or die. At King Rolen's court enemies plot to take his throne, even as secrets within his own household threaten to tear his family apart. Political intrigue and magic combine in this explosive first book in an exciting new fantasy trilogy.

I have to say it doesn't sound like anything I haven't read before. There's enough there to make me want to give it a go, at least, but I'm not holding out much hope. I'm a real sucker for cover art at the moment though and what I see there really makes me want to have the book prove me wrong!

What about you though? Is this a book that you would pick up? And what happened here to have the cover art and blurb at odds with each other...?

'Go Mutants!' The Website...

I mentioned this title a few weeks ago, still waiting on my review copy but I'm looking forward to giving it a go when it arrives.
In the meantime though, there's a whole Website that you can check out with stuff like a trailer for the book itself as well as a whole load of trailers for old B-Movies. Worth a look I reckon :o)

Here's the blurb for the book itself...

What if the movies that glowed from drive-in screens from the '50s and '60s weren't fantasies but really happened? In Go, Mutants!, Larry Doyle has created a world populated with the monsters, aliens, and mutants of B-movie legend, with all the beach parties, dances, fist fights, and hotrod races of classic teen dramas. An unforgettable era of pop culture is brought to life in an uproarious mash-up filled with Romance! Danger! Intergalactic Conspiracy! Molting!

Earth has survived alien invasions, attacks by hordes of atomic mutants and the ravages of dinosaurs brought back to life. Now we're in the blissful future. The grass is always green, freshly mowed by famous robots. Carhops in jetpacks deliver burger and fries to your atomic coupe. And automatic sidewalks can take you anywhere: the Watch the Skies Drive-in, Crater Cove, and Manhattan High, where everybody roots for the Mutants.

J!m, the son of the alien who nearly destroyed the planet, is a brooding blue-skinned rebel with an enormous forehead and exceptionally oily skin. Along with Johnny, a leather-jacketed radioactive ape, and Jelly, a gelatinous mass passing as a fat kid, J!m navigates a scary adolescence in which he really is as alienated as he feels, the world might actually be out to get him, and true love is complicated by misunderstanding and incompatible parts. As harmless school antics escalate into explosive events with tragic consequences, J!m makes a discovery that will alter the course of civilization, though it may help his dating life.

I'm off to watch some old school B-Movie trailers, hopefully they've got 'The Blob'...

I've never read anything by...

As I'm posting this, I've never read anything by one C.J. Cherryh; yet another name on the long list of fantasy/sci-fi writers that I've yet to read...
By the time you read this though, things will be slightly different. I'm working my way through the 'Swords & Dark Magic' anthology (very good so far) and next up is one C.J. Cherryh's 'A Wizard in Wiscezan'. Maybe I'll like it and maybe I won't, we shall see...

From what I know though, C.J Cherryh has written more than just the one short story. There's at least two series of hers that I've seen on the shelves! I've recently found myself looking for books to read that are a little different from my normal fare as well as by authors that I haven't read before (I know I've still got to read 'The Anubis Gates' and the new David Weber book, I'll get there...) I've never read any of Cherryh's series and I'm wondering if they might be worth checking out. Have any of you folks read her books? What did you think? My preference is running towards fantasy at the moment and I know she's written a couple of these at least, are they worth a look?

All comments much appreciated!

‘Legends of the Space Marines’ – Edited by Christian Dunn (Black Library)

Regular visitors to the blog will know that I’ve got a real thing for Black Library books at the moment and I don’t see it stopping anytime soon. They’re all a lot of fun to read and fun is what I’m after when I’m stuck on the tube of a morning :o) Regular visitors to the blog will also know though that I’m not too keen on the way that the genetically engineered Space Marines are treated in these books. Nine foot tall, covered in power armour and packing enough fire power to make even the nastiest alien think twice. There doesn’t seem to be anything that can stop them and that doesn’t make for a particularly satisfying story at times. I mean, where’s the suspense? You can imagine how I felt then when I was confronted with a whole book full of short stories dealing with the adventures of humanity’s finest. You could probably even take a guess at how I felt when I put the book down…

The funny thing is though, you’d only be half right. It turns out that not only do Space Marines sometimes fail in the face of the opposition but sometimes they can even be hamstrung by their own traitorous kind (or themselves)... A ‘Legend’ doesn’t necessarily mean good things in this case; you can easily be remembered for all the wrong things. All of a sudden this was more the sort of thing that I was after. Obstacles that actually mean something when they are faced down, that’s what keeps me interested and wanting to read more. All of the authors on display do a fine job of showing us what’s at stake on the battlefields of the 41st millennium and the resolve of the Marines who are the Imperium’s best defence against the encroaching darkness. They also all get it spot on in capturing the ‘Gothic’ feel of the Warhammer 40K universe, you know what you’re reading here!

That’s not to say that this is a perfect read though; there are some blistering highs but I also found that there were certain stories that fell short of the others for one reason or another. As a result, the collection as a whole lacked the cohesiveness that would have made it a truly excellent read. Don’t let that put you off too much though. On the whole, ‘Legends of the Space Marines’ is an entertaining read full of bite sized chunks of warfare in the far future.

The contents were as follows…

‘Hell Night’ – Nick Kyme

Sometimes you’re all geared up to deal with a certain kind of enemy and you just can’t get your head around the fact that it might be something else entirely… Nicky Kyme kicks things off with a bang with his tale of the Salamanders Chapter and their intervention in the Vaporis campaign. Kyme cleverly leads you to certain conclusions and then sweeps them away, introducing a revelation that paints everything in a new light. If that wasn’t enough, I got to meet old friends from that particular company of Space Marines. An engaging read that had me looking forward to the rest of the book.

