Review – Marked, P.C. & Kristin Cast
By David Jooste
Hey guys and girls, especially the girls this week, and some guys I guess. 
This week a bring you a review of Marked, the first book in the House of Night series.
Zoey Redbird is just you normal everyday teenage girl, till the day she gets marked as a soon to be vampire.
Zoey’s world is turned upside down as she is thrust into this new world hidden in the depths of the night. A normal school with teachers and classes, everything you would expect from school, even the cute boy and the school b*. Then of course there is the fact that classes run from 8pm till 3am and everyone’s vampires.
Behind all this is still a deeper mystery, why was Zoey chosen by the Vampire Goddess Nyx as here vessel, why was she given such powerful abilities , why is she nearly a fully developed vampire when it usually takes four years to turn completely
But the biggest mystery of all, what is really going on at the House of Night?
Well there you have a summary of the story.
From the start you can see that this book is aimed at the young female market, and I’m sure they will love it. From the terminology used, issues the characters are faced with, down to the finest detail. Girls will love it and immediately find themselves relating to the characters.
It is definitely well written towards its intended market. Well done.
The best I have seen it described, and i thought so myself was Harry Potter + Twilight = Marked. And that is exactly what you get at the basis, still the story is so much more than that.
The storyline is not too complicated and it has a nice smooth flow. For first time readers it will be a joy and for the rest it will still offer an interesting experience.
Now I’m a huge vampire fan; Stephenie Meyer, Ann Rice, love them all. In House of Night however vampire takes on a whole new existence.
No makers or sires, you are simply destined to become one.
However there is still the little problem of hoping your body accepts the 4 year long transformation you go through at the school, if not sorry you die. 
Still the authors made it work for them in this setting, good on you.:-)
Personally I was not that impressed at the start but it eventually grew on me till I could not put it down, was even a little upset when the book ended so quickly.
Still it has a great ending and it leaves a nice bit of mystery open for the next installment, Betrayed.
The characters are also loveable, from our lead Zoey, to her best friends Stevie Rae, the Twins and Damien. Even the antagonist Aphrodite, is perfect in here role.
Zoey goes thorough some major changes in her life; a new school, a new state of being, her gifts, and the role that she discovers she needs to play.
Through this first book you see how she develops from here insecurities to the self confident person she becomes towards the end of the book. You also find her discovering her place at the House of Night and finally fitting in and belonging somewhere.
Over all this is a great book for the younger readers as they find the characters in situations similar to the ones they themselves might face daily. It develops into a smooth flowing storyline and the characters do grow on you.
More mature reader however might not find it as enticing. It does after all deal with mainly teenage girl type issues.
7/10
Now for a further tit-bit of new on the House of Night series, after making sure, it seams that House of Night will also be turned into a series of movies , stating with Marked. The first one, as far as i could find out, is set for release in 2011.
If you want to find out more about House of Night then you can find the offical website for the series here, and it’s definately worth the look.
Or if you would like to buy the book our SA readers can find it here,
UK readers can find it here, and US readers can find it here.
Spotlight: In his own words – Christopher Ransom (The Birthing House)
Hey guys and girls! As promised, I’ve got something for from Christopher Ransom for you.
He’s written the sure-to-be-chilling The Birthing House, a new title that Publishers Weekly says is “A blend of supernatural horror and psychological thriller, Ransom’s impressive debut chronicles a couple’s descent into madness after they purchase a 140-year-old Victorian house in rural Wisconsin . . . this addictively readable ghost story will keep readers up all night, with the lights on, of course.”
Following on from the Book Trailer and Excerpt in my last post, I have an essay for you that Christopher wrote, explaining why he wrote The Birthing House. Enjoy!
SOMETHING BIRTHED THIS WAY COMES
Or, How and Why I Wrote My First Novel, The Birthing House
Sometime around 1979, my father announced to my older brother Mike and me that he had installed a PIRATE ANTENNAE, so we could now watch HBO for free! ‘But don’t tell anybody,’ he warned us. ‘It’s sort of illegal. And your mom will probably give me hell about it.’ In an effort to get the most out of his purloined ‘cable’ service, Dad’s policy on what the kids were allowed to watch was, shall we say, lax.
Following this domestic technology revolution, we Ransom boys were exposed to Richard Pryor: Live in Concert, Alien, Urban Cowboy, My Bodyguard, Jaws, The Blue Lagoon, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Convoy, Hooper, Alice, Sweet Alice, The Elephant Man, and Dressed To Kill among many others.
Fighting. Drinking. Cussing. Cars and stunts. Guns and knives and blood. Monsters and human monsters, aka crazy people, and, when you were really lucky, naked breasts. I remember looking at my brother in the dark, our eyes this wide, sending each other the same message – Can you believe Dad’s letting us watch this? and, Don’t you dare tell Mom, you little shit!
There were a lot of pirated movies. But the one that really stands out for me is, of course, The Shining. I don’t remember much about that Saturday night. Just that there was very little talking going on while we watched.
The little boy running in the snow in that maze. And the cackling woman in the bathtub. And the twin girls in the hallway. And the axe landing in that man’s chest, and the geysers of maroon-black blood that flowed from the elevator.
