Review | Kell's Legend by Andy Remic (Angry Robot)

Title: Kell’s Legend
Author: Andy Remic
Publisher: Angry Robot
Format: Paperback
Release Date: September 2009
Reviewed by: Steve Aryan

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

They came from the north, and the city fell. It is a time for warriors, a time for heroes. Kell's axe howls out for blood. The land of Falanor has been invaded by an albino army, the Army of Iron. A small group set off to warn the king: Kell, a magnificent and brutal hero; his granddaughter, Nienna and her friend, Katrina; and Saark, the ex-Sword Champion of King Leanoric, disgraced after his affair with the Queen. Fighting their way south, betrayal follows battle, battle follows deviation, and they are attacked from all quarters by deadly warriors, monstrous harvesters who drain blood from their victims to feed their masters. As Falanor comes under heavy attack and invasion, only then does Nienna begin to learn the truth about grandfather Kell -- that he is anything but a hero.

Kell’s Legend is dedicated to the memory of the late David Gemmell, the man who inspired Andy Remic to write fantasy. This book is undoubtedly an homage to Gemmell’s most famous character, Druss the Legend. The first story about Druss’s life, in the novel Legend, came towards the end of his life where he was an old man who had lived through many wars, buried countless friends and enemies and was unsuccessfully trying to settle into retirement. Kell shares many traits with Druss, as he too is an isolated old man who has seen better days, has arthritis in his joints and his only constant companion is a cursed, and possibly demon possessed, double bladed battle axe that made him infamous.

In terms of characterisation Kell speaks like Druss, has a similar code of honour and just as many regrets. After a lifetime of saving lives, fighting in battles and wars that have become ancient history to most people, he finds himself alone, unloved and with nothing to show for it. The only bright spot in his life is his granddaughter, someone that keeps him going, but she is also an innocent young woman who has no idea about who her grandfather really is.

The story doesn’t sit still and the pacing is fast throughout this book. No sooner have we met the characters and learned a little about Kell’s quiet life it is then disrupted by an invading army of albino soldiers from the North. The rest of his neighbours are wiped out almost to a man, and after rescuing his granddaughter and a friend of hers, they flee for their lives. Kell comes out of retirement, wields his wicked axe and hacks and slices his way through the enemy. His granddaughter must not only come to terms with her new life, on the run from an invading army who murder anyone that gets in their way, but she also has a rude awakening about Kell. She quickly realises he isn’t just an old man with lots of war stories but is still a lethal warrior and a force of nature that cannot be easily stopped. The years seem to fall away when Kell is once more hip deep in blood, making him ferocious but also terrifying to those around him.

To begin with I thought the whole book was going to be an analogue for Legend, but Remic introduces several original fantasy creations, steering it away from being a copy. The clockwork vampires and related monsters are something unique and they are the overwhelming force that is wiping away all resistance. Heroes are introduced and their feats made known, only for them to be beaten by the albinos, establishing their credentials as something unstoppable and not seen before. Like Gemmell, characters in Kell’s Legend are sometimes not who they appear to be and your first impressions will be turned on their head. A hero might be stripped of what made him the best and then sent out against the enemy, forcing them to find an inner strength or fight the enemy in another way. It’s a fascinating way of testing someone to see what they’re really made of and if they were a hero just because of their prowess with a sword or if it was because of something else deeper inside.

The rest of the novel is one big bloody and epic adventure where new characters are introduced and story threads laid down which will be pulled together at a later stage in the trilogy. As mentioned the story is very fast paced with cliffhanger endings to a lot of chapters to make you turn the page and keeping read. Once the firing pistol has gone off characterisation often comes through action and brief dialogue, not through internal monologues or discussion. There is no time to think, to stand around talking and considering all the options, it’s fight or die most often and the break-neck pace doesn’t let up at any point. Many of the style choices are similar to those you might find in a thriller, so if you enjoy that kind of a story and are not a fan of the heavier fantasy books which spend a lot of time on world building, then I would recommend Kell’s Legend. A highly entertaining and bloody fantasy novel jam-packed full of action.