‘Cover of Darkness’ – Mitchel Scanlon

‘Cover of Darkness’ was a little more straightforward in it’s approach with the White Scars Chapter engaged on a mission and another mission that only one of their number knows about… The stand up fights are suitably spectacular but I was looking for something with a few more twists to it and this wasn’t it. ‘Cover of Darkness’ was entertaining but not much else.

‘The Relic’ – Jonathan Green

The Armageddon Campaign has many tales and Green’s tale of a Dreadnought taking on an Ork Horde sounded like it could be a lot of fun. It was a shame then that Green let things run away with him, miring the story in an excess of descriptive prose when things really needed to be a lot sharper to do the story justice. Read Green’s ‘Ulysses Quicksilver’ books if you want to see him on top of his game.

‘Twelve Wolves’ – Ben Counter

Counter’s tale stands out from the rest in that it is an established legend rather than the tale of a legend about to be born. It also shows how the Space Marines (in this case, the Space Wolves) all have an Achilles Heel that they must be on guard against, just the kind of thing I wanted to read about. ‘Twelve Wolves’ enjoyed a nice, crisp delivery and a pivotal moment where the teacher is taught a lesson by his student. Brilliant.

‘The Returned’ – James Swallow

Once I stopped laughing at the name ‘Doom Eagles’ (I mean, who thinks of some of these names…?), ‘The Returned’ was a surprisingly poignant tale of a returned Marine’s struggle to be accepted by the Chapter that thought him dead. Legends are born but sometimes no-one wants them to be… Swallow writes a harrowing tale that contrasts violently with Tarikus’ steadfast wish to simply be allowed to fight alongside his brothers. One of the highlights of the book.

‘Consequences’ – Graham McNeill

It only seems like yesterday that I was bemoaning the lack of character detail for the Ultramarine Uriel Ventris. In one of those moments of random chance, Graham McNeill handily filled in some of the background for me! I really got a feel for Ventris and the events that led to his trial; you could really feel the gravity of that particular event in the story… ‘Consequences’ is more about the birth of a legend than the legend itself. I’m glad I took the time to give this one a go.

‘The Last Detail’ – Paul Kearney

The only work I’ve read of Paul Kearney’s is ‘The Ten Thousand’ and I really need to read more if ‘The Last Detail’ is anything to go by. His language may be brutal and to the point but Kearney shows his readers, in great detail, just how the sparks of legend are born. By the end, the main character wants to become a Space Marine and you can kind of see where he’s coming from…. Like I said, I need to read more by Paul Kearney and if you haven’t then you need to as well.


‘The Trial of the Mantis Warriors’ – CS Goto

The story of Chapter Master Neotera’s trial is one that demands a level of background knowledge, of the Warhammer 40K universe, greater than that of the casual reader. My WH40K trivia knowledge is minimal and as a result I became totally lost in the shifting politics of mutiny. By the time I’d worked out what was going on the story had ended and I didn’t have the energy to go back and give it another go. Possibly a great story for the long term fan and Goto certainly handled his characters very well. Not one for the likes of me though…

‘Orphans of the Kraken’ – Richard Williams

I liked what Williams set out to do here, a Marine Chapter dying on it’s feet has to decide whether to perpetuate it’s existence or go out in a blaze of glory… Given the ultimate decision it’s a shame then that the story dragged and the pace came nowhere near to matching to ambitions of its principal characters. I wonder if this would have worked better as a full length novel where there would have been more time to explore certain themes at a more appropriate length (instead of having to jam everything in to a few pages)…

‘At Gaius Point’ – Aaron Dembski Bowden

‘Legends’ not only kicks things off in style but signs off with a bang as well. Dembski-Bowden’s tale of a hunt across the battlefields of Armageddon feels rushed at times but he really captures what’s going on for his characters and shows us that Space Marines can be legendary for all the wrong reasons. Despite this, you can’t help feeling for Zavien and how his story ends (even if that’s how it has to end)…

Eight and a Quarter out of Ten

‘Procession of the Dead’ – Darren Shan (Grand Central Publishing)

Sometimes it feels like life is one long procession of books and authors that I haven’t had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of. My daily commute gives me ample opportunity to steadily chip away at this list! Until a couple of days ago, Darren Shan was a firm fixture on this list. Not only do I tend to shy away from YA authors that I’ve never tried before (too many other authors that I want to work my way through first…) but a quick look at Amazon shows that Shan is incredibly prolific. Where would I start?
That question was answered for me a couple of days ago when ‘Procession of the Dead’ came through the door. Not only is it the first book in a trilogy but it’s also written for an adult audience; just what I was looking for!
Or was it? I liked the concept but what the book delivered didn’t sit quite as well for me…

Capac Raimi is new in the City and isn’t looking to waste any time getting started in his quest to work his way to the top of the City’s underworld. If only he could remember any of his life before he got off the train…
Raimi has the opportunity to realise all his dreams of power when the Cardinal takes him under his wing. The Cardinal is the City and the City is the Cardinal; nothing happens in the darkest City alleyway without the Cardinal knowing… and taking full advantage. It’s not just about the Cardinal though, Capac must find his feet in a city where a legendary assassin and blind Incan priests haunt the night. And why are his friends suddenly disappearing without a trace?
Capac is about to find out just how much influence the Cardinal has had on his life so far. Then he must work out what to do next, will his relentless ambition be enough?

I love a mystery and there’s nothing more mysterious than a man with no memory; I thought I was in for a bit of a treat when I realised that this was the premise for ‘Procession of the Dead’. It’s a shame then that things didn’t work out how I would have liked…

And things started out so well as well. Shan’s ‘City’ is a great backdrop for the mystery to play out against. The City used to be a nice place to live but now it’s a dark and brooding metropolis, a place where you know that no-one has a happy ending. Almost from the beginning you know that Capac has got some rough stuff headed his way and it’s going to get worse before it gets… even worse than that. This doesn’t spoil the ending though, I was left wanting to know what the payoff was even more and how much blood Capac was going to have to wade through to get to it.

