reviewer

dark matter is a ghost story with a reality twist from michelle paver

2011-02-06T06:33:00.000-08:00

Subtitled “A Ghost Story”, Michelle Paver’s Dark Matter is a clever book that takes an historical story and adds a supernatural twist.

Set in 1937, Dark Matter followers a group of young Englishmen who attempt to winter in the arctic circle for purposes of scientific research.
Based on the Oxford University Arctic Expedition of 1935, the book attempts to be as authentic as possible when it comes to describing everything from the type of “chaps” who went on these types of adventures to the technical details of their equipment, and even what they did to entertain themselves.
Paver includes reference material at the end of the book, highlighting that some of the concepts which you may have thought creative licence really occurred.
What she doesn’t know is true or not is the central theme of the haunting – although she does point out in the support material that many of the men who went on the real expedition mentioned an uneasiness about the area of the base camp.
What makes Dark Matter a truly gothic horror story is the creeping sensation of depression, being watched and the possibility of going mad in the long, long night of winter in the Arctic.
Jack is not the same as his companions on the trip; he’s poor despite his education, he’s got a bit of a death wish and hates his life. When the opportunity for this expedition arrives he’s oddly reluctant to take it and escape his horribly boring life.
But agreeing to go, Jack decides he’s going to do his utmost to squeeze every ounce of experience from the trip.
Is it his obsession to survive and succeed over his richer teammates or his innate depression that leads to the terrible things that Jack actually experiences in the ice?
It’s only Paver’s skill that allows the reader to make up their own mind about what really happened up there in the dark.
Dark Matters is an interesting read; while it might not make you scared of the dark, it will certainly make you think.
And should you ever find yourself lost in the snow somewhere and remember reading this book, it will make you shiver.

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver is published by Orion Books and is available from good book stores and online.

will avery cates finally come out on top in jeff somers' the terminal state? well, kind of ...

2011-02-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

The undying, nasty, bemused assassin Avery Cates returns in Jeff Somers’ The Terminal State for the fourth time.

Will Avery finally manage to kill himself off – via alcoholism, his death wish, ex-friends now enemies or the general travesty which is his world? Or, is he actually already dead but hasn’t yet worked it out?
These are crucial questions for Avery Cates fans – of which there are many – who have been captivated by Somers’ dystopian and generally bleak view of the future.
Somers’ writes books that are like “an action movie in print” as the The Daily Telegraph described the previous book The Eternal Prison – a description I used previously in my review of that book: Avery Cates returns in Jeff Somers' dystopian world of The Eternal Prison
In The Terminal State the street killer has been scooped up by the army and pumped full of technological augments, but he’s also lost control of his own body via some sort of brain implant.
Still, that’s not going to stop him from trying to kill whoever manages to piss him off, even if that person is supposedly in charge of his body.
On top of that, he discovers that person who’s just bought his body is none other than his oldest enemy Canny Orel; but Avery is willing to play a long, at least until he can take out Canny as well as himself if he has to.
It’s unsure if Somers’ always planned for there to be four Avery Cates books, but in The Terminal State he manages to tie up a number of loose ends from the previous three – The Electric Church, The Digital Plague and The Eternal Prison – but still leaves an opening for the next installment.
Thank goodness. Somers’ version of the future is one to be wary of, true, but it’s as entertaining as hell and Avery Cates is one of those characters that you just know could go on forever. Here’s hoping.

The Terminal State by Jeff Somers is published by Orbit Books and is available from good book stores and online.

a fine line between flattery and imitation; the heir of night by helen lowe resonates with a song of ice and fire ...

2011-02-06T05:27:00.000-08:00

This book is the first in a series, of course, it wouldn’t be in the fantasy genre if it wasn’t, but The Heir of Night by Helen Lowe is actually fit for the praise best-selling author and fantasy Queen Robin Hobb gives it; “a richly told tale.”

Unfortunately however, there are strong similarities to the great classic series A Song of Ice and Fire by American author George R. R. Martin and which is being turned into an HBO TV series called Game of Thrones after the first book of the series.
We have a lordly family living far from the kingdom’s capital, hard up against a “barrier” that many have forgotten protects the population from the “Night” and the “cold” … quite a few similarities already.
Add in a devastating attack at night, the intervention of unknown outsiders, the possibility of magic and the miraculous escape of the only heir and one might think that Lowe was copying rather too obviously.
However, The Heir of Night redeems itself through the intricate – and different – history and culture of this fantasy world; there are other bits and pieces too that make this not an actual copy of the classic series.
But Lowe has walked a very fine line – particularly when it comes to mad fans I would expect.
The central character is Malian, a girl who is not yet a woman but already the heir to her very cold, very distant father’s lordship and responsibility.
An invasion from beyond the wall that the family protects against finds Malian with her back against the wall, quite literally, and forces her to realise her hidden magical potential – something to be feared not only for its power but because it will bar her from rulership.
Lowe’s pacing is good, the action scenes are believable and her characters fully-fleshed out in many ways – although there are a fair few stereotypes filling up the plot’s gaps.
It will be interesting to see if Lowe can move the story forward in such a way as to remove more of the similarities to A Song of Ice and Fire; I hope so.

The Heir of Night by Helen Lowe is published by Orbit Books and is available at all good book stores and online. The next book in the series is The Gathering of The Lost.

quirky new idea in classic fantasy novel

2011-02-06T04:58:00.000-08:00

Every so often a fantasy novel comes along that offers lovers of the genre something new and exciting; an idea or series of ideas that don’t seem to have been thought of before.

Anna Kendall’s Crossing Over is one of these books. The central premise – a boy is able to crossover into the afterlife through the application of pain – is different enough to stand out.
Roger lives a truly wretched life, forced to use this “gift”, which he sees as being more of a curse, by supposed relatives who inflict pain on him nightly in order to get money from those missing their dead.
Finally after seemingly endless passages of despair and depression – almost enough to make one give up reading, but not quite – Roger finds himself first free of the horrible relatives and then “saved” by mysterious woman.
Eventually, of course, Roger gets himself into trouble by telling the wrong people about his skill and before he realises it he’s the pivotal point for politics in his land.
Kendall has a great turn of phrase, her pacing is a little slow at first but gets better as Roger makes his way through his world. And her descriptive passages are very good.
Roger is the sort of character that most people can related to, he’s not perfect – despite, or because of his terrible upbringing – he’s quite weak and easily manipulated.
But throughout the story you feel that he’s at least trying to do the right thing, even if he gets caught up in his own power at times.
Crossing Over is a tightly written piece of dark fantasy – it would make a great present for anyone interested in the genre but looking for something a little different.

Crossing Over by Anna Kendall is published by Orion Books and is available from good book stores and online.

Young Adult Fiction with more depth than most

2011-02-06T04:37:00.000-08:00

Like most urban fantasy for young readers, By Midnight from Mia James has the requisite young girl who’s clueless about her creepy new school, the mysterious good-looking boy, parents who are somehow out of the picture and things that go bump in the night.
So far, so boring.

Luckily By Midnight is saved by some actual reality in the form of a murder or two, a mother who can’t cope and a bemused but genuine cop.
James’ writing is also a step above the usual pap that these sorts of books are usually dowsed in. The prose is tight, the action relatively realistic and the characters fairly believable.
The central character April is a pretty normal teen who has been shifted to London by a family move and dumped at a posh school supposedly the only place available.
Her mother and father are busy working, and despite being relatively smart April feels like an outsider compared to her much more glamorous and brilliant school mates.
After a couple of mysterious happenings and a death, April realises that not only is something weird going on at her school, there’s something weird about her family as well.
There will, of course, be a sequel. There probably already is.
This is a good alternative to the other rubbish that’s out there; if only because it’s set in England and not America for a change.

By Midnight by Mia James is published by Orion Books and is available from good book stores and online.

The fundamentals of fashion

2011-02-06T04:16:00.000-08:00

Imagine my delight when I received a copy of Christian Dior’s classic tome, The Little Dictionary of Fashion. This wee book – it’s only 126, small pages long – would finally be able to shed some light on the thoughts of one of fashion’s greatest individuals.

Like Coco Chanel, Christian Dior has shaped the way women, and men, dress today whether we are aware of it or not. First published in 1954 and republished in 2008, the rise of the “lady-like” style has seen a renewed interest in this period and the designers who influenced it.

Dior is perhaps best-known for creating the “New Look” after World War II, when despite the need to continue rationing “luxuries” like fabric, he produced a distinctive skirt that was so huge and used so much material that it seemed to fly in the face of societal norms of the time.

He reportedly used 20 yards – that’s over 18 metres – of luxe fabric in the bell-shaped skirts of his Spring Summer 1947 collection; Dior’s first public ready-to-wear show.

Although the lines were called “Corolle” and “Huit”, it was Harper's Bazaar's editor-in-chief Carmel Snow’s exclamation “It's such a New Look!” that actually named Dior’s seminal creation.

To read the complete review, go to my blog on herworld.com, The fundamentals of fashion

* This review was first published on herworld.com

another delicious dark dexter story from jeff lindsay

2010-11-05T06:43:00.000-07:00

Dexter is Delicious is the fifth book in the Dexter series from Jeff Lindsay, and yes, these are the books the award-winning TV show Dexter is based on.

The serial killer as hero premise seems old hat now, but when the first book, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, was released, the concept was constantly being debated by everyone from high-brow critics to bible-bashing mid-westerners. How dare Lindsay make the hero a psychopathic serial killer? Shocking!
With an award-winning TV show and a heart-throb actor in the central role, the Dexter franchise has become practically mainstream.
Luckily the books are still as well-written as they always were; the structure of the internal monologue continues to work, and the reader still wonders just how Lindsay knows so much about how a serial killer thinks.
In the TV series, Dexter is a father, and in Dexter is Delicious his daughter Lily Anne is also the one thing that’s keeping him on the straight and narrow and out of the electric chair.
At least until he realises that someone from his past, someone who knows rather too much about what really makes Dexter tick, reappears in his life.
If Dexter is threatened, then Lily Anne is threatened; and that is not something you want an accomplished murderer like Dexter thinking about.
To complicate matters, Dexter’s job as a blood spatter analyst gets him involved in the disappearance of an 18-year-old girl who may have been abducted by vampires – who could also be cannibals.
Lindsay’s books are so much more detailed than the TV show, although the voice-over used in the show mirrors somewhat the internal monologue of the character in the novels.
Still, you can read the books and watch the show without too many discrepancies cropping up, which isn’t always true.
For lovers of crime thrillers and murder mysteries or lovers of novels about psychopaths, you can’t go past the Dexter novels; they are a unique twist on a great genre.

Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay is published by Orion Books and is available at all good book stores and online.

historical romance brings classic tale to modern life

2010-11-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

Anne Fortier’s Juliet is a mixture of romance, whodunit, coming-of-age and historical fiction.

When Julie’s aunt Rose dies, she is left not with half an inheritance, but with a wooden box containing a secret.

Julie’s much more successful, and much nastier, sister Janice gets Rose’s house – and all it’s debts – much to Julie’s delight.
The secret in the box turns out to be a bunch of documents and letters that lead Julie to randomly decide to return to Sienna, Italy, where her parents died and where her personal history may be unravelled.
It’s in Sienna that Julie discovers that she, and her sister, are scions of an ancient Italian family – which may have been the source of Romeo and Juliet’s tragic tale.
Titillated by the possible connection, Julie ignores the warning signals of mysterious men following her, mysterious policemen being overly interested in her whereabouts and mysteriously friendly “long lost relatives”.
Obviously the secret of the box, the secret of her parents deaths and even the possible secret connection to the fabled Juliet, could lead to a lucrative payday for someone.
Eventually Janice – the more organised and practical sister – discovers what Julie is up to and turns up in Sienna ready to sort it all out. Once again, Julie is “saved” by her sister.
After a few historical twists and turns, with some very obvious fudging of historical facts, the secret is revealed, the romantic hero turns out to be a cad and the sisters rediscover their love for each other ... of course.
Still, Juliet is nicely written; the pacing is tight, the characters mostly realistic if a little stereotypical, and Fortier has a nice turn of descriptive phrasing especially when describing the streets of Sienna.
There is plenty of action, lots of romance, burning gazes and heaving chests, as well as a bit of magic; Juliet is a fun read, perfect for the Christmas holidays.

Juliet by Anne Fortier is published by HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

another piece of reality tv masquerading as a novel from lauren conrad

2010-11-05T05:54:00.000-07:00

This is the third book in Lauren Conrad’s LA Candy series based, rather obviously, on her own experiences in the reality TV show, The Hills.

While it’s plastered with the bold “#1 New York Times Bestselling Author” blurb, you just know that Conrad has sold so many books simply because of her pseudo-celebrity.
The story is boring, conventional and teenaged; there’s the nasty girl who get’s her comeuppence, the apparently genuine boy who only wants to be on TV, the clueless but kind bimbo who is easily led astray and the “ordinary-girl-caught-up-in-things-beyond-her-control”, who is obviously Conrad herself.
While I’m sure Conrad, and her publishers, have never claimed that these books are literature, it offends my educated sensibilities that rubbish like Sugar and Spice – not even the title is original – manages to sell so many copies.

It’s like the horrible success of the terribly written pap that is Twilight; there are so many better books out there that get left on the shelves because their authors haven’t been on TV / are Mormon moms with great publicists.
Sorry ... this rant has little to do with the actual book I’m supposed to be reviewing, but I just had to have a say.
Back to Sugar and Spice. The “plot” follows the continuing “adventures” of Jane (Conrad’s alter-ego), Scarlett, various boyfriends, Madison, Gaby, the PR company they work for (I know, I know, even the job is borrowed) and new addition Sophia.
Madison manages to get a job at Jane’s company ensuring the TV crew have lots of shots of simmering hatred between the two, and the machinations and bitch-fights ensue.
And that’s about it. Eventually Madison gets her comeuppence and Jane and BFF Scarlett escape the clutches of big bad LA TV-land.
While nothing new happens, Sugar and Spice is not totally horrible. It’s written slightly better than the Twilight series for example, and it clearly shows that being on a reality TV show isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Not that, that stopped most of the cast of The Hills moving to The City in New York and doing it all over again.
Oh well ... there’s got to be some sort of TV show for all those hopeful country kids who don’t get picked for America’s Next Top Model, So You Think You Can Dance, X-Factor or American Idol.
After all, on shows like The Hills and The City, you don’t have to have any sort of talent at all to become famous – just look at Jersey Shore.

Sugar and Spice by Lauren Conrad is published by HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

jacqueline carey's carefully crafted world returns in naamah's curse

2010-10-16T23:44:00.000-07:00

God I love Jacqueline Carey’s books. Her complex fantasy series Kushiel's Legacy was made up of six books, each as good or better than the previous one. When that series seemingly ended I was devastated.

So imagine my joy when the new series, Naamah Trilogy, was announced with the first book Naamah’s Kiss.

Now the next in the series Naamah’s Curse has been released and the epic emotional, human yet different, world that Carey created in Kushiel’s Legacy has returned to her dedicated readers.

Carey’s world is almost an alternate history world, created not so much by positing that certain people didn’t die or different countries won historical wars – the usual structure for such genre novels – but rather by repositioning a religious movement away from a denial of sex and sexuality to one of acceptance and love.

Love, and sex, in all its forms is Carey’s central tenant in her fantasy world – the “real” countries and cultures of Europe, Russia and the United Kingdom are the basis for her new world, with a mythical France – Terra d’Ange, the land of the angels – being the source of her characters’ mystical connection with a god of love and compassion.

Although the central character of the Naamah books, Moirin, is half d’Angeline, she is also half Alban – a Celtic version of England with remnants of natural magic still in the blood of its people.

Read my review of Naamah’s Kiss: Kisses for Jacqueline Carey’s newest novel

Journeying halfway round the world to Ch’in – yes, China, but the mystical China of dragons and emperors and magic – Moirin finds herself falling in love, falling into danger and becoming first the mistress of a dragon-possessed princess before realising she still has to follow the wishes of her Alban goddess.

This bare telling of Moirin’s complex journey cannot begin to describe the sheer joy it is to read Carey’s books.
Her instinctual understanding of human nature and her ability to give form to psychological impulses in our psyches are what have made her books New York Times Bestsellers.
The novel is full of raunchy sex, loving and healing sex, action, dragons, magic, religious zealots, betrayal and luxurious indulgence set right next to terrible deprivation. A rich tapestry of borrowed cultures and countries add new characters at every turn.
But it is Carey’s complete non-judgement of sex, sexuality, emotional attachment and the bare essence of basic human feelings that makes her so compelling to read.
Although Khusiel’s Legacy and the Naamah Trilogy are set in a fantastic past, this lack of moral judgement is quintessentially modern; it offers a possible way for people to be; without imposed moralities, yet still with a binding requirement to not harm nor hurt other.
I can’t wait for the final instalment in the trilogy, Naamah’s Blessing, but I’m also dreading it; I don’t ever want to leave Carey’s carefully crafted, fascinating world.

Naamah’s Curse by Jacqueline Carey is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

the way of kings is classic epic fantasy from brandon sanderson

2010-10-16T23:10:00.000-07:00

Brandon Sanderson continues to show exactly why he was chosen to help finish Robert Jordan’s epic series The Wheel of Time with his first book in his second series, The Way of Kings: The Stormlight Archive Book One.

The Mistborn Trilogy, Sanderson’s first series has concluded to much critical and box office acclaim and now The Stormlight Archive series has launched with the thumpingly good The Way of Kings.

Read my review of The Mistborn Trilogy: Final instalment of Brandon Sanderson's The Mistborn Trilogy; The Hero of Ages

Sanderson is a fantasy writer of the traditional swords ‘n’ magic sort, but with an ability to add human emotion to inhuman characters, readers are never alienated.

In The Way of Kings, Sanderson introduces us to a world of storm and stone, where wild energy and magic of sorts comes from the devastating storms that lash the world.
A thousand years ago mythical knights protected the land from the depredations of a vicious enemy relying on “Shardblades” and “Shardplate” – armour and swords that give the wearing unending strength and magical powers of healing – to help them.
The knights have disappeared under clouded circumstances and although some Shardblades and Shardplate remain in the hands of a few warlords, it is little enough protection should the ancient enemy return.
As the past is lost in time the current batch of politicians, lords, kings and mercenaries occupy their time fighting seemingly pointless and endless battles. A new enemy has arisen, a race of generally subservient creatures used as slaves, has suddenly acquired a warlike offshoot and must be put down at all cost.
The battlefield is populated by soldiers and slaves, lords and ladies and a young king who has no idea what he is doing fighting this war, or why the enemy continues to hold off his supposedly invincible army led by Shard bearing warriors.
Slave to a lord, a young man who should have been a doctor finds himself becoming a defacto leader, attempting to do the impossible and protect his men; persecuted he begins to realise that he might not be just the simple soldier he always assumed he was.
On the other side of this world a young woman is attempting to ingratiate herself into the retinue of a renowned scholar to both learn but, more importantly, gain access to a coveted item that may, or may not, be able to help her family.
Sanderson deftly weaves these three main strands together with added detail from a plethora of minor characters; there is something moving in the storms, heading towards the heedless army battling for shiny rocks in a devastated landscape.
As with most fantasy novels, The Way of Kings is only the first in Sanderson’s new series that looks set to blow away readers and critics alike.
Sanderson is indeed a worthy heir to Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy crown; can’t wait for the next instalment.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

genetic manipulation & corporate greed gone awry ... again

2010-10-16T22:40:00.000-07:00

Yet another in the burgeoning genre of genetic manipulation and corporate greed gone awry, The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry isn’t the worst of the lot, but it’s certainly not the best either.

The Dragon Factory has the obligatory mad scientists – this lot appear to be leftovers from Nazi times – with designs on world domination and creating the “perfect” human being.
There are also “speak softly and carry a big stick” type government agents – this time it’s an ex-cop special ops shooter called Joe Ledger, an ongoing character for Maberry – and some shifty government types who are probably playing both sides.
The dragon factory of the title is a lab that manipulates animal genetics to create fictional creatures so rich, nasty people can hunt them or rich, manipulative people can use them to create cults to take over countries.
Ho hum. The whole plot of The Dragon Factory reads like a B-Grade film that went straight to DVD and stared actors who were in the first few minutes of a slasher movie as their only claim to fame.

But the book isn't pretending to be literature in any way, shape or form – just check out it's schlock-horror cover picture – so enjoy it for what it is.
Still, the plotting is tight, there are a few twists, the action scenes are relatively well-written and the baddies get their comeuppance. The Dragon Factory is another good airport read or a Christmas present for the non-reading man in your life.

The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

good, but not great: blonde bombshell by tom holt

2010-10-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

“A comedy of intergalactic proportions” reads the blurb on the front cover of Tom Holt’s latest book, Blonde Bombshell, but while there’s the odd chuckle among the pages this is no Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Holt has been hailed as the heir to Douglas Adams any number of times, despite the fact that his work is as often about magic as it is about science.

But the sheer surrealism of a universe run by mice is missing from Blonde Bombshell – even though Holt has the audacity to nick the concept and substitute another Earth animal as the protagonist.
In fact there are more than a few nods to other seminal works in this novel, not the least being a “bomb” that becomes self-aware.
While there are some humourous passages as aliens attempt to interpret seemingly bizarre human rituals like using money, fast food and airports, Blonde Bombshell generally falls rather flat.
There are no new ideas, no really engaging characters and the pat platitudes of “make peace not war” – even coming from the mouth of a creature created to destroy – doesn’t really grab the reader.
Blonde Bombshell isn’t a bad book; it’s easy to read, light and not too taxing. Basically if you’re stuck in an airport somewhere wondering why two men dressed in bad suits are trying to board with a decaying octopus in their carry-on luggage but can’t really be bothered paying attention, then Blonde Bombshell will certainly help pass the time.

Blonde Bombshell by Tom Holt is published by Orbit Books and is available from good book stores and online.

an uncannily prescient look at the future of war

2010-10-16T22:07:00.000-07:00

Hailed by genre critics and those of the more traditional literary sort, Adam Roberts’ New Model Army is a fascinating read about a world that’s not really that far away.

