The Host

The Host
Stephenie Meyer
Sphere Books

624 Pages
6th May 2008

Guest review by Elizabeth de Jager of My Favourite Books.

I genuinely can’t imagine a scarier scenario. Aliens invade Earth. And they stay. Not only do they stay to co-habit Earth, they take over by bonding with the humans (whom they call their host) in a parasitical way. They repress the host’s personality completely and take over their day-to-day lives. In some instances, the host personality dies and is overcome by the “soul” implanted into its body. Humanity becomes changed forever by the souls who find that they bond truly well with their human hosts.

I don’t like bugs – no matter how beautiful. So I had a preconception about how this was going to turn out already, and in the back of my mind, I ran through the various horror movies out there in the same sort of genre and I sort of despaired. How to do something new and fresh? The concept already had my skin crawling before I even read The Host by Stephenie Meyer. Which is not the best way to start reading a book to review.

I know the author through her Twilight books she did, in the past, and was unsure how she was going to handle this futuristic, Sci-Fi styled book with its overtones of horror and romance.

The fact is: she pulls it off. The aptly named soul, Wanderer, becomes implanted in a rebel human, Mel. Mel is a fighter and she refuses to let Wanderer take her over completely. She becomes a passenger in her own mind and slowly but surely a strong relationship grows between host and soul. We follow them on a journey filled with hate and despair as they strive to find Mel’s brother and her boyfriend/lover, Jared. A group of humans headed by Mel’s uncle, Jeb, (who immediately in my mind turned into Sam Elliot) discover Wanderer and Mel, in the desert, close to death. And this is where the story genuinely unfolds and the author’s writing skills comes to the fore.

A tremendous amount of internal dialogue and keen observations on human behaviour is dotted through the book. It is beautifully written and the style is consistent all the way through. But having said that, I couldn’t quite suspend my disbelief that the souls were all such gentle folk, even the Seekers, the ones who hunt humans and bring them in for implantation. Wanderer is rendered as incredibly saintly, yet all through the book I felt that I wanted to throttle her, to make her be more proactive and less reticent. Which, naturally, from a writer’s point of view is exactly what you want to do: stir up emotion in the reader. Mel remains as an interesting counter-point to the very selfless Wanderer (or Wanda) and I found it interesting to follow the storyline to see how the author played it out right to the very end.

It is a good book, no doubt about it. It is skilfully written with a lot of thought having gone into the society the souls press upon humanity. Stephenie Meyer will no doubt spearhead a new romance-Sci-Fi sub-genre, doing what she did for vampires in Twilight and making sci-fi even cooler than before.

Yeah, you were lucky there de Jager! ;) You came close to saying that sci-fi wasn't cool enough on it's own! Thanks very much for the review, Liz :) Visit Liz at My Favourite Books!

For more information:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

--Previous review--

Midnight Never Come

Midnight Never Come
Marie Brennan
Orbit Books

379 pages
May 2008 (UK)
June 2008 (US)

One of my favourite periods of English history is that of the Elizabethan era (1558 - 1603). It was a time when boundaries were being pushed in theatre and poetry and literature, a time when England seemed to prosper with the Virgin Queen on the throne. Edmund Spenser named his eponymous faerie queen for her, as a tribute to her and England's glory: Gloriana...

But what if there were a real faerie queen, one that held court beneath London, a great shadow to the great light ...

Of course, in faerie fiction, having an icy queen ruling the faerie throne, while a human queen lives above, is not that unusual. A great light does cast a great shadow. Nor is having a faery story with intrigue and spying (Mark Chadbourn's Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast, for example) set in Elizabethan England really new. What sets Marie Brennan apart, then, is the quality of her writing, the complexities of her plot, the characterisations, the world-building... everything.

Midnight Never Come is woven absolutely seamlessly into the fabric of the time, not just by having characters such as John Dee, Walsingham, Lady Lune, Michael Deven and Elizabeth herself, but in the very small details that on their own are unimportant, but, through flash-backs and memories, together form an intricate and fascinating back-history. In my interview with Marie Brennan we spoke of this: I wanted a particular flashback scene to take place in the early part of the sixteenth century, but the closest annular or total solar eclipse over London was in 1547, so into 1547 the scene goes. Leeway? Not hardly.

Is it ridiculous? Of course. On the other hand, it's part of the pleasure. Being able to weave my story into the known facts without jostling any of them out of place is bizarrely fun, despite the work.

There's a rich diversity among the fae, with brownies, giants, kelpies, the Wild Hunt, Hobs, et cetera, and Marie also includes a substantial amount of mythology and folk legend (all of which is relevant to the location), including the depiction of Gog and Magog as the (really not that great!) guardian giants of London. It's so well done that I'm half convinced a lot of these events did, in fact, happen!

At it's heart, Midnight Never Come is a love story, and my instinct reaction when I heard that fact was, "Oh no. Faery sex magic." But it's not at all like that at all! (Of course.) It's a story of a time when a mortal loved a fae and the ultimate price that was paid when that love was disdained, and the effects that it had on so many people.

If I had a criticism, it would be that it's quite a slow build-up, with a scenes being set and characters fleshed out for perhaps a bit too long before the main plot takes over, but other than that, I was really impressed by Midnight Never Come. Politics, romance, fantasy, and history. With faeries. An excellent combination, and Marie Brennan is an excellent writer.

And Ashes Lie is the next book in the Onyx Court series, it's a sequel of sorts, with continuity among the faerie characters, but definitely something that a person could pick up without having read Midnight Never Come. It'll cover the period from 1640 to 1666 -- in other words, the English Civil War, the Interregnum (when they chopped the head off Charles I and drove Charles II into exile), the Restoration of the monarchy, and then the Great Plague and the Great Fire. It's an action-packed span of time; if Midnight Never Come is my Elizabethan faerie spy novel, And Ashes Lie is my Stuart faerie disaster novel.

Marie's brand new website went live yesterday, and it's full of intriguing stuff! There's also a very cool competition coming up where you can win a £250 gift voucher to spend with the book retailer of your choice and a signed copy of Midnight Never Come.

For more information:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

--Previous review--

Science in our Fiction...

Yes, this title was stolen from Lou Anders. The SF Site Mind Meld this week was rather excellent, and asked:

Science fiction would be nothing without the science. Who doesn't like reading about new or interesting ideas inside of a story? But should SF authors know their stuff when it comes to the science behind the stories? To that end, our question this week:

Q: Do science fiction authors have an obligation to be scientifically accurate with their stories? Is there a minimum level of accuracy an author should adhere to?

For me, personally, I do like a certain degree of scientific accuracy in a science fiction book. I don't necessarily want it spot on -- in the recent film of the Iron Man, I'm quite willing to forgive the fact that when he falls from the sky in a metal suit and hits the ground, no matter how strong the suit, he'd be dead. Totally splattered everywhere: he has inertia, after all! But if all movies avoided the fact that people cannot outrun C5 explosions, travel super-fast to Afghanistan in about half an hour (even at Mach 3 it would take hours), then we'd have no good films, at all!