The answer to that last question is… not a lot. Shan isn’t afraid to get down and dirty so fists and bullets fly in equal measure. What he’s more interested in is the mental journey that Capac Raimi goes through before he reaches its conclusion. This is all laid out very clearly as Raimi’s natural character forces him to confront these questions head on; if he wants to be the kingpin then he’s not going to leave any stone unturned behind him. Raimi is also very loyal to his friends so when they start disappearing he will not stop until he gets answers. Capac Raimi is the driving force behind the plot and he keeps it powering ahead in some style. Raimi wants to get to the bottom of the mystery so badly that you’ll end up wanting it too. I was racing ahead to find out how it all ended.

It’s a shame then that the final revelation fell flat, at least as far as I was concerned.

The only place for a long explanatory speech, from the villain, is in a James Bond film. You kind of expect it there and you never mind too much when you find it. I wasn’t keen on the Cardinal delivering his revelation in this manner, it brought the pace of the book right down to a crawl and I found it really difficult to get going again afterwards.

And then there was the revelation itself. Now, I can’t say too much for fear of spoilers and the revelation at the end may work a lot better for you than it did for me. What I will say though is that the book built things up to a real crescendo and then hit me with a payoff that I had seen before. A slight variation to be fair but still a payoff that was familiar to me. I had a feeling that this was coming but things were running so well that I wanted to see how Shan handled it. Like I said, it may work for you but I was left feeling very under whelmed by it all. The pace of the novel had already taken a battering and this served to really put the boot in. This was a real shame as some of the more mystical elements came to the fore at this point and I wasn’t interested in them by then…

The thing is that I would probably pick up the next book in the trilogy. The City has a superb atmosphere to it and I’d be interested to see what stories are thrown up next from its alleyways and casinos. If Shan can give his reader a payoff to match his atmospherics then it will be a great read. With ‘Procession of the Dead’ though, it was very much a case of what could have been…

Seven out of Ten

Another Early Morning Competition Winners Post!

There were a few competitions running last week weren't there? Good wasn't it? :o) Well, the time has come to let you folks know who all the lucky winners were. Well done if you were one of them, better luck next time if you weren't!
The lucky winners were...

'Feed' (Mira Grant)

Victoria Navin, Wales
Lori Darling, Suffolk, UK
Melissa Symonds, Surrey, UK

'The Folding Knife' (K.J. Parker)

Lee Barker, Rotherham, UK
Sam Komaravalli, Middlesex, UK
Luke Wells, Bicester, UK

'Heaven's Devils' (William C. Deitz)

Reuben Hubbard, Canada
Shaun Duke, Florida, US
Charles Fraker, Richmond, US
Todd Johansen, Spring City, US
Craig Cote, BC, Canada

Well done guys, your books are headed your way right now!
Better luck next time everyone else... ;o)

Giveaway! 'Dog Blood' (David Moody)

You've read my review for 'Dog Blood' (What do you mean you haven't? Just scroll down the page a little...), now you've got the chance to win a copy all for yourself :o)
(Only if you live in the UK though, sorry everyone else!)

Thanks to the people at Gollancz, I've got one copy of 'Dog Blood' to give away to one lucky reader. All you need to do to enter is drop me an email (address at the top right hand corner of the screen) telling me who you are and what your postal address is. You also need to make it clear that this is the competition that you are entering. I'll do everything else.

I'm letting this one run until the 13th of June and will aim to announce the winner as soon as possible afterwards...

Good Luck!

Giveaway! 'The Passage' (Justin Cronin)

'The Passage' seems to be the book this year that everyone is making a big deal of. If someone hasn't read it and raved about it then they're planning to read it just so they can rave about it afterwards. At least that's what I'm hearing ;o)
I can't find a decent blurb to put up but we're talking 'apocalyptic' here!

Now, how do you fancy winning a copy? (Although I'm afraid this competition is only open to people living in the US...)

Thanks to the good people at Ballantine Books, I've got one copy of 'The Passage' to give to one lucky reader of the blog. If you want to be that lucky reader, all you need to do is drop me an email (address at the top right hand side of the screen) telling me who you are and what your postal address is. You also need to make it clear, in the subject header, that this is the competition you want to enter.

I'll let this one run until the 13th of June and will aim to announce the winner as soon as possible afterwards.

Good Luck!

A Cover Art Post...

A couple of books came through the post today and I wanted to share the cover art with you, albeit for slightly different reasons.
First up...



'The Alchemist in the Shadows' - Pierre Pevel

I spent a good long while looking for a decent picture of this cover and this was the only one that I could find. Apologies if it comes out too small! The fact remains though, if there is better cover art featuring a dragon then I really want to see it! Doesn't it look gorgeous?
Here's the blurb,

Welcome to Paris, in 1633, where dragons menace the realm. Cardinal Richelieu, the most powerful and most feared man in France, is on his guard. He knows France is under threat, and that a secret society known as the Black Claw is conspiring against him from the heart of the greatest courts in Europe. They will strike from the shadows, and when they do the blow will be both terrible and deadly. To counter the threat, Richelieu has put his most trusted men into play: the Cardinal's Blades, led by Captain la Fargue. Six men and a woman, all of exceptional abilities and all ready to risk their lives on his command. They have saved France before, and the Cardinal is relying on them to do it again. So when la Fargue hears from a beautiful, infamous, deadly Italian spy claiming to have valuable information, he has to listen . . . and when La Donna demands Cardinal Richelieu's protection before she will talk, la Fargue is even prepared to consider it. Because La Donna can name their enemy. It's a man as elusive as he is manipulative, as subtle as Richelieu himself, an exceptionally dangerous adversary: the Alchemist in the shadows...

