Review | Glitter Rose by Marianne de Pierres (Twelth Planet Press)

Title: Glitter RoseAuthor: Marianne de PierresPublisher: Twelfth Planet Press
Format: Hardback
Release Date: September 2010

Buy from: Twelfth Planet Press

The Glitter Rose Collection features five short stories by Marianne de Pierres – four previously published and one new story. Each copy of this limited edition print run is signed and presented in a beautiful hardbound cover, with internal black and white illustrations.

The Glitter Rose stories are set against the background of Carmine Island (an island reminiscent of Stradbroke Island, Queensland) where a decade ago spores from deep in the ocean blew in, by a freak of nature, and settled on the island. These spores bring fierce allergies to the inhabitants of the island. And maybe other, more sinister effects. As we follow Tinashi’s journey of moving to and settling into island life, we get a clearer picture of just what is happening on Carmine Island.

Glitter Rose is named after the glitter rose dusks that happen at certain tides on the island – when the last of sunset has fallen, a strange phosphorescence can be seen on the sands of the beaches. Colourless at first, it rapidly changes to a “carpet of tiny, shining, rose-coloured grains” as the sky darkens.

Marianne de Pierres is a favourite author of mine. I've read and thoroughly enjoyed her Sentients of Orion series and, despite never having read any of her short fiction, was very eager to read Glitter Rose. I didn't know what to expect other than the stories shared a common setting, but what I found was wonderful, even exceptional.

The setting for Glitter Rose is Carmine Island where the four stories in this collection follow Tinashi, a women with a troubled past who moves there. We join Tinashi during this first move and follow her time on Carmine Island through these stories, learning a little more of her and her past as they progress. Her fellow long-time residents are introduced in the first story, Glitter-by-Dark, and the relationships Tinashi strikes up with them play a role throughout the collection.

I won't give anything away here, I feel the stories need to be read to be appreciated, but Marianne has created a wonderful setting that is explored through the characters. Very little is explained about Carmine Island and the spores that make it special, but enough is passed on to the reader through Tinashi's experiences to grasp the idea and let it carry you away. The prose is beautiful and simple with none of the stories being over written, each is self contained yet also part of the bigger picture that is Tinashi's time on the island. It's a joy to read and will take you on a journey that is well worth the time.

There is a fifth story in this collection, In the Bookshadow, and while unrelated to the four Carmine Island stories, it brings with it exactly the same confident and oh-so-very readable style. It's unique, yet so familiar to any genre reader, and a masterful way to end a great collection.

I do have to add a little something about the way this collection is presented. It's a small hardcover with a stunning cover, but it also contains other illustrations based on the stories. Although only a small press, Twelfth Planet Press has done a wonderful job at packaging this book just right - everything works.

I can recommend this collection to anyone - it's beautiful and written so well, I'm hard pressed to find anything at all I didn't enjoy about it. If you've not read anything by Marianne de Pierres then this is a good place to start, and even if you have you need this in your collection - it's exceptional.

Cover Art & Synopsis | Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)

“I guess in the end, it doesn’t matter what we wanted. What matters is what we chose to do with the things we had. —Georgia Mason”

Shaun Mason is a man without a mission. Not even running the news organization he built with his sister has the same urgency as it used to. Playing with dead things just doesn’t seem as fun when you’ve lost as much as he has.

But when a CDC researcher fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun has a newfound interest in life. Because she brings news—he may have put down the monster who attacked them, but the conspiracy is far from dead.

Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun.

I read Feed a couple of months back (review) and really enjoyed it - the sequel, Deadline, was always going to be right near the top of my must-read list for next year. Orbit have done a cover launch for the novel (you can read that here), but above you can see the cover and synopsis for the book.

My thoughts? Well, it certainly continues the theme from Feed, but there's something about it that just doesn't feel right. I really like the idea, but that text and EKG line doesn't look like blood, more like graffiti - it's too red, too bright. It just doesn't feel as realistic as Feed's cover does. If Orbit can sort those minor details out then this could be a truly excellent cover, but as it is it's just a good one.

Review | Autumn by David Moody (Gollancz)

Title: Autumn
Author: David Moody
Publisher: Gollancz
Format: Hardback
Pages: 256
Release Date: 28th October 2010

Buy from: Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com

In less than twenty-four hours a vicious and virulent viral epidemic destroys virtually all of the population. Billions are killed, within minutes. There are no symptoms and no warnings; within moments of infection each victim suffers a violent and agonising death.

At the end of ten minutes, only a handful of survivors remain. By the end of the first day those survivors wish they were dead.

By the end of the first week, as the dead get up and walk, they know they are in hell.