I like spotting the inaccuracies, but they don't hinder my enjoyment of something. If anything, in a bizarre way, they increase it. The key word is fiction. Bionic arms, for example, are very strong -- but attached to a shoulder made of flesh and bone. Throwing a tank around would rip most of your body in half! :)

Could I enjoy something, though, where the rules of science were completely ignored? Hmm ... I don't know. I think there's so much cool stuff going on in real science that there's no need to be totally inaccurate. No matter how wild us SF geeks get in our speculation, we're never going to approach what the physics geeks are already imagining.

I like Alastair Roberts way of phrasing it: There's a wider point, though, this is this: why would anyone not be sufficiently enthralled and interested in science to want to get it right? Science is an inherently fascinating and rich human enterprise. We would rightly scorn any writer who professed to a disinterest in the facts of history, or psychology. But science is too often seen as some kind of optional intellectual add-on, a bit like having an interest in early music or Swedish cinema.. That's not to say that all SF should be scrupulously accurate, all-dots-crossed, my slide-rule's bigger than yours Hard SF - it would be boring if that were the case. But I don't think the injection of a tiny amount of real-world science has ever hurt a story, and it's definitely helped some of mine.

I'll use this moment to point you to the very cool fact that a 16 year old student has isolated the microbe that, well, eats plastic. Which is good news; hopefully there will be more discoveries like this!

Anyone have any thoughts on how they like their science in their fiction? :) Any examples of authors who get it totally wrong -- and maybe it doesn't matter one bit?

Win an ARC of "Bloodheir" by Brian Ruckley...

I know the release of Bloodheir, the second book in Brian Ruckley's acclaimed Godless World trilogy, isn't that far away, but nevertheless, I thought some of you might like the chance to get it a bit early -- and free! ;) Open to people from the UK only. (I will be running more worldwide contests soon). Closes 10th June 2008.





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This one is now closed :)

Elantris

Elantris
Brandon Sanderson
Tor Books

638 Pages
2005

Brandon Sanderson is now quite a well-known name in fantasy, especially in America, but more lately, worldwide, as it was announced that he will be concluding Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (A Memory of Light) following Jordan's death from amyloidosis. Brandon has written a very well received Young Adult novel, Alcatraz: Versus the Evil Librarians, the Mistborn trilogy, and of course, Elantris, a stand-alone novel, and Brandon's first. Brandon also, along with Howard Taylor and Dan Wells, runs the excellent Writing Excuses podcast.

The Shaod, it was called. The Transformation. It struck randomly — usually at night, during the mysterious hours when life slowed to rest. The Shaod could take beggar, craftsman, noblemen, or warrior. When it came, the fortunate person’s life ended and began anew; he would discard his old, mundane existence, and move to Elantris. Elantris, where he could live in bliss, rule in wisdom, and be worshipped for eternity.

Except it's no longer like that. Blessing has become curse, and those who are taken by the Shaod are no longer worshipped but reviled, and exiled to the city of Elantris where they are immortal prisoners in their own flesh, feeling a constant hunger that cannot be sated, feeling endless pain -- flesh does not heal, limbs can be broken causing an agony that will not mend; only death by fire or death by decapitation ends their torment. They are shambling wrecks, many insane, many living in a catatonic state.

And anybody can be taken. So, it seems inevitable that eventually someone "important" will be taken... Prince Raoden of Arelon, the city that overlooks Elantris, is that person, and he's very quickly whisked away, his disappearance disguised as death so as not to shame the royal family, and thrown into the cursed city.

In amongst all this, you have some good political intrigue in the form of Fjordell's expanding empire, which has no tolerance for any religion other than it's own, and the priest Hrathen who must convert the people of Arelon to the Fjordese religion within three months ... or his superiors will launch an invasion to kill them all. It would have been very easy to make Hrathen into the Evil/Mad Priest type, but Sanderson fleshes him out really well and makes him an interesting character, even if I didn't always like him. He grows more sympathetic as the novel progresses. (I found the irony that, on my computer at least, the spell-checker tried to turn "Hrathen" into "Heathen", quite amusing). Raoden was perhaps a little too perfect, a little too hopeful considering he's just been condemned to a living Hell, but generally the characterisations were well-thought out and entertaining, Sarene in particular.

The discovery, at the end of the book, of just what it was that went wrong all those years ago, while not obvious, would probably have been so to the immortal, wise, people who had lived in that city for centuries, and I couldn't help feeling that this was a bit contrived. Also, while Elantris has a really interesting magic system, we don't get to see much of it until the end ... when we do see it though, we see an awful lot of it!

The danger with mentioning comparisons to other authors is that, inevitably, you'll mention an author that somebody doesn't like, or that, as each person has a different interpretation of the writing, the comparisons will ring false. So, I won't mention the comparisons to Eddings (in some of the dialogue, and the accessibility); nor will I mention the comparisons to J.V Jones (in terms of style and characterisation); what I will say, is that Brandon Sanderson writes a damn good book, and that I will definitely check out the rest of his work! It has it's flaws, but they are the kind of flaws that can easily be accommodated, and from the many reviews of Mistborn I've read, it seems that Brandon has conquered them! A truly excellent book; good, fun, interesting stuff.

Huge thanks go to SQT for sending me the book, a long time ago, in the first place!

For more information:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

--Previous review--

Win a Copy of Paul Melko's "Singularity's Ring"...

A few weeks after reviewing Paul Melko's Singularity's Ring, I realised that I hadn't yet deleted it from my Amazon wishlist ... something I never normally do anyway, even once I've managed to lay my hands on a certain book... Which probably explained why another copy of the book rolled through my letterbox the other day, from a very nice relative :)


I don't need two copies, though, so enter below if you'd like a chance to win! This is open to people in the UK only, and it's a good opportunity to get hold of a good American sci-fi that isn't published over here! ;)

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The contest closed on the 2nd of June. Winners will be announced by the end of the month...

Lord of Snow and Shadows

Lord of Snow and Shadows
Sarah Ash
Transworld Books

704 pages
2003

I approached this book knowing absolutely nothing about it, having only received one recommendation some years ago, and thus, had no idea what to expect. Would it be cliché, would it be epic fantasy, or something gritty, perhaps a book about owls? What it was, was very good, and a little bit of all of them.

Within the first fifty pages, the main character, Gavril, has fallen in love with the beautiful noblewoman, Astasia (destined for the Prince of another land), discovered something terrible about his father -- and his legacy to Gavril, and been kidnapped and taken to a strange land by one of his fathers closest friends. The story definitely picks up dramatically in quality after those first fifty pages, but at the same time, the speed at which everything is turned upside in Gavril's life -- before we get attached to him -- means that we don't really feel any sympathy for him as he struggles to cope with his new life and his new-found position. He doesn't struggle for too long, though -- Ash gives just enough time for us to learn, as he learns, about the new setting, the new rules, the new people, and doesn't over-indulge in back-history.

Gavril is now the Drakhaon, and the Azhkendir throne is his, not that he wants it. Not that he has a choice, at all. The blood running through his veins will change him; it gives him powers -- the ability to change into something akin to a dragon, to fly, to send fire from his hands, to kill.