Although this is technically science fiction, the premise of Roberts’ story – that a mercenary army can be run without a hierarcy of officers via the internet – is an almost realised prediction in the modern age of terrorist cells created from web pages, weapons sourced via Facebook and untraceable communications via throwaway mobile phones and iPhone texting apps.
New Model Army traces the experiences of one member of Pantegral, a “new model” army made up of disparate groups who communicate via the web, only occasionally meeting up with other soldiers in the “real” world to physically fight.
Set in the UK, the story also echoes the rise of corporate mercenary teams like those that appear to be running the US war in Iraq; members of the new army are mostly ex-traditional army soldiers either AWOL or cashiered out for disciplinary reasons. They all have guerilla warfare training that they put to good use.
While the country’s government attempts to react to an enemy that won’t stay in one place, is better equipped – if soldiers are supplying themselves they buy the best they can afford – Pantegral marches on London at the behest of their client, Scotland.
Pantegral is run via consensus, every soldier has a vote on deciding which way the fight will go, right down to whether or not to take prisoners, what to do with them and details of negotiations with the opposition; all via the internet.
As the story continues the central character – who is never really identified – muses on the origin of the New Model Army, the vicissitudes of war and the eventual outcome of a world run via a community versus top-down or “feudal” government structures as it is now.
However what the soldiers don’t realise, but some traditional military boffins do, is that Pantegral – and similar organisations around the world – are becoming aware.
The complex net of communication, ideas, even emotions create an almost organic “mentality” that slowly becomes an identity. As the blurb on the book says: “His is called Pantegral. And he is you and me.”
Roberts’ format – writing purely from a first person perspective and with little to no indication of time – can be somewhat hard to get into at first. If you’re looking for a traditional shoot ‘em up, New Model Army is not for you.
If, however, you are either fascinated by the constant change of modern technology and concerned by how this will affect our societies, then New Model Army is a must read. It is uncannily prescient in so many ways.
After all, a full-blown war run by web-savvy youth may be only a small step from the current world of global online gaming.

New Model Army by Adam Roberts is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

want to win every orbit book released next year? then enter the orbit quest

2010-10-03T04:36:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest publishers of science fiction and fantasy novels, Orbit, has just announced an amazing competition for lovers of this genre.

The Australian branch is offering a competition which will see the winner receiving “every new release title from Orbit books for 2011 – around 70 books.

To enter the competition, readers have complete 12 tasks, each one of which gets a point. The person with the most points at the end of the event becomes the “Orbit Champion” for 2011. The more tasks you complete, the more points you get.

So far, 11 tasks have been announced:

Task 1: Register your interest
Task 2: Discuss your favourite moment
Task 3: Post a fan picture of your bookshelf
Task 4: Favourite Old Tongue word
Task 5: Design a cover
Task 6: Trivia Challenge
Task 7: Review
Task 8: Cool Crossovers
Task 9: Suggest an alternative title
Task 10: Confess your nerdiest moment
Task 11: Dress up as your favourite character / post a picture
Task 12: To be announced on the morning of October 30, 2010

The competition closes on November 30 at midnight, EST. For more details go to the Orbit Australia Facebook page or email: orbit@hachette.com.au

mix of celtic folklore & australia in new urban fantasy secret ones by nicole murphy

2010-08-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

Finally, finally, an urban fantasy novel with something new to say. Secret Ones by Nicole Murphy is an interesting mix of Celtic folklore and imagination; and set in Australia, it has a different background to add to to it.

Murphy is an Australian author who's worked as a teacher and journalist, as well as being instrumental in a number of “fandom” projects; she's also been a speculative fiction editor.
So one would assume she would know something about writing a good piece of urban, or speculative, fiction. Thankfully she does.
The “Secret Ones” of the title are the “gadda”, a people who while they look human; aren't. They can wield magic by borrowing energy from nature and using various spells.
Murphy's “gadda” are somewhat akin to the Celtic traditions of elves, there's an Irish connection – that seems to be where they come from – and general references to Celtic cultural practice as well.
Still, the concept is relatively fresh – although Laurell K Hamilton did it first with the Sidhe – elves or fey – living in modern America in her Merry Gentry series of books.
The addition of Australia is nice; better than yet another urban fantasy set in America. And the characters that Murphy has created are well-rounded and believable.
Maggie Shaunessy is an Australian-born gadda who has a history of protecting humans and working with humans – something that is looked down upon by another group of gadda who would prefer to stay “Pure” and have nothing to do with humans at all.
Maggie's family – at least her mother and grandfather – live in Australia and interact daily with humans, running a university and a medical clinic and trying to help them. Maggie's father is in Ireland, he's more traditional and possibly one of the Purists.
Added to the mix is a newcomer – and a love interest for Maggie, of course – Lucas Valeroso, a physicist who's from the wrong side of the tracks entirely, and totally unaware that he might not be entirely human.
Murphy mixes up black magic, stolen books, political machinations, historical feuds and romance with a vaguely recognisable Celtic mythology, to create an urban fantasy story that is relatively fresh for the reader.
Some of the descriptions and Maggie's musings are a bit clunky, but the dialogue is good, as is the pacing. There's not much of a twist to the plot, the reader is fairly certain where it's all leading by about halfway through, but it's a fun read nonetheless.
Secret Ones is the first book in what's shaping up to be at least a trilogy, if not a series; it will be interesting to see how it develops.

Secret Ones by Nicole Murphy is published by Harper Voyager and is available from good book stores and online.

firespell by chloe neill; another clichéd young adult urban fantasy novel

2010-08-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

The latest Young Adult supernatural series to take off is The Dark Elite by Chloe Neill, with Firespell the first book to be published.

Set in Chicago, the story follows teenager Lily Parker as she's sent off to boarding school while her parents head to Italy for a research posting of some sort.

Lily is bemused but resigned to her new life until she discovers that her new BFF (Best Friend Forever), a girl called Scout who's been at the school her whole life, is sneaking out of their dorm and staying out all night.
Naturally Lily decides to follow her, only to discover that Scout isn't just her new friend, she's also part of a magic wielding group of teens who chase down and destroy monsters in the tunnels under the city.
So far, so typical. And unfortunately, that's about all that can be said for Firespell.
It's not terribly written, the characters are solid, believable teenagers – although the 'in' crowd of girls seem plucked from any angsty movie – there's something going on with the headmistress – who may or may not know what the kids are up to – and the plot's premise – you can only use your magic until you're 25, otherwise you begin to suck the life from others and become evil – isn't too clichéd.
However, the assumption of Lily accepting magic without a nervous breakdown, the seeming unconcern of adults about kids risking their lives every day, the placing of the story in a boarding school and the automatic success of these kids in getting the baddies, is all a bit trite. It reads like an American version of Harry Potter – and not in a good way.
Basically Firespell is yet another in a long line of recent series for Young Adults spiced with a bit of the supernatural. There's nothing really new going on – at least not yet. Perhaps the series will mature; but with such weak underpinnings, I doubt it.

Firespell by Chloe Neill is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

ann aguirre continues the corine solomon story in hell fire; action, thrills & the supernatural

2010-08-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

Hell Fire returns readers to Ann Aguirre's Corine Solomon series begun in Blue Diablo. Corine helped her ex, Chance, find his mother with her ability to 'handle' objects or read information and emotions from things left behind.

Read my review of Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre: Ann Aguirre's Blue Diablo brings new dimension to overcrowded urban fantasy genre

So now Chance has to return with Corine to the town she was born in, Kilmer, and discover the reason behind her mother's terrible death.

Aguirre's world is peopled by characters who can use magic, who are born with various sorts of powers, like Corine's 'handling', Chance's incredible good luck and others' abilities as empaths and mediums.
But her world is also our world; there are bills to pay, papers to sign, businesses to run and emotional relationships to deal with.

Unlike many recent books in the urban fantasy genre, Aguirre doesn't dwell on the sex and romance too much. For her characters and storylines the love and romance is simply a part of being human.
Corine is an ordinary woman with an extraordinary gift, but she's troubled by the same insecurities we are. Is her arse too big? Does Chance really love her or he just after her talents? Was her mother really murdered?
OK, maybe not the same issues as all of us. Still, it's refreshing to read an urban fantasy novel without having to deal with too much unreality.
When Corine and Chance finally get to Kilmer they discover a town that's been forgotten; literally. No one else can find it on the map, it's not on the GPS nor has anything been added to it since Corine left when she was a teen.
Obviously there's something going on, even without Corine's memories of her mother being burned to death by people in dark hooded cloaks.
The pair also discover that over the years people have been going missing, and no body, not even the police, can be bothered going into the forest to look for them.

Obviously that's where Corine is headed, but first she needs to find somewhere to stay where the landlady won't try to hex her, get Chance out of jail from being in the wrong place when an old lady died and try to solve the issue of whether or not she's going to sleep with her new magical friend Jesse.
Aguirre's storylines mix up action, thrills and esoteric magic in a clever way that enables the reader to easily slip into her world. It will be interesting to see how the series develops; book three is already on its way.

Hell Fire by Ann Aguirre is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

more psy-changeling action & romance from nalini singh in caressed by ice

2010-08-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

New Zealand-based author Nalini Singh returns to her world of Psy – humans who have psychic powers and no emotions – and Changelings – were-animals.
In the first two books of the series, Slave to Sensation and Visions of Heat, two Psy women who were fighting to remain sane and a part of their emotionally barren world, fall in love with two were-animals – a werewolf and a werejaguar – while fighting to both stay alive and hunt down someone who's killing Changeling girls.

Read my review of Nalini Singh's Slave to Sensation and Visions of Heat: Nalani Singh's Slave to Sensation and Visions of Heat from her Psy-Changeling series offer romantic urban fiction with a little bit of bite

In the latest book, Caressed by Ice, readers meet one of those girls. Brenna Shane Kincaid was abducted by an insane Psy who raped her mind and damaged her terribly before she was rescued by a combined group of Changelings and renegade Psy.

Now trying to recover both physically and mentally, Brenna is trapped by the solicitousness of her family and friends. The only person she feels comfortable with, oddly enough, is one of the renegade Psy, Judd Lauren.
Unfortunately for Brenna, although Judd has removed himself from the Psy-Net – the link that keeps the Psy in touch no matter where they are – he did so only for his family. He's continued to use and rely on the "conditioning" that has controlled his emotions all his life.
Because Judd has a secret; not only is he renegade Psy, he's also a a former 'Arrow', a psy-assassin.
Like Singh's previous books, the Psy-Changeling world is more a decoration for what is essentially a romance novel. The fiery Brenna will eventually melt the ice-cold assassin.
However Singh's addition of political manoeuvring among the Psy Council, the continued concerns about insane Psy running around hurting people and the attempts by Judd's contacts to try to sabotage the Psy-Net, all add a bit of action and intrigue to what could have been a boring concept.
Singh proved in her other series, Guild Hunter, that she's capable of more than just romance. Angel's Blood and Archangel's Kiss are both good, solid urban fantasy stories where the romance doesn't take over too much.
It's to be hoped that she'll continue to develop the Psy-Changeling series into something a little more substantial. Otherwise she'll end up tagged with the supernatural sex label and will go unnoticed for her other abilities.

Caressed by Ice by Nalini Singh is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

anita blake returns in laurel k hamilton's bullet; the original & the best urban fantasy

2010-08-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

Finally, another book in my favourite urban fantasy series, Anita Blake Vampire Hunter by Laurell K Hamilton.

Bullet is the nineteenth in the series and continues the complicated, twisted story of a girl who started out raising zombies, became the lover of a Master Vampire, then the lover of a werewolf, has numerous strands of were-blood in her veins and now, as the first true necromancer in centuries, has inherited the powers of both the vampires and the were-folk.
When Hamilton began the series in 1993, no one could have predicted its success and longevity. Unfortunately, despite being so much better written, more creative, more adult, darker and sexier, it's tripe like the Twilight series that's become a world phenomenon.
Even the Sookie Stackhouse books of Charlaine Harris have been turned into a TV show and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles have become movies.
While I'll give Harris and Rice props for their quality work, as a connoisseur of urban fantasy I'm endlessly frustrated that pap like Twilight has invaded the brains of a generation, while Hamilton's work remains, partly, a cult phenomenon.
Still, the good thing about this is that no big studio attempting to make Miley Cyrus interesting has bought up the rights and totally destroyed the best urban fantasy series ever written – so I must be grateful for small mercies.
The Anita Blake series began with Anita working as an Animator – raising zombies for families and lawyers after missing information – and side-lining in Vampire Hunting.
The early books – especially Guilty Pleasures (1993), The Laughing Corpse (1994), Circus of the Damned (1995), The Lunatic Cafe (1996), Bloody Bones (1996), The Killing Dance (1997) and Burnt Offerings (1998) – focused mainly on Anita's work, with the action coming from her various jobs.
Later books, generally starting from Narcissus in Chains (2001) and including the novella Micah (2006), put the focus clearly on Anita's romantic entanglements and particularly her multiple sexual partners as she become overwhelmed by her powers as an incubus. Although Anita is still, mostly, human, her animating powers combined with the various magics of vampires and were-animals have seen her changing into something not quite human.
During this period Hamilton came under some criticism for her over-emphasis on the sexual side of things – sure there was still a fair bit of action and gore, but Anita began to solve her problems via sex rather than pulling out the big guns (literally) and blasting away. Not something that appealed to all of her fans.
But the author must have been listening to her fans, for with Bullet and the previous book Flirt, Hamilton has returned to form. Anita is still dealing with having to choose a 'mate' among the werelions, but at least she's also back at work.
And while the sex is still there, the manipulation of emotions and anger continues, Anita and her brood of vampires and were-animals have to deal with a deadly enemy, one they thought had been destroyed.
The Mother of All Darkness is still around, she's not been completely destroyed, and even Anita's nemesis and Jean-Claude's former Mistress, Belle Morte (Beautiful Death) is scared.
As with all the Anita Blake books, Hamilton's ability to add humanity to the non-human, emotions and petty human foibles to the supernatural and the exasperation of a frustrated woman in a man's world, endears Bullet, and Anita, to the reader.
Anita Blake is a modern, urban fantasy heroine; someone we'd all like to think we'd be if faced with supernatural powers, the roaming dead, preternaturally beautiful men and a nasty, evil bitch who wants to take over our body – we'd strap on the knives and jump feet first, all guns blazing.

Bullet by Laurell K Hamilton is published by Headline, an Hachette company, and is available from good book stores and online.

stephanie laurens' latest regency romp, the brazen bride, continues the black cobra quartet with feisty heroines and heroic officers

2010-08-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

Stephanie Laurens returns her fans to the world of the Regency rake and the feisty heroine in her third instalment of The Black Cobra Quartet, The Brazen Bride.

Yes, the dashing young men in uniform, on secret missions to save the world, whilst simultaneously managing to sweep swooning – but feisty and apparently quite sexually liberated – off their feet, before ending up in a loving, and raunchy, marriage.
Much as the above sentence can be read as Laurens' formula for her best-selling Regency romance novels, and formula it is, it does nothing to explain why these books are so much damn fun to read.

In The Brazen Bride, readers follow the story of Logan Monteith, one of the four British officers tasked with getting an important document from India to England, while avoiding the dreaded Black Cobra – a blood-thirsty gang of thugs and assassins. Caught by three of them on his ship to England, Logan is wounded but manages to kill his attackers just as his ship goes down with all hands – except him.
Washed ashore, he's rescued and rehabilitated by the lovely Linnet Trevission – lady of a manor who isn't too shy to take what she wants; innuendo intended.
As he recovers, Logan grows to love the estate, its people, and – of course – the fiery Linnet. Cue descriptions of her burnished red hair.
However, as his memory returns, Logan realises that he has to leave his new-found home and make the perilous journey onward to hand over his vital document.
Luckily Linnet won't be dissuaded from helping him out; ensuring their romance continues spiced by discoveries, attacks and declarations of intent.
What makes Laurens' books a cut above the usual run of the mill Regency romance, is that she manages to add some action to her stories. The thread of the Black Cobra attacks and the reason behind the men's journeys allows the reader to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story.
The last officer is still on his way, and Laurens' next book The Reckless Bride will tie all the stories together and catch the baddies for good – I can't wait.

The Brazen Bride by Stephanie Laurens is published by Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

the world of the downside ghosts returns in stacia kane's unholy magic & city of ghosts

2010-08-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

American author Stacia Kane continues her Downside Ghosts series with the second and third in the series, Unholy Magic and City of Ghosts.

Readers are returned to the post-apocalyptic world of Chess Putnum, a church 'witch', able to see the ghosts that returned to plague the world and bring about the end of life as we know it.

In Unholy Ghosts, the first book, readers were introduced to a new fantasy world where ghosts and magic are real; the Church of Real Truth runs the country and people try to get by as well as they can.

Read my review of Unholy Ghosts: Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane is fresh urban fantasy with a gritty, sideways feel

As always, however, there's an underside, a “downside” to society, and it's in this fringe world that Chess exists. Oh, and while Chess is nominally the heroine of these tales, she's no squeaky clean princess with powers – Chess is from the wrong side of the tracks, she's a Downsider, and she's a junkie.

Her drug habit has gotten Chess into trouble before, walking the knife's edge of respectability to keep her Church job, while dealing with her local drug lord on the one hand and sleeping with the opposition, on the other.

And in the middle is a great, big, ugly enforcer who is smarter than he looks and cares more for Chess than she'd like to admit.

In Unholy Magic, Chess finds herself working with a VIP who may, or may not, be faking a haunting – a criminal offence with the Church; at the same time someone – or something – is killing prostitutes in Downside and Bump, Chess' dealer, wants her to make sure it's not magically linked.

On top of this, Chess' feelings for Terrible – Bump's enforcer – are all confused, while her “just having sex, we're not in a relationship” with Lex – Bump's opposition – seems to be getting a little too heavy.

Then there's the false medium that Chess helped put away – but some thing's not quite right there either – and the City of Ghosts is even more unsettled than it should be, despite the fact that it's almost the anniversary of the Rising – the time when the ghosts returned to the world to wreak their vengeance.

Kane's world is thoroughly detailed and comprehensive – there are enough resonances with our current world to ensure the readers have something to hold on to; a sign of a quality piece of urban fantasy writing.

As City of Ghosts opens, Chess is attending the execution of an unlicensed medium involved in the illegal use of magic; she's still recovering from her run in with the ghost whorehouse and bringing Terrible back to life with an ill-considered and possibly illegal rune – and he still won't talk to her.

Before she's completely recovered from her last nasty experience, another one opens up inside the Church, and once again Chess is thrown into the thick of things.

Her previous “successes” have made the Church think she's great at her job, so great that they second her to the Black Squad – the Church's secret service – and force her to not only be bound by an unbreakable and painful spell, but even worse, stick her with a partner – the head of the damned Church's daughter no less.

On top of all this, to add insult to injury, Terrible finally found out about Lex and now he hates Chess, but he's the only person who's going to be able to help her out of the mess she's now involved in. Oh, and the Lamaru – the original anti-Church baddies from the first book – are back. Only this time they've got something even bigger in mind; they want to release the ghost from the Eternal City.

Kane manages to keep the action pounding along in both Unholy Magic and City of Ghosts, not losing anything to developing the characters. Readers discover more about Terrible, he's not quite as bad as he wants people to think, and Lex turns out to be someone much more important than Chess thought he was.

Chess' problems with men pale almost into insignificance when held up against her drug addictions; readers also discover just how badly hooked she really is, but are given some more insight into way Chess needs to self-medicate so badly.

In some ways Chess' addictions balance out her skills in magic, and control them at the same time. And the addictions also help her hold it together, oddly enough. Like many children of foster homes and broken families, at the centre of Chess is a great, gaping hole of loneliness and self-loathing just waiting to implode and drag her down. The drugs allow Chess to ignore that danger, walling it up behind chemically created emotions that are much easier for her to deal with.

The insight into Chess, her inability to enjoy intimacy, her need to replace caring with sex, also explains her mixed up feelings for Terrible. Kane's skill in blending these sharp observations about drug abuse and emotional trauma with an action-packed thriller and supernatural trappings is what makes these books so readable.

Chess is the perfect anti-heroine; the antidote to the soppy, love obsessed teens dominating the urban fantasy genre at the moment. There's not a vampire or werewolf in sight – thank god – and the gritty truth of Chess' life adds depth to what could be dismissed as “just another fantasy novel”.

There are more books in the Downside Ghosts series to come; I can't wait.

Unholy Magic and City of Ghosts by Stacia Kane are published by Harper Voyager and are available from good book stores and online.

the poison dairies is a sweetly, twisted story about obsession and love

2010-07-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

The Poison Dairies is an odd little book on first look – it's published by HarperCollins' Children's Books imprint oddly enough considering both the sexual content, the poisoning and the betrayal at the centre of the story.

Set in England somewhere between the Reformation and the Restoration, The Poison Dairies tracks the life of Jessamine, the only child of a country doctor whose speciality seems to be healing through the use of plants.
The book opens with Jessamine carefully preparing the berries of the Belladonna plant, one of the most virulent poisons of their times.
The descriptions of the glossy, black berries and the fascination Jessamine has with them, her proprietorial air perfectly conveys the Gothic nature of this book.
Even the authoring – "by Maryrose Wood, based on a concept by The Duchess of Northumberland" – harks back to times past, of 18th century lady authors and overblown Gothic romances.
But The Poison Diaries is much more substantial that those tomes; there is a sharp clarity of phrase in Wood's prose and the dark, mythical characters of Weed – a foundling – and Oleander – the dark prince – seems informed by the stories of the Duke of Northumberland's historical family seat, Alnwick Castle, which broods over Jessamine's life.
It's not entirely clear who, or what, Weed is. Nor does one learn why Oleander chooses to speak to Jessamine. The magical nature of both men is never clearly defined, nor, in fact, fully proved.
But the sense of mystery and unease add an edge to what could have been an ordinary story.
This is a romance, yes, with Jessamine falling for Weed, but it is also, almost, a murder mystery. The Poison Dairies is a sweetly, twisted story about obsession and love – both romantic and familial.
Like a number of books I've recently read and reviewed – White Cat by Holly Black in particular – betrayal in the heart of one's home; the bosom of the family, also resonates in The Poison Dairies denouement.

The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood, based on a concept by The Duchess of Northumberland, is published by HarperCollins and is available from good books stores and online.

new australian writer honey brown looks into the dark of the human psyche

2010-07-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

Australian author Honey Brown burst onto that country's literary scene with the tightly written and terrifyingly plotted Red Queen in 2009.

The book won an Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel, was short-listed for the Australian Shadows Award and won a Highly Commended from the FAW Awards.
Now Brown has released The Good Daughter, a novel that doesn't fit into her first genre, but is as well-written and beautifully constructed as the first.