AUTUMN, the classic free underground novel finally bursts into the mainstream. It is cold, dark, relentless - and uncomfortably plausible, a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD for the 21st Century. Amazon said: 'The perfect zombie story, nothing written in the genre has grabbed me in the same way as AUTUMN, an equal to Romero's Night of the Living Dead'.

I'm a sucker for a zombie story, so when Autumn arrived I knew it was one I would be reading. With a holiday imminent I decided to take it with me to read during the dark nights in a quiet forest location, hoping that it provide a fair few scares to keep me reading until daylight broke. Okay, I may be making that sound a little more chilling than it actually was, but diving into this sort of story deserves an environment to suit, and holidaying in Centre Parcs was the place to tackle it. What I found was a very chilling novel, but not quite the zombie story I was expecting...

Autumn starts the story with the widely used 'event' that suddenly kills 99% of the world's population. There is no explanation other than the graphic and gory way that each person succumbs to this mystery illness, the end result being death. There are some people that aren't affected by this outbreak and stand by without being able to do anything while all around them die. After the tragedy these survivors are left to do just that: survive. By joining with others they group together in an old building and do what they can to scavenge the essentials while all around them the dead are left where they died. After a few days like this the dead rise, slowly and without any direction, they stumble around the streets, posing little threat. However, this soon changes as time passes and they start to congregate where they hear or see survivors, and these survivors must decide what they need to do to stay alive.

We follow three main survivors during Autumn - Michael, Carl and Emma. Each of these are introduced early on and we see where they were when the population died, the immediate aftermath of it and how they deal with it all. They meet up with other survivors and we follow this thread for a while before a fall out between them all causes a separation, Michael, Carl and Emma going out alone and leaving the rest behind. From there on it's a very bleak novel, reminiscent of the scenes in many zombie films, from George A Romero's classics to 28 days later. These scenes show a deserted and very chilling country, the dead littering the streets and very little going on.

Autumn is one of those books that falls squarely into the 'zombie' category, but the Z word is never used. Instead the focus is on the survivors, how they deal with everything and how they get by day-by-day. It all contributes towards a story that is very cold, and the characters isolated. This is a good thing, it allows Moody to explore these characters and look at the very realistic situation that could arise from such an event, and handled extremely well.

The living dead are the aspect of the story that don't really get that much attention. They're there, shit has happened, and the survivors have to deal with it. Blunt, but true. Moody never goes into detail about what the illness actually was - a strong point and it makes the story more believable because of it. These guys aren't experts, they have a lot to deal with and it makes perfect sense to leave it at that. As for the nature of the undead, well, that's another thing. They don;t rise immediately after death, instead it takes a few days before it happens. They're a threat in the sense that they're there en masse, but they're not the typical brain eating zombies we've seen in films. The wander aimlessly, only congregating when they hear or see survivors. Again, there is no explanation to anything, it just is.

Moody has written a very good story here, it's bleak and chilling, character focused, yet there is more to it than just that. Despite all the good things about Autumn, it just didn't deliver the enjoyment factor for me. It was good, yes, but not great. Regardless of this, I'll be getting around to the sequels when they're released next year to see how the journey continues from here.

Review | The Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding (Gollancz)

Title: The Black Lung CaptainAuthor: Chris Wooding
Publisher: Gollancz
Format: Paperback
Pages: 448
Release Date: 29th July 2010

Buy from: Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com

Darian Frey is down on his luck. He can barely keep his squabbling crew fed and his rickety aircraft in the sky. Even the simplest robberies seem to go wrong. It's getting so a man can't make a dishonest living any more.

Enter Captain Grist. He's heard about a crashed aircraft laden with the treasures of a lost civilisation, and he needs Frey's help to get it. There's only one problem. The craft is lying in the trackless heart of a remote island, populated by giant beasts and subhuman monsters.

Dangerous, yes. Suicidal, perhaps. Still, Frey's never let common sense get in the way of a fortune before. But there's something other than treasure on board that aircraft. Something that a lot of important people would kill for. And it's going to take all of Frey's considerable skill at lying, cheating and stealing if he wants to get his hands on it . . .

Strap yourself in for another tale of adventure and debauchery, pilots and pirates, golems and daemons, double-crosses and double-double-crosses. The crew of the Ketty Jay are back!

RETRIBUTION FALLS was fun, fast-paced, action-packed, brilliant stuff - and THE BLACK LUNG CAPTAIN is even better.

The Black Lung Captain is the second book in the Tales of the Ketty Jay. The first book, Retribution Falls, was one of my favourite reads last year and I was keen, if not a little hesitant, to get back with Frey and his crew for another adventure. When you read a book you enjoy so much it's always a little worrying that you'll pick up another only to find it doesn't meet the expectations you have for it. Fortunately The Black Lung Captain met, and even exceeded, my expectations and proved that Chris Wooding can write a damned fine adventure novel with characters you'll come to love. Again.

