Review: The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications)

I have a confession to make – ‘The Emperor’s Soul’ is the first of Brandon’s novels that I’ve read and finished. To my mind, the Wheel of Time novels don’t count, because he co-wrote them with Robert Jordan. Years ago I tried the ‘Elantris’ audiobook and I think I managed three or four chapters – I think that the narrator, and the way he pronounced some of the place- and character-names, confused me, because everything sounded similar, or even the same. So I stopped listening, put it aside. Thanks to ‘The Emperor’s Soul’, though, I’ll be trying Elantris again, reading Warbreaker, the Mistborn Trilogy (plus the standalone sequel), and The Way of Kings.

‘The Emperor’s Soul’ is a novella, and a quick read, but it’s an excellent example of what can be done with characters and world-building in a novella.

The central character, Shai, is a Forger – she can recreate or copy anything; just how she does this reveals the awesome magic-system that Brandon created for this tale, so I won’t elaborate on it, but she’s captured in the Emperor’s palace after replacing something she stole with a Forgery, and she’s given a choice – do an impossible job for the Heritage (ruling) Faction of the Empire, or face execution. The job? Forge the Emperor’s soul. He was grievously wounded in an assassination attempt, and the Heritage Faction needs him back to continue their rule. So Shai is locked up, threatened, and set to work.

Shai is basically a prodigy – she’s brilliant at what she does, isn’t afraid to take risks, and knows when she’s in over her head, which she realizes is exactly where she is, now. The ruling faction considers soul-Forging an abomination and she is hated and feared, not only by the various politicians that constantly question her but by the soldiers who guard her. How she works on the soul-Forging, how she manages herself under the constant questions, threats and immense pressure shows just how strong Shai is, how stubborn and tenacious and intelligent, but not only that, we get to see moments of utter terror, of her reaching limits she would never have approached on her own.

Shai’s greatest enemy, and also her greatest ally (if she can swing it that way), is the emperor’s most loyal advisor, Gaotona, and he almost steals the limelight from Shai -  he’s in a dangerous position, trying to ensure that the Heritage Faction, having to deal with the stress of his Emperor being out of commission, and having an ‘abomination’ working to restore the Emperor, and finally, having his own beliefs regarding what Shai does tested daily. He’s a great character, under a different kind of constant pressure than what Shai is, and goes through a great evolution through the tale.

We also get a revealing glimpse at the Empire and a look into its history, understanding why there are different factions vying for control of the Empire, and Shai’s history. It’s all damned impressive, considering  the length of this story.

I hope plenty of you read this, it’s an excellent example of great storytelling, memorable characters, intriguing world-building and a unique and imaginative magic-system. Definitely worth the read!

9 / 10

Thanks to the folks at Tachyon Publications for sending the book to me! To order your copies, click the relevant links: Amazon US (paperback& ebook), Amazon UK (paperback & ebook), Tachyon Publication’s page, and Exclusive Books (paperback & ebook).

And don’t forget to check out Tachyon Publications for much, much more! And I’m sure you don’t need the link, but here’s the link to Brandon’s website.

Until next time,

Be EPIC!

 

Movie Spotlight: Errors of the Human Body (Directed by Eron Sheean)

Hi Guys and Girls,

I thought I’d draw your attention to what looks to be a great new movie doing the rounds at the moment! Check out the trailer below:

Looks like a awesome movie – something along the lines of Splice, in terms of man screwing with things best left alone, The movie stars

Michael Eklund
Karoline Herfurth
Tómas Lemarquis
Rik Mayall

Here’s the movie’s synopsis:

Obsessively struggling to develop a cure for a rare genetic ailment, Geneticist Geoff Burton is forced to relocate to an isolated research facility in Dresden, Germany. Completely consumed by his research, Burton is on the brink of discovery but soon realizes that his own work may bear more consequences than he previously thought. 

Here are some stills from the movie:

If you’ve got Cable VOD, you can watch the movie, and you can also watch it on iTunes and Sundance NOW.

Here’s the striking poster for the movie:

Hope you get to see what looks like a thought-provoking thriller!

Until next time,

Be EPIC!

 

Review: The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

To be honest, I never expected to be the recipient of an ARC of The Shining Girls – considering what a big 2013 title this book is and will prove to be, I thought that most of the available ARCs would go to the big newspapers and such here in SA, so I was very chuffed when a copy was dropped off at my workplace and given to me.

I’ve been excited about this novel since the moment I heard about it (and it goes without saying that any new novel from Lauren, after Moxyland and Zoo City, would excite me), and was even more pumped up for it when I read the first chapter a couple of months ago. In that chapter I was introduced to Harper Curtis and Kirby – Harper the shiver-inducing gift-giver, and Kirby the fragile-seeming girl who had created a wonderful little circus in the dirt. That first chapter left me with chills and a rumbling foreboding, because I realized after reading it that in The Shining Girls Lauren was moving in an entirely new direction; she would be taking me down a path that neither Moxyland nor Zoo City had explored. By the time of this realization, the term Time-Travelling-Serial-Killer wasn’t even important any more - the glimpse I had received of Harper had made enough of an impression on me that I knew I would be reading the book as soon as I could.