Interestingly it was a freak accident on a farm – she broke her back – that set Brown on her literary path, and despite being confined mostly to a wheelchair and caring for two young children and a farm, she has already finished a third book, with a fourth on the way.
Prolific, yes, but Brown's writing is also very good.
In Red Queen two ordinary men, brothers, find themselves isolated on a hidden property – loosely based on Brown’s own land in rural Victoria – after a deadly virus has broken out across the globe.
The tensions of a sibling relationship are heightened when an unknown woman enters their lives; the elder brother, Rohan, is cut from the typical cloth of a working class Australian man. He is taciturn, separated from his feelings and overly protective of Shannon, the younger brother.
Shannon is a dreamer, he still yearns for his dead parents and the carefree university life he had before the "Red Queen" virus arrived. Rohan, on the other hand, quite likes the hardship of proving himself a man in their daily struggle to survive.
The interloper upsets the brothers' uneasy balance; naturally adding sex to the mix – the boys have been in the bush for a long time, after all.
Brown cleverly mixes these three characters, giving away only small pieces of information so the reader is left waiting to know more, totally unconcerned that there are only three characters in the story.
The plot twist in the denouement is surprising, although a little too altruistic. But Red Queen is the sort of book one can happily describe as literary fiction, while at the same time recommend to your friends who only read thrillers.
The Good Daughter, Brown's second book, is similar in its tight plot, limited character pool and outback Australian setting, but entirely different in its perspective.
Rebecca is the daughter of the title, a teenager from the wrong end of town with a slightly unhealthy interest in the richest boy in the district, Zach.
She also has her mother's reputation to live up to – should she choose her dead mum's rather loose ways or the same woman's heroic acceptance of death from cancer?
Zach has his own problems; his family may be rich but his mother is crazy according to his gruff, aggressive farmer father. And Zach's beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, insanity runs in the family.
Added to the mix is a bastard – Zack's father's by-blow. Suave for the small country town, Aden is a charming rogue who's out to get what he can.
Then Zack's mother disappears, and the last person to see her is Rebecca.
The Good Daughter is a portrait of modern, country Australia: The isolation, the small-town nosiness and censure, the lack of work, the drugs and the depression.
But it also shows some of what can be good about the same place and people – acceptance, warmth and family.
Still, for first time readers of Australian fiction, The Good Daughter doesn't paint a particularly rosy picture.
Brown is obviously a writer to watch. She is part of the Australian tradition of strong female authors who centre their work in their daily lives, but manage to turn the ordinary into the sublime with just the placement of a few words and an ability to look into the dark of the human psyche.

Red Queen and The Good Daughter by Honey Brown are published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books Australia, and are available from good book stores and online.

oracle by jackie french leads young readers to historical fiction via adventure

2010-07-28T07:06:00.000-07:00

Jackie French is an award-winning children's author from Australia, who has made a name for herself with a number of illustrated books for younger readers. Oracle, for children aged 10 to 14 years, is her first step into the slightly older age group and she's handled it nicely.

Set in Mycenae in 1200BC, Oracle follows the story of a sister and brother, born into a primitive farming village, but destined for greater things.
When Thetis is born, her brother Nikko rescues her from being abandoned on the mountain by their father; a girl-child is an unwanted extra mouth to feed. From that day forward, Nikko is her protector, likewise tarnished with the brush of having cheated the gods of a death.
Brow-beaten by the village, Thetis remains mute until the age of five when suddenly she becomes able to speak – unfortunately she can only speak the truth, much to the concern of her parents.
So when their parents and the village elders see a way to get rid of the pair in exchange for escaping the wrath of the Mycenae King, the siblings are bundled off to the city to be court entertainers.
Becoming favourites, Thetis continues to remain mute until she utters a dreadful prophecy and dooms them all.
French's version of the founding of the Oracle at Delphi – which the book is based on – is touched by clever involvement of science and skirts the mystical and mythical, while at the same time creating a sense of wonder.
Interestingly, the children – especially Thetis – come across as being so much wiser than the adults that rule their lives. The smart inclusion of Euridice, a "horse dancer" who can ride like a man and use a bow just as well, reinforces French's feminist version of ancient Greece.
In fact, Nikko seems almost a secondary character, certainly he seems weak when compared to his younger sister.
Nikko becomes enamoured of their luxurious life, he is the support for Thetis in her performances and not the star of the show, he's also relatively ineffectual in protecting her after she grows up and becomes, very much, her own woman.
The obvious sub-plot – little girls can grow up to be powerful women and can do anything a boy/man can – is easily read by adults.
However, the targeted age group will most likely just read Oracle for what it is; a rollicking adventure tale set in ancient times.
French has cleverly included a "scientific" explanation for the visions seen by the first Oracle of Delphi and her descendants; she also describes how being a priestess was a way women escaped from the oppression of their male relatives.
Oracle has also been turned into teaching materiel for Australian schools, with the publishers providing extensive notes on how to use the book in the classroom. Obviously the best way to get book sales is to ensure it's required reading by every Australian school kid.
Still, Oracle is well-written, with strong central characters and enough historical detail to ensure authenticity; the aftermath of a natural disaster is particularly well done – influenced, perhaps, by the recent occurrence of similar things in the real world.

Oracle by Jackie French is published by Angus&Robertson, an imprint of HarperCollins, and is available from good book stores and online.

white cat by holly black has the twisted tale of an inherited secret at its centre

2010-07-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

There's something to be said for the recent fascination with all things supernatural -- at least it's got young people reading again. The upsurge in what is defined as Young Adult fiction has included, unfortunately, any number of vampires and werewolves (Meyers has got a lot to answer for), but there's also been a corresponding increase in new forms of YA fantasy.
Holly Black's White Cat falls in to this category. The first in the Curse Workers series, Black introduces readers to a world where some people – generally not considered to be the "best type" of people – can make "curses" work.

It runs in families, usually, and although numbers are relatively small, there's a disproportionate number of them in jail or working for organised crime.
Which is what has happened to Cassel – his mother’s in jail, his brothers work for the local crime boss, and he's pretty sure he killed a girl when he was just a kid – well, even younger than he is now.
On top of those problems, Cassel doesn't have any magic. He's completely unable to curse anyone or anything, or at least that’s what he thinks.
White Cat is a coming of age tale, but despite its wrapping of fantasy and magic, it's actually quite gritty. Any modern day kid whose family works for the mob or the drug lord down the street would identify with Cassel's issues.
And the twisted tale of an inherited secret at the centre of Cassel's family is even nastier. In fact, White Cat is as much about losing trust in one's family, betrayal and the greed of human beings, as it about growing up.
Still, it's not all doom and gloom. Black writes with a light touch – there's no staring off into the distance and brooding, nor is there endless moaning about teen angst. Cassel isn't perfect, but he has a sense of humour and friends who like him, and eventually it – sort of – turns out alright in the end.
Black is clearly a young author to watch – it will be interesting to see what she comes up with in the next book of the series.

White Cat by Holly Black is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

wolfsangel by md lachlan is a celtic knot of cause and effect, loyalty and betrayal, nobility & dishonour

2010-07-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

Every so often a book comes along that manages to grab the reader by the throat. Wolfsangel by MD Lachlan is one of these. Set in the time and places of the Vikings, Wolfsangel combines history, myth and a coming of age story with great aplomb.

Although peopled with a wide variety of characters who's lives and culture are far removed from the modern day, Lachlan manages to make both his hero and anti-hero approachable.
A Viking king, concerned about the lack of an heir, visits the witches to discover his fate. He's sent off to steal a child, told by the witches that this will be his heir and prince. Instead, he discovers two boy in his raid. By taking both children, the king Authun, begins a series of events that will lead to disaster and death.
Wolfsangel ranges from the time of the children’s birth, jumps to their adolescence and then rapidly moves towards the denouement.
One of the boys, Prince Vali, is being fostered away from his father Authun and is unaware that he has been adopted. The other boy, who is never really named, has been fostered with a "wolf clan" – wild humans who live as animals far from all civilisation.
Vali is shallow and sensitive; he's not at all cut out to be the blood-thirsty Viking his father and the other men would like him to be.
First Vali is sent on a raid, packed in an open boat with a bunch of drugged-up Berserkers; in which he doesn't really acquit himself all that well. Still, he survives, which is something, but manages to make a deadly enemy, one who will come back to haunt him.
And Vali is in love; but with a local farm girl rather than the Princess he's betrothed to, the daughter of his host, a situation his hosting king is not happy with. So, Vali is packed off on a journey to prove his manhood; only to ensure his strength, he involves himself in a ritual.
Unbeknownst to Vali, the ritual opens him up to the machinations of the Witch Queen – the hideous child to whom his "father" had gone.
The Witch Queen is a chilling creation. Lachlan has gone to great lengths to ensure the reader understands how she managed to become the wizened, yet compelling, creature she is. For although her actions seem monstrous, the Witch Queen is in fact merely a child; sold by her family to the witches and molded into a vehicle for magic.
The gods of the Norsemen – Odin in particular – play a great part in Wolfsangel; and although the characters firmly believe in them, readers need not suspend disbelief completely. By setting the book in this period, Lachlan allows for historical veracity. Wolfsangel can be read as a historical novel, or as part of the fantasy or horror genres.
Each "magical" act is somehow explained, even if only by inference, as a natural occurrence. The visions the characters experience can be explained away by deprivation or drug use. In fact, once the "magic" is removed one realises just how desperate were the lives of early humans.
Of course they believed in gods and magic, they didn't really have a choice, they had to believe in something that would explain the deaths, pain and horror of their daily lives.
On his trek to prove himself Vali comes across a "wolf man", one of the wild humans, and manages to capture it. Dragging it back to the settlement, he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a raid and attempts to save his love and his friends.
But Vali's farm girl is taken and he finds himself forced to take action, setting out to find her.
In the final third of Wolfsangel, Lachlan brings together all the various storylines, twisting them together to make a somewhat Celtic knot of cause and effect, loyalty and betrayal, nobility and dishonour. The denouement is both sad and inevitable.
Life, as it really is, whether or not you have magic or believe in the gods, really is "nasty, brutish and short". Despite the vain attempts of kings and witches, fate can rarely be changed.

Wolfsangel by MD Lachlan is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

more raunchy regency romance in anna campbell's my reckless surrender

2010-07-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Anna Campbell is described as the 'Queen of Regency noir' on the blurb of her latest book, My Reckless Surrender, and that's exactly what she is.

The Australian writer has built a reputation for herself for a certain kind of racy, historical romance, centred on the Regency period in England. Her books are peopled by Dukes and Duchesses, Lords and Ladies, well-bred but poverty stricken heroines, and dark, brooding heroes.
In My Reckless Surrender, they're all there. You have Mrs Diana Carrick, a well-bred widow who needs to sell her soul to ensure the comfort of her aging father, thanks to the machinations of a nasty, dying Marquess.
Her anti-hero is the jaded Earl of Ashcroft, an excruciatingly handsome rake who happens to have something the threatening Marquess of Burnley wants.
Right from the start, My Reckless Surrender leaps into the raunchy sex, as Diana throws herself at the Earl attempting to get him to sleep with her. As the story continues, you discover why she's doing something that's completely against her upbringing, but the whole ridiculous scenario never seems entirely justified.
On her website Campbell points out her views that there's nothing wrong with a good romance book, she feels they are empowering for women and doesn't hold with modern feminist views that this sort of thing is 'supporting the patriarchal state'.
I'm not entirely sure I can agree with her on that point. All her heroines are supposedly strong women, trying to make their way in the world, using whatever wiles they have, but the moment a lord of some sort kisses them, they're all weak-kneed and tumbling into bed.
Romance novels like Campbells are fantasy – not a vampire or werewolf in sight, yet they are as unlikely as any supernatural story. There should be a genre of romantic fantasy or fantasy romance to describe books like My Reckless Surrender.
Not that there's anything wrong with a well-written, raunchy love story. It is, after all, just as escapist as any fantasy or science fiction work. But one would hope that some of the independence of urban fantasy heroines would rub off on these historical gals.
Still, Campbell is the queen of this genre. The historicity of her books can't be denied, nor can the sensuality. My Reckless Surrender is, like all her books, a quality escapist read for anyone who wishes some handsome Earl would come along and sweep them off their feet – even if it's just for a little while.

My Reckless Surrender by Anna Campbell is published by Avon, an imprint of HarperCollins, and is available from good book stores and online.

great gritty scottish noir from stuart mcbride's latest, dark blood

2010-07-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

Dark Blood is classic Stuart McBride; it's gritty Scottish crime thriller at it's best. McBride has been compared favourably with Ian Rankin, and it's easy to see why.

There's DS Logan McRae, the burnt-out bitter Aberdeen cop with major issues; a very nasty piece of work in sex predator Richard Knox; sundry evil shites – crime bosses, thugs, snitches – and an irritating hard-nosed boss in DI Steel – a lesbian with a filthy mouth, pregnant wife and a thing for pissing Logan off.
All the elements of a good crime thriller are set up in the first pages of Dark Blood. Knox is being released into 'protective custody' in Aberdeen, having been released from jail in Newcastle.
The cops hate the idea of importing a dirty sex maniac, but they can't do anything about it. He comes with a cop of his own, DSI Danby from Northumbria Police, a man with his own agenda.
To top it all off, Logan is having nightmares left over from the last major case he worked on, may be an alcoholic and is probably about to loose his live-in girlfriend. Oh, and the local crime boss is calling him up and giving him money, only he can't think what he might have done to help him out.
McBride's writing is like those fabulous crime series you get on the BBC, it's all accents and local references, slang and grunts, so it can be a little hard-going for some readers. But if you skip past that, Dark Blood is a bit of a page-turner.
The disparate storylines eventually come together is a tightly-woven plot of betrayals, murders and random connections, before arriving at a fairly satisfying end.
If you enjoy a good thriller, and have a hankering for cold, grey, blustery Scotland, then Dark Blood is perfect. There's just enough characterisation to keep you interested in what happens to Logan and DI Steel, but not too much to take away from the action.

Dark Blood by Stuart McBride is published by HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

classic high fantasy from kevin j anderson's the map of all things, book 2 in the terra incognita series

2010-07-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Kevin J Anderson returns to the world of Terra Incognita with the second book in the series, The Map of All Things. Like his book, The Edge of the World, this is classic fantasy – a created world with warring kingdoms, opposed religions, heroes and heroines, more characters than you can poke a stick at, ancient foundation myths and even sea monsters.

The empires of Tierra and Uraba are polar opposites – the were originally descended from two brothers, sons of a god-like character, but now they are at war as each nation attempts to prove that their brother is the better of the two.
In the first book you have the set-up, you are introduced to both sides equally with neither being painted good or evil, each empire has redeeming features and each has it's atrocities. Things come to a head, however, as the one central place of worship – a small strip of land that separates the two continents – is destroyed, mostly by accident, but with each side blaming the other.
So, it is war. As the violence escalates readers see, again, that neither side is all good, nor all bad, and the sheer futility of their behaviour becomes more and more apparent in The Map of All Things.
The parallelles with our own world – Israel anyone? – are so obvious that one feels as though Anderson is hitting you in the face with his massive tome.

Even the culture and weather match up – Tierrans are white northerners (Christian Europeans), while the Urabans are swarthy southerners (Muslim Middle Easterners).

Yes, yes, we get it. Religious wars are stupid.
Unfortunately, as in the real world, so in fantasy. Neither side appears at all interested in ending the bloodshed. Sometimes for political reason – they fear the toppling of their power – sometimes for personal reasons – the death of a beloved – and so, the war slogs on.
There is one race, however, that is removed from total involvement in the religious war. The Saedran people believe themselves to be descendants of the original god, Ondun, and so are not caught up in the war between the Tierran Aidenists – followers of Aiden – and the Uraban Urecari – followers of Urec.
The Saedrans are the map-makers, chartists, scientists and doctors of Anderson's world, and it is they who are behind the attempt to create the 'map of all things' of the book's title.
As the war drags on, the leaders of each empire decide, independently, to send out voyages of discovery in search of their original homeland, Tierravitae.
Each group has a supposed 'map' to this mythical place and the belief that if they get there first, they'll prove that their religion was the 'right' one and all others are false.
This is just a very simple outline of the plot. The Map of All Things is a finely crafted, high-detailed read; Anderson's world is beautifully imagined and his plots are intricate.
One cannot read The Map of All Things without first having read The Edge of the World, but it's well worth doing so. This is high fantasy for lovers of adventure and character-driven plots; well worth getting your teeth into.

The Map of All Things by Kevin J Anderson is published by Orbit Books and is available from good book stores and online.

ann aguirre's blue diablo brings new dimension to overcrowded urban fantasy genre

2010-07-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

For lovers of urban fantasy, Ann Aguirre's Blue Diablo is the first in a new series – the Corine Solomon series – that looks set to bring a new dimension to the already overcrowded genre.

Unlike the usual type of urban fantasy there aren't any vampires or werewolves – thank goodness – but there is magic and mayhem a plenty, and a bit of love interest as well. But so far no raunchy sex, which is actually a good thing, considering it's everywhere else.
Corine Solomon is what's called a 'handler', when she touches objects a certain way she can read information about who had held it previously, what they were feeling or doing and the history of the thing they held.
Unfortunately, it's not an easy skill to have, and although she had previously used her talent to help people, she'd eventually burned out after a number of harrowing experiences with murders, rapists etc.
So, she's run away to Mexico to hide from her previous life and try to regain her sanity. Unfortunately, her peace is disrupted by her ex, a guy called Chance who has a talent for being unbelievably lucky. His mother has gone missing, and he needs Corine to help him find her.
Naturally there's plenty of sexual tension, but Corine doesn't jump into bed with him, she's more concerned about getting trapped in her old life, and with finding Chance's mother, whom she loves.
From the opening set-up, Aguirre just pushes the pace along, adding characters and back story in a jumble of new faces and histories, as well as setting up her world.
There are lots of references to traditional South American practices, voodoo, Native American magic and myth, as well as the usual round up of remote viewing, mediums, witches and possible devil or demon worshippers.
Wrapped up in the fantastic is a solid whodunit, with human trafficking, the Mafia, drug and gun running and a side attraction to a very helpful policeman.
All in all, Aguirre manages to mix her magic, mayhem and material into a nice read; the plot is twisted enough to be interesting without being confusing, the characters slowly develop and the action is well-written.
Touches of Mexicana in the food, drinks, language and culture, all add a nice difference to Blue Diablo, making it a solid first book in a series that looks set to do well; it's already won the PEARL Award , which bodes well.

Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

another urban fantasy with vampires and werewolves, this time set in australia; moon sworn by keri arthur

2010-07-04T08:40:00.000-07:00

One of Australia's most prolific writers of urban fantasy, Keri Arthur has released another in her Riley Jenson Guardian series, Moon Sworn.

Like the majority of books in this genre, the Guardian series has a feisty, supernatural, female protagonist; baddies who are also supernatural; a shadowy government organisation of some sort which allows said protagonist to literally get away with murder; and a bit of raunchy sex.
Ho hum, yet another urban fantasy that seems as though it's been cut from the same cloth as all the others out there. Which is such a shame as Arthur isn't a bad writer.
What the Riley Jensen series does have going for it is that unlike the majority of the other books and series in this genre, it's actually set in a country other than America. Arthur has based the books in her hometown of Melbourne, Australia, making the setting, at least, more interesting.
Riley, the said heroine, is a half vampire, half werewolf – yep, two for the price of one – who works for the Guardians, ie. The shadowy government organisation that keeps all the other supernaturals in check.
She's in love with a handsome, and powerful, vampire (of course) and he loves her and they're always interested in having a bit of raunchy sex … yawn.
Added interest – Riley has a brother who's gay, yay, something slightly different. But no, he's also in a loving relationship with another sexy vampire. Again, yawn.
So, the basic premise is fairly ordinary. Still, Moon Sworn isn't a bad read. This time around some of Riley's previous escapades come back to haunt her and she ends up stuck in the middle of outback Australia with bits missing from her memory and a sneaking suspicion that some thing's wrong. Of course.
Ideally you really need to have read the other eight books in the series to really know what's going on, and to understand why the guy who took her memory and dumped her in the outback did it.
Riley manages to find herself in the middle of a murder investigation, which helps her remember bits and pieces about who she is and how she got in the mess she's in. Eventually, she works it all out, is reunited with the love of her life and sorts out some family business fairly thoroughly.
And that's about it. If Arthur put her mind to it, she could easily be a very good author. Her books aren't bad, it's just that there are so many of the same genre over-stocking the bookshelves at the moment. It's as though every author in the world decided to jump on the Twilight bandwagon at exactly the same time.
Unfortunately for authors like Arthur, there's much better stuff out there already, and has been for some time. Classic Anne Rice and the long-running series from Laurell K Hamilton, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, as well as Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels.
But, if you love the genre – and like many, I still do – you'll enjoy the differences in Arthur's books that make them worth picking up. After all, it could be worse, you could be reading the Twilight series.

Moon Sworn by Keri Arthur is published by Piatkus, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group and is available from good book stores and online.

halfway to the grave by jeaniene frost is another vampire urban fantasy romance but it's not too bad

2010-06-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost is another step in Gollancz' push to be the home of all urban fantasy romance, and the first in Frost's Night Huntress series.

Yet again, readers, we have a feisty female character with a touch of the supernatural – this time she's half vampire – and a bad boy vampire who's really got a heart of, well, you know the story.
Which is such a shame really, because Frost isn't a bad writer and the plot is a bit more punchy than the usual run of guff that's overflowing the bookshelves at the moment.
Still, urban fantasy romance obviously sells – yes, yes, we all have that nasty Twilight stuff to thank for this, despite the fact that the real genre is so much better; Laurell K Hamilton, Charlaine Harris and Anne Rice for example – so Gollancz keeps publishing it.
And I shouldn't really complain as I love the genre as much as the next person, but there's good stuff, great stuff and very little that will become classic stuff.
Frost is, at least, good. Catherine 'Cat' Crawfield is a girl with a major chip on her shoulder. Her father was a vampire, her mother was raped as a teen and has been damaged beyond repair by a judgemental town, repressed parents and a fear that he'll return.
But at least she loves her daughter, although she's taught Cat to hate half of herself and expects her to go out and murder people, sorry vampires, when she's not studying to get into college.
Cat's been lucky so far, she's managed to kill off a number of vamps without anything too bad happening to her, but all that is about to change. Instead of picking up the usual blood-hungry, horny vampire at the local bar – as a prelude to stabbing him with a stake – Cat gets another hunter.
Oh, he's a vampire alright, but he's also a vampire hunter. So, Cat's caught in a bind; should she learn from him or keep trying to kill him? Needless to say, said vampire is hot and Cat's trying not to be interested, after all, ALL vampires are evil, right?
Frost manages not to make Halfway to the Grave too teenage-angst, but again it's essentially a romance with some fangs, stakings and learning how to fight. But the plot has a twist and additions like people-smuggling and a shadowy government organisation add spice to the storyline.
If you like the genre, and let's face it, who doesn't at the moment, Halfway to the Grave is not a bad example, and like many of these books, it's the first in a series so you know you'll have something to read for a while yet.

Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

unholy ghosts by stacia kane is fresh urban fantasy with a gritty, sideways feel

2010-06-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

I loved, loved, loved this book. Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane is one of the few new urban fantasy novels I've read in a while. There's not a single vampire or werewolf to be seen and the characters are as conflicted, unfulfilled and damaged as any normal person.