This was 1981 or so.
I was nine.
Then came Cujo, on the eve of my 6th grade year. I saw that little summer surprise in the movie theater. Twice. A few months later I was strolling through the book fair being held in our elementary school cafeteria when I stumbled across a little paperback. Had the same cover art as the movie poster. Ominous farmhouse in the background, the white picket fence with Cujo spelled out in dripping bloody letters.
‘Now There’s a New Name for Terror’ it said, and there was, but it wasn’t Cujo.
The name was . . . well, you all know the name, don’t you? A light went off in my eleven-year-old brain. I’d seen the movie. Now I could read the book and do it all over again, everyday for optional reading time!
Okay. My parents were divorced. They were not wealthy. Their friends were contractors, teachers, barbers, realtors, lawyers, and gas station men. Some of these people had problems that even an eleven-year-old could see. In short, I knew people like the Trentons and the Cambers, the white and blue-collar families in Cujo. I recognized them. I knew my parents loved me very much, like the Trentons loved their boy Tad. But sometimes life throws you a rabid dog. We had been through rough times, but we’d been lucky so far. I hadn’t been trapped in a car for three days, dying of thirst while under attack by man’s best friend.
Not long after cracking the opening chapters of Cujo, my 6th grade teacher Mrs. Schrag, a good teacher who could go from motherly sweet to drill sergeant stern in about half a second, interrupted optional reading time and called me to her desk. I went to her, holding Cujo in my hand.
‘Christopher,’ she said, her brow hunching steeply. ‘That book you’re reading.’
‘Yeah?’
‘That’s a Stephen King book.’ A new name for terror, indeed. ‘Are you really reading that?’
‘Whattya mean?’
‘Do you . . . ah . . . understand it?’
‘Cujo? Oh, yeah, sure,’ I lied. ‘Uhm. Most of it. I think.’ Better.
‘I see.’ Mrs. Schrag had a hard eye for liars, and she was pressing me with it full force. ‘Do your parents know you’re reading that?’
‘Oh, yeah! My mom bought it for me.’ This was true. ‘And it’s okay, I saw the
movie. Twice! It was awesome!’
Mrs. Schrag’s eyes darted around the classroom to be sure no one was listening. She leaned over her desk, grabbed my arm and whispered, ‘I know. I saw it too! Wasn’t it great? I just love all of his books!’
Mrs. Schrag and I understood each other after that. Later in the year she recommended Pet Sematary to me. I read all of the King books, then Dean Koontz, Clive Barker, Robert McCammon, Dan Simmons, and so many others.
There are many reasons that I was never really a good student after the age of thirteen, but dark literature and scary movies sure ain’t one of them. I found trouble enough as a teen, but I shudder to think what kinds of trouble I would have found for myself without the books.
I dropped out high school at age seventeen. I took some college courses, earned a few As in my writing classes. But in addition to majoring in Beer Guzzling, I kept finding myself staying up late with my nose in some horror novel or another, unable to focus on the ‘serious literature’ I was being prescribed by my professors. Oh, if only they had been offering course titled ‘Ghosts, Pimps, Cops and Ho’s: Genre Fiction in America’!
I read a lot – just not textbooks. I had no interest in college, and so I made myself a deal. I agreed to let myself fail, again. On one condition. I vowed to become a professional author. I would become real writer – even if it took a decade, twenty years, a lifetime. Because in writing, the only failure is to quit.
I filled journals, I penned sappy poems, I labored over a couple dozen short stories. I moved to New York. I worked lots of jobs. I wrote millions of words. I moved to Los Angeles. I got married. I wrote eight screenplays, including romantic comedies, neo-noir thrillers, and two sort-of-horror scripts.
I amassed some four hundred rejection letters and sold not a single story.
I was failing, again.
But why? What had I been doing wrong?
The answer is, I no longer loved writing. Working on screenplays, I had fallen into a creative coma. I wasn’t following my heart. I had always loved novels more than movies. I had always loved dark fantasy and thrillers and horror fiction more than romantic comedy and pretty much everything else I’d detoured to write.
So I wrote my first novel, a psychological horror-thriller called The Birthing House. It took three years, working seven days per week, nights and weekends when I was not working at (and commuting an hour each way to) my full-time job as a copywriter for Famous Footwear.
Two bestselling authors read early drafts and provided unsolicited quotes in support. I landed a passionate, gun-slinging agent named Scott Miller. He sold the novel almost exactly fifteen years after I made that promise to myself.
But why? Why now, and more to the point – if I had found that which moved me above all others when I was a teenager, why did I not begin my first horror novel until age thirty-two?
The quick answer is, I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t experienced anything worthy of a novel, and I didn’t have the emotional stamina and discipline to spend three years writing one. But the other answer is probably the most-fitting answer: fear. I was afraid to attempt what my heroes did year-in and year-out, which is delve deep into themselves and write about what scared them most.
But here I must give credit to the house itself, because she played a role . . . and then some.