So, when I got the book, I re-read the first chapter, not because I had forgotten the chilling circus-and-pony scene, but because I wanted that seamless slide into the novel – and the pages flew by, the tale opening up like a carnivorous, giant rose, ready to capture that person unwary enough to draw too close to smell the enticing scent. Harper, the novel’s antagonist, already had my attention – like all the twisted, off-centre killers I’ve met in books, I couldn’t help the fact that I wanted to know more about him. Here was this man, chatting amiably to a little girl, enticed by her just as he is trying to entice her, and he doesn’t hide what he is. So secure in his purpose that he doesn’t even need to hide it from me, the reader. The hints in that first chapter of what we would discover about Harper were expertly doled out – almost like  catching the myriad scents that make up a dinner before experiencing the dishes’ complete smell. And Kirby, this little girl indulging her imagination as she plays in dirt, trying to attain some measure of control over her life even at such a young age, was already the broken person I would get to know throughout the novel; broken, yet stubborn in her resolve to try to make sense of her life. So, as first chapter’s go, Chapter One of The Shining Girls was, in my opinion, perfect.

Then I fall deeper into the novel – gaining some more background on Harper, such as hints of his past, the kind of dark things he’d already done, discovering the preliminary sparks of how his mind works; and back to Kirby, who is frayed and damaged and taut, looking after her mother even as she’d trying to find that something that will give her a reason to not be like her mother. The chapters tumble onward, not like something out of control and direction less  but with a sense of relentless and devastating motion – in this novel, there is no immovable object, nothing to stand in the way of the constantly-building tension. Lauren achieved this by jumping, time-wise, in each chapter – so please do pay attention to the dates in which each chapter is set; they’re not just there as a time-stamp. She also does this by revealing more and more of Harper, his methods, how he learns to focus on only what he needs and not the spectacle of the world around him; it also happens in Harper’s chapters that Lauren plays plays with what’s important and what isn’t, not only plot- and character-wise but also world-wise – she seems to ask, almost subliminally  just what about the world has improved with technology? Does the progress that civilization continuously faces come at the cost of our dwindling humanity, or do we actually discover more of ourselves? It’s not an in-your-face exploration / wondering; it’s beautifully subtle.

Now, I was worried that I wouldn’t care about Kirby – after all, when reading the book’s blurb you find out that she has survived this killer once already. So, did that knowledge regarding her taint her growth as a character and my having to care about her, as all story tellers and writers must do in order for their characters to live? No at all. In fact, I found myself slipping more and more into a ‘For fuck sakes, Kirby, just stop this, just let it go!” frame of mind as she began her search for the man who almost killed her. She pushes herself into a position that’ll make it easier for her to gather information and over-looked evidence, meets another wonderful character with his own pain and mistakes and worries, Dan Velasquez.

We find out more about her mother, about the sad, almost unthinkable circumstances of her conception, and finally get to the scene that forced her onto the converging-with-Harper path once again – how she is attacked by Harper, what happens during the attack, and how she survives, is incredibly intense and graphic. It was, to my mind, expertly placed – it’s the tipping point of the novel, that moment in which the reader realizes that the brakes have failed and the lights are out and that you can’t help but clench your jaw harder and harder with each passing page. Layer upon layer of characterization, for each important character, has converged, and from the moment of Kirby’s survival, these layers combine with the intricate plot to steamroll the reader towards not only a deeper understanding of Kirby, Dan, Harper, even Rachel (Kirby’s mother), but a sense that if you just read with more attention you’ll be able to figure it out – but the beauty of it is is that you can’t. Why? Because of the House that Harper uses, this enigmatic and terrifying place in all times – it’s the only character in the novel that remains mysterious, the only character we gain almost no understanding of. Did it work for me, this lack of detailed information about the House, how it works, why it exists, etc.? Without a doubt. Sometimes, as readers, as those hijacked to our imaginations, sometimes it’s just better not to have all the knowledge. Sometimes a force of nature is just that, and it cannot be described or experienced or understood in a way that a human mind can understand.

This novel is insanely good – multi-layered, both in terms of characters and their growth and progression through the tale, as well as in how it was constructed and written – Lauren has a beautiful, fluid style, a way of writing that I can only describe as slipping words into the current of the story at exactly the right moment. This novel is set entirely in the US-city of Chigago, so there’s no South African link as with Moxyland and Zoo City, but then there’s absolutely no reason for a link to SA, so I wasn’t disappointed at all. I cannot say, of course, that Lauren captured the various time-periods of Chicago that we experience in this novel (since I’ve never been to Chicago), but what did come through strongly for me was the city’s presence, the sense that every building and every street had a story to tell, that every window -broken or whole- was watching, and that every moment of silence was like the preparatory-to-striking breath of a predator. There are instances of beauty in Lauren’s descriptions of the city, but the majority of the novel takes places in places pregnant with sadness and tension and exhausted silence; there’s a brooding atmosphere evident in each scene, whether we’re with a Radium Girl or in the bullpen of a newspaper; the hints of beauty are more stark for this, more affecting, even as they’re few and far between.

Now, as you all know, I usually read Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, the odd thriller and murder mystery, so I guess you might be wondering whether -having similar reading-tastes- you might enjoy this novel? I’m pretty sure that you will, for a range of reasons:

1), we all read what we read to live the events in the book through the characters, and Lauren has created memorable characters in this story – characters that will disturb you, will irritate you (because you want to give them advice and help them), will have you gnawing at your nails or smoking cigarette after cigarette (because you want them to persevere, to survive, to find that way out), characters that will leave you with a wave-like melancholy (Kirby’s mother), or a cheer at every chapter they appear in (Dan), but most importantly, characters that you’ll care about, characters that might just leave you realizing things about yourself – because, after all, we live different lives and experience different events through the characters in novels, don’t we?

2) the time-travelling aspect of the novel is really intelligently done – it’s not just a trope, a fixture, a way of moving from A to Z and everywhere in-between. Coupled with the mysterious House and the city of Chicago, it’s a thing you cannot predict or fully understand, and that makes it wonderful and terrifying at the same time.