Review | Messiah by S. Andrew Swann (Ace)

Title: Messiah
Author: S. Andrew Swann
Publisher: Ace
Format: Paperback
Release Date: Feb 2011

Reviewed by: Daniel Burton

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

The last stand against the self-proclaimed God, Adam, has retreated to the anarchic planet Bakunin-a world besieged by civil war. Humanity's last hope lies with Nickolai Rajasthan, a Moreau who believes that the human race that created his kind is already damned beyond redemption.

In Messiah, the third and final book in his Apotheosis Series, S. Andrew Swann has crafted a fitting end to the story of the fight against the alien AI Adam. The seeds of salvation from the worlds destroying nanobots under Adam’s control are seemingly unstoppable, and the rebels are cornered to the planet of Bakunin for one last “hail Mary” shot at survival, no pun intended.

As with its predecessors, Messiah is chock full of exciting action and creative twists. We see multiple characters inhabiting a single body, mutant tigers that struggle with faith and redemption, portals to other dimensions, and more. Like science fiction is supposed to do, Swann pushes us to examine ourselves, our world, and our faith, while spinning his tale in a world different, but not entirely so, from our own.

Perhaps it is this last aspect of Messiah that makes it most worth reading—Swann’s effort to turn the action inward towards looking at human nature. Swann puts us in a multicultural universe where prejudices are harbored, and while the prejudices are against beings so different from ours—mutants, AIs, and hives of merged consciousness—they are a proxy for humanity’s own proclivities to regard those who are different as suspect, dangerous, and sub-human.

As he writes in the last page of the book, speaking of these disparate races descended from humanity:

All these, and more, no formed the people of mankind—humanity no longer quite exclusively human; all still sharing the need to understand, and to give themselves meaning.

And the expanding universe of humanity faced this diversity as it always had—painfully, in equitably, begrudgingly—with violence and joy, with denial and a near divine acceptance. Each of the five hundred billion human hearts left to navigate its own path through the chaos of human belief.

Nothing had changed.

Everything had changed.

I finished reading and wondered if such a result was plausible. Could the shared threat of destruction of all humanity, really result in a paradigm shift that would reset our predilections and prejudices?

I don’t know. Still, it is an interesting idea, and it comes with a great, rip-roaring ride of a tale. Pick up a copy of Messiah (as well as Prophets and Heretics) and enjoy the ride.

---

About Daniel Burton
Dan Burton lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he practices law by day and practices everything else by night. You can follow him on his blog lawafterthebar.wordpress.com where he muses on the law, current events, books, and ideas. He can be contacted at dan.burton@gmail.com.

Interview | Elspeth Cooper

Elspeth Cooper is a British fantasy author and her debut novel Songs of the Earth, book 1 of the Wild Hunt trilogy, is published on 16th June this year by Gollancz. Both Mark and I recently read an advanced copy and our reviews can be found here.

Elspeth very kindly took some time out of her busy schedule to answer some questions about her interest in the fantasy genre, her processes as a full time writer and her experiences as a debut author.

I've read that you've been a fan of epic stories and fantasy since you were a child. What is it about the genre that speaks to you more than others?

EC: I think it's the scope. Reading Homer at a formative age probably had something to do with it (it was raining, and the only thing in the house I hadn't read was Dad's Penguin classics). There's so much room in fantasy; space for the imagination to breathe, in the landscapes, the architecture, the customs, the history. There are new and interesting ways to present questions and address issues, or just torture your characters to find out what really makes them tick as people.

Who were your favourite fantasy authors growing up?