In 2003, my wife and I decided to leave the Big City life behind. While knocking around Wisconsin we discovered Mineral Point, a charming town of approximately three thousand souls, located some fifty miles southwest of Madison. Art galleries, historic buildings, and an honest-to-God Ben Franklin five-and-dime. Old trees and old houses, many of them Victorians at prices that, compared to Los Angeles, seemed astonishingly low. We toured a few of these charming homes, found one on a half-acre lot, with a small library on the second floor, and bought it (relative to Los Angeles) for a song.
Only after we had moved in did I realize that our lives had taken on the trajectory of the first hundred pages of a horror novel. You know how it goes – young couple moves from the city to a small town in rural America to start a new life, only to discover that their new neighbors are the offspring of a centuries-old satanic cult that’s just decided to bring back the annual tradition of roasting the new City Boy and His Purty Wife over the communal Halloween bonfire.
Alas, our new neighbors turned out to be some of the kindest and most genuine people we have ever known. But we did discover something odd about our new residence. Shortly after we finished unpacking, the former owners showed us a hundred-year-old, sepia-toned photo of a group of women standing on our porch. Dark dresses and pale countenances. Some were wearing aprons, others were wearing nurse caps. None were smiling. This did not appear to be a family gathering.
Our hundred-and-forty-year-old home was once a birthing house, we were told. A what? Yeah, a birthing house. You know. Doctor’s quarters. Midwives. Wet nurses. A birthing house. Neat, I guess. I forgot about the photo a week later.
So my wife and I began the first year in Wisconsin doing what you do to ‘start a new life’. Look for jobs, find the good restaurants, make new friends. We also began to talk about having children in ways we never had before. Neither of us were in a hurry, but I kept asking myself, what are we doing out here in the sticks, in a four-bedroom house? Besides enjoying a slower pace and the clean air? Did we come here to have children?
Time to quit dallying and write that novel. They say one should write the book one would love to read but can’t find in a bookstore. Well, I hadn’t read a good haunted house story in a long time. I mean the kind that grips your throat while you’re in it.
I also knew that I wanted to do something scary and full of sexual tension. I’d been reading a lot of Colin Harrison – Afterburn and The Havana Room are two of my very favorite novels, not least because of how deftly Harrison weaves sex and food and money and race and class and more sex into his characters’ lives, their motivations, and the larger dynamics of the urban noir. Because come on, isn’t that what drives us, so much of the time? Our appetites?
I certainly thought so. Because during those years of living in New York and Los Angeles, I experienced – and witnessed my friends engaged in – an almost constant tug-of-war with temptation. Jobs for more money. Drugs for more fun. New partners for more sex. New choices for a whole new lifestyle. It seemed as if everywhere I turned someone I knew was up to something your parents warned you to avoid. And for a short period it almost seemed . . . normal. At least until the hangover set in and your dreams, or your family, had gone up in smoke.
It was perhaps too easy to imagine taking the big job, experimenting with the next drug, and falling into some stranger’s bed. But if those alternative paths were easy to imagine, then so were the consequences. And no vision frightened me more than the prospect of losing my wife, my best friend, the woman I had been writing for all along. The pain I would inflict and the hell my life would become if I gave into that temptation, were so ugly and disturbing to contemplate that I never crossed the line.
Instead, I told myself to get back to work. I wrote about crossing the line.
Isn’t that what readers want from authors of the dark? Our gravest fears playing out on the page? The Shining is, after all, not only about a haunted hotel and a psychic little boy. It’s about alcoholism and the legacy of family violence. It’s about a boy who foresees his parents’ divorce, and worse, their approaching REDRUM. Cujo is not only about a rabid Saint Bernard. It’s about how the career demands that separate man and wife can lead to infidelity and become a rabid dog that kills your kids.
The human sex drive. It’s partly responsible for the continuation of the species, but it can, when left unchecked, also give birth to a monster. So here were my ingredients: a childless couple with a history of deceit, a house built for birth, and several ghosts of women past. Things going bump in the night, things going bump in the writer’s mind.
I felt the first contractions. Ready or not, something was about to be born. Then one night I had a real humdinger of a nightmare. One that did not end when I woke up. And I’m not making this part up, folks. Trust me.
In the nightmare I was with one of my ex-girlfriends and we were close to . . . becoming intimate, is the polite way of saying it. I was reaching out to her, this shadowy beauty from my past, but something was holding me back, forbidding me. In the dream I was aware that I was in a bed, and there was a great weight pressing down on my body, ethereal but strong, like a force field of smoke crushing me into the mattress.
Then my ex-girlfriend was gone and I began to wake up, sort of stranded between the dream and the part where you wake up screaming, and I could not see it – this force – but I sure as hell felt it, and then knew somehow that it wasn’t an ‘it’ at all, but a her.
The woman hovering over me was not my ex-girlfriend, and she was certainly not my wife, who lay sleeping soundly next to me. I was on my side facing my wife, almost flat on my stomach, so I could not look up or behind me to the side of the bed. But I felt a curtain of black hair tickling my shoulders as she leaned over the bed and whispered in my ear.
‘Stay . . . stay down.’