3) Harper Curtis – the bad guy, the antagonist; he’s not a stereotype, as far from a cliché as it’s possible to be (which is as it should be!). He’s a despicable man, with a world-view that is both shiver-inducing and completely understandable – he’s so damned memorable because you will live in his head throughout this novel, and you won’t be able to help yourself thinking, “Would I really do things differently if I had found the House? Would I choose the path I’ve always walked or the path whispering to me?” There aren’t many serial killers in my list of most memorable, and Harper definitely joins that list – Hannibal Lecter (Thomas Harris), The Travelling Man (John Connolly),  Patrick Süskind’s Jean-Baptiste Grenouille and Kaaron Warren’s Stevie (Slights – who freaks me out so much I still haven’t been able to finish the novel).

This novel is disturbing, thrilling and intelligent – Lauren has shifted into new territory with this often-sad, eminently readable tale of a hunter and his prey, of the House you’ve always wondered about but never had the guts to enter, of the strength of character and the pull of destiny that so often rules lives, and of the simple yet often-overlooked beautiful moments that stitch together our lives with lasting and reverberating echoes. It’s a tale in which time travel is the shadowy, always-watching character, not the pipes-and-electronics vehicle employed by the characters. And it’s Lauren’s best novel yet!

10 / 10

Today is the official South African release date of The Shining Girls, and if you don’t want to wait until the 25th of April or the 4th of June, respectively, head over to Exclusive Books’ website and order your copies! For those willing to wait, click here for Amazon US (4 June) and here for Amazon UK (25 April).

For more info about Lauren and her work, check out her website here, and if you’d like a beautiful special edition of The Shining Girls (done by the excellent Joey HiFi), click this link!

Until next time,

Be EPIC!

 

**INCREDIBLE** Book Trailer – Black Feathers by Joseph D’Lacey

Got this from the awesome folks over at Angry Robot Books – the book was an awesome read (reviewed here), and this book trailer is a thing of beauty!

<a href="http://vimeo.com/63401644">BLACK FEATHERS MASTER NEW H264</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/horrodandharris">HORROD AND HARRIS</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>

To order your copies, click here for Amazon US, here for Amazon UK, and here if you’re in South Africa. Check out Joseph’s site here!

Until Friday, when I’ll be posting my review of Lauren Beukes’ ‘The Shining Girls’,

Be EPIC!

(sorry about the code-stuff at the bottom of the vid – no idea how to remove it!)

 

Anthology Review: AfroSF – Science Fiction by African Writers (edited by Ivor Hartmann)

I’m sure you’ve all seen the posts I did for this anthology – an interview with Ivor and three posts spotlighting the authors who had stories published in in (post 1, post 2 and post 3), and now, finally, here’s my review! Just in time for the paperback edition, which is available!

It goes without saying that I will refrain from saying anything about my story in the anthology, other than I’m lucky that I have one in it. Let’s get into the review, shall we?

AfroSF is an awesome look at the talent of African Futurists and Fantasists; one might expect to be subjected to preaching in this anthology, perhaps focused on what Colonialism did to Africa, perhaps regarding the lengths to which the developed West seems to want to keep Africans uneducated and labour ready. But that’s not what this anthology is about – it abounds with optimism, ingenuity, fresh looks at SF tropes we’ve come to take for granted. It looks at many subjects – the bonds of a family, extremism, exploitation, how important community and respect is, how easy it is to give up everything we cherish for a quick fix. It takes the reader and pushes them into situations they will probably never face but which echo, nonetheless, and more importantly  force the reader to wonder and ask questions.

‘Moom!’ by Nnedi Okorafor is a wonderful, bitter-sweet tail revolving around the experiences of a swordfish; it’s a tale that echoes the many experiences mankind has had with industry and the pain of these interactions. She captures beautifully the cycling emotional turmoil of fear, anger, resolute action, understanding, revelation – it’s a short tail, but one beautifully told, the ideas beautifully expressed.

‘Home Affairs’ by Sarah Lotz is a sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek, and scarily believable tale that examines the bureaucracy of a government department – in Sarah’s tale, the emotionless, uncaring civil servants have been replaced, with terrifying and comic consequences; definitely a tale that will resonate with anyone who’s ever hated standing in a que while waiting for a bored civil servant to get to them. Which is everyone.

Tendai Huchu’s ‘The Sale’ is actually a damned scary tale – a look at what the world might be like in a decade or two, when Corporations -massing more money than any government on the planet- run everything. How far will we go, the story seems to ask, to ensure that our lives are peaceful and productive?

‘Five Sets of Hands’ by Cristy Zinn is a tale that will resonate with many students of history, especially people who have studied slavery and its various incarnations – and it also asks the question: “When we spread out onto new planets and create new colonies, when we find strange new faces looking at us, will we find something new for humanity to explore or will we be forced to face every dark aspect of ourselves?”

‘New Mzansi’ by Ashley Jacobs was one of my favourite tales, a story that fans of Lauren Beukes’ ‘Moxyland’ will definitely enjoy, too; it follows one man’s quest to make sure that his friend, Lion, get’s the medication he needs; it’s filled with amazing and yet useless technology (much the same as the tech we use today – I mean, we can’t feed ourselves wirelessly, van we?), a country that seems to be suffocating under the pressure of its history – I wouldn’t at all mind reading an entire novel, or series, set in this future South Africa.

‘Azania’ by Nick Wood is pure SF gold – great, conflicted and memorable characters, a limited and contained setting (which adds to the tension that permeates the tale), and a plot for the characters that will define not only their lives but ensure the continuation thereof; excellent story!

‘Notes from Gethsemane’ by Tade Thompson is a look at the loyalty between brothers, how any government wanting to keep people out of a place will fail, and how something strange and beautiful can hide in plain sight – excellent SF!