EC: As a youngster, it was Susan Cooper and Alan Garner, who've stayed with me to this day (a couple of years ago I asked for, and received, the The Dark is Rising omnibus as a Christmas present), then David Eddings, who I sort of grew out of through my teens; looking back now the books seem a bit simplistic. Late teens I got into Guy Gavriel Kay, with The Fionavar Tapestry. They're the stand-out names, but in those days I inhaled books at a rate of knots, and can't remember half the titles I've read.

Can you describe your journey to being published? Did it take you long to find an agent and then a publisher?

EC: It was a short and not very interesting journey: I found an agent in 17 days. But it took me 20 years to work up the courage to start looking for one. Seriously, it was one of those happy accidents: I hit the right agent at the right time with the right book. Based on my opening chapters he requested the full manuscript, and by the end of the week I had an agency agreement. Two weeks later, I had an offer from Gollancz. That's about as painless as it gets.

After years of working on your novel, what did it feel like to find out you were going to be published? Where were you when you found out the news?

EC: I was sitting at my computer reading my email, and there was one from my agent with the subject "I hope you're sitting down". I had the whole this-isn't-really-happening wobbly moment, then after reading it I was incapable of coherent speech for about 20 minutes. All my husband could get out of me was demented giggling and random swear-words.

As a (soon to be) published author, have you discovered any myths about the process of being published?

EC: Anywhere unpublished authors gather together, you will hear the myths being perpetuated. I'd been a subscriber to Writers' News & Writing Magazine for absolutely yonks so I knew most of the stories were utter BS, but they're so pervasive, and they're repeated so many times by so many people that they acquire this sheen of Divine Truth.

For example: Editors will rip your work apart (busted: if it needed that much work, they'd never have bought it in the first place). You have to know someone or be someone to get published these days (busted: I'm a complete nobody). Books over 100,000 words, especially by a debut author, will never sell (busted: here's a debut author with a 144k word manuscript, sold to the first publisher who got a sniff at it, and re: myth #1, it got *longer* during the edit).

Actually one myth - that it's the marketing department who hold the real sway over book acquisitions - I found out from my editor to be at least partly true. Many a beautifully-written book has fallen at the final hurdle, the acquisitions meeting, because the marketing dudes couldn't see how to position it to make it sell. And this, I think, is the bitterest pill for the writer to swallow. Publishing is a business, and like any other, it only stays in business if it makes money. That means you, Mr or Ms Writer, have to give them something that they know they can sell. That doesn't mean it has to be some bland identikit "airport novel", but it does mean that your work needs commercial appeal. There is no longer room in most publishers' lists for utterly lovely books that sell less than 1,000 copies, even subsidised by the next Dan Brown.

As a full time writer, is it any easier or harder than when you were unpublished?

EC: It's easier, because I can spend all day writing, and it's harder, because I can spend all day writing! It is so easy to get distracted by Twitter or Facebook or even by household chores because there's no longer a full-time job occupying most of my day to force me to ruthlessly prioritise what I do with the time that's left. If anything, it takes more discipline now to make myself work, than it did when I only had two hours late at night and had to make them count.

Some modern fantasy is murkier and less black and white than fantasy books from my youth, by authors such as Tolkien, Eddings, Brooks. Where does Songs of the Earth sit on the spectrum?

EC: Good question. I've never really thought about it. I went through so much what you could call cookie-cutter fantasy when I was younger that I thoroughly sickened myself of it, and tend to run away screaming at the first mention of the p-word (prophecy). So I love reading books where there are fewer moral absolutes, and the heroes are a bit grubbier round the edges (and I don't just mean they haven't bathed recently).

But is that what I'm writing? It's difficult to be truly objective about my own work. Certainly I made no conscious decision to write a particular kind of fantasy; like many first novels, Songs started with a single scene and just evolved. On the cookie-cutter to bankrupt-nihilism scale, it's somewhere in the middle, leaning towards the grubby. Gair's a fairly moral guy, trying to do the right thing, but he's also human, and he doesn't get it right all the time.

I read on your blog that Songs of the Earth seemed to develop organically over time. Has your approach changed with the other two novels in the trilogy? Are you still a gardener or an architect who plans everything?

