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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

blending east with west

Niki Bruce speaks to Kylie Chan about Chinese gods living in modern Hong Kong.

THE first time I picked up one of Kylie Chan's books, I have to admit that I was a little bit jealous. Chan's fantasy stories that mix ancient Chinese myths and legends, gods and demons with modern society were exactly the type of themes that I'd once thought of writing about.
 
So, while I was a bit disappointed that it had already been done, I was even more excited to have something to read that I knew I'd be both interested in and would understand.
 
Chan's first trilogy – White Tiger, Red Phoenix and Blue Dragon which made up Dark Heavens – followed the life of an ordinary Australian young woman living in Hong Kong and working as a nanny to a mixed-race child whose father seemed to be an ordinary Chinese businessman.
 
The nanny, Emma, eventually discovers that her new boss is not only not ordinary, he's not even human. John Chen is in fact is a 3000 year old Chinese god; the god of martial arts. The Dark Heavens trilogy follows Emma as she becomes a practitioner of martial arts, falls in love with a god and fights demons from Hell to protect her charge, Simone – who is actually a Celestial Princess.
 
What really makes these books come alive, is not just the detailed information about the Chinese myths and legends – the Jade Emperor, the Monkey God, dragons, phoenixes and all kinds of other mystical beings – but the warmth of Chan's human characters and the depictions of Hong Kong where the stories are set.
 
The writing is classic fantasy with action scenes neatly slotted between more philosophical slabs of information and background. The dialogue is good, there are not too many diversions into descriptions of technical things like Chinese spelling and the pace is very balanced.
 
Chan's writing style is quite casual, dare I say, very 'Australian' in its rolling syntax and the way it embraces the reader. While Dark Heavens and the new book Earth to Hell wouldn't necessarily be described as high literature, they are very well written with a non-intellectualism which allows for easy reading and an easy understanding of the complicated plots and histories of Chinese mythology.
 
Chan herself spent a long time living in Hong Kong – she is an Australian national who married a Hong Konger – and so some of the characters are based on herself, her friends and her family. Although she admits that John Chen, the romantic hero, is not exactly based on her now former husband.
 
In an interview from her current home in Brisbane, Australia, Chan laughingly admitted that John Chen was more like 'a preferred type of husband', rather than based on any real person. Simone, however, was based on her own, mixed-race daughter when she was younger.
 
It was Chan's immersion in Chinese culture while living and working in Hong Kong that actually led her to develop both her interest in Chinese mythology and to writing the books.
 
"It was so hard (to find information), there is so little written in English about Chinese mythology," she explained. "When I got married there were always people talking about things and making assumptions about things I should know about."
 
Chan said that most Chinese just "know" about the myths and legends, as it's assumed knowledge that they've picked up from their grandparents and family members. The fact that she's been successful in tracking down the information and blending it with modern life in what's coming to be known as Urban Fantasy, is clear.
 
"I get lots of messages and comments from young Chinese, Chinese Australians and even Vietnamese saying 'thank you' for explaining it all. They say that while their grandparents may have known all this stuff, their parents often avoid it, saying it's just 'old-fashioned superstitions' and the young people want to learn about their culture. It's particularly had if they can't read Chinese," Chan explained.
 
As for adding the modern day to the mix, Chan said that she thought it would be fun and allowed her to play with the incongruence of ancient gods dealing with modern contraptions like mobile phones, computers and access to the rest of the world.
 
Another aspect that makes Chan's books an interesting fantasy read is that fact that her characters are far from perfect: "I wanted real people's reactions to these things, often fantasy characters are too perfect and they're not 'real'. This makes them more sympathetic. Although people have complained both that they're not heroic enough and that they are still too heroic. Well, you can't please everyone all the time!"
 
In Earth to Hell, Chan continue the story of Emma and Simone – John disappeared in Blue Dragon, sacrificing his humanity for his family – it's eight years later and Simone is a teenager, while Emma is attempting to keep the Wudang Martial Arts School running, as well as John's Kingdom on the Celestial plane.
 
The family has also been reduced by the absence of Leo – John's black, gay, HIV positive retainer who is sitting in Hell refusing to be raised to an Immortal because he believes he failed his lord. Leo is one of Chan's most 'real' characters and adds another layer of modernity to her story themes.
 
Earth to Hell is the first in the new series – Journey to Wudang – and was a long time coming for many of her fans. Between the end of the last trilogy and the beginning of this one, Chan says "life just got in the way". With a divorce, a move back to Australia and working full-time, it's understandable why it took so long.
 
However, Chan assured me that the next one – under the prosaic working title of Book Five – is already almost finished and will be available around the middle of this year. Then there will be Book Six as well as a third trilogy which will be the "final showdown".
 
Chan is still obviously overwhelmed by both the success and the support she has received for her work – during the interview she laughs a lot, says thanks a lot and modestly receives praise. She's very excited that the first trilogy is about to be released in the UK and America for the first time after being picked up by Angry Robot – a rising imprint of HarperCollins.
 
Although, getting her work translated into Chinese is a "terrifying thought" for the author as she's concerned about what Chinese people would think of her "white girl's interpretation of Chinese mythology", but she seems quietly hopeful.
 
As an avid fan of the books, I was excited to be able to pick the author's brain on some of the cliffhangers and major questions that run through the stories. While Chan was happy to confirm a few of my guesses, she wouldn't give away too much about the main question – will Emma and John end up together?
 
I didn't mind too much; after all I will definitely be reading every book as it comes out, so I'll find out eventually. Besides, some mystery has to remain.

Earth to Hell by Kylie Chan is published by Voyager, an imprint of HarperCollins and is available from good book stores and online.

First published on The Straits Times blogs on January 19, 2010