As we rejoin the crew of the Ketty Jay it is clear that not all is well. Resorting to stealing from an orphanage, a simple job that even Frey and his crew manage to botch, highlights this fact to a tee. All becomes clear that each member of the crew are dealing with their own problems, from Jez and her hidden secret as part-Mane, to Crake and his unbearable guilt over the death (and subsequent reincarnation as a Golem) of his niece, Bess. Add to the mix an offer by Captain Grist of the Storm Dog to join him in the search of untold treasure on a remote and dangerous island and you've got a stonking story that goes from strength to strength.

Story-wise, The Black Lung Captain is high on double-crossings, action, adventure and a nice amount of intrigue. From the opening chapter where the Ketty Jay try to loot the aforementioned orphanage, and the mess they get in as a result, it's clear that Chris Wooding has brought everything that made Retribution Falls so good back to the table. When the story evolves into the treasure finding mission, then to the inevitable 'searching for the missing item to save lives', it's evident that we're getting a huge story here. With Manes, Awakeners, Tranica Dracken, the Century Knights, and Daemonism all present, there's very little not to like.

While the story initially sounds like a simple progression of events that lead Frey and the Ketty Jay from one place to another, it's far more than that. With further details emerging about the Manes and the Awakeners, Wooding is building the world and history very well indeed. There were aspects in Retribution Falls when I wished more time could be spent exploring them, but they've been raised and looked at in The Black Lung Captain, incorporated into the story to give strength to an already impressive plot.

The characters are all back and, with the inclusion of Captain Grist, make a fine contribution to the novel. We get to see more of the little details developed here, from Harkins and his ongoing troubles with Slag the cat, to Pinn's idolised love who he left at home long ago. Each character has the attention they deserve. Personally I found Jez's plight one of the best, the truth about her half-Mane heritage finally becoming common knowledge and just how the others react to that. However, Crake's breakdown because of his guilt over Bess' death is another well-handled development, showing strong characterisation on Wooding's part. Speaking of Bess, she steals the show every time we see her.

Perhaps the biggest, and most changed, relationship in The Black Lung Captain is between Frey and Tranica Dracken. Dracken, being Frey's jilted (at the altar) fiance from years past and central to the Ketty Jay's lack of fortune after the ending of Retribution Falls, is a much more central character in The Black Lung Captain. When Dracken's ship, the Delirium Trigger, steals the stolen goods from them, it all kicks off. But as the story progresses we start to see more interaction between Dracken and Frey, and much of this fills in the gaps of their history, but also shows different sides to both of them. Really good stuff!

Suffice to say that I enjoyed The Black Lung Captain enormously. It has everything I want from a good book - great characters, superb story, plenty of action, and all the little extras that add to the story. While I'd recommend this in a heartbeat, you really need to read Retribution Falls first to fully enjoy it. Don't worry, that's no chore either, and I'm sure you'll discover what I already have: Chris Wooding writes one hell of a novel!

Review | Orphan's Alliance by Robert Buettner (Orbit)

Title: Orphan's Alliance
Author: Robert Buettner
Publisher: Orbit
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Release Date: 15th January 2009

Buy from: Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com

Jason's army defeated the slugs on Bren and now, fifteen years later, he finds himself once more commanding an invasion force. This time they must expel the Slugs from a small moon, where they decimated the human inhabitants.

And although Earth has finally begun to mobilise against the aggressors, a new and problematic faction has arisen. The totalitarian government of Tressel, a strategically-situated planet, is willing to defeat the Slugs at any cost - regardless of the human casualties.

Unfortunately for Jason, his godson, Jude, is attracted to Tressel's total-war policies. As the struggle continues, Jason is not only fighting for the survival of the human race, but for his relationship with the only family he has left.

The Jason Wander series of Military Sci-Fi books is one I picked up a couple of years back and have been reading them steadily since then. Orphan's Alliance is the fourth book in this series and, as has been the case in all so far, it has a different approach to the setting and overall story. Orphanage (review), Orphan's Destiny (review) and Orphan's Journey (review) have steadily carried the story forward, from the first encounter with the slugs, to a counter-attack by them, and finally to the discovery of ftl travel and human inhabited planets. I picked up this book as a comfort read after enjoying the first three and thought this would satisfy me in the same way. Unfortunately it didn't and has left me questioning whether or not to read the final book or call it quits...

We follow on from the events of Orphan's Journey, the human race now building starships and flying between the stars and finding more inhabited planets that the slugs put humans on tens of thousands of years ago to mine cavorite for them. Jason, Ord, Munchkin and and Jude each progress in different ways, from gaining a higher rank in the military to moving on to political office, and each plays a role in the events of the story. With an imminent attack from slugs expected it's up to Jason and friends to forge alliances with these other planets in order to fight off the slugs, and to build a working multi-world human alliance.