Well, perhaps not exactly 'normal', but they're certainly not the 'holier-than-thou', angst-ridden teens or hormonally challenged desperately single women to be found in most of this genre's current crop of new authors.
In Kane's world, ghosts are real; and they're not very friendly. In fact, they're downright nasty. A couple of decades previously the dead had risen and only one organisation – the Church of the Real Truth – had managed to keep society together. Now America is a land where everyone knows what happens after you're dead, you turn into a spirit and go to the underworld, which isn't Hell and Jesus can't save you.
Instead you get people like Chess Putnam; she's a witch and she works for the Church. Yep, a complete reversal.
Since ghosts are real and can cause real damage, the Church will pay you a lot of money if a true haunting can be proven to have happened. It's Chess' job to sort the real from the fake and then banish the real ghost back to where they belong.
So far, so urban fantasy. But what makes Unholy Ghosts more interesting is that Chess isn't some boring, sweet, lovelorn sexy girl; she's a tattooed rocker with a taste for gangsters and a massive debt to her dealer hanging over her head.
Bump, the local gang leader, needs Chess to sort out a haunting of sorts. Work out if it's ghosts or the opposition, and Chess will clear her debt and be kept happy, so to speak.
Unfortunately Chess doesn't have a choice but to help out – she hasn't got the cash and the Church doesn't know about her personal vice. Before she knows it, Chess is caught up in nasty blood rituals, gang rivalries and an dangerous attraction to two, opposing gangsters.
Unholy Ghosts is the first in Kane's The Downside Ghosts series, which is great. I can't wait to read more of this gritty, sideways world that she's created. The character of Chess is reminiscent of Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, in that she's more 'real' than the usual fantasy female.
Chess isn't perfect, she carries her own demons, she's attracted to the wrong men and she's not averse to bending the rules – all things that make her a much more interesting character to read about.
Another of my favourite authors – also a pioneer in this genre like Hamilton – Charlaine Harris, has a quote on Kane's book: 'Gripping... Vivid characters and wonderful sense of pace'. And it's true.
Chess spins from one disaster to another, barely managing to keep it together, but somehow not giving up, nor becoming irritating. She's strong without being unapproachable and yet, still human in her reactions to the people around her.
Kane is a genuine find in the over-populated urban fantasy genre – she can only get better on presumes; thankfully there are more books written and more to come.

Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane is published by Harper Voyager and is available from good books stores and online.

nalani singh's slave to sensation and visions of heat from her psy-changeling series offer romantic urban fiction with a little bit of bite

2010-06-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

Slave to Sensation and Visions of Heat are the first two books in Nalani Singh's 'Psy-Changling' series of books – of which there were seven at last count.

Singh – who was born in Fiji and brought up in New Zealand – is one of Gollancz' latest stars. Her first two books in the new Guild Hunter series, Angels' Blood and Archangel's Kiss, were the first of her novels I read and reviewed; and I liked them, quite a lot.
The Guild Hunter series rotates around Angels and vampires – yes, yes, more damn vampires – but at least the addition of Angels who act like humans ie. Fight among themselves, fall in love with humans and generally ignore most of the religious connotations of their literary history, are different enough to be interesting.
In the Psy-Changling series Singh has done a similar thing – take one established urban fantasy trope and add something new to the mix. So, we've got werepanthers, rather than werewolves, and the 'Psy' as the new idea.
The Psy are humans, kind of, who basically had 'psy' talents like telepathy, telekinesis, farseeing, foreseeing etc but who decided that all emotions should be done away with.
So, we've got terribly smart, organised, mentally powerful beings without any love, lust, hatred or joy. Basically human-shaped machines who love making money.
The Changelings are the opposite – humans in touch with their animal natures – so lots of love, lust, anger and joy.
Naturally the stories – in both books – focus on a cold-hearted Psy running into a hot-blooded Changeling and opposites attracting.
In Slave to Sensation, Sascha Duncan is a Psy who thinks she's losing her mind; she keeps 'feeling' things that she shouldn't, like emotions. Her Changeling is Lucas Hunter, a local property developer who's a werepanther and amazingly attracted to Sascha's cold demeanour. Of course, she's beautiful and he's hot, so what do you expect is going to happen?
Like many of the current crop of Gollancz urban fantasies, Singh's books are basically romance novels wrapped in a pretty fiction of the supernatural – there are any number of successful authors and publishers out there who are milking this 'Twilight' trend for all it's worth, after all.
Thankfully, Singh can actually write (unlike others, particularly the aforementioned Twilight author) and her plots include a bit more than soulful gazing/boy-meets-girl/'yes, dear, I'm a vampire/werewolf/angel' motif we've come to expect.
While Sascha and Lucas sniff around each other, something nasty is going on in the Changeling world – another young woman has gone missing. She's the latest in a long series of missing Changelings who turn up dead and mutilated. Lucas, as pride leader, has been tracing the murders around America and thinks Sascha's group of Psy might be involved.
So, at least this series has a bit of action to differentiate it from the usual run-of-the-mill stuff out there. Yes, the romance blossoms and Sascha realises that there's nothing wrong with her, she's actually some kind of super Psy throwback, who's talent has been suppressed by her people, and Lucas manages to discover the murder, before they settle down happily ever after.
Visions of Heat continues the storyline, including the characters of the first book, but focusing on a new male Changeling in need of a 'mate'. Oh yeah, the animal clichés are fairly strong.
This time it's Vaughan D'Angelo, who is actually a werejaguar instead of a panther, in need of romance and his Psy is the hyper-sensitive Faith NightStar, a valuable commodity with the ability to see the future.
Like the first book, Visions of Heat carries on the underlying plot of madness in the Psy culture, with Faith being dogged by dark dreams of murder and torture as another Psy mind manages to latch on to hers.
Naturally enough, Vaughan's animal nature is able to protect her from the dreams, and with Sascha and Lucas, he fights to save Faith from being dragged into madness, while at the same time falling in love, of course.
These books aren't high literature but they are fun reads. The twists to the typical urban fantasy fodder make Singh's books much more palatable than much of the pap that's being published these days.
Personally I prefer her Guild Hunter series, it's more urban and grittier, with less traditional romance and more blood, guts and politics. But for readers who enjoy a good love story with feisty women, strong men and true love, then Slave to Sensation and Visions of Heat are great reads. What's more, there are five more books in the series, so your holiday reading is sorted.

Slave to Sensation and Visions of Heat by Nalini Singh are published by Gollancz and are available from good book stores and online.

avery cates returns in jeff somers' dystopian world of the eternal prison

2010-06-17T08:24:00.000-07:00

Avery Cates, the eternal assassin of Somers' dystopian future world, is back and this time he's locked up. Well, he's been locked up again, but it won't stop him getting out and getting revenge.

Lovers of apocalyptic science fiction were introduced to Cates in Somers first two books – The Electric Church and The Digital Plague – alongside a motley crew of cloned world leaders, humans with their brains replaced by a computer consciousness and the dregs of a world slowly back-sliding into the Dark Ages.
Somers' work has been raved about by critics, pundits, reviewers and readers alike, his ability to portray a world we all shy from, but can clearly identify with, gives one the shivers.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper describes his writing as 'An action movie in print', and it's a remarkably astute description. Somers' books are fast-paced, tightly written, believable (in their own way) and peopled with characters that we know – or at least have read about in the news.
The world of these books is one that's been taken over by a variety of never-ending wars and skirmishes, by global corporations controlling the world's food supply, by an underclass of criminals from Russia and Asia and a police force that's more thug than 'Bobby' on the beat.
There is widespread poverty, disease and death. People 'augment' themselves with mechanical and genetic additions or take gene-therapy drugs to stop man-made diseases. Everyone is out for themselves and almost no one cares what the world has come to.
Avery Cates is a street killer, a man who is consistently amazed that he's managed to survive as long as he has in the broken down streets of New York, a crumbling city in an America that's long lost it's ability to care for its people. Sound familiar?
Technology continues to exist for those with the money and the connections, and it's developed into something truly awful – people can now be 'downloaded' into a massive server and then 'uploaded' into a robot form. Only sometimes, not all of them comes back.
As The Eternal Prison opens, Cates is being rounded up with other unsavoury types to be shipped off to the worst prison in what is already a hideously brutal prison system. Only, for some reason, he really doesn't care.
Cates has switched off; he kind of wishes he was dead already, and is really just waiting for someone to kill him. Thankfully – for his fans – his doesn't happen and Cates gets mixed up in a prison break, an attempt to assassinate the globe's nominal ruler and something odd with weird, little old man.
The Eternal Prison has a couple of disjointed sections that are a bit odd in the first third of the novel – it appears as though you're reading a flashback, with Cates doing something completely different from the previous chapter.
However, this is just a teaser to the twist in the plot that comes along towards the end – from there on, it all makes sense and seems so terribly obvious.
Once again, Somers has succeeded in delivering a fantastic sci-fi, action thriller with enough resonance to current times that you'll have no trouble believing in his dark future.
While it's best if you've read the first two books, there's enough back story to allow readers to know what's going on; but really, get the other two first, you'll enjoy the nuances of The Eternal Prison much more.

The Eternal Prison by Jeff Somers is published by Orbit Books and is available from good book stores and online.

better than the tv show: the latest sookie stackhouse vampire novel, dead in the family by charlaine harris

2010-06-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, lovers of vampires and werewolves, and especially lovers of Sookie Stackhouse, her various vampy and hairy boyfriends, her fairy great grandfather and her brother Jason, the non-shirt wearing hottie, Charlaine Harris is back.

Dead in the Family is the tenth Sookie Stackhouse 'Southern Vampire Mysteries' series – although just about everyone will know them better as the 'True Blood' books from the extremely popular HBO series of the same name.
For those who haven't read the books, and have only seen the couple of seasons on HBO in Singapore; don't read on, this is full of spoilers as the books are up to number 10, while the TV show has barely even started.
For fans who started with the books, and not the TV show, Dead in the Family is fantastic; the characters continue to develop, the plots twist back over the whole series and Sookie is still stuck in her weird love/hate relationship with Eric.
Yes, Eric. I know, I know; if you've only watched the HBO series, you'll still think she's got a thing for Bill the Vampire; or, if you've seen the beginning of the latest season in the US, then you'll be wondering about the werewolf Alcide.
Sorry; Dead in the Family is way past all those relationships. Not only has Sookie moved on, so has her brother Jason, Bill (kind of) and Sam the shapechanger. There are also impossibly beauty Faeries as distant relatives – which kind of explains why so many women want to sleep with Jason and why the vampires adore the taste of Sookie – as well as all sorts of other supernatural creatures.
Sookie is still recovering from her injuries from the 'Faery War' that occurred in the previous book, Dead and Gone, as well as the deaths of a number of people she loved.
On top of all this; Bill is fading away having been damaged by silver and now Eric's maker (his real maker not the fake one in the TV show) has turned up with a rather insane child vamp who may, or may not be a member of royalty.
As usual, Harris manages to keep all the various plots in place, make her supernatuals seem as understandable as her humans and adds a nice bit of love, romance and sex to spice it up. There is also the prerequisite blood and violence; but not at the expense of a good story.
I started with the books years ago, and while I find the HBO show fun to watch, there's no way it can encompass the nuances of Harris' text; the humour and the psychology of both humans and supernatural creatures.
So, if you've only seen the TV show; make the effort to get hold of all ten books, I promise you won't be dissapointed.

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online

sunshine state by james miller is a scary eco-thriller of global warming, militant religions & dirty wars

2010-06-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

James Miller's latest book, Sunshine State, is a very scary thing to read. If you are one of those people who are concerned about global warming, environmental degradation or holes in the ozone layers, then this book will scare you too.

Books like The Things That Keep Us Here by Carla Buckley, Down to A Sunless Sea by David Graham and Flood by Stephen Baxter are part of a growing eco-thriller genre that is making inroads into the science fiction world.
Like the books mentioned, Sunshine State is not a non-fiction tome written by a crusty scientist or a crazy environmentalist, it's a novel that combines a couple of issues that are of central concern in this day and age.
One: The terrible impact of the dirty wars occurring repeatedly around the world; and Two: The apparent increase in terrible weather systems that are devastating certain parts of the United States' coast.
Miller's book is a kind of 'mash-up' of these two themes. Mark Burrows is a member of the British secret service. He's trying to get out; his wife is pregnant, his best mate is dead and he feels like he's dying a little every time he goes on another mission.
Mark came to manhood in the heat of various deserts, a part of the UK's dirty wars. He followed orders, and followed them well, but now he is beginning to question whether or not his entire life was wrong.
Out of the screaming blue sky of a London engulfed in a major, long-lasting heatwave, Mark is given his last mission – to head for the "Storm Zone" in the US and track down his best mate; the man who is supposed to be dead.
The reason why Sunshine State is so scary is because it is completely believable. The references to Hurricane Katrina – which has already occurred – are factual spices to the future-present recipe of Miller's book. The Storm Zone is a swathe of destroyed country that's taken out most of Louisiana, southern California and other southern American states. The cities are gone, the people are mad, scared or locked tight behind giant walls and the army uses the whole area as a "training zone".
When reading about the Storm Zone – with its micro-communities of hippies and clubbers; Apocalyptics waiting for the world to end, drug runners and the Queer Liberation Army escaping from zealous born-again Christianity – you can see the ideas have all come from things that are happening now in America and around the world.
Interspersed with Mark's trip into the insanity that is the Storm Zone, are excerpts from interviews he had with a psychologist after his last disastrous mission with his former best friend, Charlie Ashe. These fragments give the reader an insight into what Mark is really all about; how he became the “invisible man” of British intelligence.
There's a defined strand of militant religiosity also running through Sunshine State. First, the Muslim terrorists that Mark and Charlie kill by the thousands in the desert and then the creepy, Pastor as the President of the United States and his white, gun-totting "Witch Hunters".
Miller carefully paints no one religion as being any worse than the other; but they both appear to be mad in his rendering. It is the militancy that stands out; true believers of both faiths are painted more gently.
Sunshine State is a great read; it's intelligently written, it's set not far into the future so non-science fiction lovers will enjoy the action and the themes give you a disconcerting feeling that what it's talking about could really happen. While Sunshine State might not scare everyone, it will certainly make you think a little more seriously about recycling your rubbish.

Sunshine State by James Miller is published by Little, Brown and is available from good book stores and online.

it's not just me...

2010-06-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

The reviews are in, the box office is slipping, and The Guardian is asking if Sex and the City 2 will be the 'turkey of the year'. Read the commentary: Post-credits scene: Sex and the City 2

the carrie diaries from candace bushnell is an obvious sex and the city movie tie-in

2010-06-01T08:21:00.000-07:00

The marketing team at HarperCollins must have been jumping up and down with joy when Candace Bushnell announced her latest book, The Carrie Diaries, was ready; just in time for the release of the second Sex And The City movie.
What with the obscene amount of publicity being dished out on the film, the book is sure to sell well. After all, if the fans of the HBO series are tired of watching the same old scenes over and over again, and have bought the DVD of the first film, they're sure to snap up this book.

The Carrie Diaries purports to be the 'prequel' to the more famous books that were the basis for the 90s phenomenon that was the Sex and the City series. However, as someone who spent far more time watching the TV show than reading the books, I was thrown for a six by many of this novel's plot lines.
Most glaringly is the fact that in The Carrie Diaries, Carrie has a dad; it's her mother that's died and left her, and her two sisters, alone with a bumbling, but loveable, father figure.
In the TV series, the fact that Carrie's father left her as a child is the centrepoint around which all her terrible relationships with men – and her eventual marriage to a much older, more sensible, man – revolve. So discovering in The Carrie Diaries a completely opposite storyline was odd, to say the least.
Likewise, I can't for the life of me remember if there was ever any mention of Carrie having any siblings. I remember Charlotte's brother – Samantha slept with him – and Miranda had a sibling of some sort that we saw at the funeral of her mother.
Still, books are rarely translated completely faithfully onto the small, or large, screen, so on to the rest of the novel.
We meet Carrie as she's entering the last year of high school. She has friends, family and a sort of boyfriend. She's one of the 'smart' kids at school, not exactly a part of the cool set. But she does want to be a writer.
Honestly, there's not really a lot more to say. The story meanders along, following Carrie through the ups and down of an average American teenager's life. There's a bit of smoking – she obviously started young – some drinking and drug taking, a waffling drone about should she or shouldn't she have sex as 'everyone else is doing it' and discussions about getting in Brown University.
Any drama to be had comes from a younger sister acting out, getting in trouble with the police, and a very shallowly drawn boyfriend who turns out to be a dropkick.
If this book wasn't based on the famous TV character, there would be no point to reading it. Carrie as a teen doesn't undergo any dramatic 'coming of age' experiences, she isn't an original thinker, she's not even that exciting from a fashion perspective.
There are random references to what she chooses to wear every so often, and one incident with her mother's old handbag, but that's about it. And these passages feel forced, as though the author went back through the book and thought, 'oh, should really add a fashion reference for all the TV fans'.
Admittedly there are probably people out there who will love this book, who'll be able to move on from the inconsistencies and enjoy the portrayal of a somewhat iconic pop culture character.
Unfortunately, I found little to recommend The Carrie Diaries. It's not badly written, exactly, but it comes across more as a Young Adult novel than something a 30-something Sex and the City fan would enjoy. There's no raunchy sex for example.
I am also, perhaps, a bit biased by my feelings about the recent film. Like many fans of the series who watched it while making my own way in the professional world, the latest film seems to have negated all that hard work.
Sex and the City 2 (SATC2) has been lambasted by reviewers for returning it's stars to a kind of retro 50s 'little woman' mentality, where their marriages and children have taken over not only their lives, but also their personalities. But even this, a valid issue in these days of working mothers, is treated so superficially that you just want to punch someone. What working mother do you know wears haute couture gowns to feed their toddlers?
To add insult to injury, the setting of SATC2 in Abu Dhabi has women with brains up in arms across the world. The one city in the world that does not allow women to drive cars, wear revealing clothes or be alone with a male not her husband, father or son; and the producers set one of the sexyist, ground-breaking, grrl power stories there.
Not only that, the four friends don't even seem to be aware of these issues. There's a bit of lame referencing to 'the poor local women', and are the maxi dresses an attempt to cover up? Not if they're completely sheer and leave arms, neck and boobs on show. Singing 'I A Woman' surrounded by belly-dancers does not a feminist statement make; it doesn't even manage to soothe general feelings of political correctness.
In fact, the producers should have had second thoughts when they had to actually film the Abu Dhabi scenes in Morocco. Apparently it's less 'restrictive' when it comes to women showing skin. Honestly!
The actual film, despite be set in Abu Dhabi, has now been banned in the United Arab Emirates, which just goes to prove how wrong that set decision was.
As a tie in to this actual book review (sorry, got a bit 'carried' away), ie. How it's all just about the money; the wardrobe of designer clothes the stars wore reportedly cost up to US$10 million! Despite the producers insisting that many of the garments were lent for 'free', the fact that the clothes alone were worth even half that much is just staggering.
On top of this, the obviousness of the product placement – changing Carrie's iconic Mac for a HP laptop; featuring the Halston Heritage label, Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Carrie, is the chief creative officer of the brand, and the rumours of funding coming from the Abu Dhabi tourism association – just cheapens what was a important cultural icon for many women.
The best explanation of what's so wrong with the two SATC movies comes from The Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman in her piece The death of Sex and the City.
So, combined with all this and the lack of any real story, The Carrie Diaries, seems just another attempt by the author – who has made an absolute fortune from the other books – to cash in on the publicity and the promotion of the film.
If you can get past all of this, and are an adamant fan of Carrie, then get yourself a copy of The Carrie Diaries. However if you're more of a Samantha fan, or a Charlotte fan, or a Miranda fan, then you'll probably be wasting your money.
Hmm... maybe Bushnell is planning to write The Samantha Diaries etc, ad nauseam? I hope not.

The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell is published by HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

the world of the black magician trilogy returns in trudi canavan's the ambassador's mission

2010-05-10T23:30:00.000-07:00

One of Australia's best-known and most popular fantasy authors, Trudi Canavan is back with her latest novel The Ambassador's Mission, the first book in her new Traitor Spy trilogy.

Canavan's Black Magician trilogy – made up of The Magician's Guild, The Novice and The High Lord – was an international best-seller that established her as a fantasy author to watch.
In The Ambassador's Mission, Canavan returns to the world she created in the Black Magician books.
It's a number of years later, and the son of Black Magician Sonea – the heroine of the original tale – is all grown up. Lorkin has set out on his first mission as an adult magician with Ambassador Dannyl, also returning from the first series.
Despite the damage done to the city of Imardin during the brief war with the Sachakan magicians years early, the two lands have an uneasy truce, although trade has restarted and Dannyl is about to become an official representative.
Lorkin's father, Akkarin, died during the battle but left behind him a legend that could possibly cause the young man some problems in the new land. Still, he decides to take up Dannyl's offer and heads off, much to his mother's disquiet.
Before long Lorkin is caught up in Sachakan politics, gets himself kidnapped – or possibly saved – and leads Dannyl and a bunch of Sachaka magicians on a merry chase across the countryside.
Once again Canavan has set up a likely group of characters in her well-established world, allowing for an easy fantasy adventure.
Central characters from the first series return – Cery the Thief is back and trying to work out why certain other thieves are going missing. Sonea is still restricted by the rulings of the Magician's Guild regarding the isolation of a Black Magician's powers and various other players arrive and depart moving the story along.
The addition of political machinations in Sachaka adds an extra dimension to the story, but all in all, none of this is ground-breaking fantasy.
Canavan writes solid, comfortable traditional fantasy. What makes her work stand out from the rest is her ability to infuse a sense of humanity and, odd though it sounds, reality, into her books.
Lorkin's chafing at his mother's over-protectiveness, Dannyl's continued issues with being homosexual in an anti-gay society and Sonea's sadness and loneliness after the death of her lover, all read as being very “real”.
The Ambassador's Mission is a great first book, in what will certainly turn out to be a series as successful as Canavan's first.

The Ambassador's Mission by Trudi Canavan is published by Orbit Books and is available from good book stores and online.

historial thriller featuring an ex-monk who believes in aliens & tracks down murderers by sj parris

2010-05-10T16:51:00.000-07:00

Heresy from SJ Parris is the first in what will be a series of historical thrillers set in the 1500s and staring Giodarno Bruno, former monk, magician, scientist and heretic.