Look out for this one, published by Gollancz, in September. I enjoyed the last book so you can expect to see 'The Alchemist in the Shadows' reviewed here before too long...



'Antiphon' - Ken Scholes

Lovely and all but... why the change in artist after only two books...? Steven Erikson, Naomi Novik, Mike Carey and now Ken Scholes. Am I doomed never to have a complete set of books with cover art all by the same artist? Possibly... :o( Pat says it a lot better than I ever could, curse my English reserve!
Here's the blurb,

The ancient past is not dead. The hands of the Wizard Kings still reach out to challenge the Androfrancine Order, to regain control of the magick and technology that the monks sought to understand and claim for their own. Rejoin the adventure in the Named Lands!

Look out for this in September, published by Tor in the US. 'Antiphon' will also get it's moment here on the blog but only if I ever get round to reading 'Canticle' first (a casualty of my reading malaise late last year). So many books and not enough time to read them all... Oh well, I'll keep trying!

‘Dog Blood’ – David Moody (Gollancz)

Being the grumpy kind of guy that I am (generally) I used to think that there were a lot of people in the world that I hated; more often than not those who just will not get out of my way when I’m trying to get to and from work...
There may well be a special place in Hell reserved for selfish London commuters (not that I’m still bitter, not at all...) but I’ve come to realise that there’s no-one who I actually hate. I mean, ‘hate’ is such a strong word isn’t it? If you hate someone then it’s not just a case of half heartedly wishing bad luck on them, you would be quite happy to see them dead. You would probably be more than happy to do the deed yourself... Now look at that guy on the tube who got your seat, you don’t actually hate him at all do you?
Imagine feeling so strongly about a person that your overriding urge is to beat them to death with whatever is close to hand. Actually, you don’t have to imagine that. David Moody has already painted that picture in his book ‘Hater’ and now he’s back to tell us what happens next...

Civilisation has crumbled and in this new post apocalyptic landscape there is only one basic truth; you’re either a Hater or one of the Unchanged and you must kill the other side before they kill you.
Haters have grasped this fact only too well and are killing every one of the Unchanged that they come across. Unchanged refugees cower in the city centres while their army fights a losing battle in the countryside. Danny McCoyne is somewhere in the middle of all this. As much as he hates the Unchanged, all he wants to do is find his five year old daughter and keep her safe. Danny’s daughter is a Hater as well but is something else entirely at the same time. Children’s lack of inhibitions make them true Haters...
Danny will eventually find out just what this means but before he does his journey will take him across a shattered landscape locked in a war that will never end until one side has been wiped from the face of the earth...

Every so often a book comes along that totally rewrites your entire reading landscape. Before you get too excited, ‘Dog Blood’ isn’t going to redefine literature or anything like that. What is does redefine is just how utterly ruthless and downright vile one human being can be to another on the written page. Moody knows only too well that when a line is drawn between life and death people will do whatever they can to stay on the right side of that line. The results are displayed in a language that is all the more brutal for its simplicity. Moody tells it like it is, the scale and nature of his apocalypse deserves no less. If you can’t deal with it then put the book down. Actually, if you can’t deal with it then don’t pick the book up in the first place. I like a liberal dose of violence and gore in my work but there were a couple of instances where I had trouble continuing to read as things got a little too close to the bone for my liking... Whether you’re of a squeamish nature or not though, one thing you cannot deny is that the violence Moody employs drives the story along at an intense rate. ‘Dog Blood’ is only two hundred and seventy nine pages long but the pace at which the story travels makes it feel like there are a lot more pages crammed into that small space.

Moody also paints a grim and compelling picture of the aftermath of society’s collapse that’s worth the price of entry. An apocalypse isn’t just about that initial explosion, the smouldering remains are also there to pored over and sifted through. While the Haters make this new landscape their own, the Unchanged try to hold onto the past for as long as possible and that jarring contrast adds to the sense that things are fractured beyond repair. Add tonnes of mud, poignant reminders of ‘normal life’ and life from the perspective of one of the Unchanged (with a revelation that totally caught me out) and you can’t help but feel that Moody has got it spot on with the backdrop that he has created.

The plot itself occasionally veers into territory as black and white as the conflict it is seeking to depict. In a world where the overriding imperative is to kill if you want to survive all the story can do is move from one conflict to the next. While attempts are made to look at the subject matter and see how it can be explored (which are interesting) you can’t escape from a sense of repetition that is just as likely to lull the reader into a familiar rhythm (detracting from the story itself) as it is likely to force home some particularly nasty messages. McCoyne’s character isn’t helpful here in that his single-minded obsession with finding his daughter can override the backdrop that Moody has gone to so much trouble to create. Things stop being about the Haters and become about Danny asking himself the same questions over and over again as he continues on his quest. Moody does a great job in showing his readers what drives Danny as a character (and by extension, the whole plot) but I was left wondering if I needed to be shown as often as I was...

Just when this was really starting to get to me, Moody proceeded to pull out all the stops and close this part of the series off in some style! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fictional city implode in quite the same way as this one does, Moody really captures the essence of panic in a crowd teetering on the edge... and falling over it. What’s even better though is the way that Moody replicates this intensity of emotion in a much smaller group, hooking the reader for those last few pages and leaving them gasping by the end. If Moody wants his readers eagerly anticipating the next instalment then he’s succeeded as far as this reader is concerned. I can’t wait to see how it all ends!