Sally Partridge’s ‘Planet X’ is an excellent look at how  the people we almost never meet in SF tales -those walking the streets, waiting at the traffic signals, working in the kitchens of fast-food joints, living in shacks and taking taxis to work, how these people might experience something world- and life-changing, like the discovery of a a new planet in our solar system, and how that discovery might affect a society that struggles daily with xenophobia…

‘The Gift of Touch’ by Chinelo Onwualo can best be described by what I said to Chinelo on Facebook just after I finished reading the story – if Firefly ever returns to our screens, Chinelo should write some of the episodes. I definitely want more of these characters! Excellent, funny and a real adventure in space.

The Foreigner by Uko Bendi Udo tells a tale of belonging and the right to have rights; here we have an asylum-seeker who is very young and stubborn, and you’ll probably cheer as I did at the end of the tale.

‘The Rare Earth’ by Biram Mboob is excellent – not many SF tales can pull off an injection of religion, but Biram manages to do it very well; it’s intense and thoroughly thought-provoking, with a messianic man at the story’s centre who is also the leader of an insurgent group. It’s tense, action-packed, and a tale that lingers.

‘Terms and Conditions’ by Sally-Ann Murray is a tale that looks at what could happen if Big Pharma was in charge of everything; it’s a melancholic  affecting tale, an exploration of the many answers to the question, “What might you do to survive? To live?” Very good!

‘Heresy’ by Mandisi Nkomo is one of my favourites in the collection – as close to proper South African SF as it comes; satirical, thoughtful, funny, it also pokes fun at the government and a particular former Youth League leader, while also poking fun at  science and religion at the same time. Excellent!

‘Closing Time’ by Liam Kruger is an excellent time-travel tale, and trust me, Liam’s tale is unique – no-one has ever travelled the way the main character does!  It’s not only strangely cautionary but sparsely, beautifully written, too.

‘Masquerade Stories’ by Chiagozie Fred Nwonwu is an excellent exploration of tribal customs and their origins; just how might the tribe be affected if the origin wasn’t African, or even earthly…?

‘The Trial’ by Joan De La Haye is thoroughly terrifying – being a writer or a poet in Joan’s world might just cost you your life! It’s a dark look at a South Africa that has fallen to leaders bereft of the gift of imagination and empathy, tensely written with a hard ending – excellent!

‘Brandy City’ by Mia Arderne is a dark tale, a tale of car-modification, a new and oddly intriguing form of prostitution, how alcohol can come to be the answer to everything, and the end. Memorable, especially in the way the characters swirl together toward’s the tale’s hectic climax!

‘Ofe!’ by Rafeeat Aliyu is probably the best example I’ve ever read of what African superheroes might be like – flavours of exploitation and oppression abound in this tale of a dangerous weapon and a targeted minority, and though it does seem to end a bit abruptly it’s still entertaining.

‘Claws and Savages’ by Martin Stokes is an excellent tale that looks at a problem many African countries face – that of infinitely richer tourists hunting for sport, but takes it off-world and introduces the reader to a bastard; thoroughly engaging!

‘To Gaze at the Sun’ by Clifton Gachagua was a tale of the price of war and survival, the pain of parents releasing their children into the world, and the exploitation and misunderstanding that occurs when we lose sight of the humanity of others; affecting and sadly beautiful.

‘Proposition 23′ by Efe Okogu deserves all the praise it has already received and will receive – practically an epic in it’s own right, it’s the tale of freedom fighters, infiltrators, martyrs, those who are curious enough to become caught in their own traps, and the simple yet deeper pleasure of disconnection – excellent!

This anthology is truly ground-breaking and excellent, taking the reader beyond our solar system, backwards and forwards into time, on journeys towards distant stars and planets, putting the reader in the minds and behind the eyes of warriors, dreamers, prophets, mothers, fathers, children… Entertaining and vibrant, it announces the African Futurists and Fantasists are every bit as good as their world-wide counterparts, and I’m sure it’ll put many new writers on the radar of SF fans everywhere! It goes without saying -yet I’ll say it anyway- that I’m damned proud to be associated with this excellent anthology!

9 / 10

 

To order AfroSF, click here (Kindle Edition) and here (paperback) for Amazon US, here (Kindle Edition) and here (paperback) for Amazon UK, and for readers in South Africa, order your copies from Kalahari.com. If you’re on Facebook, check out the publisher’s page at Story Time, and you can also interact with the authors and with Ivor at the AfroSF page. AfroSF Volume 2 has already been announced – check out this page for details!

Thanks to Ivor and all the contributors for such an excellent anthology!

Until next time,

Be EPIC!

 

Angry Robot Review: Black Feathers (Volume One of The Black Dawn) by Joseph D’Lacey

Ever since I had the opportunity to read Meat, the occasion of being able to get a new Joseph D’Lacey story and read it has excited and intrigued me. Meat was shocking, searing, and true in a way very few novels have ever achieved (read my review here), and now that I think about it, perhaps Stephen King had so many words in his mind after reading Meat that ‘rocks’ seemed the best word to encapsulate them all. Why? Well, Joseph does plenty right in ever story he writes, and Black Feathers (incoming from Angry Robot Books) was yet another example of his versatility and understanding of what it means to be human.

The story focuses on two characters, Gordon Black and Megan Maurice, who live in different eras and cultures.