It was at that time I experienced a sublime terror. I woke all the way up and the pressure lifted. I rolled onto my back and pulled covers up and blinked into the pitch-blackness of our bedroom, trying to see her. To see if she was still in there with me. And then I remembered the sepia-toned photo of the women standing on the porch of our house a century ago.
Midwives, wet nurses, maids. Mothers gone astray.
And I thought, What if one of them is still here? What if she suffered a loss . . . and wants compensation?
So, after spending the rest of the night in a delirium of cold sweat, I had my novel. Well, not my novel. But I had what better writers than I have called the hard, unshakable center, that seed from which all else would spiral out.
One can never know, but I suspect that this may be the last time in my life I am handed the gift of a premise for a novel by way of a real estate transaction and a nightmare. Was it really the house that gave me the novel? Or one of the women? Go ahead and laugh, but I have wondered.
All I know for certain is that the birthing house and The Birthing House taught me to love writing again. Wherever I go from here, I hope I don’t have to move halfway across the country to find my next book. I’ve come to love this old girl, her warm hearth, her cozy little library. And since writing a novel inspired by her and the women who once ushered in new life under her roof, she lets me sleep soundly.
Most nights.
CTR
Summer, 2008
Hope that gave you some insight into the man behind the book!
Be EPIC!
P.S. Stay locked on the blog – tomorrow I’ll have an interview with Christopher for you – not one that I did with him, unfortunately, but it should still be good, nonetheless.
Book Trailer: The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom
Yup, I’ve got another awesome book trailer for you all! Check it out!
Liked the trailer? Now here’s an exclusive EXCERPT for you all to read!
THE BIRTHING HOUSE
an excerpt
from the novel
They were in the house a week before it came for him.
Joanna Harrison was dozing on the couch in the TV room while her husband stood on the deck, breathing through a sweet clove cigarette that burned his throat and floated a candy cloud above his empty thoughts. The cigarette was the kind found on the back covers of men’s magazines, the smoke of wannabes. What Conrad wanted to be this night was content, and, for a few more minutes of this vanishing sunset hour, he was.
Content equally with himself and his lot: a full acre of sloping lawn, century-old maple and black walnut trees, and a garden as large as a swimming pool, its aged gray gate roped with grape vines. Raspberry and clover grew thick in the shade of the shaggy pines still moist with the day’s sweet rain.
He heard running water and looked through the window into the kitchen. Her blurry, sleepy-slouched shape hovered for a moment, probably filling a glass to take to bed. He waved to her. She either did not see him or was too tired to wave back. She turned away and faded back into the house.
He wanted to follow her, but he waited. Let her brush and floss, finish with a shot of the orange Listerine before she turned back the freshly laundered Egyptian cotton. You can’t rush these things. These are delicate times. Eyes closed, he could almost see her stretched out in one of her tanktinis and cotton boy-cut underwear, a big girl-woman reading another marketing book he always said were made for people on planes. She must be happy here. Otherwise, she would be cleaning and planning and avoiding bedtime.
Summer had arrived early. The house was muggy. He wondered if she would be warm enough to go without covers, but cool enough to allow his touch.
He had been shocked to discover that he wanted her more now. He was still madder than hell about the entire stupid scene with That Fucker Jake and all its implications, its mysteries. But he knew the balance of things and how he’d not been holding up his share of them was half the problem. Maybe more than half. She’d almost slipped away. Even before that nasty little homecoming it had been months, and since the fresh start (that was how he thought of it, but never named it as such, not aloud) he’d been watching for signs. If Luther and Alice were in their crates, that was one sign. If she had showered that was yet another, though never a binding one. None of the signs were binding, which added suspense to the marriage and kept his hopes in a perpetual swing from boyish curiosity on one side to blood-stewing resentment on the other.
He walked up the deck steps to the wooden walkway, into the mudroom. He climbed stairs (the servants’ stairs off the kitchen, not the front stairs with the black maple banister, which for some reason he had been avoiding since the move) and felt the weight of the day in his bones.
By the time he finished brushing his teeth he was tired the way only people who have unpacked ninety percent of their possessions in a single day can be tired. His mind was empty, his muscles what his mom said his father used to call labor-fucked, the old man’s way of suggesting that work is its own reward.
I’m sorry, Dad-
Work. He knew his hands still worked for her. He thought she liked his hands better than just about every other part of him. He no longer relied on his appearance as the catalyst, didn’t know many men married more than a few years who did. He knew he wasn’t a Jake. At thirty he was what divorced female bartenders had from time to time called cute, no longer handsome, if he ever was. He felt remarkably average. He had acquired a belly, but the move had already burned that down from a 36 to a 34. With the yard work he’d be down to a 32—his high school Levi’s size—by the end of June. Jo always said she liked his laugh lines, the spokes radiating from what his mother used to call his wily eyes. Wily used to be enough, but now he was just grateful for a second chance. He could live with average—so long as he could still seduce her.
Conrad wound his way through the back hall, making the S-turn through the library, into the front hallway. The creaking floorboards were a new sound, allowing him to birth one final clear thought for the day.
This is a healing place. This is home.