SJ Parris is, in fact, the author Stephanie Merritt, a well-known British critic and journalist who has written for The Times, the Daily Telegraph and who was also the Deputy Literary Editor at The Observer. She's also published three books; two works of fiction and a memoir about depression.
With Heresy, the author has moved into new territory by creating an interesting new character with both depth and human foibles writ large. Although the 'murder mystery set in ancient times' concept isn't exactly new – in fact, the publishers suggest in a book blurb that readers who liked The Name of Rose or CJ Sansom's work should buy this book – Heresy is an interesting take on the idea.
Bruno is a mass of contradictions. Although he spent years in an Italian monastery, he has an inquiring mind and doesn't toe the line. Heresy opens with a humorous explanation as to why Bruno is no longer a monk.
But the real meat of the story comes years later as Bruno, now safe from the Inquisition in England, ends up working for Sir Francis Walsingham, spy-master for Queen Elizabeth I.
Sent to Oxford, the university is considered to be rife with rabid Catholics, Bruno's political investigations are interrupted by a series of murders, so he switches track. Helped by a beautiful young woman – he's no longer a monk, remember – and a series of letters implying that each death is linked to heresy of some sort, Bruno attempts to track and catch the murderer.
From the opening scenes of Bruno's youth, to the action-packed conclusion that includes hidden priests, secret loves, burly henchmen and scheming aristocrats, Heresy is a good read.
The pace is fast, the historical detail is not overwhelming – although the background information on religion in the period is a bit tedious – and the characters are well-developed. Merritt / Parris has a nice turn of phrase, although some of the cadence and terminology may be a little modern for purists, it makes for an easier read.
The 'Medieval thriller' genre is not new, there are the popular Hugh Corbett mysteries by Paul Doherty and Michael Jecks' Medieval West Country Mysteries series as well as Peter Tremayne's prolific Sister Fidelma series about a nun in 9th century Ireland.
But Merritt / Parris has given the genre a little more bite with her former monk who believes in extraterrestrial beings and astronomy, and who is neither 'holier than thou' nor a complete rake.
Heresy is a good start to what could be a substantial series of solid, fun, historical thrillers. Only time will tell if Giodarno Bruno will become as popular as some of the other characters in this genre.

Heresy by SJ Parris is published by HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

another 'genetic-manipulation-gone-bad' novel; ancestor by scott sigler

2010-05-10T15:58:00.000-07:00

The last Scott Sigler book I read was the arresting Infected, where a mysterious alien spore started infecting people, making them lose control of their thoughts and behaviour, and leading to a rather gross conclusion. While it was not an entirely original concept – Invasion of the Body Snatchers anyone? – Sigler managed to tell a gripping tale by focusing on one individual and the emotions he goes through as he realises that something is taking over his mind.
In his new book Ancestor, Sigler has again taken up another common theme in science-fiction. This time it's the evil that occurs when people get involved in genetic manipulation.

Once again, a conglomerate is out to play god and create some sort of creature that will – supposedly – solve a terrible human condition; oh, and make lots of money in doing so. Dr Claus Rhumkorrf is trying to create the perfect organ donor and win the Noble Prize... and success must occur at all costs.
Naturally enough, science goes too far and an abomination is created, something that not only doesn't appear to have solved the human organ supply problem, it's also got very sharp teeth, near human intelligence and an amazing ability to develop overnight.
Tied into this story is a clearly insane Chinese geneticist, Jian, who's nightmares may have something to do with the monsters; PJ Colding, a mercenary for hire with a heart; his love interest, sassy pilot Sara; assorted baddies in the guise of more mercenaries and a nutter of a businessman.
Plonk them all on an isolated island in the American Great Lakes, add a nasty snowstorm, a few crafty locals and lots of cows; unleash the monsters and you've got yourself a gore-fest in Ancestor.
Sigler can write; his main characters are good, if a little clichéd – the mad scientist, the crass bully, the baddie with a heart of gold – his dialogue likewise, but his plotting is obvious and the early part of the book a little slow.
In many ways Ancestor does not stack up against other books in this genre. White Devils by Paul McAuley, for example, remains one of the better genetic-manipulation-gone-wrong books published recently. Still, Ancestor is not bad; there are some great action scenes and the conundrum of Jian's nightmares leads to a great twist towards the conclusion.
If you enjoy science-fiction with at least one foot in reality, as these types of books usually have, then Ancestor will fit the criteria.
Although there's a bit of scientific language at the start of the novel – which may be why it's a bit slow – the action from about a third of the way through makes up for it and Sigler sets up the final scene with an eye towards a sequel.

Ancestor by Scott Sigler is published by Hodder & Stoughton and is available from good book stores and online.

the devil's queen: a novel of catherine de medici, queen of france, by jeanne kalogridis, adds the spice of magic to history

2010-05-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

A new novel about the historic personage of Catherine de Medici shows another side to a woman who has been blamed for the St Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572, when thousands of Protestants were killed throughout France.

Jeanne Kalogridis' The Devil's Queen traces the life of a young girl, orphaned and taken in by relatives only because of her name and bloodlines. As the great granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Catherine was a valuable trading piece in the politics of the 14th century.
Generally unloved and manipulated by everyone from her distant cousin, Giulio di Giuliano de Medici, Pope Clement VII, to her closer relatives like her aunt Clarice Strozzi (nee de Medici), Catherine never really had a chance to be herself.
During a rebellion in 1527, when the family was pushed out of Florence, Catherine was imprisoned twice, treated relatively harshly and threatened with death repeatedly. She was still only a child. After the fall of the rebels, Catherine was taken to Rome where her marriage was arranged to Henry, Duke of Orleans, the second son of King Francis I of France, at the age of fourteen.
From the time she moved to France, Catherine suffered from being ignored, being hated and being scorned as her husband openly took lovers and eventually flouted his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who controlled Henry almost completely.
All of this, and much, much more, is generally known information about Catherine, but what Kalogridis has added is a touch of the supernatural and the macabre.
During Catherine's time there were a number of well-known and influential men who dabbled in the esoteric arts of magic, astrology and alchemy – despite them being banned by the Roman Catholic Church.
In The Devil's Queen, Catherine is befriended by Cosimo Ruggieri an astrologer and magician who eventually followed her to France; and meets Monsieur de Nostredame (Nostradamus) who remains, even now, a powerful figure.
Kalogridis gives Catherine an esoteric bent, a belief in the real power of magic and the ruthlessness to ensure her children are born, live and survive. There's lots of blood and violence involved, and an eventual denouement that may, or may not, be true.
The problem with historical novels of fiction is the existence of facts and general knowledge about these personages; particularly those of great fame.
However, Kalogridis manages to imbue Catherine with a real honesty, a realistic personality and adds enough fiction to ensure the reader is never bored.
If you don't like novels full of politics, long names and plots within plots, The Devil's Queen is not for you. This is a tightly woven story of a historical period seen through the eyes of a lonely, abused and desperate woman; one who had to grab her future with her own hands to ensure she stayed alive.
The book follows her story through the birth of her children and the death of her husband and her heirs, until the reign of Henri of Navarre – Henri IV or Henri the Great, the first Bourbon monarch.
Catherine lived to the age of 69 and was considered to have been the most intelligent person to ever sit the French throne. Still, The Devil's Queen does her justice in many ways.
Kalogridis' research is impeccable, as is her eye for detail and her ability to add personality and warmth to long dead people and times. Despite the historic detail, The Devil's Queen does not drag, it is fast paced and absorbing.
The Devil's Queen is a solid historical novel with just enough fiction to add spice and titillate the reader.

The Devil's Queen by Jeanne Kalogridis is published by HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

final instalment in brandon sanderson's the mistborn trilogy; the hero of ages

2010-05-09T06:48:00.000-07:00

Brandon Sanderson's The Mistborn trilogy comes to an end in The Hero of Ages, as the true hero is revealed and the cryptic words of the Lord Ruler are finally explained.

Sanderson's first two books in this series – The Final Empire and The Well of Ascension – built the backbone of the plot. A world overcome by volcanic ash, a serfdom of Highborn and Skaa and an immortal ruler coming together in violence, rebellion and myth.
Centred on the street girl Vin, her inborn 'mistborn' powers – an ability to use various metals to become faster, stronger and smarter than the average person – leading to her becoming first involved in rebellion and later to kill the undying Lord Ruler.
Despite killing off the supposed source of all their woes, Vin, her Skaa companions and her Highborn husband, new emperor Elend Venture, discover that by killing a god and releasing the power of the Well of Ascension, they may just have made things worse.
Finally, the story focuses on what exactly caused the Mists that have taken over the world, blocking the sun, killing the plants and causing illness to exactly 16 per cent of the population. The group realise they have to discover why the Lord Ruler hid caches of food, water and tools across the country and what they have to do to save their world.
Cleverly Sanderson has created a world that is not to dissimilar from ours so that readers can easily identify with the protagonists, but it's different enough to be interesting. The plot twists right to the end of The Hero of Ages – there's a surprising denouement right at the end that one doesn't see coming at all.
Sanderson is clearly an author on the way up. After Robert Jordan's death in 2007, Sanderson was chosen to complete the final book in Jordan's epic The Wheel of Time series based on just the first in The Mistborn trilogy, The Final Empire. He has already released The Gathering Storm – the first in the three-part culmination of Jordan's series – to thunderous applause from both fans and critics including Jordan's widow, Harriet McDougal.
In The Hero of Ages, Sanderson shows exactly why he was chosen for such an important task in the world of fantasy fiction. His characters are well-developed, his plotting is fantastic and his imagination runs wild yet is still accessible. In fact, the book has been shortlisted for the David Gemmell Award.
However the pace of his books needs to pick up a little. All three of The Mistborn books suffered from slow starts, a little too much detail – The Hero of Ages alone is 748 pages – and a tendency towards too much pontificating.
But despite this drawback, Sanderson's works are classic fantasy fiction and enjoyable reading. He's an author to watch.

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson is published by Gollancz, which is owned by Orion Books and is available from good book stores and online.

a new theme in urban fantasy; non-religious angels and archangels from nalini singh

2010-05-09T05:07:00.000-07:00

Hard on the heels of Lyndsay Sands' Argeneau vampire novels comes a new series from New Zealander Nalini Singh from the same publisher and with the same overall marketing concept – supernatural romance.

Luckily in Singh's books, the vampires have been replaced by angels and archangels. Oh, there are vampires as well, and vampire hunters – who work for the angels because in this world vampires are actually made by angels.

How the angels got to be involved in our everyday world and where they originally came from and whether or not they have any relation to god, is never explained. One simply accepts that in Singh's world, the angels make vampires, the vamps work for the angels and the archangels run everything.
So, once you're over that bit of illogic, the story unfolds from the perspective of a Guild Hunter, Elena Deveraux.
Elena is a 'born Hunter', which means that she's a bit stronger, a bit faster and has an uncanny ability to track vampires by scent alone. She's beautiful (of course), tough and oh-so-slightly emotionally damaged. Just how damaged becomes more and more apparent as her adventure unfolds.
Being one of the best at what she does, Elena ends up with a contract to hunt down a being for the Archangel of New York, Raphael. Yep, some of the names are reminiscent of real life.
Raphael (of course) is heart-thumpingly handsome, aloof, awe-inspiring – he's got golden-tipped wings after all – and dangerous. He once broke every bone in a vampire's body and left him in the middle of the city for days; the vampire was still alive.
So, Elena naturally finds herself attracted to Raphael, but she's damn sure she's not going to give in and become Raphael's lover and human pet. At least, that's what she keeps telling herself.
As for the job she's been hired to do, Elena discovers that it's not a normal vampire hunt, this one is far more dangerous and secretive – if any of her friends or family find out who she's actually hunting, Raphael will kill them.
Angel's Blood introduces Singh's new fantasy world with detail, action, emotional turbulence and romance. These are urban fantasy romance novels after all. However, unlike Lyndsay Sands' series, these books have a lot more action... dare I say, a lot more bite.
Raphael is not some "ordinary bloke wrapped in a fantasy skin", he is a contradiction of awesomely powerful being, vulnerable man and inscrutable ruler. He is ruthless and he is violent, but he is immensely loyal and has an enormous capacity to love – even if that love is so powerful as to smother those who receive it.
Elena is tough, independent, resourceful and desperate to hang on to not only her humanity, but also the terrible things in her past that have made her who she is. Like Raphael, she is a mix of good and bad, full of contradictions, but these are the qualities that make Singh's characters more complex and more interesting for the reader.
Unlike Sands' stories, Angel's Blood and Archangel's Kiss are not single-book stories, nor are they all wrapped up happily ever after plot endings. Singh's books are much more of the traditional fantasy format, with each book adding to the story. The books are also much more interesting in general.
I love a good vampire story as much as the next fantasy reader, but even I have become a little bored with the ubiquitous nature of vampires in popular culture. Angels as non-religious, non-pious beings who have sex, scheme, manipulate and fall in love are new.
Thankfully Singh has a great turn of phrase as well; she is a good writer. The recurring theme of Elena's nightmares and how it's written, for example, adds a sense of tension across the plot lines of both books, with an eventual denouement in Archangel's Kiss. A tightness of prose that is missing in many of this genre's newest authors.
So, if you're looking for something new in the genre of urban fantasy, give Singh's series a go. You won't be bored, and you may even find yourself a new favourite author.

Angel's Blood and Archangel's Kiss by Nalini Singh are published by Gollancz and are available from good book stores and online.

Read my review of Lyndsay Sands' latest novel: Clichés abound in Lyndsay Sands' latest Argeneau novel

clichés abound in lyndsay sands' latest argeneau novel, tall, dark and hungry

2010-05-09T04:13:00.000-07:00

The Argeneau family of vampire brothers returns in Lyndsay Sands' latest novel, Tall, Dark and Hungry. Yes, the clichés continue.

The previous two novels in the series that I have reviewed – Single, White Vampire and Love Bites – are part of the Argeneau series with such catchy titles as A Bite to Remember and Vampires Are Forever. It just goes to show, if something works the first, second and third time around, why not just keep it up.
I have to say, when I first read Love Bites, I hadn't seen the other novels and thought it a cute take on the current craze for all things fanged and hot. However after the second book, and now third in the series, the conceit is getting little tired.
Likewise, in Love Bites, the brother in question – Etienne – was at least involved in a bit of vampire-type action ie. Being stalked by a deranged vampire-wannabe who actually injured him, leading to his meeting his wife-to-be.
Read my review of Love Bites: Fun, vampire romance with tongue, firmly, in cheek
Single, White Vampire, the next one in the series saw a reclusive vampire author hook up with his editor – no action at all to speak of there – and now in the third series it's even less exciting.
Read my review of Single, White Vampire: Light, escapist reading
The couple from Love Bites, Lucern and Kate, are getting married so Kate's cousin Terri arrived in New York a few weeks earlier to help out. She's put up at Lucern's brother, Bastien's, apartment and that's about it.
They both like each other, they solve a few wedding disasters like a bankrupt caterer and a few family issues, like a vampire cousin who can't ingest blood from a bag, but really, that's it.
They fall in love, there's a misunderstanding as Bastien tries to explain he's a vampire – which in the Argeneau series means they're actually from Atlantis and have nano-bytes in their blood which is why they're so beautiful, live forever etc – and then there's a wedding to be planned: The End.
So, the first time around the conceit of the titles, the 'I may be a vampire but I'm just an ordinary bloke' attitude and nice descriptions of sex made the books a fun read. But, really, this is all very, very old the third time around.
In fact, Sands' books are simply pulp romances dressed up with vampires. Unfortunately the vampires aren't even slightly exciting. It's the 'Twilight' effect: Take a concept with centuries of tradition, thousands of permutations of moral dilemma, an edge of danger, a sense of transgression and rebellion, and whitewash the lot of it with middle-class suburbanisation, Middle America bible-bashing and lowest, common denominator pop culture.
What you get are vampire stories with no bite – pun intended in the case of Twilight. You lose the dichotomy of good versus evil, the psychological tug of war between sex and blood, and the true moral dilemma of immortality.
So, if you're looking for a light-hearted romantic read, Tall, Dark and Hungry is fine. However, it's a mere feather-weight when compared to the much more complicated and fascinating series from Laurell K Hamilton or Anne Rice.
For real vampires with fangs, moral grey areas and truly raunchy sex, stay with the mistresses of the genre and leave this series on the shelf.

Tall, Dark and Hungry by Lyndsay Sands is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

dragon haven, the second book in robin hobb's the rain wilds chronicles is as wonderful as expected

2010-04-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

Robin Hobb is one of my all-time favourite fantasy authors. The world she has created in her long-running series The Farseer Trilogy, The Liveship Traders, The Tawny Man and The Soldier Son, has returned in the latest series The Rain Wild Chronicles. Dragon Haven is the second book in the series so far, and, as always, it does not disappoint.

The dragons that hatched from the dismal clutch of sea serpent cocoons in the first book, The Dragon Keeper, have found themselves forced to travel up the dangerous Rain Wild river in the company of a group of young Rain Wilders – humans who have lived too long in the inhospitable jungle and have begun to change into something else.
The Rain Wilders are themselves outcasts, having been keep alive as babies when tradition dictated that any child born already bearing the growths and scaled skin of the Rain Wilds be exposed to the elements.
Luckily for the dragons – damaged, demented and dumb in some cases – these youngsters are around to help feed them, protect them and clean them, whether the dragons are grateful or not.
Alongside the dragons and their keepers travels the barge Tarman, a ship that is definitely more than he should be, his captain Leftrin and the Bingtown trader Alise – who is a misfit herself.
Alise is accompanied by her husband's secretary, Sedric, who's managed to get himself involved in the shady practice of dealing in dragon parts, only to find that something is making him terribly sick.
As the dragons make their way up the river, the motley crew of Rain Wilders, sailors and Bingtowners discover that being exiled may be just what they all needed.
This novel sees friendships made and broken, lives lost and lovers found. It's also a stepping stone in the on-going explanation as to what happened to the dragons. Why did they not cocoon themselves hundreds of years ago when they should have? What happened to the magical cities of the Elderlings, once the dragons' keepers? And why are the new dragon keepers becoming more and more like their charges everyday?
Hobb answers some of these questions, but it is obvious that she is leading the reader on to the next book in the series. There is a denoument of sorts; the dragons finally reach a place they recognise but it may, or may not, be the mythical city of Kelsingra - the place the dragons are searching for.
Twisting through the main story of the dragons and their keepers is that of Bird Keepers Detozi and Erek. These two Keepers of the Birds - which are used to send messages - keep the story tied to the outside world, so to speak, of Bingtown and Trehaug. The pairs' messages open each chapter and over the course of the two novels so far have developed from friends into something more.

Robin Hobb's fantasy is literature
It is details like the Keepers of the Birds - a whole second plotline and story running in tandem with the main action - that makes Hobb's novels so good. These are the details that ensure her fans keep coming back again and again, and are why she is a best-selling novelist.
A basic run-down of Hobb's plot isn't enough to explain why these books are so very special in the over-populated world of fantasy literature. It's not just the storylines, but the characters and their stories, the creatures and their foibles, the grandeur of dragons!
Hobb has that rare ability in a fantasy author to create a connection between the reader and an unreal world. She manages to make one care about what happens to not only the human characters of her books, but also the non-human; the dragons, the liveships and the sea serpents.
The detailed descriptions of each fantastical animal and plant, the odd society mores and the relationships of characters to the inimical jungle as enormous depth to Robb's novels.
Hobb has been described as a modern Tolkien, which is somewhat true, only her works have more warmth and emotion, and less highbrow posturing.
Am I preaching to the converted yet? I read all 570 pages of Dragon Haven in one sitting, through the night, and when I finished I wished I had the next book to read right away.
For lovers of adventure, romance and fiction – even if you aren't usually a reader of fantasy – Robin Hobb's books are a must read. If you're going to read one fantasy series in your life, try one of hers.

Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb is published by Harper Voyager, an imprint of HarperCollins, and is available in good book stores and online.

Read my review of The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb.

carrie ryan's the dead tossed waves is as good as the forest of hands and teeth; zombie genre with emotions & love

2010-04-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Finally I'm getting around to writing up a review for one of my favourite new authors. America's Carrie Ryan burst onto the fantasy scene with The Forest of Hands and Teeth in 2009; it was a zombie novel for girls.

What separates Ryan's work from the usual genre is her ability to not only add romance to a zombie novel, but to also give the reader emotional insight into what it would actually feel like to see your loved ones return as something less than an animal.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth was a great book; it received a heap of praise from fans and critics alike so I was excited to read the “companion book” to see if Ryan would live up to expectations.
And she has. The Dead Tossed Waves continues years after Mary has found sanctuary of a sort in a seaside town, fenced off from both the zombies and the forest where they roam. This time the action centres on Mary's daughter Gabry who is about 15 years old and just becoming interested in boys – one boy in particular.
As often happens with teens, the boy and his friends convince Gabry to do something she really knows she shouldn't, and the consequences of this one act direct the path of the plot.
This is Ryan's true skill; she takes a common, everyday occurrence like teens doing something they shouldn't, blends it with moral quandaries and coming-of-age motifs and then adds zombies.
Obviously the zombies can represent just about any modern day ill – drugs, teenage pregnancy, crime – but the addition of a fantasy trope means the Young Adult readers this is aimed at won't take too much umbrage.
Gabry proves herself to be resourceful, strong and weak by turns, petty and generous, smart and stupid – just like any teenage girl. She discovers things about her past that rock her world, yet she manages to both understand her mother as a person and woman, while realising that Mary did the best she could.
Ryan's prose leads the reader into noticing the little things, people's mannerisms that give away their inner thoughts, the way the sea appears to a girl locked in a society of rigid rules and how easy it is to fall in love.
The Dead Tossed Waves is beautifully written and shows that while fantasy and genre fiction may not be nominated for a Booker Prize, it can be good literature.

The Dead Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

the things that keep us here scares the reader out of complacency with its real life look at bird flu

2010-04-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

This is one of the scariest books I've read recently, and there's not a single zombie, vampire, genetically modified creature or mass murderer in sight.

Like Stephen Baxter's Flood, The Things That Keep Us Here by Carla Buckley is scary because it could really happen. In Flood, global warming destroyed the world; in Buckley's book, bird flu does.
And like Flood, it's not really the flu that we have to be worried about – sure, it kills lots of people and is terribly contagious – it's the people we know that we have beware of.
The book opens reasonably enough; Ann Brooks is an ordinary mother of two middle-school aged girls, her marriage is dissolving and she has to start work again. Sure, she's a got a bit of a skeleton in the closet but it's nothing particularly terrible.
Her husband, Peter is a research veterinarian, who – surprise, surprise – works with wild bird populations. There's bird flu around, particularly in parts of Asia, but it's not yet reached America. Then, it does.
In a matter of days, hours even, the world that Ann knew comes crashing to a halt, and she has to worry about more than just getting a divorce.
What makes The Things That Keep Us Here so compelling are the small details of how one would survive if the modern world suddenly just stopped.
In Ann's town it's the weather that has the greatest impact as a massive snow storm brings down electricity and phone lines. Then the mobile service disappears and news becomes scarce.
In our world of instantaneous communication and too much information, it's scary to realise just how terrible it would be to have to live as our ancestors did – chopping wood for fires, washing irregularly, seeing and talking only to those who live in our homes.
It is also scary to realise that none of us is really prepared. Do you have canned goods, fresh water, a way to heat things, candles and endless batteries in your house? Not to mention basic medical supplies and the knowledge of how to use them.
As Ann's world becomes more and more circumscribed she has to make difficult choices about who is more important: her own children or their father, the man she never stopped loving and who is now back in her life.
Then, of course, there are the terrible things that people do when pushed to the edge. Quite early in the story Ann comes up against the worst of human nature as two people help themselves to others' shopping in the frenzy started by the closure of the schools.
Later, as life becomes more and more difficult and supplies dwindle, Ann discovers that no only is she tougher than she thought, but that she can be as hard as the worst among us.
The Things That Keep Us Here is a great book. Although a little slow-paced at the outset, it soon heats up and the everyday quandaries of people trying to survive keep you glued to the pages. You want to know who survives, and just as importantly, how they do it.
If you're even slightly paranoid, this book is going to make it hard for you to sleep at night. The recent round of H1N1 should have been warning enough, but sometimes, it's not enough just know about something. The Things That Keep Us Here shows us what could really happen – it might be fiction at the moment, but you just never know.