Gordon lives in a world that we, at first, understand; it is our world, with its electricity and cars and skyscrapers and cellphones and internet. But Gordon’s birth is an event that echoes up and outwards, into the future in which Megan lives. Megan is chosen to take the first steps on a path that might lead her to being a Keeper, the history- and memory-keepers of the land and its people. Connecting them is a force (perhaps of good, perhaps of evil) called The Crowman, and in the world of the Bright Day (an era of peace after the terrible, destroying events of the Black Dawn), Megan feels the call to find The Crowman. As does Gordon. How they do this is the story of Black Feathers.

From the get-go Joseph layered the story in mystery – we are introduced to Gordon’s father, sisters and mother, who each have their own role to play in Gordon’s story; we witness the strange circumstances of his birth (leading to his father’s reactions and, much later, an important event in Megan’s life), and we begin to understand that Gordon’s world, our world, is changing. Perhaps not for the better.

As Gordon grows and matures he keeps a diary (my eyes only), in which he records thoughts that most people, including his family, might think evidence of insanity, thoughts and recollections and memories of dreams, of hearing a voice not his own in his mind, of his peculiar almost-need to collect corvid feathers, of his burgeoning fear and bewilderment at the events beginning to overtake the world (the fall of everything, to be replaced –should they succeed- by a group bent on dominating everyone and everything), of constantly wondering whether he is insane… He’s just a young boy, not yet a teenager, and he has to deal with all of this. Chapter after chapter Gordon grew, and succeeded, and failed – he is, to my mind, the kind of character that many, many readers will be able to identify with. He has crippling moments of doubt, surges of almost overwhelming exhaustion and sadness; like many people, he knows that to ask questions is to be hurt, yet he knows that without knowledge or pain, nothing can ever be learned or understood. Indeed, he had to face more in his fourteen, fifteen years than most people face in the entire span of their lives. As a character he was mesmerizing and a joy to discover, written with a depth of emotion and empathy by Joseph that helped me to truly inhabit Gordon’s ‘skin’.

Megan was also beautifully written – her world is changed irrevocably on a day that she goes into a forest near her home, and from that moment on hers is a journey of discovery and self. Through her we discover how drastically life has changed since the Black Dawn and how those changes affected humanity and everything we did and thought we stood for and believed in. Megan is constantly curious and possessed of a beautiful strength, the kind of character that slips quietly in and watches you reading from across the room. Like Gordon, though, she is forced into a world she’s only heard whispers about and doesn’t understand at all, and her journey to knowledge lost nothing even as Joseph used her to explain more about the world as it was after the Black Dawn. The balance between world-building and characterization in this novel –especially as regards Megan- was expertly handled, with neither suffering at the other’s expense. Instead, both seemed to add to the other – which was very important, since the people and the land (both during the Black Dawn and the Bright Day) are inextricably linked.

As can be expected from Joseph’s work, there are moments of horror, moments of wide-eyed disbelief, moments of laughter and tears and silence pregnant with either peace or rage. He managed to handle everything beautifully and with respect, making both his characters and the world they inhabit come alive. One of Joseph’s undeniable strengths as a storyteller is the ability to remember and use the small things – those moments that have nothing to do with advancing the plot and yet have everything to do with advancing the plot, because without those small moments the world and the characters wouldn’t ring true.

But be warned – there are some scenes that may make you flinch, despite the knowledge that these aren’t real people or real situations, and I guess that’s the mark of a truly good storyteller: making you feel. Black Feathers is a post-apocalyptic urban-fantasy journey-of-discovery horror and much more that doesn’t fall into a category of any kind. I loved this book and I’m so glad that it’s the first of two – kudos to Angry Robot for sending me Joseph D’Lacey’s best story to date, and massive thanks to Joseph for writing it. I’m definitely coming back for more!

9 / 10

To pre-order your copies of Black Feathers, click here for Amazon US (26 March), here for Amazon UK (4 April), and here for South Africa. Please do check out Joseph’s site here, which will give you links and info for his other novels, collections and novellas.

Huge thanks to Darren Turpin at Angry Robot for posting this ARC all the way to South Africa! Head over to Angry Robot Books and check out their extensive and brilliant catalogue – if you don’t find something there to interest you, you’re probably a rock. Seriously.

Until next time,
Be EPIC!

 

Angry Robot Double-Review: Harbinger of the Storm (Aliette de Bodard) and Death’s Diciples (J. Robert King)

It’s been a while since I reviewed Angry Robot titles, and even though I’m way behind (as regards AR titles) I thought these two titles deserve reviews.

Harbinger of the Storm – Book 2 of the Obsidian and Blood Trilogy by Aliette de Bodard

Ever since I picked up the first book in this trilogy, Servant of the Underworld, I immediately became of fan of not only Aliette’s work but also a fan of Acatl, the central protagonist in the trilogy, so it was awesome to get back to Acatl’s world – that of the Aztec, albeit through a noirish, mystery-framed lens.

I had high hopes for book 2, and wasn’t disappointed!

In this book, Acatl is almost immediately put under immense pressure – not only has he earned the attention of some of the most powerful people in the Mexica Empire, but he is still dealing with the fallout of the previous book’s events.

Now he has to deal with a rising body count and incredibly powerful creatures that make the things he faced in book 1 pale in comparison.

Book 2 did much to flesh out Acatl as a character and person, even more so than the first book, because much of what Acatl had to do in this book had even more of a personal cost; without a doubt he was pushed further and harder than before, and by the end of the book I had the distinct feeling that even though Acatl had persevered the costs were heavier than before.

Action- and magic-wise, this book really kept me on the edge of my seat – as I said before, the creatures that Acatl and his allies (and even enemies) face in this book are damned powerful, but it doesn’t end there – deities enter the fray, and Aliette did a great job in layering them with incredible menace and danger; definitely not deities who sit back and move pieces on a board.