In what has been a great week for books coming off the reading pile, ‘Dog Blood’ keeps the record going with a read that lived up to the standard set by ‘Hater’. Its subject matter does cause ‘Dog Blood’ some problems as far as the structure of the novel is concerned but, on the whole, it is a worthy successor to ‘Hater’ and you can count on my being around when it all comes to it’s inevitable bloody conclusion...

Nine and a Half out of Ten

‘Kraken’ – China Mieville (Tor UK/Del Rey)

When you live in London it’s very easy to forget what a magical place it can be. Think about it... When you’re not in the office, you’re either commuting to it or away from it and you don’t have much of a chance to stop and take a look at where you are. When you get home after a days work (and fighting everyone else on the Underground...) the last thing you want to do is turn around and head back into the thick of it! That’s where I am right now with it all, I know that I live in an amazing city but I just can’t see the wood for all the trees that are in the way!
The thing is though, London is without a doubt a place that is brimming over with magic. Whether it’s in the bright lights of the high streets or the dark and winding alleys that branch off them it’s clear that London is a place that’s more than a little out of the ordinary. What I need then is someone who can point these things out to me while my travels take me through the more mundane parts of the city. Mike Carey is a great tour guide in this respect and Kate Griffin isn’t bad either. China Mieville took on this role once before, with ‘King Rat’, and now he’s back to show us a London the likes of which you would not believe...

If you know what signs to look out for you’ll know that London is a magical battleground where gangsters, cultists and even the police wage war to either bring about or prevent the Apocalypse. Which Apocalypse though? Your guess is as good as theirs...
This fight is about to touch the life of Billy Harrow in the worst way possible. Billy works in the Darwin Centre (at the Natural History Museum) and his guided tour comes to a juddering halt when it’s found that the Centre’s prize specimen, a giant squid, has inexplicably vanished into thin air. It’s the original ‘Locked Room’ mystery and the answer is far stranger than you’d imagine. Not only does Billy have a giant squid to find but he has to do it before past, present and future end in fire... Finding a giant squid shouldn’t be that hard. If you’re up against the likes of the Tattoo and the demonic Goss and Subby however... Well, every breath you take could be your last.

‘Kraken’ is the novel that ‘Neverwhere’ could have been if Neil Gaiman had set his inhibitions to one side and got really down and dirty. It’s a dark and deliciously brutal testament to life in London that you only catch half glimpses of out of the corner of your eye. A full on immersing of the reader into the consequences of living in a melting pot of a city where faith and belief can make anything possible. If Mieville never writes another ‘Bas-Lag’ novel but keeps coming up with stuff like this then I for one will be more than happy with that deal.



Funnily enough though, ‘Kraken’ is also the only one of Mieville’s novels that I’ve had to put down for a while before going back for another helping. While there was never any question of my finishing the book, it wasn’t one that I found myself able to devour in one sitting...

The problem here, I think, is that China loves his version of old London town just that little bit too much. On the one hand, you can clearly tell that he is having the time of his life writing in this setting and the resulting energy thrown up by this enjoyment drives the plot along at a fair old rate. On the other hand though, I felt that China perhaps fell foul (just a little bit, but enough) of wanting to indulge in his creation and pore over every detail for the benefit of the reader. This was fine up to a point (and more of that in a little bit) but when it got to the point where these explanations not only began to feel a little long winded but also got in the way of the story itself... Well, that was the point where I felt that maybe I wouldn’t be too concerned if the explanations stopped.

Having said that though, despite my feeling that things were getting long winded I found myself presented with an alternative London that was an intricate and well mapped out as the real thing. I couldn’t really complain when my journey through this London threw up such gems as the I-pod sprite (‘fighty power!’) and Collingwood’s police ‘recruits’ who are very much the sum of their parts. While the level of detail may prove an initial obstacle to the story, it’s also a real labour of love that you can’t help but dive deep into. This is particularly the case for the geeks amongst us (which must be pretty much everyone reading this I reckon!) as China goes all out to drop as many genre references into the mix as possible. It’s like looking for hidden extras on a DVD :o) Any book that can throw up a reference to ‘Lexx’ (I thought I was the only person who watched it...) gets my vote as a matter of course!

Not only does Mieville give us such a beautiful background but he also gives us some memorable characters to act out a plot that, although you think you know where it’s going, has enough twists and turns to throw up a few surprises when you’re not expecting them.
The real stars of the piece (as far as I was concerned) were the utterly insane Goss and Subby, gangland enforcers whose violence has resonated through London over the course of centuries. Mieville does really well here to keep their violent tendencies very much understated (although when it does happen it’s nasty...) preferring instead to show just how nasty these two are in the reactions of other people. It really worked for me (especially when Baron and Collingwood realise that these two villains are on the scene), I would not want to run into Goss and Subby at all!
Billy Harrow is the man upon whom the whole plot hangs and he needs to be a very strong character in order to bear such a burden. Luckily for us he is as China charts Billy’s development, from naive bystander to major player, very well. You know that Billy is up against more than he can handle but you never get the sense that he is going to crumble and leave the plot floundering in his wake. Mieville is in control the whole time and that’s pretty impressive given all the things he has going on in this book.

‘Kraken’ is a tough nut to crack initially but there’s a real gem of a book waiting for you to break through and meet it. This is my kind of urban fantasy! Highly recommended.

Nine and a Half out of Ten

The 'Middle of the Night' Competition Winner's Post!

Thanks to everyone who entered the 'Sword of Albion' competition that I ran last week! There were only three books to win though so there can only be three winners... Those lucky folks were,

Trevor Vallender, Bristol, UK
Mohd Arief Zainal Abidin, Malaysia
Tom Kruijsen, The Netherlands

Well done guys! Your books will be on their way very soon ;o)
Better luck next time everyone else. If you're from the UK or US then you might want to scroll down the page a little bit and check out the competitions that went up over the weekend...