The Things That Keep Us Here by Carla Buckley is published by Orion and is available from good book stores and online.

great fun with de la cruz' young adult vampire fiction: revelations and the van alen legacy

2010-04-20T06:13:00.000-07:00

In Revelations and The Van Alen Legacy, we return to Melissa de la Cruz' world of the “Blue Bloods”. Think Gossip Girl with vampires and you'd be just about right.

Of course, there's the dorky girl – old name family fallen on bad times – and the ice princess – snooty blonde with a weird thing for her twin brother – so these books are entirely too fluffy to be read.
In fact, although de la Cruz' books are nominally Young Adult fiction, they're way more raunchy and interesting than those horrible Twilight things. Schuyler Van Alen, Mimi Force and her twin Jack and other various teens are punchy, re-born vampires with long memories, strong sex drives and entrenched rivalries.
The only odd thing is that they're expected to graduate from high school.
After the first two books – Blue Bloods and Masquerade – Schuyler has discovered that she's actually a “half blood” vampire and her true love Jack is Mimi's soul mate. Which is a bit of a problem since Jack and Schuyler are having problems keeping their hands off each other.
Then there's the Silver Bloods – other vampires who live on vampire blood and basically turn evil. Oh, they're Satan's minions too. Although Satan is really Lucifer (as in “bearer of light”) and now he appears to have broken free of his prison.
On top of this, Schuyler's newly rediscovered Grandfather has been taken away from her – she has to live with her arch nemesis Mimi (no, not entirely sure how that happened but apparently Mimi's dad is Schuyler's uncle!) and there's something wrong with her former friend Dylan (who may be a Silver Blood) and her best mate Oliver (who she kind of turned into her familiar).
Whew! So, Schuyler's got to save herself, her friends and the world of the Blue Bloods while trying to graduate and make-out with Jack. Oh, and she's become a top fashion model too.
These are great, fun books. The stories are preposterous but the characters are relatively realistic. The teen angst of new love, coupled with realising you really ARE different from everybody else, explains why de la Cruz' has become so popular.
If you have concerns about your “young adults” having sex and thinking about biting people, these books aren't for you. But if you want to give them something fun to read that will resonate with them and perhaps put them off having sex and/or biting people, then the Blue Bloods series is a winner.
Apparently there's another book just around the corner, Misguided Angels, and The Repository – kind of like a Blue Blood history – will be out in June.

Revelations and The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de la Cruz are published by Atom, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group and are available from good book stores and online.

Read my review of the first two books; Blue Bloods and Masquerade.

single white vampire by lynsday sands is light, escapist reading

2010-04-20T05:13:00.000-07:00

Lyndsay Sands returns with another book in her Argeneau vampire series, this time with the tongue in cheek title of Single White Vampire. Like the previous work, Love Bites, the story centres on a family of vampires – the Ageneaus.

This time it's eldest brother Lucern who is the centre of the piece. He's a writer, of romances no less, who is about to have his peaceful life invaded by feisty, young, beautiful Kate C Leever, his new editor.
The plot of Sands' books are fairly predictable – girl meets boy (in this case a vampire boy), boy meets girl; neither of them really want someone in their lives, certainly not a feisty/brooding, beautiful/handsome, passionate/passionate human/vampire.
Naturally enough, it all works out in the end after a number of humorous escapades – this time including cod-pieces and a break and enter attempt.
Single White Vampire isn't a bad book, it's well-written, the characters are formulaic but not ordinary, the prose is good and some of the scenarios are quite funny. But this isn't literature, nor is it the best example of the urban fantasy / supernatural fantasy genre available these days.
If anything, Sands' first book, Love Bites, was better. The plot more adventurous, the characters more developed and the outcome more believable. This time around it seems a little like Sands' is reaching, trying to rationalise the four book deal she (presumably) got on the basis of one idea – love in the vampire world – and the success of her predecessors.
However, if you're looking for a bit of light, escapist reading, there are worse books out there than Single White Vampire; trust me, I know, I've had to review them.

Single White Vampire by Lyndsay Sands is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

harpercollins signs john stephens' the emerald atlas trilogy

2010-04-06T07:05:00.000-07:00

HarperCollins has announced the acquisition of John Stephens' The Emerald Atlas, one of the most talked about books of the year. Considered the “book of the fair” by trade and media pundits at Bologna Book Fair, signing The Emerald Atlas is a real cue for the publisher.
The trilogy is described as being in the tradition of Narnia and Harry Potter, and is aimed at middle school aged readers. There are three orphaned kids who have to find three magic books while discovering the secrets of their history. Of course, they also have to defeat an “evil and devastating foe”, announced the press release.
Although this is John Stephens' first foray into book publishing, he was an an executive producer for seasons two and three of Gossip Girl. He has also been a producer and writer on The O.C. and Gilmore Girls, and has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Virginia.
The auction to sign UK and Commonwealth rights from Angharad Kowal, acting in the UK on behalf of Simon Lipskar of Writers House literary agency, was hotly fought, but Nick Lake, HarperCollins UK Editorial Director, won through in the end. Separate international deals and rights for the trilogy have already been sold to the US, Germany, Italy, France, Norway, Holland, and Brazil, with more expected to follow very shortly.
“It's so rare that a book like this comes along; one whose characters you genuinely fall in love with, and whose writing feels so instantly classic,” said Nick Lake. “This wonderful book caused an unprecedented rush of excitement in everyone who read it at HarperCollins. The entire children’s department loves this book, and we could not be more thrilled to have it on our list.”

HarperCollins will launch The Emerald Atlas in 2011.

zombie tales from joe hill, tad williams, mike carey & more in zombie: an anthology of the undead

2010-04-04T04:16:00.000-07:00

You can't go past a good zombie story. Thanks to author Christopher Golden, you can now enjoy 19 great short stories about all sorts of zombies from a range of great fantasy and horror writers. Zombie: An Anthology of the Undead includes stories from Joe Hill (of Heart-Shaped Box and Horns fame), Tad Williams, John Connolly, Mike Carey, Holly Newstein and Aimee Bender, among others.
Sitting perfectly with today's zeitgeist, Hill's Twittering from the Circus of the Dead is awesome. He deftly weaves in teen angst, modern obsessions with technology, reality TV, viral marketing and zombies! It can't get much better than that... although, scarily enough, once you read it, you may wonder if it's actually happened.
Tad Williams' character, paranormal investigator Nathan Nightingale, discovers there's more to the afterlife than he ever realised; the biblical tale of Lazarus is seen from an entirely different perspective in John Connolly's hands and Mike Carey's fabulous story about someone actually choosing to become a zombie and the practical issues he needs to deal with is darkly funny.
Golden, who put the anthology together, says in his foreword that he's always understood why people are fascinated by vampires, but can't get why zombies have become so popular: “Eating brains, my friends, is not sexy.”

“When I set out to edit this anthology, I sought out a wide variety of perspectives on the modern fascination with zombies. I asked questions. Are we so inured to death that we now find it charming? Or – and this was my suspicion – do we embrace these ideas as an indirect way of processing the horror that we feel at the reality of war and torture and death?”

Whether or not you can explain the current fascination with zombies, there is no doubt that this anthology is worth a look. If you can't take sitting through a whole book on the subject, the anthology offers various options – zombies that drop from the sky, zombies that work for you, zombies who used to be people you know – and you can grab a bit of zombie genre in small bites (sorry, couldn't resist).

Zombie: An Anthology of the Undead is edited by Christopher Golden and published by Piatkus, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, an Hachette UK company. It is available from good book stores and online.

steph swainston returns to her world of the immortal circle with above the snowline featuring jant shira

2010-04-04T03:37:00.000-07:00

Steph Swainston is probably best-known for her series of fantasy novels about the Fourlands – The Year of Our War, No Present Like Time an The Modern World – where an immortal emperor surrounds himself with the best of the best talents and makes them immortal too. One of the central characters of these books is Jant Shira – the fastest man in the world, part of the immortal Circle and a mixed-blood. Jant is half Rhydanne – the elusive people of the mountains – and half Awian – the most population race who though they have wings, can't fly.
Swainston's latest book, Above the Snowline, follows Jant – immortal but still very cocksure – as he heads back to his birthplace, much to his disgust, in the company of a Rhydanne huntress who's complained to the emperor about Awian incursions into her mountains.
The Rhydanne life is a harsh one; they live above the snowline on mountains so high that there's hardly any air to breathe. Their bodies have adapted over the millennia; turning them into efficient hunting and fighting machines, making them immune to cold, super fast and amazingly hardy. The Awians, naturally, abhor them. Calling the Rhydanne primitive animals. It's obvious that someone needs to intervene in what could become a war.
Cue Jant – the youngest of the immortals he's only 75 years old, and he retains much of his humanity. Jant is a wastrel and a drunk, a womaniser and a bit of cheat. He's also pompous, arrogant and often rude. Still, he's immortal, rakishly handsome and can fly; which makes up for just about everything else.
When Shira Dellin, the Rhydanne huntress turns up in the emperor's city and demands he do something about the Awians, Jant is sent off to deal with the situation.
Along the way, he discovers that memories of his abusive childhood have coloured his actions and beliefs, making him deny much of his Rhydanne heritage. But being in the mountains again, sees Jant slowly realise that he is as much Rhydanne as he is Awian and without either, he'd be less than nothing.
There's a touch of romance in Jant's relationship with Dellin; but it is as much about letting things go, as it is about holding on.
Swainston's world is peopled by creatures who are only a little different from ourselves. It is easy to read the feelings and emotions of any person of mixed-blood in Jant, just as it is to see references to our dying, "primitive" cultures in the Rhydanne.
In fact Swainston has written a piece for Sci Fi Now magazine, called Once Were Hunters, about how she was brought up hunting, rebelled against it and then used the experience in writing Above the Snowline.
The writer's ability to make her characters real to her readers is what makes her books so popular. Swainston's story is familiar, yet different enough to keep us interested. Her descriptions, dialogue and plot are tight and the action keeps moving.
You don't have to have read any of Swainston's previous books – much of the background is given in Above the Snowline – and this one is more a prequel than a an addition to the previous books. Above the Snowline will merely whet your appetite for more stories of Jant, the emperor and his immortal Circle.

Above the Snowline by Steph Swainston is published by Gollancz and is available at good book stores and online.

on the horns of a dilemma; the great bits, and a few patchy bits, in joe hill's horns

2010-04-04T02:43:00.000-07:00

Ah... the indomitable Joe Hill returns. There is a lyrical quality to Hill's version of horror, a touch of poetry in not only his prose but also his plots and twists. With Horns, Hill brings us Iggy – a young man, like many other young men in the world. Iggy is in a rut, he's given up on the promise of his youth, he's eking out what life he has left with an accidental girlfriend, a distant family and a heavily embedded pain in his heart where his "one true love" used to be.
Then he wakes up with horns on his head after a night he doesn't remember.

“Ignatius Martin Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke the next morning with a headache, put his hands to his temples, and felt something unfamiliar, a pair of knobby pointed protuberances. He was so ill – wet-eyed and weak – he didn't think anything of it at first, was too hungover for thinking or worry.
“But when he was swaying over the toilet, he glanced at himself in the mirror over the sink and saw he had grown horns while he slept. He lurched in surprise, and for the second time in twelve hours he pissed on his feet.”

The biblical and historical references to the devil are obvious but incongruous as Iggy drives around his small-town America home in his small-town America 1972 AMC Gremlin trying to come to terms with his new look.
It is this juxtaposition of real and fantasy that makes Hill's books such good reads. The New York Times best-selling author of Heart-Shaped Box should be able to write a good read; he's Stephen King's son after all.
While the horror connection is there to King's work, Hill writes with a taught delicacy that reminds the reader of grunge era youths, all skinny, hyped-up strength and dopey, gloomy thoughts.
Prior to getting the horns, Iggy had tumbled from upper-class smugness to white trash depression after the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams. Merrin was his golden girl, the girl he'd loved forever, the one he was going to marry. She was found raped, murdered, dumped in the woods and Iggy was blamed for it.
Wallowing in both his own self-pity and his town's ostracisation, Iggy ends up with a hole in his memory and horns on his head – horns that somehow enable him to know people's deepest, darkest secrets.
The local doctor is a drug addict, the local priest is having an affair, his family hates him … and maybe, just maybe, his brother knows something about Merrin's death.
While I loved the premise of Hill's book, and positively relished his passages involving Iggy and his new-found powers, there are passages in Horns that almost put me to sleep. I have to admit that I gave up about half-way through, read a few other books and skipped to the end, before returning to finish the novel.
Why? The passages that move back in time to Iggy's childhood, his meeting with Merrin and his best friend Lee, are boring. I really didn't care about how the pair came to meet, nor did the detailed background to Lee and Iggy's friendship keep me interested. Hill writes horror and fantasy so much better than he does ordinariness. Still, that could just be my personal preferences talking.
Returning to Iggy's present and the revelations of all and sundry get the book moving along again. Iggy realises that he can influence people with the horns, he can get them to act on their deepest, darkest desires. He also discovers that friendship may not be all it's cracked up to be.
Throughout the book Hill places vignettes of delight; the mysterious tree-house that Iggy and Merrin discover, the horrible death of Lee's mother and the deliciously icky nature of people's revelations are great parts of Horns.
The age old play of good versus evil, the devil versus god also gets a bit of shake up, is Iggy a devil because of his horns? Or are all people devils inside?
I'll admit that I found Horns patchy in some instances, but overall, it is a fantastic read – Hill has produced another great piece of horror fiction, well-worth getting your hands on.

Horns by Joe Hill is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

kitty the werewolf (yes, that's her name) ends up in a house of horrors, urban fantasy from author carrie vaughn

2010-04-04T02:00:00.000-07:00

Yep, Kitty Norville the werewolf returns. I know, I know, a werewolf called Kitty is more than slightly ironic. Still, for all the millions of 'urban fantasy' titles out there, Carrie Vaughn's radio DJ Kitty is one of the more interesting ones.

In Vaughn's alternate reality, the werewolves, vampires, psychics and witches stick pretty much to type. The werewolves are made by being bitten, as are the vamps, the psychics are humans with extra senses and the witches and sorcerers study for years to gain their powers.
In Kitty's House of Horrors, Vaughn cleverly riffs on the whole reality TV phenomenon, sending Kitty the werewolf into a “group house” with a couple of vampires, two psychics and some other were-animals. Oh, and there's a sceptic as well for good measure.
While they all try to suss each other out, and try to convince the sceptic that they really are vampires, werewolves etc, the production team – headed up by a caricature of the typical slimy entertainment type – film them all. The producers are hoping, of course, that they can get a transformation on tape or a vampire sucking blood, or something else equally sensational.
Everything seems fine... but then people start to go missing.
From there on, Kitty's House of Horrors is relatively formulaic. A few characters die, a few more show their true colours and everyone gets their comeuppance in the end.
Vaughn's books aren't the worst versions of generic urban fantasy being published – I'd nominate the Twilight series for the top of that list – but it's not mind-blowingly good either. It's scope is relatively small.
While Kitty's “ordinariness” is meant to make readers identify with her and her problems, it also, unfortunately, takes away much of the glamour that leads people to read urban fiction.
We don't want a perfectly adjusted werewolf, we want one that either revels or hates their situation; we don't want a werewolf that's happily married, we want one that has to hide their secret from their lover, or something like that.
Compared to the mistress of the genre, Laurell K Hamilton, these books are a little bland. Still, if you love the genre alone, then Vaughn's books are a good read. If you enjoy reading about the world through the eyes of someone like you, who's just a little different, then Kitty is your girl.

Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn is published by Gollancz and is available from all good book stores and online.

the historical romance of the elusive bride by stephanie laurens; a regency romp

2010-04-04T01:34:00.000-07:00

Stephanie Laurens is one of Australia's most popular romance fiction authors, in fact, she's been voted the country's favourite romance author at least once.
In The Elusive Bride, Laurens continues the intrigue and romance begun in The Untamed Bride, the first book in her new The Black Cobra Quartet.
Just about all Laurens' books are set in Regency England – lots of dashing heroes, feisty maidens and talk about a 'well-turned leg', highwaymen and inheritances. Exactly the right ingredients for fabulous historical novels.
Now, while the general details of history and dress may be correct in Laurens' books, there is a touch of unreality in the actions of many of the women she describes. It seems that what is generally believed, historically, to have been the social mores and niceties of Regency England, things like no sex before marriage and a complete lack of knowledge about such sex, don't exist in these tales of romance.
While the swashbuckling gentlemen of Laurens' books appear mostly true to historical records, her heroines are much more modern – why, they even seem to go about having affairs and seducing said swashbuckling heroes.
This is great for the story, but perhaps not so historical.If this sort of thing bothers you, then Laurens' romances may not be for you. Still, Laurens' books are fiction and in every good romance there should be a bit of fantasy, right?
So, The Elusive Bride opens with Miss Emily Ensworth racing down a dusty hill in India clasping an important document to her heaving bosom, while blood-thirsty natives chase her. Oh yes, these books tend to be more than a little 'politically incorrect”.
By the way, Emily is in India to find herself a suitable husband. Apparently she's managed to go through all the eligible gentlemen in England and so is reduce to tracking one down in the colonies.
Emily escapes the natives, thanks to the self-sacrifice of a swashbuckling hero, and finds herself meeting up with a group of surly British officers; one of which makes a definite impact on our Emily.
The book proceeds with a feisty Emily deciding that she may have met her 'one' and her attempts to track him down and find out if he's the man she will marry. The poor bloke, of course, knows nothing about this. He's just got to put up with Emily adding herself to his very dangerous mission and trying to defend her from all sorts of other nasty natives – as well as trying not to give in and ravish her on the spot.
The Elusive Bride may not make historical sense, Emily may be a brazen little hussy who needs a good slap and a stiff talking to, but this is an enjoyable read. It isn't serious literature, but nor is it unreadable rubbish.
Laurens has a lovely way with dialogue, her characters are well-fleshed out and the plot mostly makes sense. The fact that no real man of Regency England would allow a woman to interfere with his dangerous mission for the crown, nor would he take her up on a night of hot sex without marrying her or dumping her afterwards, doesn't matter. Who cares about reality when you can just sit back with a nice box of chocolates and indulge yourself in an afternoon of light reading?

The Elusive Bride by Stephanie Laurens is published by Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

heap of reviews coming soon... including robin hobb's dragon haven, horns by joe hill, carrie vaughan's kitty series & reviews of giant robot, yen & surface magazines + more

2010-03-28T12:15:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy with actual work lately - the kind that pays the bills - that I haven't had a chance to get to review all the books I've read over the last week or so. I've also got a couple of great magazine reviews to do as well.
On my list are:
Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb - this is the second book in the Rain Wilds Chronicles and it's every bit as good, if not better, than the first book of the series. I actually read it entirely in one sitting, until about 6am in the morning - on a work night!
Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughan - the next book in the 'Kitty the werewolf radio host' series of stories. Yep, a werewolf called Kitty, ironic, right? This is typical Vaughan; great urban fantasy easy-read.
The Elusive Bride by Stephanie Laurens - completely gooey historical romance; although you could say there's a touch of fantasy to it as well since the very posh bride gets a bit more raunchy than you'd think during the British Raj! Lots of fun to read, though. It's part of Laurens' Black Cobra Quartet.
Horns by Joe Hill - oh, the magnificent Joe Hill! This is a great urban horror story with a touch of grunge, a bit of sex, the devil, snakes and family relationships... Awesome!
As for the magazines ... have just discovered Giant Robot, a Japanese pop culture, art, music, fashion mag from the US, in ENGLISH! I so wish I could read Japanese. Still... this mag is great. Unfortunately though, like a lot of print publications at the moment, it's being threatened with closure if they can't get some cash through the door. So, they've very cleverly asked their supporters and readers for donations. Go to http://giantrobot.com/donate and leave them something. We've got to support all the magazines we can! You can buy Giant Robot at Borders in Singapore; there are six issues a year and you can subscribe via the website.
Also in my magazines to read pile is the latest issue of Yen. This is another funky mag with a Japan / Asia edge to it. Great photo spreads and interesting, quirky left of field content. It's also available from Borders and is published in Australia.
And... got a copy of Surface; the "new version". I have to say, I preferred this mag back in the day when it had a bit more meat to it. I appreciate that times are difficult now, but what used to be a substantial read has been reduced - both in content pages and paper thickness - to a mere shadow of it's original self. Still, great photography and quirky content.
On top of the magazines, I've got a couple of books on the go as well ...
The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan - this is the second book from Ryan set in a world that's been invaded by zombies and reduced to subsistence living. The best-seller, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, was beautifully evocative of a rural idyll with an unseen menace. These aren't typical zombie stories; it's not about the science and the slobber but more about the emotions of seeing your loved ones dead, but walking around. Have just started it, and am already hooked.
Heresy by SJ Parris - got my hands of an uncorrected proof of this one. It's a historical thriller with a touch of the mystical as a former monk in the 1500s gets involved in a series of murders that may have a link to black magic. Again, just started... but so far it's good. Historical detail is great but not so overwhelming to take away from the characters.
So... there you have it. I owe about nine reviews. Will hopefully get them done in the next week; I promise!

through the, dark, looking-glass: a review of alice i have been by melanie benjamin

2010-03-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

A timely release, considering Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin is a fascinating look at the little girl who was the source of the imaginary child, and what became of her as she grew to womanhood.

Alice I Have Been is written from the perspective of the original "Alice"; Alice Liddle. Adding depth to the book are the tantalising rumours and stories about the break in the relationship between Alice's family and the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson — Lewis Carroll's real name — is well known. What really happened, however, remains unclear but Benjamin's book offers one possible senario.

This is an interesting version of the mythology about the genesis of one of the English-speaking world's most popular children's stories. It both adds to, and detracts from, our understanding of Alice in Wonderland.

Read the complete review: Through the dark looking-glass

stayed up all night, until 4am, to finish robin hobb's latest book, dragon haven

2010-03-17T07:37:00.000-07:00

Finished Robin Hobb's Dragon Haven in one sitting. I tried to hold off, really I did, but I just couldn't. Absolutely LOVED it! There is so much depth to her work; the characters, the history, the emotions, the details of entirely new eco-systems. Now, of course, I'm going to be as frustrated as hell until I get hold of the next book!