The rush toward the book’s climax held my attention all the way, and once again Aliette managed to beautifully bring together the myriad plot threads and mysteries to satisfying conclusions. I’m definitely looking forward to the last novel, and to more of Aliette’s work!

9 / 10

To order copies of Harbinger of the Storm, click here for Amazon US, here for Amazon UK, and here if you’re in South Africa; you can also head over to the Robot Trading Company to purchase all the Angry Robot eBooks you need, including Servant of the Underworld and Harbinger of the Storm. Also, check out Aliette’s website here.

Death’s Disciples by J. Robert King

I’ve been a great fan of Rob’s work since I read the incredible Angel of Death and stunning Suicidals Anonymous, and I was seriously looking forward to Death’s Diciples. His second Angry Robot novel turned out to be completely different to Angel of Death and Suicidals Anonymous, but as damned good.

The novel follows Susan Gardner, the only survivor of a terrorist bomb on an airliner, and how Susan discovers just how she’s tied into the terrorist-plot – or is it a terrorist plot?

The first thing about this novel that struck me was it’s relentless pace – from the opening scene (Susan in the plane, witnessing its destruction) right up to the climax, it felt like I was left with literally no right time to take a break from the book; every chapter drew me onwards, as if I had suddenly become some ass clomping after a juicy carrot.

The second thing was Susan herself – Rob did an incredible job of revealing her personality chapter by chapter, managing to play to my expectations of her and what I thought she would do (she is the central protagonist, after all), and surprising me constantly. For most of the novel we are in her head, immersed in her thoughts and reactions, and the ride is sometimes chilling, sometimes funny, always surprising and, at times, heart breaking. She’s a great character!

There are more characters, of course – Susan’s brother, confronted with the sibling he thought he knew as he tries to help her take her place in her life again; Krupinski, an FBI agent investigating the attack (and Susan’s miraculous survival), and Mr Nero, one of the coolest and most twisted antagonists I’ve yet encountered in Fiction.

The plot of this novel, the twists and turns it takes, is nothing I could have ever predicted – Rob manages to make you believe that this is a book about terrorism and the stress and trauma of surviving a terrible event, until the weirdness hits, and hits, and hits, in waves of relentless tension and kickass, surprising events. Where Angel of Death was measured, menacing, beautiful and tragic, and where Suicidals Anonymous was superbly satirical and darkly humorous, Death’s Disciples is a thrill-a-second ride, supremely plotted, exciting, hard-hitting, and definitely falls into the Twisted Blockbuster category – one hell of an awesome ride!

9 / 10

To order your copies of Death’s Disciples, click here for Amazon US, here for Amazon UK, and here if you’re in South Africa; remember, you can also get this novel and all of the published Angry Robot titles in various eBook formats over at the Robot Trading Company. Check out Rob’s site here.

Until next time,

Be EPIC!

 

Anthology Review: Mirages – Tales from Authors of the Macabre (Edited by Trent Zelazny)

I received this anthology a couple of months ago from one of its contributors, Curt Jarrell, a fellow bookseller and champion of all things Speculative.

I’m really glad that I got an opportunity to read this anthology, because it’s one of the best collections of dark, unsettling tales that I’ve ever read. I won’t say that it was a pleasurable read -I’m not sadistic or masochistic- but it was definitely an eye-opener, and supremely memorable.

The anthology kicks off with The Conclusion by Tom Piccirilli, which was, for me, a beautiful and heartbreaking tale about how one man deals with the impending death of someone very close to him – the story was dark and, in places, unsettling, but quite beautiful.

The next tale, American Chinnamasta by Jeffrey Thomas, was insanely twisted and yet deeply affecting – we become a passenger on a girl’s journey toward getting the love and acceptance from her father she always believed she lacked, and it’s what happens during this journey, what she does, that really shocked and held me.

Dumb Luck by Barb Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper was awesome – a truly speculative look at luck which I really enjoyed! Sort of still boggles my mind.

Poor Old Soul by Lee Allen Howard gave me a new perspective on those old ladies everyone seems to know – the nosy ones, those who always have opinions, who’s loneliness seems sadder for all that; very good tale.

No Name, No Voice by Tina Swain was sooo damned good – an excellent exploration of the kinds of thoughts we hide from everyone, those bloody, murderous, deviant thoughts.

Reprieve Eve No. 33 by Joe S. Pulver Sr. was incredibly unsettling and different to anything I’ve ever read – I felt like I was in the midst of a deeply fractured and ill psyche, where very little made sense, but with sights and thought paths that kept on drawing me deeper. Very strange and darkly brilliant.

Switchbitch by Gerald Hausman answered the question for me – what would it be like in someone else’s body, and the answer isn’t as cool or exciting as what I envisioned. A short but excellent tale.

Bastard by Billie Sue Mosiman was quite scary, in that it showed me how badly the search for answers can sometimes go, or even how sometimes that search shouldn’t even be undertaken.

Angela & the Angel by Scott Bradley and Peter Giglio was, to my mind, the saddest tale in the collection, because it illustrated -in stark and jagged-edged lines- just what can happen when what you get is not what you wanted, or the idea behind something is more powerful than the disappointing reality.

Offline by Kealan Patrick Burke was terrifying and very, very creepy – after reading this I just didn’t look at electronic communication (email, social networks, etc) the same way. It’s a tale that’ll probably haunt you a bit, too.

Fairy Tale by Lori R. Lopez was dark and sometimes brutal, a tale of a desperate woman and a desperate man, and how both find release of a kind, very cool.

The Sum of Spectacle by Jason S. Ridler was a fun, almost frantic tale, about the realizations concerning loss and how, sometimes, we find our way back – yet the path and the destination might be darker than we imagined.