To be honest, I wasn't that keen on the idea of someone turning into a dragon -- presumably shiny and golden, flying around happily in the summer air, perhaps with people on it's back. It seemed very unoriginal. Sarah Ash is darker than that, though, and a better writer. The dragon Gavril turns into is more like a flying nosferatu with fire; something grim and dark and demonic, something that needs blood to survive -- young blood -- and something that possesses Gavril. (Similarities to Dracula, the Dragon, always make my day, but Ash's take was also something different and new). The depiction of the Drakhaon is one of my favourite parts of the book, and Gavril's fight against that aspect of himself -- to remain human as he changed on the outside, developed thick blue nails, a heavyset brow, fierce, hungry eyes -- was really well conceived. To banish the Drakhaon, though, would mean leaving his people defenceless against the outside world, and the armies that approach them...

The characters we saw in the first fifty pages do reappear later on in the novel, and there are quite a few Point of View characters in Lord of Snow and Shadows. Sarah Ash also does good things with the romance between Gavril and Astasia -- while they do think of each other from time to time, in their separate countries, when they do meet again it's not exactly a happy occasion, and Ash does a good job of making you expect things to turn out as they always do, and then doing something completely different. It will be interesting to see what Ash does with this relationship in the rest of the The Tears of Artamon series. There's also a certain ambiguity to the other characters. The "bad guy" cares for his daughter, and yet is quite happy to consign thousands to die; the "good guy" slaughters whole armies in the most horrible fashion.

I can fully understand the need for ruthlessness while writing, the ability to kill of characters (no matter how much the author may want to keep them) that the story no longer needs. I expect there's a perfectly good reason for it, but, to me, it seemed that Ash killed off one of my favourite characters -- a character with a lot of potential -- purely as writerly shorthand.

There are a few flaws in Lord of Snow and Shadows, but they are greatly outbalanced by the number of good things in the book. With Lord of Snow and Shadows, Ash has opened her series with distinct characterisations, a new take on fantasy, and some very interesting twists and turns.

For more information:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

--Previous review--

The Graveyard Book...

Many of you will know that I've recently come to the conclusion that Neil Gaiman is one of those gods he loves to write about. Morpheus, perhaps: the Dream King. I've been looking forward to his next novel for a very long time. It's called The Graveyard Book; it's a riff off The Jungle Book and it's for children. As with Coraline, his multi-award winning "book for little girls (of all ages and genders)", The Graveyard Book is going to be equally appreciated by adults.

I've listened to Neil reading chapter four, The Witch's Headstone, and it was brilliant: he kept a room filled with people entertained for over an hour, and that's a huge feat.

It's a book Neil has wanted to write for years. It's scary, funny, clever, and very sad. (I got all that from one chapter!). It has vampires. It has ghosts. It has an orphan boy called Nobody. It has -- well, just read this:

Nobody Leaves.

Hear this tragic tale: a sleeping family, a talented murderer, and an adventurous toddler — orphaned, but not assassinated. Small and alone, by accident and luck he escapes the scene of the crime and climbs a grassy hill to safety. At the top of the hill the boy finds a fence, and on the other side, a dark, quiet place.

And what is to become of him?

Nobody Stays.

The boy is welcomed on the hill where the dead do not sleep, and the graveyard residents rally to protect him. For outside the fence that separates a city from its ghosts, a dastardly killer is patient and persistent. The danger is real, and it is alive. It is hunting, and wise, and evil. A little child must not be left to the merciless knife of a professional fiend.

But who will watch over him?

Nobody’s Home.

The chattering dead make a pact. A decision is made, and shelter is granted to the tiny fellow, who has no inkling of his peril. He has no parents, no place, and no name. But the kind-hearted spirits will not let him freeze, or starve, or meet his end by a murderer’s blade. They wrap the breathing boy in a shroud. They call him Nobody, for he looks like nobody but himself.

Mr. and Mrs. Owens, a Partnership. Married for 250 years yet childless all this time, they adopt the yellow-haired boy as their own and love him accordingly. They bring him into their lovely little tomb by the daffodil patch, and there they raise him to be clever and careful. They raise him to be wary of the living.

Silas, a Caretaker. The graveyard’s caretaker serves as Nobody’s guardian until he might guard himself, for the insubstantial dead must stay with their bones — and they have no means to nourish a living child. Teacher, counselor, and vigilant champion, Silas is not alive, but he is not dead. And unlike the ghosts, he may move among the living in order to acquire food, medicine, and other necessities.

Miss Lupescu, a Teacher. Foreign and strange, and a terrible cook, Miss Lupescu serves as substitute guardian and general tutor when Silas is called away. She may seem cold and somewhat uncaring, but she is a formidable woman and she has vowed to watch over Nobody, whether he wants her to or not.

Liza Hempstock, a Witch. She might be dead, but she still has her magic. Buried in the potter’s field outside the confines of the blessed graveyard property, she wishes for a headstone to mark her resting place and she wishes for a friend. One part trickster and one part helping hand, Liza is fickle but mostly fair … and honestly fond of the living boy from the next patch over.

Scarlett Amber Perkins, a Girl. The cemetery’s dead children make good playmates, but sometimes a living boy might wish for a bit of living company. Scarlett Amber Perkins roams the park beside the cemetery; her mother thinks that her daughter has found an imaginary friend. But as the little girl grows up, Nobody becomes harder and harder to explain away.

Nobody’s Safe, Not Living or Dead

The graveyard is a sacred place and well tended by its various attendants. It is quiet and homey, and there are worse places by far where a boy might grow up. But that is not to say that Nobody’s life is altogether simple or secure. Here and there lurk dangers unexpected and perils uncharted by the living. Though Nobody’s teachers instruct him in the ways of magic and caution, there are some threats a boy must face alone — and some lessons he must learn for himself.

The Ghouls. With their silly titles and preposterous claims to fame, the ghouls are violent, strong, and perfectly daft. Their gate is a dangerous, tempting place; and Nobody knows how to find it. He even knows how to open it.

The Sleer. At the bottom of a very dark barrow, beneath a hill, in a pit lost to history and myth, an ancient creature called the Sleer waits for its master to return. It hunkers deep below the earth with three objects of uncertain value and power—which it guards with threats and malice.

Every Man Jack. The less that is said of Jack, the better. His nature is an elaborate puzzle — a series of painful questions with answers that slit throats and break bones. What fiend would murder a family while it slept? What monstrous brute would seek to slaughter a toddling child in its crib? This Jack has his reasons, and those reasons reek of evil and rot. He’ll spare no trouble and show no mercy in his quest to end the boy called Nobody Owens.

This book, I will buy.

Doctor Who Series 3 Concept Art & Series 5 Moffat News...

I've become a huge New Who fan (I've never seen any of the old episodes) and had something close to a nerdgasm when I saw that the series 3 concept art (putting ideas to paper and not always using them) had been unveiled over at the BBC. I'm liking this, the fourth series, but I'm missing Martha (and the Master) and the over-arching nemesis plot/Big Bad doesn't seem to be developing. Not really. A little, but not much.