Get your hands on Robin Hobb's Dragon Haven, book two of the Rain Wild Chronicles.

a very excited reviewer

2010-03-15T02:44:00.000-07:00

Have just received the next book in Robin Hobb's Rainwild Chronicles series! Looks like an all-night reading session tonight! Can't wait! :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

fun vampire romance with tongue, firmly, in cheek from lynsay sands

2010-03-14T03:09:00.000-07:00

If you love a good romance and are partial to a bit of vampire-lore, the whole series of Argeneau Vampire books from Lyndsay Sands will be right up your alley.
There are 12 books in the series so far – Love Bites is the second one and continues to establish the series as a light-as-air confection of tall, dark and handsome strangers, unknowingly-stunning, strong-minded heroines and tongue (firmly) in cheek dialogue.
The book titles themselves give readers a fair idea of what the series is about: Single White Vampire, Tall, Dark & Hungry (yes, really), A Bite to Remember, Bite Me if you Can etc. You just want to grin inanely while reading them and get your hands on them all as soon as possible.
As per their romantic comedy genre, these books are not expected to be taken seriously, but they are expected to enjoyed. Like many romantic genre books, Sands' works are a somewhat guilty pleasure – at least for those who like to pretend they only read serious literature.
In Love Bites, Rachel Garrett, a lovely, but lonely, coroner inadvertently saves the life of one Etienne Argeneau – who turns up at her workplace on a slab. Only, of course, he's not exactly dead – he's just got a stake through the heart that's paralysed him. So, she pulls it out and he pops back to life.
Besides having oddly sensual dreams about the dead guy on the slab, which Rachel realises means she needs to get out more, life goes on. But, of course, their paths are about to cross again and this time it's Etienne's turn to save Rachel. There's a complication, naturally, which is eventually overcome, and, after a lot of sexual fantasies, heavy-breathing and actual sex, everyone lives happily ever after.
Which is great. That's the way these sorts of books are supposed to end up. No, it's not high literature, but it is a great, relaxing, romantic read. There's also a fair bit of pop cultural humour and great sex scenes – what more could you want?

Love Bites by Lyndsay Sands is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

trash on tv equals a trashy read

2010-03-11T05:15:00.000-08:00

Read my latest review posted on The Straits Times website. I just HATED this book so much that I couldn't bring myself to add it to this new blog dedicated to decent literature, especially my favourites of fantasy and sci-fi.

Unfortunately, Sweet Little Lies by Lauren Conrad is so bad, it's not even of the 'so-bad-it's-good' genre! Check out my review: Trash on TV equals a trashy read

kisses for jacqueline carey’s newest novel

2010-03-08T03:47:00.000-08:00

Like the previous review, I was ecstatic to receive a review copy of Jacqueline Carey’s latest book on my desk; so excited I almost faked an illness so I could go home and start reading it straight away.
Naamah’s Kiss is the first in a new series set in Carey’s unique ‘alternate history’ world of Alba, Terre d’Ange and now Ch’in. The previous series have been populated mainly with characters from Terre d’Ange, but this one features a young girl of mixed heritage from the less civilised land of Alba.
Carey’s books are renowned for their potent sexuality, with her Kushiel’s Legacy series conjuring up images of bondage and other alternate forms of physical love.
While this is titillating and surely led to her immediate popularity – particularly the first three books Kushiel’s Dart, Kushiel’s Chosen and Kushiel’s Avatar – the emotional depth of her characters and the detailed imagery of her world have stood Carey in good stead; cementing her place in the fantasy world’s pantheon.
In particular, the books featuring the D’Angeline prince, Imriel de la Courcel, are deeply moving on a number of levels as the boy grows into a man haunted by his mother’s treachery and his desire for the one person he should avoid. These books also look at the impact of honour on love and of love on honour.
Again, Carey’s works are among a handful of books that I read over and over again, much like those from Robin Hobb. So, the new series has been much anticipated.
And I wasn’t disappointed. Naamah’s Kiss is exquisite; the new character of Moirin is as feisty as the original, iconic Phede no Delaunay and brings with her the added interest of inherited magic. Moirin is sent on a mission of sorts, she doesn’t know where she’s going or why, but she realises that she needs to follow the ‘divine spark’ that she carries; graced to her by her goddess.
Adventures in love, loyalty, magic and acceptance lead Moirin from the safety of her reclusive mother’s side, to the far side of the world; Ch’in.
It is clear that Carey’s world is an alternate to our own, laid over our historical Renaissance period – Terre d’Ange is France, Alba is England, Ch’in is China. But this newly realised version is finer, more glittering and less prosaic.
In Carey’s world, gods and angels walked the land, dragons perch on mountain tops and religions are accepting, encompassing and tolerant – after all, the state religion of Terre d’Ange has a precinct dedicated to love in all its forms; and a companion of their god, Naamah, was the first prostitute in recorded history... and she’s worshiped for it!
It is this clever layering of fantasy over reality that makes Carey’s books such delightful reads – they are not truly alien and therefore more easily understood but those who aren’t used to the fantasy genre. More than that, though, is the fact that they are beautifully written.
Carey’s works are not difficult to read – it’s not all highly structured prose and strands of intellectual thought – but they do flow wonderfully, as good fiction should, and bring the reader into her world as easily as looking in a mirror.
As always, I recommend readers start at the beginning with Carey’s early works, but with Naamah’s Kiss you can feel comfortable in reading it as a stand-alone novel – with the joy of more to come.

Naamah’s Kiss by Jacqueline Carey is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

joyful return to the rain wilds world of dragons and more from robin hobb

2010-03-08T02:53:00.000-08:00

You cannot imagine my joy when The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb turned up on my desk. Finally my favourite fantasy author had published a new book, but not only was it from my best-ever author, she'd also returned to my favourite of her imagined worlds.
Robin Hobb is one of the pseudonyms of author Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, who is best known for her series of epic classical fantasy novels that are set in the world of the Six Duchies and the Rain Wilds. She has also written the series The Soldier Son set in entirely different world.
The Farseer Trilogy, The Liveship Traders and The Tawny Man series are all set in the same world as The Dragon Keeper, the first in a new series, The Rain Wild Chronicles. Hobb's world is peopled with humans and dragons, sailing ships that are sentient, and mediaeval machinations. The technology level is relatively low, but the depth of emotion her characters display is what makes her work so wonderful.
In The Dragon Keeper, Hobb returns readers to the Rain Wilds, an area of impenetrable forest with trees so enormous people have built cities in them, with river water so poisonous it rots your boots and with a miasma in the air that touches its human denizens with odd growths and seemingly genetic mutations. The Rain Wilds are also home to magical products and items created by the long-gone Elderlings and a source of the region's trading wealth.
In previous series the true origin of the marvellous 'wizard wood' that was used to build the Liveships – sailing ships that became sentient and had figureheads that speak – has been discovered. The 'wood' was, in fact, the casings of hibernating dragons, containing their memories and sentience. The Liveships are the bastard offspring of murdered dragons and human ingenuity.
But dragons have returned to the world, at least one of them, and the Rain Wilders (the citizens of the Rain Wilds) have been forced by that dragon to help protect then next generation. It turned out that the massive sea serpents that dogged the Liveships were the dragons in larval form. But an ancient disaster – most likely a volcano eruption – had destroyed the dragons' homeland and stopped the serpents from going into hibernation. Hundreds of generations later only a few of the serpents can be coaxed up the poisonous Rain Wild River and into their cocoons.
This is where The Dragon Keeper opens; the first new dragons have broken out of their cocoons but the transformations have not been entirely successful. The dragons are deformed, they're hungry and they don't care for humans. Something needs to be done with them before they destroy the fragile peace in the Rain Wilds.
Like the dragons, Thymara is also unwelcome. Born deformed with the telltale scales and claws of the Rain Wild 'affliction', she should have been exposed at birth, but her sentimental father chose to keep her alive. Now she's an adult and is becoming more and more isolated in her home; she's ostracised and needs to find a new path. The city council's decision to send the dragons off to search for their vaguely remembered city of Kelsingra is the chance Thymara needs.
Now, along with a motley bunch of other misfits, Thymara is a 'dragon keeper', charged with helping to feed, guide and care for her particular dragon. The dragons remember having 'special humans' to assist them in the past and use all their wiles to ensure their new carers dote on their every whim. But not all of the outcast Rain Wilders are unhappy to have been sent away, some are pleased to finally be away from the restrictions of their society and are hell bent on building their own new world, the dragons are just a means to an end.
Along for the ride is a Bingtown matron, newlywed Alise Finbok, who has convinced her society husband to allow her to visit the dragons. Once she discovers that they're about to set off on their own adventure, Alise tags along, much to the disgust of her chaperone, her husband's personal secretary. Alise's story is in strong contrast to Thymara’s; she comes from a privileged background and although unhappy in her marriage, is strung around with her own set of rules.
Once again Hobb has created a series of characters that capture the reader's emotions from the outset. One feels Alise's frustration at society's rules, feels Thymara's regret at leaving her father and her covert excitement at working with the dragons. One rails against the machinations of Sedric, the secretary's, devious notions and one is dying to find out if the dragons' city of Kalsingra truly exists.
Like all her work, The Dragon Keeper is a substantial work. There are numerous storylines and plots that are offered to tantalise the reader, the author knowing that the best way to keep people buying her books is to keep the reader guessing.
Hobb has a deft skill with description, explaining something in the context of her imagined world, while the reader is able to 'read through the lines' so to speak and make their own conclusions. The catastrophe that destroyed the dragons' world is, most likely, a volcano – but the word, unknown to the Rain Wilders, is never mentioned. Likewise, the changes the Rain Wilders undergo are, most likely, related to environmental poisons polluting their genetic makeup – but that's a 'real world' interpretation. Maybe it's magic?
Who cares? The completely engrossing world that Hobb has created is enough for any reader. The finely wrought detail of social mores, tree-bound living, dragon memories and legendary stories is all one needs to enjoy these books. Hobb is a classic fantasy author of stature – she is certain to go into the annals as a champion of the genre.
While, as always in fantasy, it is best if people have read the earlier books – star with The Farseer Trilogy and work outwards – The Dragon Keeper can be read as a stand-alone book. There is enough explanation to assist first-time readers. Readers who love fantasy will surely have experienced Robin Hobb before, but if you haven't, I can't recommend these books highly enough.
I was so engrossed and excited to have this book in my hands that I sat down and read it in one sitting – all through the night! And so, am equally excited to hear that the next book, Dragon Haven, is about to be released; I can't wait.

The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb is published by Harper Voyager and is available from good bookstores and online.

science-fiction with the human touch in alastair reynolds' terminal world

2010-03-07T23:50:00.000-08:00

Alastair Reynolds is by far one of my favourite science-fiction authors writing today. There's a lot of great sci-fi out there, but unfortunately the bulk of it tends to make my head ache. Ben Bova comes to mind – all that technical science stuff is just too much.

What Reynolds does is make the technology understandable to those of us without a degree in physics, and at the same time create characters that we can still relate to. I want my heros of space to have at least some connection to humanity so that I can identify with them – I can't, no matter how hard I try, identify with a green blog of a sillicon-based alien.
So, that's why I was actually excited to get my hands on Reynold's latest – Terminal World. Set on what is possibly still Earth, or an Earth like planet, populated by generally human humanoids – with a few minor exceptions – this novel follows the story of Doctor Quillon. It is, in many ways, a road movie; complete with odd travelling companions, crazy petrol heads, an urgent reason to keep moving and vignettes of human warmth. There are also man-eating robots, mysterious civilisations, genetic wizards and an 'end of the world apocalypse'.
In Quillon's world, practically everyone is living on a space-scraping needle of a mountain named Spearpoint. It's clearly man-made but everyone has forgotten the reason why, if they ever knew it in the first place. There's a quasi-religion that believes in a sort of God in the centre of the thing, but generally people just ignore the complexity of their world and work hard on surviving.
Which is oddly hard considering people have been on the thing for around 5,000 years or so, one would have thought they could have solved most of their daily living problems by now. The thing is, only certain technologies work in certain 'zones' on Spearpoint.
So, you've got the 'Angels' who live at the very top in Circuit City, have the highest level technology and are genetically modified to have wings that enable them to fly. A bit further down you've got Neon Heights with electronics and electricity but no genetic, nano tech, followed by Steam Town – everything powered by steam, of course – and at the very bottom of Spearpoint, Horse Town – yep, animals only.
The reason for these differences in technological levels is to do with the 'zones' which are generally stable but can flux a bit around the edges. In order to travel from zone to zone you need to take 'anti-zonals' but not many people bother to move anyway.
Into Quillon's well-ordered world – he's a coroner – comes a special package; an Angel's body which had landed on Neon City's edge. However the Angel is not completely dead and imparts some unwelcome knowledge to Quillon, leaving him panicked and desperate to flee.
Which starts the whole road journey as the doctor leaves Spearpoint in fear of his life and in search of something that may help fix the problem of the zones; only he doesn't realise that this is a problem for him to fix until later in the story.
Like all Reynolds' books, Terminal World is a substantial read but unlike books in the fantasy genre that generally come in trilogies, the novel is complete in itself. Sure, there's an opportunity for a sequel build into the end, but readers won't be left wanting too much.
The prose is tight, friendly and not tech-speak dense. Explanations for the zones, the planet and Spearpoint gentle inserted into the dialogue and interactions between the characters. Quillon isn't a particularly loveable hero, nor is he swashbuckling in any real way; but he is warmly human.
The action, as with much of Reynolds' work, is fantastically written. It's well-paced, believable and makes you breathless just reading it. There are additional supporting characters that are well fleshed-out; a really great sidekick in the hard-arsed, foul-mouth, soft-hearted Meroka and a touching portrait of a young girl handed an unwelcome genetic heritage.
All in all, Terminal World is a great book. It's right up there with the work of classic sci-fi legends like Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov and well-worth reading.
As with all quality sci-fi, Reynolds' work asks us to ask questions of ourselves about where our society is heading. Will we find ourselves stuck on an anachronistic pillar to forgotten technology surrounded by a hostile and dying world in 5,000 years time? One would hope not; which is why we should all be reading more sci-fi in general and Terminal World in particular.

Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds is published by Gollancz and is available at good book stores and online.

gossip girl with vampires

2010-03-07T23:02:00.000-08:00

Niki Bruce reviews a couple of new young adult vampire novels and discovers they're not too bad.

You knew it had to happen eventually; what with the influx of non-violent, glittering vampires of the Twilight genre, it was bound to happen.
Surprisingly though, Melissa de la Cruz' New York-based series featuring socialites as vampires – Blue Bloods (of course) – isn't that bad. The first in the series, eponymously entitled Blue Bloods and the second, Masquerade, are aimed at young adult readers, as are most vampire themed novels at the moment.
The first book introduces readers to Schuyler Van Alen, who is 15 years old, lives in a rundown, rambling old mansion and goes to a posh prep school, where she doesn't fit in as she's not blonde, busty, rich or out doing things girls her ages shouldn't really be doing. Schuyler has one real friend, a boy called Oliver, a mother in a coma, a dead father and frosty grandmother.
Naturally she's also got a crush on the hottest boy in school – who doesn't give her the time of day – and whose queen bee twin sister goes out of her way to may
ke life hard for Schuyler.
The first half of the book sets up the premise of this exclusive lifestyle with lots of references to fashion labels, bad behaviour and teenage angst – actually kind of boring unless you're a fifteen year old girl, I suppose. The second half, however, is were the supernatural steps in and the vampire motiff takes off.
Like most to the vampires being written about (and turned into film) these days, de la Cruz' vamp lack most of the drawbacks of the traditional form – this lot can endure sunlight (they head to the Caribbean for holidays), eat garlic, wear silver, drink, have sex and procreate. Although the do need blood – unlike the emasculated Twilight version – and enjoy having a number of human 'familiars' who donate. The Blue Bloods also run the local Blood Bank charity which is quietly ironic.
Schuyler discovers she's one of these 'blue bloods' but while coming to terms with that also discovers that this doesn't make her part of the cool group either – she's actually a 'half-blood'; her father was human. So, still looked down upon by her arch-enemy, Mimi Force, Schuyler can't really see any benefit to her new state. And on top of that, someone is going around killing the scions of the Blue Bloods.
There is a lot more background and explanation in Blue Bloods, explaining how these vampires came to be and why they are in America; Masquerade expands upon the mythology with details about the group's history and why they are seemingly both 'young' and yet centuries old. It's a bit complicated but de la Cruz makes it relatively believeable.
Blue Bloods and Masquerade are the first two novels of the series – de la Cruz has already got two more planned and advertised on the inside-front covers of the books; Revelations and The Van Alen Legacy. Assuming the tween set enjoys them as much as I did, the series is sure to take off.
The books are certainly not heavy reading; nor would they be defined as literature. They are, however, well-written for their genre and the character of Schuyler is feisty, punky and vulnerable. She's a much better role model for young girls than the insipid, vapid, boy-obsessed Bella (have you worked out yet that I can't stand the Twilight series?).

Blue Bloods and Masquerade are written by Melissa de la Cruz and published by Atom. These two books are available from good book stores in Singapore and the next three in the series are available online from Amazon US.

a woman's capacity to love

2010-03-03T07:15:00.000-08:00

Niki Bruce reviews Tuscan Rose, historical fiction with a touch of magic realism.

BELINDA Alexandra is an Australian author who has garnered wide acclaim for her novels Silver Wattle and White Gardenia, both of which have strong female protagonists, who battle the vagaries of life before triumphantly overcoming all obstacles.

Like her previous novels, Tuscan Rose, also features a feisty young female heroine – in this case an Italian orphan, deposited at a nunnery – who must overcome not only her lack of family, but later, the vicissitudes of World War II.

Rosa is blessed with a talent for music, nurtured by the nuns of Santo Spirito in Florence, and manages to parlay her skills into a position as a governess at the home of a local aristocrat.

At the same time, Fascism is growing in Italy and war is being whispered about in Europe. A naive young girl, Rosa, manages to get herself caught up in another person's scandal and ends up accused of something quite horrible. Packed off to jail, she is once again accosted by the nastiness of human nature.

Tuscan Rose is a mix of historical fiction, romance and coming-of-age tale. A thin thread of magic realism winds its way through the story, however, offering the story a bit more depth and imagination.

Rosa has another talent – somehow she can tell where things originated. She uses this skill throughout the story to both add mystery to her background and to move the plot along. The search for her heritage is an additional storyline, which unfortunately is rather easy to spot early on in the book. But don't worry, there's a neat twist to even it out in the conclusion.

The plot of Tuscan Rose can be read as quite simplistic, there are the accepted tropes of orphan girl thrust into the world, all unknowing, and overcoming trials and tribulations – even the language used to describe it is cliched – but the book has a saving grace (sorry, couldn't resist).

Alexandra has a lovely turn of phrase and a competent understanding of women and the way they think. There is an acceptance of Rosa's weaknesses – her tendency to be too trusting, her innocence and her fickleness in love – but there is also a celebration of her strengths. Rosa loves passionately and ruthlessly protects those she loves; she endures physical and emotion hardship without complaint and, finally, she takes her revenge coldly but not viscously.

Like women the world over and throughout history, Rosa typifies all that is honourable in a woman's capacity to love. Alexandra manages to endow Rosa with all these attributes without becoming saccharine however, which is to her credit. Rosa's story could easily have fallen into the sappy, love-story genre without the author's deft skill.

True, Tuscan Rose is no great piece of literature, but it is a good read. The historical scholarship is detailed enough to satisfy lovers of historical fiction and the romance and personalities of the characters will entertain readers looking for a gentle read.

Tuscan Rose by Belinda Alexandra is published by HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

First published on The Straits Times blogs on March 02, 2010

a guilty pleasure

2010-03-03T00:31:00.000-08:00

Niki Bruce reviews the latest novel from PS, I Love You author, Cecelia Ahern.

I HAVE to admit I'm not generally a lover of romance novels, or 'chick lit', or popular reads and, as such, tend to shy away from anything that's been talked about on Oprah or given a Woman's Weekly stamp of approval.

However, there is one author who I will forgive these tendencies – Cecelia Ahern, irish author of classic tear-jerkers like PS, I Love You (yes, the one that's been made into a film) and Where Rainbows End.

Even more annoyingly, Ms Ahern is also a former pop singer, rather pretty, has a sister married to a member of Westlife and is the daughter of a politician. So, in addition to being a writer of chick lit, I should despise her for her celeb status and refuse to read her books.

Problem is, Ahern's work is ridiculously good, particularly for her age. Her first novel, the aforementioned PS, I Love You, was number one in Ireland for 19 weeks, number one in the UK, US, Germany and even Holland. And she was only 21 when she wrote it!

Ahern manages to be romantic without being soppy; she has a modern – and obviously young – perspective of love and relationships, which has just as obviously managed to grab the zeitgeist and people's hard-earned cash.

In The Book of Tomorrow, Ahern's latest work, the central character is a young woman, Tamara Goodwin, who has been taken away from all she knows and dropped into rural Ireland with an odd aunt, a tumble-down castle and an annoyingly cheerful nun while her mother vegetates and appears to need some serious medication.

So far; so tear-jerker, right?

Not so. Tamara is horrible. She's a selfish, self-absorbed, arrogant rich-bitch girl-child who sees nothing wrong in spending the average person's weekly wage on a handbag. So, she's not a particularly sympathetic character, despite the fact that her father's just died and left Tamara and her mother destitute.

After all, it's not like they're out on the streets of Dublin, her aunt and uncle have taken them in and seem to be doing everything they can to help Tamara while her mother has a nervous breakdown in the Irish countryside.

Still, Ahern cleverly allows the reader to follow Tamara's inner monologue as she realises that she's in need of a heart and that she is really concerned about her mother's condition.

As Tamara begins to come to terms with her new life, she discovers a mysterious book – a book that will help her not only work out what's going on with her mother, but will also shed some light on a past that Tamara knows nothing about.

Plot spoiler coming up, so if you are planing to read The Book of Tomorrow, skip to the next paragraph. The book of the title is Ahern's touch of magic realism – much like the love letters of PS, I Love You, the book allows the character to move forward and, somewhat similarly, gives shape to the narrative. Without the book offering Tamara different versions of the future, she could just as easily have ended up as a dead-end character going nowhere. The trope is not particularly new, but it is cleverly handled and adds another dimension to what could have been a lack-luster 'coming of age' tale.

Right; so, the book is central to the overall plot, adding another layer of information to the novel which allows both the reader and Tamara to ask questions that move the plot along.

Again, like PS, I Love You, Ahern has managed to create characters that are both realistic and interesting. The plot twists about a bit and the supporting character's all come into their own. There is the obligitory family secret to unearth, a love interest, an embarrassing episode and some crazy people – just like everyone's life, right?

But what makes Ahern stand out from the crowd of chick lit novels is her thoroughly modern sensibility, a lovely turn of phrase and a cheeky sense of humour. You also get the impression that Ahern herself was either just like Tamara or knows girls exactly the same. There's a hint of 'insider story' in The Book of Tomorrow; particularly in the descriptions of clothes, cars, houses and lifestyles.