This time the focus is more of a political one, looking at the relationship between Earth it the other human planets that have been discovered. With each of these planets a new people are met, but the differences between them and Earth humans is not so great. The main issue is the political and cultural differences, each affecting the story in their own ways and contributing to the tension and military action within the novel. From the early scenes on one of the planets where two nations are fighting one another, to the main battle of the story, the military aspect is spot on, as expected. It's just the political aspect I wasn't too impressed with.

While the stories are told from Jason's point of view, putting him the situation that he's in during the events of Orphan's Alliance just didn't feel quite right. With the focus being on forging alliances and all the little details that go along with that, Jason's viewpoint isn't one that I would want to read this aspect from. It just didn't feel right and was very much the reason that Orphan's Alliance missed the mark with me.

Overall Orphan's Alliance is a good continuation of the series, but it's the low point so far and just feels a little clunky at times. Buettner is excellent at Military SF, but when the focus moves too far away from that my enjoyment really did suffer. Finishing Orphan's Alliance was a bit of a struggle, to be honest, and it'll be a while before I decide whether or not to continue to the climax of a series that I was very much enjoying before this book. It's funny how one book can be a turn-off despite the enjoyment I've had from the previous ones...

Review | The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett (Corvus)

Title: The Holy Machine
Author: Chris Beckett
Publisher: Corvus
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Release Date: 1st July 2010

Buy from: Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com

George Simling has grown up in the city state of Illyria in the Eastern Mediterranean, an enclave of logic and reason founded as a refuge from the Reaction, a wave of religious fundamentalism that swept away the nations of the 21st century. Yet to George, Illyria's militant rationalism is as close-minded and stifling as the faith-based superstition that dominates the world outside its walls. For George has fallen in love with Lucy. A prostitute. A robot. She might be a machine, but the semblance of life is perfect. And beneath her good looks and real human skin, her seductive, sultry, sluttish software is simmering on the edge of consciousness. To the city authorities, robot sentience is a malfunction, curable by periodically erasing and resetting silicon minds. Simple maintenance, no real problem, it's only a machine.

But it's a problem for George; he knows that Lucy is something more. His only alternative is to flee Illyria, taking Lucy deep into the religious Outlands where she must pass as human because robots are seen as demonic mockeries of God, burned at the stake, dismembered, crucified. Their odyssey leads through betrayal, war and madness, ending only at the monastery of the Holy Machine...

I picked up The Holy Machine when I attended Alt.Fiction earlier this year after being persuaded by the guys at the Interzone table. The copy I picked up was the original US release, but I then received the UK copy from Corvus with the very nice cover art above. This really did prompt me to pick it up, and while I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to get, I knew that the subject could swing it one of two ways for me. Luckily The Holy Machine hit the right notes and delivered a great story, but I did have a couple of issues with it...

The first thing to say about The Holy Machine is the way it is written. Chris Beckett has somehow managed to write a book about pretty serious themes - religion vs science, AI sentience - but has managed to do so in such a way that makes the pages fly past. The prose is great and when you think you've only read a few minutes you realise that an hour has gone by. I love books that do this, there is nothing better than being completely and utterly caught up in the story.

The story itself has to match the writing and on the whole it did, providing some interesting looks into a future society where the world has taken religion to the extreme. With only Illyria left as a purely scientific outpost of humanity while the rest of the world has turned to religion proves an excellent choice. The underlying problems that are created by this black and white world are interesting enough, but it's the clear division of science/religion that I found a little hard to take at times. While this area of grey is part of the story, it feels like it could have been more thoroughly explored to expand the idea, but The Holy Machine is written from George's perspective and that limits what can and can't be delved into as part of the story.

The topic of AI sentience is one of the main aspects of The Holy Machine. With Illyria building more and more robots - from the standard household helpers, to police robots, and even prostitutes - the programs they initially start with evolve to bring a semi-sentience to them. The solution is, of course, to wipe their programs and start again. This is where the meat of The Holy Machine lies, with George and Lucy escaping Illyria and going on the run from both Illyria and the religions that despise AI creations. It's really interesting to see how the story progresses from here, but it also marks the part of the novel where time skips past at a fair rate. We don't follow everything, and this is just when the story starts to get into the more serious territory, the consequences of many earlier actions starting take hold in the wider world. It's not a let down, and doesn't really affect George's story, but it is an aspect I was a little disappointed with.

Despite the above issues I had with The Holy Machine, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not a long novel and not as in-depth as it could have been, but the story of George and Lucy makes it one of my favourites so far this year. It's what character based science-fiction is about, and I for one will be very much looking forward to the next Chris Beckett book.