‘The Chapter’s Due’ – Graham McNeill (Black Library)

Because there’s no denying it, sometimes all you want to do is read about genetically engineered super soldiers blowing each up in the universe of the forty first millennium :o)
This is all well and good on it’s own but it also helps a hell of a lot if there’s a story that fleshes out the not so random acts of violence. This is where Graham McNeill comes into his own as one of my favourite authors writing in the Warhammer 40K universe. He may not hit the target every time with his tales (although he is growing on me in this respect) but McNeill knows that’s there’s a line to be walked, in terms of plot and action, and always walks it.
The last few lines of McNeill’s ‘Courage and Honour’ had me eagerly waiting the next book in the ‘Ultramarines’ series, a book that totally blew my reading schedule out of the water when I realised it was perched rather handily on the reading pile. It’s not a bad read at all…

Chaos has come to the Ultramar system although these rampaging enemies of humanity are divided in their intentions. Revenge is the order of the day though…
Whatever the motive of the horde, it is down to the Ultramarines Chapter to defend this bastion of humanity against the ultimate terror; the alternative is the total annihilation of their homeworld. The coming war will be a little more personal for Captain Uriel Ventris of the Ultramarines. Warsmith Honsou, a traitorous marine who has sworn to see Ventris dead, leads the Chaos army. Uriel has sworn a similar oath himself… As cities and entire planets burn around them, which one of the two marines will still be alive come the end…?

Graham McNeill takes a step away from the more localised conflicts of his last two books and goes for something a lot more epic in scale; system wide conflict with a cast and death toll running into the millions. When you have a whole galaxy to play in you can really go for it and that’s what Graham does, throwing a whole kitchen sink full of firepower (and power armoured antagonists) at the Ultramar system and seeing what happens next. The results are suitably cataclysmic and any fan of the Warhammer 40K setting, or military sci-fi in general, could do a lot worse than check out ‘The Chapter’s Due’ for three hundred and eighteen pages of full on futuristic warfare. It’s not just the warriors either, McNeill decorates the landscape with enough hardware that renders the Warhammer 40K universe as distinct from other, similar, settings as well as making it plain just how much warfare is a part of daily life. You can pretty much feel the rush of combat as these genetically engineered warriors clash on the field of battle and fight for the fate of humanity itself. McNeill spares no expense in letting his readers know just exactly what this entails for people on both sides of the conflict and as a result the reader gets a pretty good idea of the motivations of the combatants. To be fair, there isn’t a lot to these motivations. Both sides want to kill the other; it’s that simple and if you’re not on the attack then you’re defending for your life! On it’s own, this normally wouldn’t be enough to carry a full length novel but the sheer energy of McNeill’s prose does that admirably and carried this reader along before he knew what was happening! ‘The Chapter’s Due’ is certainly a quick read but only because you have to know what’s going to happen next…

McNeill also supplies his reader with a gorgeous backdrop to all the fighting that really gives you a clear picture of what is being fought for. The Warhammer 40K universe is as dark and brooding as ever and McNeill does well not only to show his reader just how big it all is but also just how close humanity comes every day to being wiped from the universe completely. It’s a fine line for a whole species to walk…
McNeill reinforces this through the Chaos attack on the system of Ultramar. If you play the game (or even if you don’t but know a bit about the background history) then you’ll know that the system of Ultramar is one of humanity’s most stalwart bastions against the encroaching darkness. By setting his conflict here, McNeill really rams it home that there is no such thing as a safe haven in this setting. If Ultramar could fall then what hope for the rest of the galaxy…? It’s a question that kept me reading and when the stakes are that high the odds are that it will keep you reading too. It’s a question of ‘all or nothing’ at every level…

If there’s one area where I felt McNeill fell down (albeit slightly) is that he spreads the action a little too thin across the course of the book. With fighting taking place on at least four worlds (I think), as well as in between, there isn’t a lot of time to get to know the combatants. I’d still say that the energy of the novel carries things overall but there isn’t a lot of time for much else.
To be fair, as the sixth novel in the series, ‘The Chapter’s Due’ can be excused if it’s a little light on character detail. If you want to get to know the characters beforehand then it probably isn’t ideal if you start with this book (‘Nightbringer’ is probably your best bet here). Having said that though, I’ve read three of the six books and was left wondering if perhaps we could have had a little more about Ventris. As a Space Marine though, is there any more to the character than a man with a keen sense of honour and a big gun? I don’t know but I wouldn’t have minded finding out a bit more about him…

This is a relatively minor complaint though. As a straight slice of military sci-fi (with a hint of the gothic…) you can’t go wrong at all with ‘The Chapter’s Due’. The way is left open for more sequels and I’ll be around to see what fate throws in the way of Captain Uriel Ventris…

Nine out of Ten

Giveaway! 'The Folding Knife' (K.J.Parker)

I wasn't too keen on 'The Company' but there's something about K.J. Parker that has always intrigued me. It might be the blurbs for his work, it might be the fact that no-one knows who he is. I could be sat right next to him now and I'd never know...

Whatever the reason, I'll be giving 'The Folding Knife' a go at some point soon and thanks to Orbit three other readers will be able to do exactly the same (only if they're from the UK though...)
Here's the blurb,

Basso the Magnificent. Basso the Great. Basso the Wise. Basso the Murderer. The First Citizen of the Vesani Republic is an extraordinary man. He is ruthless, cunning and, above all, lucky. He brings wealth, power and prestige to his people. But with power comes unwanted attention, and Basso must defend his nation and himself from threats foreign and domestic. In a lifetime of crucial decisions, he's only ever made one mistake. One mistake, though, can be enough.