(The Chameleon Arch thingy that changes Time Lord DNA into Human DNA. "The most important thing with this was making it not look daft! It also needed to tie in satisfactorily with the fob watch.")


(The Carrionites from the Shakespeare episode. Damn! If they'd looked more like this, that would have been an even better episode! "The Carrionites were a lot of fun to design. Crossing the creepier aspects of a bird's skull with the elements that make up a traditional witch's face was bound to result in something pretty nasty.")


(The Chameleon Arch pocket watch! I want one!* The episode where Derek Jacobi changed from a friendly old professor into the Master is one of my favourites...)


(Aaah, Gallifrey. Awesome. "This was incredibly exciting to work on. Not only to work on Doctor Who, but also help bring Gallifrey to life on screen!")


(I totally missed this link in the series. I feel a re-watch coming on. (Get it?)) "There was no grand plan in designing the Lazlabs logo. BBC Graphics provided it for episode 6, and I thought it looked a bit too Gallifreyan. But when it came to designing the ring, using the Lazlabs logo, with additional Gallifreyan etching on top, tied in nicely. Within minutes of it being shown fleetingly in the trailer for the series' second half, people were already discussing it on the net!")



(The Toglafane. What else. Slicey, slicey. "We collaborated with the Mill fairly closely on this, as the spheres needed to work digitally and practically. My main concern was having them open in a satisfying way, and that the blades were as vicious as possible.")

This art is really cool; Peter McKinstry is very talented, so check out the rest of what he designed for the BBC. Also, if you click each image, it will be enlarged and you can read the (barely visible) notes that go with the drawing. For example, the picture above, "Fingers for picking up presidents by the collar".

*I really do think the BBC should do some Geekery Gadgets (copyright) based on concept art, etc; I would buy them!

The news: Stephen Moffat will be taking over from Russell T. Davies as lead writer and executive producer on series 5! Excellent stuff. He's the genius writer behind the episode "Blink" last season and will now become Doctor Who's showrunner - the key creative force behind the programme - on the fifth series, which will be broadcast on BBC1 in 2010.

As well as Blink, his previous work on Doctor Who includes The Girl in the Fireplace for series two which earned him his second Hugo Award. His first was for the series one two-parter The Empty Child.

This is very cool news! I liked Russell T. Davies' stuff, but it's getting a bit flat this season, and I've been a fan of Moffat for a while :)

The Solaris Book of New Fantasy: Part the First

The Solaris Book of New Fantasy
Ed: George Mann
Solaris Books


512 pages
December 2007

Short fiction, before this year, was something that I'd never really read. With a couple of Night Shade anthologies, that changed, so I was very pleased to get stuck into an anthology I'd heard lots of good things about last year, from Aidan and Robert in particular, as the new Solaris imprint launched.

Stealing the set-up from the aforementioned reviewing rogues, I'm going to review each story individually, something I hope I can do for all future anthologies I review; it's fairer that way! ;)

One thing I really love about short fiction anthologies is finding new authors, and in this, more than any other I've yet read, I've found loads I like! I have read precisely two of the authors before, and this is one of the most varied anthologies I've read (in terms of authors, rather than quality). I also like the fact that they tend to be rather cheap, and excellent value for money! :)

In the introduction, George Mann asks the question "What is fantasy?". He's done his best to answer it in this volume (though I don't think it can be fully answered, ever), combining elements of Comic Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, High Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Weird Fantasy, Impenetrable-yet-still-good Fantasy (yes, I'm making them up now), and, more importantly, lots of good stories...

1)Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast by Mark Chadbourn. As you can tell from the spelling of "giant", this is set a while back, in Elizabethan times, and is a tale of faery. I liked this story a lot, and it was over too quick. Chadbourn has an almost "behind the scenes" view of poet Edmund Spenser, who wrote The Faery Queen ... and was actually in love with her. Only English spy extraordinaire, Will Swyft, will be able to stop him letting her return to the Unseelie Court in the war against England. Going behind the scenes of a writer's life and turning what they wrote into something that happened, has been done before, of course -- Philip Jose Farmer's SFnal The Other Log of Phileas Fogg is an excellent example. But that one didn't have faeries! It's a very strong start to the anthology, an enjoyable, fun tale -- even if part of me wonders just what is it about Elizabethan times that is so conducive to setting faery tales there...

2) Reins of Destiny by Janny Wurts. Hmm. This is a story set in Wurts' Wars of Light and Shadows series, and, from my attempts to read Curse of the Mistwraith some years ago, and the rather stereotypical title, I was a bit dubious about this one. Sadly, I was right. Though there were some interesting hints dropped about the history of the world, and mildly intriguing characterisation in the form of a stable hand who's far clever than he looks, I wasn't that impressed by this story, and it was a bit anti-climatic after Mark's story. Still, I'd be interested to hear from people who've read her work and liked it :) Her collaborations with Raymond E. Feist in the Empire series of books on Kelewan were apparently very well received...

3) Tornado of Sparks by James Maxley. Hmm, again. This was a good, fun, dragon-filled tale, even if it did feel slightly unfinished. I understand though, that this was a sort of prequel to Maxley's well received (and on my "to get hold of" list) novel, Bitterwood, with the characters Vendevorex (the dragon mage), Albekizan (the king), and a human girl called Jandra who I expect will have an important role to play in the novel. While it wasn't as rewarding as it would have been if I known the characters previously, it gave me a good idea of Maxley's writing style, and it's one I like a lot.

**James was kind enough to answer my question about this, re-affirming the fact that this short serves as a kind of prequel to Bitterwood, saying: "For people who've read Bitterwood, one of Jandra's character traits is that, as an orphan, she's always wondered if she has any surviving relatives. Since her brother is a character in Bitterwood, and is someone Jandra has met, it adds an extra layer of meaning to the tale ..."**

Now I have to read Bitterwood!

4) Grander than the Sea by T. A. Pratt. I've heard it said that this one has Lovecraftian hints; and, I know this is a good thing, but not what it really means. I guess it has something to do with the fact that both stories have some kind of subterranean ancient all-devouring god "needing" awakening... Only problem is, said god is totally non-existent, and the man trying to resurrect the god is insane -- plus, there's more than one of him... I really enjoyed this story; good characterisations, dialogue, and the humour was just spot on. It's a fairly short short story, but it's one of my favourites. There are a lot of authors whose work I need to catch up on...

5) The Prince of End Times by Hal Duncan. While Hal Duncan has been praised for his beautifully evocative language, he's also been criticised for his undisciplined writing style, that can make the plot hard to follow, even if you're loving the language. Duncan is another author who's previous works I've attempted to read, but, from this tale, I just might give them another go. The actual story itself: I have little idea what was going on, and a re-read or two is definitely in order, but, as everyone who reads his blog will know, the man sure knows how to use language beautifully!