The Descent Upstairs by Leigh M. Lane is a tale that I’ll probably remember for a long time – I certainly wouldn’t want to be pushed as far as the poor woman in this story was. Sort of makes me think that the fantasies we have regarding how to deal with people who irritate us and enrage us could be dangerous fantasies to have…

The Pit by Joe R. Lansdale was the most difficult story for me to read, which might sound strange to you once I explain why – I abhor violence and cruelty against animals, and there’s a scene in this tale which is pretty damned hectic; which means that it’s incredibly well-written, and not just that scene but the entire story. It focuses on the battle of one man to survive in to-the-death battles that lead to absolutely no kind of victory, even for the survivor. It’s bleak and brutal and brilliant.

Jagged Night by Curt Jarrell was brutal, too, and sad. It’s the tale of a man who loses it and does something terrible, who then runs and tries to not only survive but to live, dogged the whole time by what he did. It’s a dark tale, very unsettling, but honestly so – we can never escape our mistakes, can we?

Shattering the Meat Tunnel by E. A.Black was a really distasteful story, but a damned good one, too. Two lonely people are randomly thrown together, one of them desperate for any kind of contact, the other made angry by the loss of this contact – both of them hurtle towards a climax that is terrible and brutal.

Beast: A Fable for Children by Edward Morris is definitely not for children, not young human beings, if you get my meaning, but a tale for the frightened child in all of us who has had to experience something that was levels above what we could understand at that age. But it’s also a tale about how that frightened child will deal with this experience, and how the outcome will change them forever and in ways that they probably won’t even understand with a grown-up mind. It is sad and beautiful.

Taken together, this anthology is an exploration of the darker, more distasteful aspects of being a thinking, feeling human being. It doesn’t shy away from disturbing imagery or ideas, doesn’t pull any punches at all – every tale was something new and thunderstorm-incredible, something that momentarily stole my breath, and I can only applaud Trent for bringing together these awesomely talented authors. It’s an anthology that lingers and taunts and, sometimes, disgusts, but it is an excellent collection, and all of these authors are now on my radar.

Bravo!

10 / 10

To order your copies of Mirages, click here for Amazon US, here for Amazon UK, and here for South Africa. Also, check out Trent Zelazny’s website for more info on him and his work.

Huge thanks to Curt Jarrell for sending me Mirages – loved it!

Be EPIC!

 

Review: The Aylesford Skull by James P. Blaylock (Titan Books)

***

This article was posted as part of the Aylesford Skull Swashbuckling Blog Tour celebrating the release of James P. Blaylock’s first full-length steampunk novel in twenty years [The Aylesford Skull, Titan Books, £7.99]. For the opportunity to win a limited edition of The Aylesford Skull in a jacketed, signed hardcover with a unique jacket design, just tweet “I would like a limited edition of the Aylesford Skull @TitanBooks #Blaylock”.

Details about The Limited Edition (available Feb 2013)

750 signed and numbered editions:

Jacketed, cloth-bound hardcover with ribbon

Signed by James P. Blaylock

Exclusive foreword by K.W. Jeter and introduction by Tim Powers

26 signed and lettered editions:

As above encased in a custom-made traycase.

***

Let’s get this out of the way first – I’ve never read any of James’ work, so I’ve never read a Langdon St. Ives story, and believe me when I say that you don’t have to have read anything by James prior to reading this book; in fact, you don’t even need an introduction to St Ives! This was very important for me, because I didn’t want to to feel as if I had missed great and important events while reading ‘The Aylesford Skull’, which I did, in essence, but it didn’t FEEL that way.

So, let’s get to the style of this novel, which is the first thing that grabbed me. All of the fiction I’ve read, speculative or otherwise, that’s been set a century or two in the past, has often struggled with how people spoke in those times – I mean, since we’re not able to time-travel there’s just no way that we could get it perfectly right anyway, is there? There’s no way for me to know, for a fact, if how the characters converse -what words they use, how they structure sentences, what level of grammar they have learned- is accurate or not. All we have to go on is books, right? Study the way that writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle wrote and you could perhaps mimic that style of dialogue and description, right? Well, to me nothing in this novel, from the descriptions to the dialogue, felt mimicked, or copied. My reading experience of this novel was, to put it lightly, sublime – sentences, paragraphs and pages flowed past with practically no resistance, even though there’s plenty of words in this novel that we don’t hear much, if at all, today. Reading from day to day wasn’t jarring in the least – I never once felt as if I had to mentally prepare myself for a day’s reading.

Next up, St. Ives. Langdon isn’t the hero / protagonist you would expect; he’s not muscled or a genius, and he doesn’t have plenty of ladies fawning and falling all over him. So don’t expect a James Bond- or Indiana Jones-knock-off. He’s capable, sure, and what he does know he knows well, but like the normal man out on the street, he’s the type of guy who wants to live a quiet, relatively uneventful life, pursuing what his interests and making sure that his family is safe and that they have a relatively comfortable life. What sets him apart is his willingness to do everything he can when trouble strikes, as it invariably will and does. Then he becomes single-minded and, as often happens when someone is put in a difficult situation and has to focus intently to not lose their way, he makes mistakes. He’s not the perfect hero, or the perfect man, which leant a certain edge of surprise to this book – sometimes you just *know* what the hero is going to do and how he’s going to do it, but not in this novel.

Now to the antagonist – Ignacio Narbondo. Definitely one of the most enjoyable villains I’ve read in a long time! The man is highly intelligent, especially with people and how to read and manipulate them. He’s even more single-minded than St. Ives, more methodical and calculating, which is expected of a villain, but he brought a mixture of deviousness, flair, absolute casual brutality, and even humour (black as it was) to the story. I’m pretty sure I’d like him even more if I’d read the previous St Ives adventures.