Still, even if Ahern comes from the same sort of privileged background, she just as obviously has grown up and away from the superficiality of celebrity; just as Tamara grows up and discovers there's more to life than a flash handbag.

The Book of Tomorrow is a guilty secret, I feel prepared to own up to. It's chick lit with life and humour and a great choice for your holiday read.

The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern is published by HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

First published in The Straits Times blogs on October 13, 2009

fabulous collation of fashion

2010-03-03T00:29:00.000-08:00

Niki Bruce reviews Dreaming of Dior and wishes she had a fashion godmother.

SOME people have all the luck. Charlotte Smith, for example, had the luck to be the goddaughter of Doris Darnell, a lovely lady who for many, many years has collected fabulous pieces of fashion.

She was, in fact, Charlotte Smith's "fashion" godmother, since Smith's luck, specifically, was to be the recipient of Ms Darnell's wonderful collection, which has now been turned into a lovely, wee book – Dreaming of Dior.

The book is populated by a collection of delicate illustrations from British artist Grant Cowan and each illustrated dress is teamed up with a description of the garment or its previous owner's experiences while wearing it.

As Smith says in the preface of Dreaming of Dior:

"Then, among the last of Doris' boxes, I found her catalogue notes – the notes of all her stories, of the dresses and the women who wore them. As I pored over Doris' words – her wit, wonder and wisdom – the true value of what I had been bequeathed hit home. This wasn't a mere collection of beautiful things, it was a collection of life. Women's lives."

With her realisation of the sociological importance of her godmother's collection, Smith decided to collate the garments and their matching notes together into this look at women across the years.

While the dresses and the stories of their formers owners are fascinating, the story of Doris Darnell is just as interesting, and quite obviously, just as important to Smith's decision to produce this book.

Mrs Darnell was a life-long Quaker, but she is also described by Smith as the "ultimate fairy godmother". "Tall, elegant, flamboyant and utterly charming, she was exotic and unpredictable in a thrilling way," writes Smith.

The collection covers garments from 1790 to 1995 and includes famous names like Lucile, Dior, Galanos and Jean Muir but also has handmade pieces from the women who wore the clothes. None of the garments were bought specifically for the collection but, rather, were donated by friends, family and acquaintances.

Some of the stories that accompany the images are touching – like that of Mrs Edmund Williams, another staunch Quaker, who in 1900 had made for herself a beautiful lime-green silk gown with striking black velvet trim; due to her strict religion she never wore the gown but said that the enjoyment it gave her was worth every penny spent.

Other stories are family ones where Smith talks about wearing dresses lovingly – and bravely, I would think – loaned to her by Mrs Darnell. On one such occasion Smith wore a 1950s pink ball gown for a wedding in Monte Carlo on the terrace of the Hotel de Paris and ended up meeting Prince Albert.

Smith also inlcudes the story of Mrs Darnell's favourite dress – a peach slipper satin ball gown that she wore the night she met her husband.

While each dress has a lovely anecdote attached, there could have been a bit more attention paid to the editing of the passages.

Yes, they are poignant, and presumably they have been published pretty much exactly as they were written, but there surely was at least Spellcheck run over them; which means that the author could also have taken time to double check style and tone.

For instance ball gown is written as two words, but also as one – "ballgown", there are some passages in first person, and others in third person voice.

It would also have been easier for the reader if each passage had a few details to tie the whole book together; for example the age of the dress, the designer, the former owner's name etc, all laid out for ease of use.

The contents could also have been grouped in chapters, perhaps by age of garments, or occasions or even alphabetically based on designers or even by colours.

The reasoning behind this desire for some sort of catalogue, is a concern that as a useful resource for historians and fashionistas, or even sociologists, there is no index to assist in picking out the right dress.

While Smith seems not to have been interested in presenting Dreaming of Dior as anything other than an homage to her godmother and her collection, it seems a crying shame that such an opportunity to turn this fabulous, and priceless, collection's information into a more user-friendly tome, has been lost.

Still, Dreaming of Dior is a must buy for anyone even vaguely interested in fashion. It is a detailed, if haphazard, look at more than 200 years of women's clothes; and it shows that fashion is as much about the lives of the women who wear it as it is about the styles themselves.

Dreaming of Dior by Charlotte Smith is published by HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

First published in The Straits Times blogs on October 19, 2009

looking sideways at shakespeare

2010-03-03T00:26:00.000-08:00

Niki Bruce reviews Banquo's Son, a new take on the popular tale of Macbeth.

JUST about everyone who reads English has read Shakespeare's Macbeth. Whether in high school or college or university, or simply because you enjoy the Bard's works, Macbeth is one of his most read plays.

Taking just one line from the story – when Banquo and Fleance are ambushed, Banquo holds the assailants off and cries out: "Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! / Thou mayst revenge" – TK (Tania) Roxborogh has created the plot of her novel, Banquo's Son.

In most interpretations of Shakespeare's story, Fleance is an adult and, like his father, a captain in Macbeth's guard. It is Macbeth's fear that Banquo will somehow sire a line of kings for Scotland that leads to his death and the attempt to kill his son. However, Fleance escapes.

Roxborogh's story has Fleance as a child, escaping from the ambush on the back of his father's horse and carrying his father's sword. Fleance eventually comes upon a childless couple – Magness and Miri – who take him in and raise him as their own in England.

Fleance is 21-years-old at the beginning of Banquo's Son, and ready to fall in love, get married and settle down. He knows who he is, yet having no knowledge of current politics is scared to head back to Scotland, either to claim his heritage as a cousin to the King or renew old acquaintances.

However, Fleance is haunted by a ghostly figure and the words of his father – to seek revenge for his death. And when his beloved's father tries to push him into marriage, Fleance realises he must head back to the land of his birth.

What follows is a solid historical adventure story with princesses, a prince, witches, political machinations and Fleance's realisation that there's is more to being an adult than the ability to procreate and swing a sword.

Roxborogh's characters are genuine – both her historical personages and her created fictions – there is an honesty to her descriptions that both endear and delight the reader.

Fleance is not all 'golden hero', he's as bumbling as any young man of his age. The 'good guys' are not entirely good, nor the 'baddie' entirely bad. There is a sense of humanity about the people of Roxborogh's novel.

Banquo's Son has solid historical footings, but the meat of the story is in the relationships and emotions of her characters. There is also a surprising twist towards the end of the novel, but those who know their Scottish history won't be too surprised at the outcome.

For lovers of historical fiction, Banquo's Son is an interesting take on a period of history that has become much confused with Shakespeare's popular play. While, this novel isn't an academic portrayal, it is less histrionic and more realistic than the play.

Roxborogh is in the process of writing a linked story of sorts, Bloodlines, which will be published in 2010, so there's more to look forward to from a writer who offers an interesting take on such a popular story.

Banquo's Son by TK Roxborogh is published by Penguin Books and is available from good book stores and online.

First published in The Straits Times blogs on October 22, 2009

driving sense of humour

2010-03-03T00:24:00.000-08:00

Niki Bruce reviews comedic columns from Clarkson and has a good laugh.

I LIKE cars. I like to drive, I like the look of them, I like the convenience; but I have no real idea of the difference between a V8 and a V12, or why I should prefer one over the other.

So, I'm not obsessed by cars, I don't LOVE them but strangely enough, one of my absolutely favourite TV shows has got to be BBC Two's Top Gear.

This is a show by boys, for boys and run somewhat like an adolescent male's perfect fantasy – before he's quite reached puberty though, as there's no skimpily-dressed pneumatic blondes on this show.

What makes Top Gear one of the most watched info-tainment shows around is the group of slightly dorky, middle-aged, funny blokes who host it – James May, Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson.

Richard Hammond is probably most famous for being short, having blindingly white teeth and surviving an horrific crash while he was driving a jet-powered car for a segment in the show in 2006. The car was reportedly travelling at 300 miles per hour when the crash occurred.

James May, on the other hand, is more a traditionalist. He's been nicknamed 'Captain Slow' on the show, despite being a qualified pilot and having taken a Bugatti Veyron to its top speed of 253.45 mph; but he's basically the straight man for the other two presenters.

Jeremy Clarkson, however, is nominally the 'head boy' of Top Gear, known for his scathing hatred of the British Labour government, the environmental movement, speed limits and just about anything that stops him from driving very expensive cars, very fast, where ever he wants to.

Which is why his latest book, Driven to Distraction is so very, very funny. Clarkson has a very dry sense of humour with that particularly British ability to be self-depreciating and pompous at the same time. This book, if you enjoy clever word usage and rubbishing stupid people and/or government policies, has "laugh out loud" moments on almost every page.

Driven to Distraction is a collection of Clarkson's columns for the Sunday Times

There's a semi-topical intro and lead-in to a description of a car, before a pronouncement of judgement. Generally the columns blend quite well, but some are obvious attempts to link one of his pet issues to a particular car review; still, they are all immensely entertaining.

Clarkson has a particular turn of phrase that offers a mix of public schoolboy enthusiasm with deliberate word-play. His dedication is a prime example: "To everyone who made my Range Rover. Well done, chaps. It's brilliant."

While I enjoy the humour, Clarkson's contempt for political correctness and his tendency to 'stir the pot', I'm not that interested in his detailed descriptions of particular car engines, gear boxes or top speeds.

Still, those sections are easily skipped over if you're not interested and the humour returns. The fact that the book is a collection of columns means that you can read it in convenient snatches of time – it's great for the bus or taxi.

Driven to Distraction will, in fact, make the perfect Christmas present for any male person in your life. I'll probably have to buy a number of them; this year it will be my gift-de-jour for male family members and friends.

Driven to Distraction by Jeremy Clarkson is published by Penguin imprint Michael Joseph and is available from good books stores and online.

First published in The Straits Times blogs on October 28, 2009

rock star writer, neil gaiman

2010-03-03T00:21:00.000-08:00

Niki Bruce experiences the rock 'n roll style of fantasy writer Neil Gaiman.

ALONG with about 800+ other people, I turned up to hear writer Neil Gaiman speak in Singapore at the annual writers festival.

But I wasn't nearly so excited as his hardcore fans, some of whom had turned up at his every appearance during the recent Singapore Writers Festival held over the last week.

After a few dramas, including the apparent scalping of tickets to this Meet the Author event – despite the fact that they were actually free – and a move to a larger venue, Singapore finally got to sit down and listen to the rock star of modern writing chat with adjudicator Lim Cheng Tju, who reviews graphic novels and comics for The Straits Times' Life! section.

Although the show started about 10 minutes late, the rousing applause when Gaiman arrived shook the rafters. A few whistles and catcalls later, and the lanky, curly-haired, black-clad Gaiman settled in for a friendly chat.

Gaiman is currently one of the English language's most popular writers. He's done everything from fantasy novels and children's books to the celebrated The Sandman series of graphic novels.

Known by the mainstream for his work like American Gods and his collaboration with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, Gaiman is just as popular in the more underground world of graphic novels and cartoons.

The adjudicator, Mr Lim, mentioned in his introduction that his first Gaiman book, Good Omens, he bought had been stolen by a girl, and so he'd had to buy another one.

Gaiman laughed in response, telling the crowd that his theory for why Good Omens has sold so many copies is because they keep getting borrowed, so people keep having to buy new ones.

"The originals are always brownish; they've been dropped in the bath at least once and had soup spilled on them," Gaiman joked. "Girls always borrow copies of Good Omens and you never get them back."

A number of Gaiman's books, most notably Stardust and more recently Coraline, have been adapted for film and these topics – Good Omens and film adaptations of his work – topped the hot list of questions asked by the crowd on Sunday.

However Mr Lim launched the session with a question about Gaiman's up-coming 50th birthday; how did he feel about the big 5-Oh?

"Odd, really odd," Gaiman responded. "I've got a really cool life, I've done all I set out to do... if tomorrow my plane goes down, it will be alright."

He then launched into a story about how the only time he'd been worried about flying was on a trip to America in 1988 when he had just begun the Sandman series and was carrying a number of precious drawings by Dave Mckean from Black Orchid with him.

This was just the first in a series of humorous anecdotes that Gaiman indulged in through-out the almost hour-long event. He is, as his fans and readers of his work know, a very funny writer.

What is less well-known is that Gaiman is just as funny in real life – he'd make a great standup comic, or he'd be great on one of those humorous treks around the world like Michael Palin does.

Whatever the organisers of this year's Singapore Writers Festival had to spend to get Gaiman here, was well worth it.

This guy really gave value for money with his friendly, approachable style and 'laugh-out-loud' humour. He also went out of his way to ensure that everyone who brought something to sign, got his signature. Apparently he sat for more than 2 hours on Saturday alone signing books, drawings and graphic novels for Singapore fans.

On Sunday, Gaiman won over the crowd immediately – not that there seemed to be anyone there who wasn't a fan to begin with – with his fabulous description of Singaporeans.

"Singaporeans are very enthusiastic, but in a quiet, polite and very organised way," said Gaiman, going on to make an unflattering comment or two about the Filipinos, which he hastily withdrew, covering with a reference to their "noisiness".

"When I landed in Manilla, I couldn't believe it; they're louder than the Brazilians... and I didn't think anyone could be louder than Brazilians!"

More endearing was Gaiman's theory of a 'secret Singaporean delicacy'. He came up with the theory that 'stuffed author' was a secret Singaporean delicacy, where you take "one graying, older author. Feed him wonderful food until he's completely stuffed, and then slice him up into little pick packages".

Naturally enough, Gaiman gained a another round of applause for this pronouncement. Confirming, yet again, that he is a consummate performer.

Don't get me wrong, Gaiman is not at all calculated; he's just very polished in his delivery. He has obviously learned how to make these sorts of events as fun as possible for every one involved.

The adjudicator also asked the writer if he had a preferred medium to work in, or whether he felt that some stories belonged in particular mediums. Gaiman answered that translation was acceptable, but transliteration was not.

Gaiman said that while he enjoyed the movie versions of Stardust and Coraline, they were the directors' versions, not his. His favourite movie was an 8 minute short he'd shot himself staring Bill Nighy and his girlfriend Amanda Palmer – who accompanied Gaiman on the trip and who received her own round of applause at his mention.

He was also given the opportunity to talk about his latest project, a non-fiction look at the story of The Journey to the West – Gaiman had just returned from his third trip to China doing research and interviews for his book. He seemed quite fascinated by the myth.

After a few more questions from the adjudicator, the session was thrown open to the crowd and interestingly enough, the first question was one about new media – specifically this medium, blogging.

As a former journalist, Gaiman was asked whether he thought blogging would take over from traditional media reporting.

"Blogging is something else; it's commentary," he said in answer. "It isn't somebody going out and seeing something and then telling you what really happened. It's not like journalism where... two reporters brought down a presidency (in reference to Watergate).

"Bloggers don't have the same resources, but blogging is a new communication tool, so maybe it could be used for breaking news?" Gaiman asked back, but left the audience in no doubt as to his stand on the issue.

Other questions followed in rapid order with Gaiman explaining the origin of his nickname of 'Scary Trousers', from graphic novelist Alan Moore; and why there are Hayao Miyazaki references in his work, describing a lovely day he spent with Mr Miyazaki.

Gaiman's voluble answers were finally corralled by the adjudicator and he thanked the crowd and the organisers, before receiving a bit of a standing ovation.

Whereupon practically the entire theatre stood up and raced for the exits, so they could get in line for the book signing. Although Gaiman said he'd ensure that everyone got one thing signed, it still meant that people were lined up from The Arts House, all the way down to the riverside.

Author Neil Gaiman happily signed fans' books after his Meet the Author session on Sunday. ST PHOTO

All in all, Gaiman's Meet the Author session was an enjoyable hour spent listening to an intelligent, humorous man with a unique take on the world. For his fans, it was obviously the best time of their lives; with many of them attending not only Gaiman's events but also the performances of his girlfriend, Amanda Palmer.

If there was anything at all off-putting about the double act that is Gaiman and Palmer, it was their constant references to each other at all their events. Yes, they are obviously madly in love with each other, and think their lovers' work is the best thing since sliced bread, but possibly they should be slightly less 'joined at the hip'.

But, that could just be the cynical journalist in me; nobody else seemed to have a problem with the pair's gushing descriptions of how fabulous their other half is. Besides, they are both damn good at what they do, so maybe they're justified in their gushing?

Still, kudos goes to the organisers of the event and to whoever chose to give Singapore the darkly, glimmering show that is the rock star writer, Neil Gaiman.

Neil Gaiman's works are available at good book stores and online. Amanda Palmer is the lead singer of Dresden Dolls, as well as an independent performer in her own right. Her work is available from good CD stores and online. The Singapore Writer's Festival is a bi-annual event.

First published in The Straits Times blogs on November 02, 2009

vampires, fairies, finding the dead

2010-03-03T00:18:00.000-08:00

Niki Bruce reviews two books from supernatural thriller author Charlaine Harris.

THE edgy, punchy, sexy series that is True Blood on HBO may have finished its second season in Singapore, but if you're still after tales of vampires, werewolves and fairies you can get stuck into Charlaine Harris' collected short stories about Sookie Stackhouse with A Touch of Dead.

A Touch of Dead has five stories based on the world of Sookie Stackhouse, the human who can read minds, dates vampires and whose brother is a were-panther. The original Sookie stories are now being translated in to an award-winning series on HBO and stars Anna Paquin as Sookie.

As Harris says in her introduction to the collection, Sookie's world is a complex and complicated one and the author was concerned about attempting to condense it into the short story format. She even admits that some of her efforts were more successful than others but, also says that she enjoyed the exercise:

"It's been hard to fit the stories into Sookie's larger history without leaving seams. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes not. In this edition, I've tried to smooth out the edges of the story that was the most fun to write but wouldn't fit in its chronological hole no matter how I pounded (Dracula Night)."

Dracula Night sees the local vampire bar, Fangtasia, celebrating Prince Dracula's birthday – kind of like the vampire version of Christmas. The twist is that their hero may actually attend the event. Eric Northman, Sookie's sometime lover in the later books of the series but still an unknown enemy in the TV version, is particularly enamoured of the idea of a visit from Prince Dracula. Needless to say, Sookie manages to get an invite and happens to be in the right place at the right time once again.

What is interesting reading these stories is that the characters now take on the visual images of the actors who portray them on TV. Sometimes this works, Paquin is a good choice for Sookie; sometimes it doesn't. Still, it can be a little off-putting.

But the generally light-hearted stories in A Touch of Dead are a great antidote to the heavily detailed and often emotionally tortured stories of Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books. There's a bit of death in Fairy Dust – when fairy siblings who work at a strip joint (don't ask) go after a murderer – there's some magic in Lucky – when a local witch tries to do the right thing and ends up doing the opposite and some raunchy sex in Gift Wrap – which is just that, a gift wrapped in some sexy packaging.

If you love the Sookie Stackhouse series then it's worth getting your hands on A Touch of Dead to have the whole set and to while away the time until Harris produces the next novel in the series.

A busy author, Harris has also just released the latest book in her other supernatural series about Harper Connelly, Grave Secret.

Harper, like Sookie, is human but she's been touched by the supernatural; Harper can feel the dead. It doesn't matter how old they are, Harper can find sense their graves and, in doing so, find out how they died.

Needless to say, she's useful if you're a police officer but not if you're a murderer, so she's generally getting into trouble, one way or another.

Harper travels with her 'brother' Tolliver, who is also her lover. But before it gets too icky; they're not actually related to each other, being step-siblings from an unholy union of two drug addicts, they have looked after each other all their lives.

Grave Secrets sees the pair return to their hometown for the first time in years in an attempt to trace their missing older sister, Cameron. Picking up some work at the same time, Harper discovers that a very rich man may have had an illegitimate child – that may also have been murdered.

Tolliver's former drug addict, ex-prisoner father is also back on the scene and as family complications ensue, the pair get shot at, chased and learn the terrible truth about what may have happened to their sister.

Harris' skill at making her characters and their stories approachable and 'real' is what makes her supernatural-themed stories more substantial than the usual 'sexy vampire' pap that seems everywhere these days.

Sookie is a real person; she's insecure, funny, caring and looking for love. Harper is just as real; she's in love, damaged by her past and coming to terms with her future.

The fact that both women have special 'talents' doesn't make them any less real for the reader who likes to dream that there's a wider world of wonder out there.

Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online. A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris is also published by Gollancz and available from good book stores and online.

First published on The Straits Times blogs on November 12, 2009

not flash enough for television?

2010-03-03T00:16:00.000-08:00

Niki Bruce reviews the original source of a TV show and finds it very different.

CURRENTLY showing on Channel 5, the Flashforward TV series is based on the book by the same name, but with major plot differences, by Robert J Sawyer.

Although the basic premise – that something causes people around the world to pass out and dream about jumping forward in time – is the same in the book and the series, substantial details are not.

Most notably, the central characters in the book version are physicists based at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, in Switzerland. In the TV version, the central characters are much more exciting – FBI agents based in Los Angeles.

All of this, to my mind, actually takes away from Sawyer's very interesting storyline and also, quite horribly, destroys the whole premise that is the 'flash forward' phenomenon.

Basically in the book, the flash forward occurs because of an experiment with the Hadron Collider, it is the cause of the action that is the basis of the story. In the TV show the reason behind why the flash forward occurs is something to do with an experiment at Stanford University.

This is where the show's producers have given a token nod to Sawyer's book – the character at Stanford is called Dr. Lloyd Simcoe, much reduced from his central role in the original version. Obviously the TV guys didn't think a series with a balding, 40-something physicist working in Switzerland would be a ratings winner.

And this is also why the TV is nonsensical. Don't get me wrong; I'm all for fantasy and science fiction with crazy plots and unbelievable storylines, but they should make some sort of basic sense.

In Sawyer's book, there are great swathes of physics, paragraphs on mathematics and philosophy and also musings about guilt and personal choice – all of which give the reader something more meaty to think on.

Would you really want to know the future if you knew you were going to be dead? Or working in a dead-end job, married to the wrong person or not married to the person you now love?

Or, on the other hand, would you want to know the future if it could tell you what you should be studying now? Or could tell you how your children are going to turn out; or could let you know that you'll be happily married to the person you love?

Sawyer's version of Flashforward is more philosophical, it's more complex and detailed, and naturally enough, that's not good TV.

Admittedly the producers of the show say that it is 'loosely based' on Sawyer's book, but from what I've seen the two entities are on opposite sides of the entertainment universe.

I suppose what is most annoying is that the name is the same. And the publishers of the book, Gollancz, are pitching it as being linked to the TV series, which is doing quite well around the world.

This is rather disingenuous, as the TV show is really nothing like the book and it looks more like the publisher is simply trying to travel on the coattails of the show, which is in some way demeaning for the novel which deserves better.

If you enjoy juicy technical science fiction rather than TV-land pap, go for Sawyer's version. You won't be disappointed and you'll learn things about physics that you would never have imagined.

Flashforward by Robert J Sawyer is published by Gollancz and is available from good book stores and online.

First published on The Straits Times blogs on November 17, 2009