6) King Tales by Jeff VanderMeer. I've heard lots about Jeff VanderMeer, and he's very well respected in SFF circles, but I've never read anything by him -- or even heard of anything he's written. King Tales is a collection of stories similar to that of fairy tales, in their way. With animals. I quite enjoyed them; one or two bits seemed a bit juvenile, but otherwise they were good fun. (I'm not too keen on the "?!?!" device, though! Looks a bit weird on the page, and doesn't really add to the effect. I'm not a snob -- I like "?!" in fiction, but a double use? So it's a questioning exclamation -- and that is, in turn, being questioningly exclaimed?!?!)


7) In Between Dreams by Christopher Barzak. This story seems to have split some people's opinions, but I really enjoyed it. Set in Japan (a culture that all too often doesn't get that much exposure in Fantasy), it tells the story of Ai a young woman who works in Tokyo for a very strange man... It's very beautifully written, quite surreal, and very moving. Ai is totally beleivable, which is amazing since she comes from a culture I know little about -- and thus, it was great to see Barzak talk about some of the mythology and history. Definitely an author I need to read more of.


8) And Such Small Dear by Chris Roberson. I've had my eye on Chris Roberson for quite a while, and I've only heard good things. With this story, I'm definitely getting hold of his other novels. And Such Small Deer is a bit of historical fantasy that blends in other things, also. Cue Abraham Van Helsing and a certain F.A.M -- his name, I won't reveal. The story is told through Van Helsing's diary entries upon his trip to Sumatra, and the letters of F.A.M. There's a little bit of a discussion of evolution in there, and monsters, and it impressed me greatly. Another to add to the list...


Wow. Although I could make this one huge review, I think it would probably be better to split it into two parts! Sorry, by the way, about the quality of individual images; if you click each image, it will take you to a separate page with a much better image and some information about the books and author :)

Even if the next set of 8 stories were rubbish, this would be a good choice. Thing is, they're not...

For more information:

Amazon US
Amazon US

--Previous review--

Superpowers

Superpowers
David J. Schwartz
Vintage Books

376 pages
2008

We've probably all wondered what it would be like to have powers -- to fly to work when we can't be bothered with the traffic; to turn invisible in horrible situations; to run away at light speed; to hear the thoughts of those around us; and, perhaps, to throw people through brick walls.

In Superpowers, the first novel of David J. Schwartz (who, much like a superhero, has many different aliases throughout the Internet: world renowned motivational speaker; popular science writer for children, et cetera) we learn just what it would be like have those powers, and the answer he gives is funny, well-written, and often quite sad.

Five American college students, decide to have a party, and home made booze is brought along. The very next morning they wake up with superpowers... Now, before everyone goes rushing off and gets totally inebriated ("in the name of superpowers!"), their powers aren't an entirely great thing to have. Hardly super at all, really. Mary Beth is so strong that she can't open the fridge without tearing it apart (or make love to her boyfriend...); Charlie goes pretty much insane with all the minds he can hear, all the emotions that wash over him, and now wanders around wearing a tinfoil hat and a scruffy beard; Harriet is invisible and is worried she's fading away; Caroline, though, can fly, and has no problem with that fact; nor does Jack, who can run faster than the fastest bullet. Eventually, they decide that they will use their powers to help their city -- and in come the superhero costumes (they have, after all, started reading comics) and the late evenings. Most people are pleased to have them around -- except the police, and criminals.

Eventually, though, things go wrong. Mistakes are made, people are hurt. And horrible truths about their powers come out...

This was a very funny novel. The humour is grittier than I expected, but it really works well in bringing this all down to Earth and fleshing out the characters, especially Charlie. There were times also when it was very sad, particularly towards the end as everything falls apart. David Schwartz does a very good job of taking an alternate look at what it would be like to be a superhero, and finds that not everything is hunky-dory.

It probably treads slightly on spoiler, but I've seen this around on the net -- people being turned away from the book because of the fact that 9/11 plays it's part in this book. Like me, when I was reading it, they were worried that superpowers and 9/11 would combine in a very lame story and slightly sickening story. Well, it didn't. There is no real Big Bad in this book -- just the realisation that everything comes at a cost, often very high -- and it didn't turn into superheroes beating the hell out of terrorists (as Superman did in the 1930/40s with Hitler). If anything, it was the instant hate that arose after 9/11 that ruined everything for the 'heroes.

(No, I didn't deface the book; John Scalzi did).

Superpowers is funny, it is energetic, witty and sad. It can't read your mind, travel faster than light, or turn invisible, though -- which is useful, really, or you'd miss this rather excellent book.

For more information:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

--Previous review--

News and Bits: Joe Abercrombie, Doctor Who, Moonlight, William Shakespeare Writing Advice, & John McCain...

From Aidan I got a bit of news about Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold, which has been delayed. Not by much, only a few months, but Joe has written a really interesting and funny post about why, with a bit of writerly advice and info about the publishing industry in there, too:

“I’d got used to the pace I was working at with Last Argument of Kings, and foolishly extrapolated my likely writing pace from there. That was pretty damn fast, took about 14 months including all the editing. But that was writing the third in a trilogy, the characters, plots, endings long established in my mind and ready to be vomited out onto the page. This new project has proved more difficult. In a sense, since the trilogy was one long story, this book has felt much more like my “difficult second album” than the second book did, which was only really a continuation of the first. I am beginning to understand why people end up writing endless series…

…

Then there are the distractions and pressures that come with having books out there in the marketplace and (relatively) successful. Interviews, blogging, responding to email, endlessly searching for anyone talking about you, checking your amazon sales ranks every hour in four different countries, etc. That vital work all takes up time and energy one could have expended writing. And though I’m doing a lot less of the day job these days, it’s funny how the pace of writing doesn’t necessarily increase to match (more on this in due course, perhaps).

…

So cut the sh*t, Joe, can you just tell us what authors will never bloody tell us, and say where are you actually up to with this book? Well, er, yes, thanks for asking. It’s in seven parts, and I’m just finishing the first draft of the fifth part, so about three quarters of the way through. Well, that doesn’t seem so bad, it’s only May, a whole eleven months before the original pub date! True, I still hope to have the first draft finished and then thoroughly revised to my own satisfaction maybe end of August.

…

But I know what you’re thinking now. If it’s all finished before the end of the year, why the f*ck does anyone need to move the pub date from April to June?

…

There’s a lot more to it than just getting it typeset, proof-reading for errors, then boshing it off to the printers and counting the cash. For one thing the production department of a big publisher may have dozens of books going through at a time, from many different imprints, and everything has to take its place in the queue. They can’t just be twiddling their thumbs waiting for that one author you like to finish their manuscript. These things can take some time.

But there are much more time-consuming processes than the obvious ones of physically producing the product. If you’re going to give a book the best chance of selling well then booksellers need to know when it’s going to appear some time in advance. The more warning they get, the further in advance they can plan their buying, the better chance of getting better display space and support. Editors need some time to get folks in their own company enthused about a book - the publicists, the reps who will try to sell books on to booksellers, the rights department who may be trying to sell the book to other markets. The longer you have and the firmer the date, the better chance of prising some marketing cash from the gripping fingers of the soul-less money men (I don’t mean it, I really don’t). The more time you have between finishing the final edit and publishing the book means more time to get proofs out to reviewers and more time for them to read the book, which means more chance of it getting reviews, of there being some buzz, or at least some awareness of the existence of a book before it comes out. All of this is going to help sales.