Conrad waded into the moonlight pooling on the new queen-sized bed—another purchase, this one more deserved—he’d made without her input. The ceiling fan was whirring, the dogs were curled into their crates on the floor, and Jo was waiting for him on top of the new sheets. She was without a top, wearing only loose fitting boxers (his), which were somehow better than if she were naked. That she had gone halfway without prematurely forfeiting the under garment was a gesture that made him feel understood. The arc of her hips rose off the bed like the fender of a street rod and his blood awakened.
With his blood, his hopes.
No longer content, Conrad stretched out, not caring what funny tent shape his penis made as it unfolded like a miniature welcome banner. He rolled to one side, facing her. She smelled of earth and lavender and something otherwise herbal—new scents for her in this new place. Her belly was nearly flat except for the smallest of rolls just above the waistband, and he loved this, too. He called it her little chile relleno and she would slap him, but it didn’t bother her, not really. Her hips were womanly wide, but with her height she remained sleek, especially when prone, like now. She stood a little over six feet to his five-nine. His fingers grazed her fine brown navel hairs. Her eyes gleamed under heavy lids, glassy and black as mountain ponds at midnight.
It was a beginning, and he was a man who loved beginnings more than middles or endings.
“Come,” Jo said. Or maybe Con, half of his name.
“Hm?”
“. . . not ready.”
“Not what?” His hand found the elastic rim of her waistband, then moved into the open front of his boxer shorts on her.
“. . . about behbee,” she murmured.
“What, Baby?”
Not baby. Uppercase, Baby. A nickname he used.
“. . . owin me the behbee…be-ah-eye,” she mumbled, which sounded like was going to be all right.
“Of course,” he said, like it was his idea too. He had no idea.
“. . . bee woul’ go a father.”
We should go farther.
He pushed one, then two fingers lower to her mound, but her legs were crossed and he swerved off course, touching only her thigh. Just her thigh, but soft was soft and his excitement ratcheted up another notch.
“-not ready,” she squeaked, rolling away.
Shit. Might not have been sleeping before, but was now. Snoring too. Weird, he thought. Had she done this before? With the eyes open and the talking?
Should he let her sleep or try one more time?
Yes . . . no. He kissed her goodnight and rolled to his back, allowing the fan to push warm summer air over his fading, obedient hard-on. His mind dropped into that lower gear, the one that is not yet sleep but somehow dreaming already.
In the half-dream he was in the house, beside her, finding the wetness and sliding in not for the first time but as if they had been moving this way for minutes or an hour. He was all corded muscle and arched away, feeling her soak him in her own undulations. The movement was soothing, almost non-sexual, like being rocked in a crib.
Her grip on him strengthened and clenched, pushing back with legs and ass, drawing his ejaculate out in a sudden burst that ended too quickly, leaving him weak and sleepy all over again.
Drifting . . .
Until the dream, the same one or some new post-coital version, was split by the sound of crying. His body twitched itself awake, and he knew these were not Jo’s tears. This was the noise a newborn makes after sucking in its first violent breath as it enters this violent world. It was a sound that had skipped mewling and launched straight into wailing, and it was coming from behind a wall or far away.
Faintly, under the baby’s hacking shriek, there arose another sound. This one did sound like a woman, and he imagined the infant’s mother, or the midwife, perhaps. This older cry in the dark was a trailing scream, as if something was pulling her away from her child and down a long corridor that narrowed to nothing.
Panicked, he rolled over to shake Jo—why hasn’t she woken up and grabbed me?—and felt the cool stirring of air as she lifted off the bed. He could see only blackness, and with the drone of the fan he could not hear her feet padding on the wood floor. A flash of her silhouette in the doorway left a retinal echo, but the room was too dark to grasp any details. If he saw her at all, she was gone now.
To the bathroom, he thought. There she goes, carrying my seed. The semi-sleep-molestation and abrupt ending made him wince with guilt, but he did not seek her out in the ensuing silence. Exhausted from the day of unpacking (and tossed dream sex), Conrad decided the crying was but a fragment of the dream, a lingering scene planted by her words.
“. . . the behbee, the behbee . . .”
The crying returned once, quieter and farther away, until like a passing thunderstorm it faded to nothing.
He hovered on the edge of sleep.
Something’s wrong.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. She had not returned.
“Jo?”
She did not answer.
“Jo,” he said, louder. “Baby, you okay?”
His eyes adjusted to the dark. The dogs were standing at the master bedroom door facing the hall, whining, tails stiff like the hairs on their shoulders. Conrad flattened his body and counted to ten. It’s rational, he told himself. When something so unexplainable and real (the dogs made it real) as a crying baby in your childless home wakes you, it is normal to ignore it and go back to sleep. So back he went, as deep as a man can go, until he forgot the all about the crying sounds and her cold departure, her absolute absence.
Even when, in the morning, waking to a half-empty bed, he padded downstairs and found her where he’d left her before he stepped out for a smoke at dusk, sleeping on the sofa.
Alone.