EC: I am a 100% organic certified-by-the-Soil-Association gardener. For the second book, I already knew where it was going - I had a piece of trellis to train the plant up, as it were - but how it got from rung to rung was in some cases a complete surprise. For Book 3, I'm still nailing bits of wood together . . .

I have tried planning, I really have, and I find I write more fluidly if I just point myself in the general direction of "The End" and take the brakes off. If I over-think I seem to tie myself in knots, whereas if I let myself go, almost on autopilot, the characters really do develop a life of their own and frequently take interesting shortcuts that add a depth and texture to the story that would otherwise never have occurred to me if I'd tried to reason it out.

Maps in fantasy books are very important to some people as part of the world building experience. Are you a fan of them or not? Do you have a physical map for your world anywhere?

EC: I drew a map years ago, when I was still at the "false start" stage with the book - it didn't even have a title then. But then I changed the geography quite radically, and it became useless. One day when I have some time I'll dig out the draughtsman's pens and have another go, just for my own amusement.

As a reader, I rather like maps when done well, but I hate useless or irrelevant ones that seem to have been included purely because the publisher thought fantasy = must have a map. I certainly don't feel cheated if the book doesn't have one. With some complex worlds, like Melanie Rawn's (unfinished) Exiles trilogy, the map's downright essential to keep track of the ladder pairs, but in others you don't even miss them when they're not there.

Do you still read fantasy now that you are a published author? If so, what novels or authors have you recently enjoyed?

EC: Yep, I'm still a fan, although I feel like I have even less time for reading now than I used to. It's the one thing I miss about giving up the commute to the day job: I've lost two hours a day of prime reading time.

The last thing I read was The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan, which had been sitting unopened on my bookshelves since the day it was released, until this February. Before that was Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie, and before that was Pat Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind, which I read whilst in hospital last autumn.

As for which book's currently got my bookmark in it, I've still got about 65 pages to go on Trudi Canavan's The Magician's Guild, but I haven't cracked the covers in months. I put it down before Christmas to go make dinner, and have had no real desire to pick it up again beyond my terrible compulsion to finish what I've started.

******

Songs of the Earth is published on June 16th and for more information about the author and forthcoming signings and appearances you can visit her website and follow her blog or visit the Gollancz website.

Review | X-men - Nation X (Marvel Comics)

Title: Nation X
Author: Matt Fraction
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Format: Hardback
Release Date: November 2010

Reviewed by: Steve Aryan

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

A mutant nation has been created on UTOPIA, off the coast of California. But what does that mean to the X-Men? Magneto's return has stunned the X-Men, but that's not the only surprise they're in for as a herd of Predator X's come hungry for mutant tartar. The hits just keep on coming, but can the X-Men, still nursing their wounds from UTOPIA, deal with all this? What about when the island they call home begins to sink and Namor is the only one who can save the day?

This story takes place in the middle of a whole bunch of other X-men comics and it does help to know what’s going on in current continuity, although it’s not essential. So even though this is not a Gateway Comic by any stretch of the imagination, I wanted to review it because it does something we’ve been waiting for in comics for many years. The story has moved on and there’s no going back. I should point out this comic was not the first to do this and is not the only one. It used to be that in many comics, like episodes of early Star Trek TNG, the reset button was pressed and everything went back to normal. The phrase ‘nothing will ever be the same again’ was used so many times in comics it lost all meaning. However, in the last, maybe ten years or so, things have changed and have not gone back.

Charles Xavier dreamed of mutants peacefully living alongside humans while Magneto knew the two could never co-exist and wanted to see mutants take their place as rulers and inheritors of the Earth. The age of both of these men has now passed and in Nation X, the children have grown up and kicked the adults out of the nest. Scott Summers aka Cyclops was one of the original five mutants created by Stan Lee. These five students would eventually become the X-men and in many ways Cyclops was the leader. For decades Charles Xavier led and directed the X-men but in recent years he fell out of favour by making some bad decisions and his X-men lost faith in him.