…

Then there is the question of scheduling. A publisher doesn’t want to be releasing two similar books too close together, because they’ll end up competing with each other, not only for the generous cash of the book-buying public, but also for the attention of the marketing within their own organisation, the reps who go out and try and sell the books to booksellers, and the booksellers themselves who need to fill their shelves. They don’t want to be saying, “this book is the most important epic fantasy released anywhere this month … apart from this one which we also have, which is just as good if not better, well, not better, but … where are you going?” Schedules get filled up, books have to be moved around other books, and the later the delay occurs the worse the problem, which is why sometimes a small delay in delivery can mean publication has to be shifted months later, into the next free slot.

So you can see there are a compelling stack of reasons why it’s in the best interests of a book to have 9-12 months between delivery of a first draft and publication. With the really big, well-established authors it’s less important. Booksellers, reps and readers aren’t going to say no to A Dance With Dragons because it doesn’t turn up on time, for example, but if you push it down to less than six months you’re limiting editing time, proof-reading time, putting added pressure on everyone involved and taking some risks with the quality of the output. Ever wondered why books that are long-delayed may seem sloppily edited? Wonder no longer…”

In sadder news, CBS are dropping Moonlight! No! This has quickly become one of my "guilty pleasure" shows, and the second season -- despite the lull in viewing figures from that damnable -- bloody damnable -- writers strike -- seemed almost guaranteed. If anything, the show picked up in quality after the writers strike. Tonight's US episode is the last, alas.

Apparently the BBC has caused some controversy after it asked for a fan's Doctor Who knitting patterns to be removed from the web. This sounds pretty horrible of them at first, but they have to protect their trademark (or they will lose it), and the products were being sold on eBay, so I pretty much agree with them. Interestingly, the Head of Communications at the BBC replied in the comments of this blog post about why they did it.

Not sure how up to date you are with the current series in the rest of the non-UK world, but I thought last week's episode opened up some interesting opportunities for the writers... Y.A.N.A. Is the new series as good as the last, do you think?


From La Gringa I find a very funny (and probably slightly demoralising) site called 101 Reasons Not To Write. I remain particularly fond of this one, with the Bard:


And, totally unrelatedly, I direct you thus: to this website, with a very interesting and, again, funny, post about how crazily superstitious Senator John McCain is. I've watched the US presidential nominee thing with interest, for the first time, from the UK and he seemed OK to me at first. I've heard more and more crazy stuff about him, though, and that opinion has changed seeing some interviews he's done. (Yes, I'm a UK American politics geek, OK?!)

OK, sure, big deal, you think. Many people are superstitious, maybe even most. We talk about luck, we use body language to force the bowling ball to curve after we’ve bowled it, we wear lucky shirts to interviews. I understand those feelings, and they’re natural. I’ve had ‘em myself. But when they take over your life, and seriously affect your actions, then you have a problem.

McCain is really superstitious.

Cheerio, to be very English for one glorious moment ;)

On Magicians & Revolutionary Physicists...

Well, that was rather a lame title ;) Things have been rather busy here, so, erm, no time to come up with good titles... or excuses for not having good titles ... or excuses for not having good excuses for not having...

Thanks to the kind person writing this post -- me! -- one lucky winner will receive Raymond E. Feist's best-selling, critically acclaimed novel, Magician.

The winner is: Daniel Partridge of Iowa. Congratulations :) And thanks to everyone who entered! Yes, I'll have more contests ;)

I'm currently reading this rather fantastic book, a book about superheroes (which has very cool UK art, and pretty rubbish US art), some alien erotic fiction (which is actually very funny, witty, and alien and erotic all in one go), some book by some unknown author about a war between flowers or something, and a very good book by Stephen Hunt. I'll be delighted to tell you about them, starting this weekend, I hope =]

PS: Click the top link if you want to understand the physics part of the title!

V For Vendetta (Movie)

When I heard about V for Vendetta, being a comic noob, I didn't have a clue that it was based upon the comic series by the legendary Alan Moore. What I did know, was that it was rubbish. Hell, no one liked it -- it must be rubbish. (I wasn't paying much attention to the online SFFsphere at that point, so for all I know, a lot of us types liked it...)

It's not rubbish. In fact, I really enjoyed it. When in came out (was it really 2005?), all I knew was that there was some guy with a mask I didn't recognise, and lots of other people in masks I didn't recognise, and that Natalie Portman was in it.

The masks are, in fact, Guy Fawkes masks, and the man known only as "V" is in fact, a terrorist/freedom fighter, and the hero of our story. It's a world where Civil War splits the former United States of America, a world where, in Britain, a far-right, extremist political party (with strong Nazi overtones -- the flags, their symbol, the rallies) has come into power, and, in an Orwellian nightmare, now monitors its people. Curfews are enforced, conversations monitored, and, in the words of V, in a pirate broadcast to the entire nation, "something has gone terribly wrong with this country".

It positively crackles with brilliant dialogue (mostly from "V" played by Hugo Weaving (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, etc), who has a really distinctive, brilliant voice):

V: [Evey pulls out her mace] I can assure you I mean you no harm.
Evey Hammond: Who are you?
V: "Who?" Who is but the form following the function of "what". And what I am is a man in a mask.
Evey Hammond: Well, I can see that.
V: Of course you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.
Evey Hammond: Oh. Right.
V: But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace sobriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona...
V: Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.
[carves V into poster on wall]
V: The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
[giggles]
V: Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.
Evey Hammond: Are you like a crazy person?
V: I am quite sure they will say so. But to whom, might I ask, am I speaking with?
Evey Hammond: I'm Evey.
V: Evey? E-V. Of course you are.
Evey Hammond: What does that mean?
V: It means that I, like God, do not play with dice and I don't believe in coincidences.

It's not all like this, of course, as it would probably prove annoying, but the dialogue is one of the strongest points of this film. There isn't that much action, except for at the end, and the beginning, but it's not stuff, either. Running alongside the main story is flashbacks to the life of a woman named Valerie who died in a "holding cell", and the story of a high ranking detective who uncovers terrible things about what his government has done -- and must now make his choice.

It's also rather funny in places, but, this film is awful for me in one particular area: Stephen Fry is in the film. This is great; Stephen Fry is a legend. What isn't great are certain scenes where the Bad Guys dare to hurt him! ;) You can deprive us of our Human Rights, you can take away our liberties (which is probably the same thing...), but you may never, ever, harm Stephen Fry.

In all seriousness, I really enjoyed the film, and that's completely not what I expected. Anyone feel the same? Or completely opposite?

Submit YOUR Question For Our Richard (K) Morgan Interview...

I really enjoyed Richard (K) Morgan's The Steel Remains, his forthcoming fantasy début (August 21st in the UK). I decided to contact Richard for an interview -- and he agreed! I then decided with Robert at Fantasy Book Critic that we might as well work together on this one and produce an interview that would be even better for the collaboration.