If yo ufancy your chances at winning a copy, just drop me an email (address at the top right hand side of the screen) telling me who you are and what your postal address is. Remember to make it clear in the header that this is the competition you want to enter... I'll do everything else.

I'll let this one run until the 6th of June and will endeavour to announce the winners as soon as possible afterwards.

Good Luck!

Giveaway! 'Starcraft II: Heaven's Devils' (William C. Dietz)

Thanks to the nice people at Sneak Attack Media, I've got five copies of William C. Dietz' 'Heaven's Devils' to give away on the blog. I reckon this could be just the thing for you if you're a fan of 'Starcraft', I'll be giving it a go at some point soon and will let you know what I think...
Oh yes, before I forget... This competition is only open for those people living in the US and Canada only, sorry about that everyone else...

If you're still with us, here's the blurb...

For the poor, hardworking citizens of the Confederacy's fringe worlds, the Guild Wars have exacted a huge toll. Swayed by the promise of financial rewards, a new batch of recruits joins the fight alongside a slew of mysteriously docile criminals -- and a few dubious military leaders. Eighteen-year-old Jim Raynor, full of testosterone and eager to make things right at home, ships off to boot camp and finds his footing on the battlefield, but he soon discovers that the official mission is not what he's really fighting for.

For the first time ever, StarCraft enthusiasts will learn the origins of the enduring friendship between the young upstart Jim Raynor and the streetwise soldier Tychus Findlay. Watch as they battle on the front lines of a fierce interplanetary war and bear witness to the Confederacy's rank corruption -- corruption so reprehensible that it rains immeasurable death and destruction upon the government's own people.

Sound good? All you need to do to enter is drop me an email (address at the top right hand side of the screen) telling me who you are and what your postal address is. You also need to make it clear in the subject header that this is the competition that you're entering. That's all you need to do! I'll do the rest...

I'll let this one run until the 6th of June and will aim to announce the winners as soon as possible afterwards.

Good Luck!

PS... Go Here for a PDF excerpt from the book. Have a click right Here for the audio excerpt :o)

Giveaway! 'Feed' - Mira Grant

It's the Bank Holiday Weekend over here which means that (if the car is working...) I'm going to be driving hither and yon doing all the nice things that work gets in the way of. If the car isn't working then nappy changing is still very much on the agenda these days...
Either way, I don't have a lot of time for blogging this weekend so... the Bank Holiday competitions were born! :o)

To be fair, the only real difference to the competitions I run normally is that these are happening on a Bank Holiday weekend but... free books, right? ;o)

First up is Mira Grant's 'Feed', a rather handy looking zombie novel that I'm probably reading while you're reading this. Here's the blurb...

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED. Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives - the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will get out, even if it kills them.

Sounds good doesn't it? Well, thanks to Orbit I have three copies to give away to three lucky readers of the blog. The thing is though, only UK readers can enter...

If you're still reading then what you need to do is drop me an email (address at the top right hand side of the screen) telling me who you are and what your postal address is. Make it clear in the subject header that this is the competition you are entering!

I'll let this one run until the 6th of June and will aim to announce the winners as soon as possible afterwards.

Good Luck!

What I've realized about my reading in 2010 (so far)....

Adam did it first, then Amanda decided to have a go as well. My reading schedule has been shot to merry hell (what with one thing and another) so I thought that now would be a great time to have a look at how things have been going review wise over the last five months. Hopefully things will get back to normal reading wise over the next few days...!

Since January, I’ve racked up 69 reviews on the blog, I’m not sure what my numbers were for last year but I’ve got a sneaking feeling that I’m not matching what I managed to achieve over the course of 2009. Having said that though, a lot of the comic book reviews are incorporating more than one comic book so the numbers are a little bit better than I thought J The aim is to try and double this number by the end of the year, we’ll see how that one goes...

I don’t have the time to go into great analytical detail over the stats but here are some general impressions that I got from looking back over the list of reviews...

- There are a lot more comic books being featured on the blog this year, I’m cool with that :o)

- I’m reading predominantly fantasy and sci-fi at the moment, it’s new stuff that I haven’t read before but there’s a real need for comfort reading at the moment (if not comfort reading then a genre that I feel more comfortable in). Urban Fantasy of a particular kind just isn’t working for me anymore.

- Gay vampire fiction may be for you but it isn’t for me...

- I’ve read more books by male authors than female but the gap is definitely shrinking here.

- Due to the lack of reading time, most of the books on the list (so far) come in at somewhere between 300-450 pages (approx)

- The majority of the books I’ve read have been recent releases but there are a couple of older works (and collections) to be found in the list. I’m hoping to cover a few more...

What about you folks though? How many books have you read? Have you stuck to one genre or switched and swapped between a number? Do you have a number of books that you would have liked to have read by the end of the year... or are you just reading for the pleasure of it and are not worried about numbers at all?

Comments please! ;o)

'Ghost Dance' (Rebecca Levene) - Cover Art & Synopsis

Morgan is sent on a new mission for the Hermetic Divi­sion, investigating the murder of the world's foremost expert on Elizabethen alchemist John Dee. Her killer - an agent of Mossad with superhuman powers. In the US, Alex, a powerful medium, is employed by the CIA to invesitage a new cult called the Croatans who seem to be able to possess animals. Alex and Morgan's path cross when Morgan is drawn to the US in pursuit of Dee's greatest treasure - and the dangerous young man who plans to use it to achieve immortality!

While I'm not too keen on the cover art (the ol' pentangle doesn't feel particularly original although it does give a slight Dennis Wheatley feel to proceedings) The blurb has got me more than a little bit excited. I wasn't expecting to enjoy 'Cold Warriors' as much as I did and the excerpt from 'Ghost Dance' at the back of the book had me looking forward to more of the same. The blurb confirms my anticipation. I'll be reading 'Ghost Dance' when it's published in July and if you like a more sinister (and British) brand of urban fantasy then you could do with picking it up as well...