In Nation X, Cyclops has come of age. He is now the leader of the X-men and head of the mutant nation of Utopia. After years of standing in the shadows and following orders like a good soldier, he is now the leader he was born and trained to be. Xavier and even Magneto now take their direction from him and whenever Xavier tries to take the back the reigns, Cyclops is quick to remind him he is no longer in charge and if he doesn’t like it he can go elsewhere. They don’t trust Xavier, but Cyclops has always done the right thing and he has grown up to become a tough general, the man Xavier always wanted him to become.

It was very enjoyable to see the story come full circle with Magneto having to prove his worth and sincerity to work with the X-men instead of against them after decades of being in opposition. He is a ruthless man but also very intelligent and he knows that his time has past and he is not the one who will shape the destiny of the mutants. Xavier is less willing to accept a secondary role but he too must earn their trust and goodwill as his mistakes are not easily forgotten or forgiven.

This trade was full of action with a few fights against dangerous enemies, but more interesting for me was to see how the character dynamics have changed. Magneto might be one of the most powerful mutants, but he is also not a young man anymore and he can’t push himself as hard as he used to without consequences. For those who read Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-men there is a brilliant scene in Nation X which I can’t talk about even slightly without spoiling it, but this comic was worth reading just for that. Xavier is still a powerful telepath but now there are others that can fulfil that role equally well, so he is left to provide wise counsel, if it is required and asked for. Magneto and Xavier didn’t see their dreams fulfilled and now is the time of their children and grandchildren to reach for new dreams and they are no longer the shepherds of mutantkind.

Under the leadership of Cyclops, Utopia is to become an independent nation, a sovereign state within the borders of the United States. So in some ways it embraces both the visions of Magneto and Xavier. The X-Men still fight against enemies that threaten mutants and humanity, but they live apart and will self govern themselves. Creating a viable state is not easy and there are obviously those in opposition to the idea and we see some of the political wrangling that goes on behind the scenes. Cyclops must juggle all of this as leader, solving major problems like preventing an invasion of Utopia to minor issues, such as making sure enough electricity if generated to power the island.

Overall Nation X is fascinating look at leadership and the pressure placed on those in charge. If you’ve not read the X-men comics in a long time, then I would recommend getting up to date via Wiki or another summary website and diving back in, because for once, things have changed and there is no way things will ever be the same again.

Mini-Reviews | The Lost Fleet: Valiant, Relentless & Victorious by Jack Campbell (Titan Books)

Titles: The Lost Fleet: Valiant, Relentless & Victorious
Author: Jack Campbell
Publisher: Titan Books
Format: Paperback

Buy from:
Valiant - Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com
Relentless - Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com 
Victorious - Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com

I've really enjoyed reading The Lost Fleet novels by Jack Campbell (pen name of John G Hemry) and while I've reviewed the first three (Dauntless, Fearless & Courageous) individually the series does have many similar themes that would see me repeating myself in reviews of the last three books. So I'm combining them and giving a general overview rather than a detailed synopsis. Be warned, there will be spoilers ahead....

At the end of Courageous the Alliance Fleet had faced the Syndics in battle, surviving but in a tricky position. As they arrive in a neighbouring system after jump Geary order a reverse course so they can return and strike while the iron is hot, serving the Syndics with another loss. From here the fleet face the task of fighting their way through the rest of Syndic space, discovering traitors amongst their own fleet, more signs that the superfast travel system of the hypernet was not of human origin and that these non-human intelligences are involved deeper than anyone could have guessed. With tracking worms hidden deep in the ship systems, hypernet gates collapsing and causing devastation of immense proportions, and the constant threat of the Syndics, the fleet battle their way back to Alliance space. But the return is short lived and Geary is once again commanding the fleet in a final attack on the Syndic home system to accept their surrender, and once that threat is dealt with it's time to find out exactly what is on the other side of Syndic space...