Of course, it would be even better if you were able to submit a question you've always wanted to ask Richard -- related to his previous SF, his forthcoming fantasies, anything! -- and that's what you can do! Fill out the form below and we'll choose any enquiries we deem appropriate :)

You have until June 3rd to fill out the form!



You can also submit your question over at Robert's site :) They all go to the same place, and you'll be credited in the interview.

Singularity's Ring

Singularity's Ring
Paul Melko
Tor Books

2nd May 2008
316 Pages
A Sci-Fi Essential Book

Singularity's Ring is Paul Melko's début novel, a science-fictional story of a not-too-distant future where Earth's population is now much less than a billion, and many live in poverty. What's worse is that all this has happened after 90% of humanity has transcended (which may or may not mean that they have all gone and died; they're certainly not around anymore, anyway), leaving the world crippled. Transcension occurred when the 6 billion people known as the Community, in a huge "communion as one", via the machine intelligence (for example, the huge Ring circling the Earth), moved on to the next plane of existence -- or died -- or both.

Er, but just what is a Singularity? There are a lot of terms in SF that are thrown about, but I'm sure a lot of people (myself included) don't always fully understand them, so forgive the small recap. The concept of a Singularity is a fairly common thing, in SF and "real science", but something I didn't understand properly until a few years ago. Anyway, a Singularity (the term was coined by Vernor Vinge) is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. AI is heading this way, as is brain augmentation (cool!), and, my favourite, ultra-high-resolution brain scans followed by computer emulation, which has a whole lot of potential ... but I digress.

In the 30 years that followed, and the aftermath of the Gene Wars, a new world order, the Overgovernment, exists. The majority of humans are genetically enhanced -- to the degree that any that aren't are frowned upon, scorned, and (occasionally) pitied...

Apollo Papadopulos is a pod. Say the word "pod" in SF circles and you get instant images of green goo and ugly 1930s aliens hatching out of people -- or, if you're not twisted like me, something you step into to be disintegrated and put back together again somewhere else, to the vexation of time and space. But a pod, in Singularity's Ring is not something icky green or Faster Than Light, it is an entity, a group identity, a mind shared by a group of humans linked together, sharing emotions and thoughts -- even memories -- and acting as one person, as a result of some of those genetic enhancements previously mentioned.

Five things into one [beat] is bad enough in music, but I was rather worried about how Melko would manage to make the reader feel any attachment to the characters if they're all compressed into one... Well, in short: they're not. Of the quintet that forms the pod known as Apollo, each has their own first person chapter, before it switches to a group narrative once we've got to know all the characters. And it really works. Apart from establishing the relationship with each character, and getting us ready for the group ones, it also successfully creates a feeling of something both familiar and unfamiliar, something alien yet human.

Although, Paul Melko is a very well respected short story writer, I don't think Singularity's Ring is the novel that is going to prove his major breakthrough. I enjoyed it a lot, but it was quite a gentle read, with definite Young Adult overtones -- not to say that that is a bad thing; one of the things I like about novels like that is that they are accessible and very easy to get sucked into -- is not quite the tour de force that would mark Mr. Melko as one of the new guard. A good read, nonetheless, and I see no reason why, just because it has certain YA elements, people shouldn't enjoy it. For those who are often not keen to read science fiction, I think it's a good starting place. A very good book, and an excellent début.

For more information:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

--Previous review--

Win a Copy of Stephenie Meyer's "The Host"...

Yes, yes, another contest on this usually contest-empty blog ;) I'd planned to announce this contest later in the week, but I'm having a bit of trouble with the review of the aforementioned book. I liked it, but there were problems areas, and I seem unable to write properly today, so that can come tomorrow! :)

Again, thanks very much to the awesome people at Sphere Books (who are, by some trickery, similar to the people at Orbit Books, in this particular case).



Good luck!

----

This contest closed on the 9th of June. Winners will be announced by the end of the month...

The Sandman: The Doll's House

The Doll's House
Neil Gaiman

:::I've just realised that this is the second of two special Gaiman orientated posts, and for some reason, I feel ever so slightly guilty. I suppose it's because, at the moment, and for the next week or so, I'm going to be a bit quiet around here. I'll be popping in, and hopefully reviewing as usual, and hosting contests, but generally, I won't really be here. Perhaps I'm just a dream...

Firstly, I've never read a comic book/graphic novel before. Secondly, I will be reading more! For some reason I'd always shied away from them; I'd always thought that they just weren't for me. I mean, I don't like art* -- I like to read things. Good things. By which, I mean: not comic books.

Well, I was wrong, totally, and utterly, and happily. The Sandman is a very popular comic book series of the 1990s written by Neil Gaiman (yes, him again), which, to quote the BBC, successfully raised the bar for what should come to be expected from comics and helped change views on comics as an art medium". In my research, I also discovered that, for the first time, Sandman was equally popular with the mid-20s female demographic than it was with the more stereotypical teenage boy.

I started on volume 2, The Doll's House, which collects issues 9-16. I'd been told by a friend that you can start anywhere, and that he'd recommend starting with volume two rather than volume one, as in the first issues it takes a while for Gaiman to reach his stride, and are best read after the series. So that's what I did.

The Sandman tells the story of Dream, one of the Endless, the younger brother of Death (and others) and how he goes about picking up the pieces of his rule over Dreams, after being imprisoned for the most part of the 19th century. His siblings, Desire and Despair and those others, have traps for him, though, and even rogue dreams are against him, now that the eternal Lord Kai'ckul (Dream) tries to restore his Dream kingdom.

Wow, that sounds very crazy. And it probably is. But it works so very well. The writing is good; the artwork is good; the story is good. One thing I'd never really understood about comics was that in this piece of work, new and unique, etc, you could have Superman or somebody else from the DC Universe show up. There are a few such small occurrences that take place in the Sandman like this, I've been told, but I'm not versed enough to have noticed.(Though, apparently, Superman becomes temporary Lord of Hell (not my Dream job, if you ignore the pun) in one issue).

While the original concept of the Sandman story is very old, a tale from classic mythology and folklore, Gaiman, being Gaiman, and I'll quote the BBC again: has honoured this and the many different versions of the Sandman throughout the series, just as he honours the complexities of storytelling as a whole. He has pooled a thousand references to other works, from his years of research and study. From ancient mythologies and fairy tales (including Greek, Egyptian, Japanese, Chinese, Norse and African), to great literature and writers like Shakespeare, Poe and Lewis Carroll to the lyrics of modern rock songs, all are abundant in the stories of the Sandman."

Graphic novels take a lot of time to read. They take just as long, if not longer, than an equally sized book, which is something I had never realised. There's so much to take in, and so much story being told, and I am now a fan. I will be finishing up the Sandman series over the coming year. (I've a couple of brief holiday (and annoying exam) hiatuses coming up, which will stop me reading -- and blogging, indeed -- for a week or so at a time.)

For now, though, while I have time, I'm off to re-read The Doll's House ;)

*I do like art. I have no idea why I said that.

Win a SIGNED Copy of Pamela Freeman's "Blood Ties"...