Copyright © 2008 by Christopher Ransom
This is the cover you guys and expect in the US (pretty damn eye-catching if I don’t say so myself),
and this is the cover readers in the UK and South Africa (yes you heard that right!), can expect,
Now, let’s come to the part of the post that’ll really freak some of you out… *evil grin*
Christopher has started a blog, where anyone with an internet connection can post their own stories of hearing, feeling, seeing or experiencing ghosts or ghostly phenomena…!
I can just hear the sudden fearful grinding of teeth as those of us who’ve had such experiences immediately think back and remember…
So, watch the trailer, read the book, and get your ghost stories to Christopher – who knows what might be shivering to be born?
Be TERRIFIED!
P.S. Keep an eye on the blog on Saturday the 22nd of August, yes, this coming Saturday, when I’ll be posting the essay that Christopher wrote detailing what led to The Birthing House.
And yes, we South African’s are pretty damn lucky this time – for those of you looking for a good book for the weekend, guess what? The Birthing House should be IN STOCK in all good book shops everywhere across the country!
Mini-Review: Spotlight: The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman
Mark my words – this will be one of 2010′s biggest and most-talked about debuts!
I was lucky enough to have received an ARC from the kind folk at Penguin South Africa, and I finished the book in around 5 days – once I started, I just couldn’t put it down!
I’m going to be doing a proper review of the book later next year (closer to its release date), but suffice it to say that the worldbuilding in this novel is pretty damn unique and interesting, the characters are wonderful, and the action amazing!
I haven’t been this excited about a debut since Peter V Brett’s The Painted Man, way back in July last year! If you can get yourself a copy of this book, don’t hesitate!
Oh, and isn’t that cover awesome?
Be EPIC!
Here are the links to order the Audio Book and Book for readers in the UK, and for readers in South Africa, here’s your link to pre-order the book!
Just a quick post to tell you…
… that I’ve been busybusybusy at work so haven’t had much time to do any browsing or blogging, sorry guys and girls!! 
But I’ve got some good stuff coming up!
I’m pushing to finish Karen Miller’s The Riven Kingdom, Book 2 in the Godspeaker Trilogy, (got about 200 pages left, give or take) so I’ll have a review for you on Wednesday or Thursday. I’ll also be posting another Review-Spotlight, this time on Paul Hoffman’s The Left Hand of God.
And then there’ll be a post coming up spotlighting a cool new site with some awesome product – trust me, you may just find yourself ordering because it’s just too damn cool to pass up!
Anyway, that’s me!
Be EPIC!
Review – Sheri S. Tepper – The Margarets
Review done by David Jooste
Hey there guys and girls, I’m back with yet another great review for you. 
This last few weeks I had my nose firmly planted between the pages of Sheri’s book, and what a read this was.
When I first saw it as being a mix of fantasy and sci-fi I was a bit sceptical but I was soon proven wrong.
The Margarets Cover
What if you lived 7 lives at the same time, on seven different planets? A Queen, a Warrior, Healer, Shaman, Grandmother, Slave and Spy. All different people but also the same woman. The earth and all human life has reached its limit and surpassed it. Destruction or salvation rests in the hands of one woman who walks seven paths. There are those who seek her to fulfil a prophecy centuries in waiting, and there are those who would stop at nothing to ensure she fails .
Well that’s basically what I can tell you, the story line is far too complex and intricate to summarize.
I have to say. “I love this book”
This was really a great read and I could not put the book down at all. The plot, storyline, characters, and effort placed into this book is truly amazing, but we will get to each aspect in time.
The book basically revolves around Margaret and follows here throughout her life at various ages points. These mainly focus on the points were she splits into her other selves.
Splits into her other selves?
Well yes, without know it she gets duplicated several times at key decision points, such as staying with her lover or leaving him, getting aboard an alien space ship or not. Each of these splits takes the new Margaret into a different life with different adventures.
The plot and storyline is very well developed around this.
The reason for all the happenings are not apparent through the book but if you pay attention to the small stories and legends you start to get a feel for what’s going on. The final plot is not fully revealed till the end of the book which is good, especially when you get that feeling of “yes, I was on the right track” .
One of the things I loved about the story was the attention to detail when it came to planning amongst the characters. Sheri created an amazing plan for the resurrection of the earth from the dilapidated state that it is in, one that obviously took a great deal of thought. Way to go Sheri!
The flow of the story is also very comfortable, a bit disorienting when you jump to the next time frame in the lives of the Margaret’s, and could have been supported by a better indication that you are now dealing with a new phase. But over all the flow of the story is very comfortable, neither to fast nor to slow, allowing the plans of the various groups to unfold and ripen at a steady pace and not rushing into things.
At the end of the book when all the Margaret’s meet up once more, the storylines also knit together rather easily, no complicated tactics or overdone stories had to be written to accommodate it. This helped to ease the story into its final phase and bring everything to a close.
As for the characters, well there is a large assortment of them and you can get a bit lost among the variety but you quickly pick up on who is who and where you are.
Still they are all loveable and contribute to the story as a whole very effectively, each playing their role in helping whichever Margaret they are with.
The biggest problem for me came with the Margaret’s themselves; yes their names change a bit and each chapter starts with the name and planet of the one you deal with, bit it’s still confusing at the start of each chapter, especial since its written in the first person. Luckily the accompanying surrounding and characters helps you to quickly orient yourself as to where you are.