The rest of the cast is satisfyingly large but not overwhelmingly so – there’s Alice (St. Ives’ wife), his son, Eddie, the St. Ives’ factotum (manservant) Hasbro, the young Finn Conrad, St. Ives’ long-time friend Tubby, Jack and Arthur Doyle (perked up at that, did you?), Mother Laswell, Bill Kraken, and even George (one of the men working for Narbondo); they each bring a different and believable mix of personalities to the novel, with different levels of education (and so different ways of speaking) and different action-levels (if I can put it that way). All of them were highly enjoyable and didn’t seem wasted in any of the chapters they appeared in, nor did their presence overwhelm any of the scenes  :-)

The novel’s plot ticked along like perfectly-tuned clockwork – except when the move towards the climax began, because then it kicked into high speed, so much so that the last hundred-or-so pages raced by. There was a bit of everything in this novel – explosions, hand-to-hand combat, knife fights, gun battles, chases, and tension a-plenty so that even when I knew that the hero, St. Ives, would win through (I mean, he’s the hero, of course he has to, doesn’t he?) there were a whole fistful of chapters in which I thought, “Sir, you are going to die painfully!”. James managed to play with my expectations beautifully, and there wasn’t a single time that I was right in forecasting what was going to happen. Oh, and you’ll have to read the novel to get any idea of the supernatural element, because the only thing I’ll say is that it was cool and unique and I really liked how it was done.

I really and truly enjoyed this novel – not only was it a great break from the Horror, SF and Fantasy I’ve been reading (which includes both novels and comics), but it reminded me once again that I don’t need mind-bending SF concepts, creeping, grisly, shocking or twisted Horror, or even the awesome magic-systems or world-building of Fantasy to really enjoy a novel. ‘The Aylesford Skull’ was incredible old-school fun, a gripping adventure that dealt with subjects such as family, friendship, the dark side of human nature, the lengths we’ll go to protect our own, and the uniqueness of those we see as evil or bad – sometimes someone doesn’t have to be insane to be the bad guy; sometimes curiosity is enough.

Huge thanks to Sophie Calder for sending me ‘The Aylesford Skull’ – really enjoyed this novel and I’ll definitely get what I can of James Blaylock’s other works – highly recommended!

9 / 10

To order your copies of this excellent Langdon St. Ives adventure, click here for Amazon US, here for Amazon UK, and here if you’re in South Africa. Check out the novel’s page over at Titan Books, and for more info on the Swashbuckling Blog Tour check out this post on Titan’s blog. Also, check out James P. Blaylock’s website here.

Until next time,

Be EPIC!

 

Review: Sleepwalkers by Tom Grieves

Thanks to the folks at Book Promotions here in SA who bring us titles from Quercus, I received a copy of Sleepwalkers. It looked like an interesting title but I knew nothing about Tom and I hadn’t even heard of the novel. I finished reading ‘The Twelve’ first and then got stuck into Sleepwalkers, and three chapters in I was absolutely and completely hooked. And not only because of the flowing writing style.

Sleepwalkers isn’t an Urban Fantasy, Sci-Fi or Horror novel, so I guess that’s why it explains how I missed it – it’s a thriller, and a damned good one, at that.

The novel focuses on two characters – Ben, who is married, has two kids and works as a mechanic, and Toby, a kid who gets bullied constantly.

They are connected, but I won’t spoil just how, and as the story progresses this connection is revealed and tested, with plenty of twists and revelations that I never expected. Plot-wise this book was absolutely brilliant – it kept my mind racing ahead to try and piece together the clues that Ben and Toby found regarding their lives and not once was a left disappointed when I was proved wrong. Both characters are pushed to their absolute limits (there were plenty of occasions when I flinched, grimaced, shook my head, stunned), and in a way I was, too – I literally didn’t want to get back to work, or sleep, or eat on some occasions, and sometimes I just had to put the book down because it was too intense and hectic, sort of like how you force yourself to take a breath after an intense adrenaline rush.

Character-wise, both Ben and Toby were great, although there was another character that entered the tale that sometimes threatened to steal the show. I won’t say anything about this person because I don’t want to reveal who it is, but this character showed depths of resilience, stubbornness and strength that really had be cheering.

Ben put me in mind of the type of man and husband most men want to be, not heroic, but true, steadfast, know what I mean? Even in the face of the growing mysteries of his life he fought like hell to remain true. And Toby was the quintessential bully-target – intelligent, reserved, targeted, and his journey into his own mysteries was wonderful, dark and unsettling.

I haven’t read a thriller quite like this – it not only made me wonder more about the force behind the mysteries but about how I might handle such a situation (rather poorly, I think) – usually dramas are able to pull this off, and sometimes comedy’s, but thrillers are usually about the pace, the inventive situations, the killers, etc. So the drama in this novel caught me off guard with the sincerity and beauty of it and I felt it really worked and added to the tale.

Sleepwalkers has been optioned for television and I’m not sure how it will translate, but this novel is damned good – it was entertaining, it held my attention straight through, had moments that freaked me out, made me swear, laugh, cringe, cheer – I’d definitely watch a TV-adaptation of this novel, but it would have to be exceedingly kickass to even sniff at this novel’s quality.

Really hope this book gets widely read, it deserves legions of fans! Definitely one of my top reads of 2012!

9 / 10

To purchase your copies, click here for Amazon US, here for Amazon UK, and here if you’re in South Africa. Check out Tom’s profile at Curtis Brown or IMDB for more info on him and his work. Sleepwalkers has also been optioned for TV – hope it happens!

Until Friday,

Be EPIC!