Thanks to the lovely folks at Orbit, and to celebrate the release of Pamela's Blood Ties (reviewed yesterday), I have a signed copy to give away :)

As you can tell from the review, I really liked it, so to enter...

• Send an email to: thebookswede@googlemail.com, containing the subject (aka header) "BLOOD"

• No multiple entries, or the Foot of Annoyance shall Connect with your Rump, and Disapproval shall be Made Known

• Open worldwide

• Please also include any Message Boards you frequent, if any at all
  

• Make sure your email contains your full mailing address (snail mail!).

• Entries received three months after the contest closed will be sent back in time and re-entered. Be warned that you won't win, though ;)
  

That's it! Good luck!

Blood Ties

Blood Ties
Pamela Freeman
Orbit Books

400 Pages
5th June 2008 (UK)
7th April 2008 (US)

Pamela Freeman has made quite a name for herself with her children's and young adult fiction, but this is her first novel for adults, and the first in a series. Blood Ties tells of the stories of Ash, Bramble and Saker, and the people of the Eleven Kingdoms; a place where with the cast of a stone one's future might be told; a place where ghosts are chained to the earth by anger and their quest for revenge; a place where simmering hatreds and rivalries and racisms dating back to the subjugation of an entire people, are about to come out into the light -- or rather, the dark -- and change the world. And Blood Ties is -- pun intended -- bloody good.

That previous writing experience (17 novels!) shows, and Freeman's writing is crisp, sharp and very accessible, with her distinctive "voice" drawing you straight into the novel. From the bit above, it's easy to tell that difficult themes -- namely racism, revenge, rape, death, etc -- are thrown into the mix, but her writing, I think, will still be very enjoyable to people who normally eschew those types of elements within something they read for pleasure.

Saker is probably the least developed of three main Point of View characters. He's currently serving the role of the bad guy what must be stopped -- but he's fairly sympathetic, even if I, naturally, as a reader am rooting for the guys who are going to stop him and his dastardly plan. I was particularly interested in the fact that all three mains PoV characters are Travellers. Within Blood Ties they are heavily prejudiced against -- having been subdued, and mercilessly killed, a thousand years ago, by a warlord called Acton, and his blue-eyed, blonde haired warriors -- but it was interesting to see how all three had different ways of coping with this, and their reactions to the racism. While Pamela isn't preachy -- in fact, I'd have liked to have seen more discussion of the racism inherent in that world -- it showed the severe consequences -- i.e. death -- of an unthinking, cruel, and, above all, pointless, prejudice.

I really liked the little short stories we got within Blood Ties. They were told in first person narrative, and served as a break from the main story, highlighting the life of one particular character. It was a clever way of keeping the number of continuous points of view characters down, and gave a different look at the Castings world, through new eyes. With the short chapters, and these interspersed Stories, it really helps the pace of Blood Ties. Because, while a fair amount does happen, it's not really an action-packed story. At no time does the plot become stuffy, but time is spent on characterisation and slow world-building, in incremental stages, rather than downloading the Entire History of My Fantastic World onto the poor befuddled reader.

There's always a time when it comes to the picking of nits, and there are a few with Blood Ties. While I enjoyed the idea of "local gods", independent to each society -- village, town, etc -- their warnings of danger, and their help -- particularly with Bramble -- could often feel like deus ex machina. There were also certain other flukes, and the meet-up between Ash (and Martine) and Bramble towards the end seemed a little contrived. Other than that, and the cover art which maybe seems a little generic for this type of book, and things are good.

Blood Ties is an excellent book, fun, clever, and well written, with distinctive characterisations, and I will definitely be looking forward to the next book in the series! I'm delighted to have found another good writer.

For more information:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

--Previous review--

Damn, Damn, Double Damn, & A Pint of Damn for the Weekend...

I've got really bad Internet problems today (and yesterday) hence the lack of posts! I mnaged to get a lot of reading done, and will have reviews coming soon. With some more contests, too.

For the moment, though, check out all the other cool sites, to your right. Once the problem is sorted, I'll be taking advantage of post scheduling to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again! :)

Win A Copy of Feist's "Magician"

This is one of the most popular fantasy books ever. While a lot of people aren't so keen on the rest of the series, this one can be read as a stand-alone and is still one of my favourite books. It's also a very good book to introduce someone to fantasy.

So, I thought I'd give away a copy! :) This is the UK edition, containing what has been split into two smaller books in the US.

Raymond E. Feist's classic fantasy epic, Magician, has enchanted readers for over twenty years. The revised edition was prepared to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its publication, and incorporates over 15,000 words of text omitted from previous editions. At Crydee, a frontier outpost in the tranquil Kingdom of the Isles, an orphan boy, Pug, is apprenticed to a master magician -- and the destinies of two worlds are changed forever. Suddenly the peace of the Kingdom is destroyed as mysterious alien invaders swarm the land. Pug is swept up into the conflict but for him and his warrior friend, Tomas, an odyssey into the unknown has only just begun. Tomas will inherit a legacy of savage power from an ancient civilization. Pug's destiny is to lead him through a rift in the fabric of space and time to the mastery of the unimaginable powers of a strange new magic.

I now want to re-read it, damn it!

The rules are simple:

• Send an email to: thebookswede@googlemail.com, containing the subject (aka header) "MAGICIAN"

• No multiple entries, or the Foot of Annoyance shall Connect with your Rump, and Disapproval shall be Made Known

• Open worldwide

• Please also include any Message Boards you frequent, if an
  

• Make sure your email contains your full mailing address (snail mail!). For the purposes of clarification, this is where you live. I will not ask for it, you must provide it ;)

Good luck!

Shoggoth's Old Peculiar

Shoggoth's Old Peculiar
Neil Gaiman

I have now gotten two emails requesting my opinion on something. That event is rare enough that I'm going to blog the "sort-of-reply". I was asked what I thought the best introduction to Neil Gaiman's work was, in a short dose where they could quickly decide whether or not they liked the style. But sometimes it takes a little while to get used to Gaiman's stuff, and for a short dose, the brilliant novels Neverwhere, Stardust and -- depending upon your opinion -- American Gods, were out of the question.

So, instead of directing them to something in print -- although Neil has lots of his short stories available free on his web site -- I directed them to a video of Neil reading a short story of his, called Shoggoth's Old Peculiar. Because it's brilliant. And funny, and weird, and all sorts of interesting. (And can be found below).

Shoggoth's Old Peculiar, which was nominated for a World Fantasy Award in 1999 is a very tongue-in-cheek Lovecraft satire, though no real knowledge of Lovecraft is required. (Save that Lovecraft was a weird and wonderful writer). It's the story of Ben, a young American, on a "walking tour of the British Isles", and what he finds there, in a strange village, and, more importantly, a strange pub...

There's no actual video, it's just audio, read by Gaiman himself, who is one of those rare writers that can read their own work brilliantly and keep a room captivated for hours. This story subsequently appeared in Gaiman's short story collection Smoke and Mirrors, and is nowhere near an hour long!



Part the first



Part the second



Part the third

Enjoy! ;)

ETA: When reading any Gaiman, be it novel or short story, it's good written down, but it's even better out loud.