All in all Sheri created a great story that I would love to read again . The characters are wonderful with a captivating plot and a storyline that makes you think, are we on a similar road and would our earth end up such a waist dump as this one in a hundred years? Would we have to resort to selling our people as slaves to alien civilizations in return for clean drinking water?
In this book Sheri has given us a superb melding of Fantasy and Science-Fiction
The elements of both melding together perfectly.
I know I definitely want to take a look at some of her other book as well now.
For this one I have to say 8/10 (great characters, unique idea and good planning went into this book though it did get a bit confusing at times)
if you would like to buy this great book our SA readers can find it here,
UK readers can find it here, and US readers can find it here.
Mini Review: Spotlight – And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer
The venerable tome, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is set to once again be at the forefront of trillions of minds across the galaxy! Somehow, not even the ministrations of a well-meaning Vogon could ensure its eradication…!
I was lucky enough to have received a limited edition proof of And Another Thing, the final book in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, written by Eoin Colfer. And yes, it wasn’t the whole book (that would have been one huge newspaper!)
I have to admit, I was a bit scared, and gave it a day or two after it had arrived (in an envelope bearing very a descriptive warning from a bored Vogon) so that the excitement of receiving it could die down a bit before I started reading it – when I finally did sit down to take it in, though, something strange happened…
This is not, by any stretch, Douglas Adams’ writing. Is that a bad thing? Or even a good thing? Well, it depends on what you’re expecting from And Another Thing.
If you’re expecting the Hitchhiker’s books you know and love, that same absolutely crazy but oddly brilliant prose, then you may just be disappointed – Douglas Adams is no longer with us, folks. Nothing anyone writes will ever approach his genius.
But is And Another Thing good? Is it a Hitchhiker’s book? Is it zany, hilarious, crazy and absolute fun? Definitely!
Eoin did an amazing job, having such legendary boots to fill. Not only did he capture (in my opinion) what the Hitchhiker’s Guide books represent and meant to the generations that read them (and all those who continue to discover the books today), but he did it with respect and admiration for the work – that comes through loud and clear while reading. This isn’t a rip-off or a regurgitation or a parody – this is Hitchhiking. The only difference is that our Ford Prefect isn’t Douglas Adams. But you will still laugh, and shake your head in stupefied amazement – you know, that feeling you got when you first read about the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and thought, “This is nuts!” but it made an odd kind of sense? Don’t worry, folks. I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy this book, and I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy it in it’s entirety when it’s on the shelves. I’ll be placing my copy next to my Hitchhiking box set.
And then I’ll just thank Douglas Adams for being such a brilliant nutter all over again!
Pre-order your copy here for the UK.
And Another Thing will be published in SA by Penguin SA.
Be EPIC!
Review: A Darkness Forged in Fire – Book 1 of The Iron Elves Trilogy by Chris Evans
Before I get to the review I should mention that I was interviewed for a Book Blogger Interview by the lovely Jo Stapley who runs Ink and Paper, a blog loaded with great fantasy book reviews! Thanks Jo, it was a really cool interview!
Onto Chris Evans…
Sir, I am impressed!
When I began reading the book, I was a bit worried that the book might turn out to be a case study in stereotypical fantasy – a wizard, transformed into an animal, sneaking into a very dangerous place – but as I read on, and sank deeper into the storyline, I got the feeling that a Steven Erikson was being pulled – the use of normal fantasy tropes in new, unique and interesting ways! Once I realized that, I really got down to enjoying the book.
There are a few things that Chris does very well, and one of them is characters – not only does he not spend an inordinate amount of time describing the character (he fixes them in your mind in a few sentences), but each character is vibrant and unique and interesting. The main character, for example, is a pretty damn strange one! An elf that hates the forest definitely makes for an interesting character!
Konowa’s.. erm, lady friend did get a bit irritating, though, but maybe I’m just biased, because Konowa practically drives her to it, being a man’s elf and all. The way they dance around each other is very entertaining, though, and hopefully we’ll see them get a bit closer in The Light of Burning Shadows.
Another character that was absolutely awesome was the rock-munching section leader! That dwarf is one of the best fantasy characters I’ve ever come across! He does steel the show, and I can’t wait to see where he goes and what he does in Book 2. (He better be in Book 2, Chris!)
Chris also builds a convincing, beautiful world with more than it’s fair share of dangers and intrigues, and he also handles the release of information about this world well – there are no info dumps, with info being made available as the characters themselves discover what they need to know, and this is always great to have, especially in fantasy. Fantasy worlds should speak for themselves and not be explained, something that Chris understands very well.
In terms of action, the addition of muskets works very well! I got this whole Colonial England Vs Magic vibe, standing firm in the face of fearless natives! Chris takes us close in, very it’s furious and brutal, and also gives us those tactical viewpoints that are always cool (but not overdone here) in battle scenes! I hope we get to see what Chris can do with huge numbers in battle one day!