Comic Books I’ve been reading...

Over the last couple of weeks it’s all been about spending time with some of the denizens of the 2000AD comic. While I revisited one set of characters (so will probably only give them a brief mention here) the other set were a group that I was only meeting for the first time...

‘Robo Hunter: The Droid Files Vol 2’



I’ve had an on/off acquaintance with 2000AD over the years and because of this (along with the fact that I kept being chased away by shopkeepers who saw that I was reading the comic without ever buying it...) there are a number of characters that I’ve heard of but never read about. The bounty hunter Sam Slade was one such character; I say ‘was’ because I’ve just finished reading about Sam, his idiotic kit-built robot Hoagy and the robot cigar Stogie.

Going straight into volume 2 wasn’t too much of an issue. While I’d never met the characters before, the concept was simple to grasp and the writers weren’t afraid to drop in references (quite subtly done as well) to earlier stories that serve to flesh things out a bit. Like I said, I haven’t read volume 1 but by the time I’d finished volume 2 I felt like I had. At the same time, the stories themselves are self contained enough that you can get a lot out of them on their own. Not a bad reading experience in that respect, shame the same can’t be said about the opening couple of stories in the sequence...

‘Football Crazy’ sees Sam trying to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the ongoing sabotage of the robotic England football team’s world cup hopes. What promised to be quite a fun story ended up squashed under a relentless torrent of football references and puns. Quite apart from the fact that they were all based around English football in 1982, and the story shows it’s age as a result, the overemphasis forced the story itself into the shadows as far as I was concerned. I could also imagine certain readers (with not a lot of knowledge of football) missing out entirely as some of the funnier moments would go right over their heads...
‘Play it again Sam’ was another story where a potentially good idea (growing tensions between robots and humans in Brit-Cit) was spoiled by too much being made of one facet of the plot. This time round a law has been passed in Brit-Cit where everyone has to communicate via song (why, just... why?) It was passably funny for the first couple of pages but then it got old very, very quickly... I was glad when these two stories were over. Wagner and Grant didn’t do themselves any favours with these stories although Ian Gibson’s artwork was worth the price of entry. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed Ian Gibson’s art, it was great in ‘The Ballad of Halo Jones’ and it was just as great in ‘Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire’. It was a pleasure to get reacquainted :o)

The first two stories in this collection had me seriously wondering if I should carry on reading, not something I was interested in if the rest of the story was the same! I gave it a go though and was very glad that I did. It was almost like everyone knew that the first two stories weren’t up to scratch and decided to up their game...

‘Slaying of Slade’, ‘Slade’s Last Case’ and 'Farewell my Billions’ are three stories that form a larger arc where Slade begins by having to solves the mystery of his own death and ends up back where he started after Hoagy and Stogie spend the billions that he earned solving a particularly tricky case. Moore and Wagner give us a tale that is dark, action packed, humorous and strangely tragic all at the same time. You know where it’s all going (at times) but I still found myself having to travel that path to the end, just to find out what obstacles Wagner and Grant would throw in front of Slade. It was a lot of fun to read and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Slade, Hoagy and Stogie by the end...

The rest of the book collects the ‘one off’ Robo Hunter stories that popped up in the years after the main arc came to an end. They’re a bit of a mixed bag if you ask me and they also suffer a little for not having Ian Gibson provide the artwork. Gibson’s style, for me, encapsulated the whole tone of the series and the move to different artists was a difficult one for me to take on board. There are some good stories here though; the standout ones for me were ‘Winnegan Fake’, ‘Metrobolis’ and ‘Fax and Deductions’ (all worth a read).

‘Robo Hunter vol 2’ might well be better suited for long term fans of Sam Slade but there is still fun to be had within the covers. Just skip the first couple of stories...

Eight out of Ten

‘Rogue Trooper: Tales of Nu Earth Vol 2’



Back in the days when this blog was still pretty young (it’s not exactly old now but you know what I mean...) I was sent a whole bunch of ‘Rogue Trooper’ comic books for review. This collection collects the latter part of the Rogue Trooper’s hunt for the traitor general and the events that lead him to commandeer a shuttle and make for the mysterious planet of Horst...
You can find all of these reviews on the blog and you probably don’t want to hear me repeating myself as my opinions on the story haven’t really changed. What I would say though is that it felt like a much smoother read having the whole lot in one big volume (which isn’t all that surprising I guess). While the rhythm of the stories can still be somewhat predictable, having them all collected together makes it easier to go from one to the next without this being too much of an issue. Could this be the best way to read ‘Rogue Trooper’? I think so...

‘Zombieland’

I am worse at catching up with films that I’d like to watch than I am at working my way through the reading pile... (I’m actually hanging my head in shame as I write this) ‘Zombieland’ has been out for far too long now for me to have any other excuse for not watching it than just plain being rubbish at getting round to it... :o(

I’m glad I finally did though! I don’t think I’ve laughed so much at a zombie film since ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and I may have laughed even more this time round. Explaining the zombie outbreak wasn’t such a great approach; not only does it takes away all the mystery but if you’re going to do something like that then at least come up with a decent explanation! The fact that it was so much fun to watch though outweighed this admittedly small issue. People get killed by zombies in amusing ways and zombies die in ways that are even funnier (thank you Cynthia Knickerbocker!) You can’t ask for a lot more than that other than having Bill Murray in a cameo role... which there was :o)

The unrelentingly bleak landscape of the zombie apocalypse really sets off the moments of humour (of which there are loads) and had me watching the whole way through. There’s talk of sequels and I’m excited already, I won’t be leaving it so long to check these out! Well, maybe I won’t. We’ll see...