All in all, I was very impressed with A Darkness Forged in Fire – not only is it a great addition to Epic Fantasy, but it’s also a fun, entertaining book – something that will intrigue you with it’s cool characters, interesting plot, and it’s unique take on required fantasy elements!
A definite 8/10!
For those of you in SA, order your copies here, and order Book 2 here, and for those in the US, Book 1 and Book 2, and those in the UK, Book 1 and Book 2. Check out more info in Chris and his work at the Iron Elves website, and click here for Chris’ LiveJournal.
A Darkness Forged in Fire is published in South Africa by Jonathan Ball.
Be EPIC!
New WoT Book 12 Release Date & David Anthony Durham Wins!
my my, what a day! Not only did I find out today that I’ve been -whoops, can’t break the news yet (no no, it’s not huge or anything, and will make absolutely no difference to your lives, but it makes a huge difference to me!), but suffice it to say that I got really good news today- but there has been some incredible news regarding The Gathering Storm and coming from David Anthony Durham!
First off, The Gathering Storm will be available in October! Yep, you heard that right! Check out this post at Dragonmount for the details! And SA-WoT fans, have no fear – I’ll make sure that Penguin SA has this info first email in the morning, and I’ll be damned if we’re not getting the book a minimum of 2 or 3 days after the new publication date!
Awesome, awesome news!! Think we all need to stare in wondrous admiration at that cover again…
Now onto news from David Anthony Durham, author of the incredible Acacia – he was down at Worldcon for a few days, chatting to author-folk, part of panels and such, and then he won this award – AWESOME AWARD – and you know what, David thoroughly deserves it! Now, if you’re wondering why David won the award, then get Acacia, Book 1 of The War with the Mein. You’ll know why! And then you can join the ever-increasing legion of fans worldwide in anticipation of the sequel to Acacia – The Other Lands!
Be EPIC!
P.S. I’m back tomorrow with my review of A Darkness Forged in Fire by Chris Evans! And then Thursday, I’m Hitchhiking… towel included!
Links and News!
Hey guys and girls, hope you’re all enjoying your Monday so far, and if you’re still in bed, I’m insanely jealous!!
Here are the interesting links I came across browsing through Google Reader:
Aidan gave us the goods on Guy Gavriel Kay’s forthcoming novel,
The folks at Angry Robot showed us a trailer wetting our appetites for Tim Waggoner’s Necropolis!
Blood of the Muse is running a giveaway for one of Terry Brooks’ Landover books (which I’ve also entered!),
Fantasy Book Critic has a review of Blood of the Mantis (have to get into these books!) posted by Liviu,
Liz reviewed Angry Robot author Chris Roberson’s Book of Secrets!
One of Peter V Brett’s friends, Matt, has taken over Peat’s Peaphole (the blog, what were you thinking?) and has posted a new, excellent contest – time to get your casting calls in! I’ll be entering, too, of course…
Suvudu reported on Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson being at this year’s Worldcon – I say everywhere where The Wheel of Time is discussed and celebrated, RJ will be there.
And Suvudu also gave us our Hugo winners!!
Adam over at The Wertzone gave us a very interesting post on Dune and what’s been happening in Frank Herbert’s universe since his death – well worth a read!
Wanna check out Path of the Warrior? Must be one of the most bad-ass Warhammer 40K covers I’ve seen in a while! Oh, and it’s Gav Thorpe’s (also now one of Angry Robot’s new authors) latest novel for Black Library.
Over at Un:Bound, Hagelrat reviewed Holly Black’s Valiant (and oh, what a gorgeous cover!). I’ve read Holly’s Tithe, and loved it, so I’ll definitely be reading Valiant!
Ok, now we get to the major news – and sad news, in my opinion. Karen Traviss has quit Star Wars. I’m not surprised, I think it’s been coming for a while now, but it’s still a sad turn of events. I’ve rarely enjoyed the Star Wars EU as much as when reading Karen’s work in it, and though I understand the other side’s arguments against her, I’ve always felt that Star Wars needed something new (or a whole lotof new things) to get it going again. Karen showed us some of those new aspects, updating Star Wars for these new times. And don’t get me wrong, I adore the movies, and no EU novel will ever top them (no, not even The New Jedi Order or The Thrawn Trilogy) but you can bet your ass that the more things stay the same, the more they stagnate.
I remember first finding out about why the Bantam era ended, and thought, “Whoa, but that was Star Wars.” Sure, every other book had a superweapon in it, but superweapons are part of Star Wars! So then we get into The New Jedi Order, taking Star Wars into a darker, grimmer, more realistic direction, opening up the opportunities for even more tales and wonderful characters. Enter Karen Traviss – she does this, and get’s crucified for it. She took Boba Fett, one the coolest characters in Star Wars, gave him depth, emotion, a voice, and made him so much more than the dude the Sarlacc ate, and get’s crucified. We got what we wanted – Star wars changed to suit the times, and we were ungrateful. Ah well.
Check out the rest of the story at these links: Club Jade, the Star Wars message boards, and TheForce.Net.
Now, I”ve been thinking about this for a while – I think Karen Traviss could write some incredible stuff in the Warhammer Universe!! You hear that, BL? Get the ball rolling!
Be EPIC!