I've said in previous reviews how much I enjoy this series and I'll say it once again here. While the first books set up the events and characters, Valiant, Relentless and Victorious continue them in style and finish the series rather nicely. Valiant is a book more about discoveries than anything else, Geary and his close group learning more about the hypernet system and starting to gain a better understanding of the big picture. Relentless is very much the action orientated one with the fleet charging home to Alliance space against ever increasing odds, while Victorious ties off the main story thread and adding a little something new into the mix. It all comes together very nicely in the end, but the story along the way also works very well.

Looking at the series from this point of view I can say that the character development comes slowly and steadily, building up to take into account all the events that are affecting the fleet. Geary, the main character, is obviously the one that gets the most attention and through these last three books it's refreshing to see the payoff when the fleet returns to the Alliance. We've seen the way Co-President Rione treats Geary through these books, plus the way he's looked at by other captains, and the reaction of the government is pleasing and handled very well. The same goes for the other main characters - Desjani, Rione, Duellos, Badaya - all of whom grow to be well suited assets to the story and allowing Campbell to tell a rip-roaring tale that encompasses all things affecting the fleet and Alliance.

To me the Lost Fleet series has been a continuous growth in terms of the characters and the story. Just when you think things are settling down there is something else hidden beneath the surface that throws a spanner in the works. Campbell has done a good job at writing the books in such a way that the overall story arc, both the primary one of getting the fleet home and the secondary one of the non-human intelligences, are always in the fore, but he manages to mix it up with all other events and surprises. Above all it works extremely well when looked at as a whole, and very much worth the time and effort to read.

I'll now be looking forward to the new book in the next series, Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught, to see where Geary and co. go from here, and what other surprises Jack Campbell has in store!

This whole series comes highly recommended from me and the tension and entertainment is there from the first page of Dauntless all the way through to the last page in Victorious. Excellent.

Review | Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks (Orbit)

Title: Shadow's Edge
Author: Brent Weeks
Publisher: Orbit
Format: Paperback
Release Date: November 2008

Reviewed by: Steve Aryan

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

Kylar has rejected the assassin's life. In the wake of the Godking's violent coup, both his master and his closest friend are dead. His friend was Logan Gyre, heir to Cenaria's throne, but few of the ruling class survive to mourn his loss. So Kylar is starting over: new city, new companions, and new profession. But when he learns that Logan might be alive, trapped and in hiding, Kylar faces an impossible choice. He could give up the way of shadows forever, and find peace with his young family. Or Kylar could succumb to his flair for destruction, the years of training, to save his friend and his country - and lose all he holds precious.

This is a second book in a trilogy and I really enjoyed the first. So I approached this volume with great excitement and was really looking forward to it, but on the whole I thought it was uneven and I was disappointed at the end. Some spoilers for the first book will be included, so look away now if you don’t want to know. When Way of the Shadows ends, Kylar is setting off to live a new life with Elene and a surrogate daughter. Durzo is dead and Logan, the once and future king, is a prisoner in the worst place on earth and not likely to survive for more than a few days. But Kylar doesn’t know this, thinks his friend is dead, and therefore isn’t going to come and rescue him. As cliff-hangers go, it doesn’t get any better than that.

So imagine my surprise when the first approximately two hundred pages of the second book felt like a day time soap opera. It was full of teenage level angst as Kylar tries to move forward in his relationship with Elene, but there is a lot of fumbling, emotionally and physically, between them. Kylar is a bit of a mess psychologically, and it’s not surprising after first living rough on the streets doing whatever was needed in order to survive, and then being apprenticed to an assassin. So his idea of relationships and a normal life are not familiar concepts. So to some degree the character is immature, despite the fact that he has killed people. It was always going to be a struggle for him to adapt, but for me it was not handled very well as it went on too long and it felt very at odds with the other threads.

An interesting story thread was Logan’s continued survival in The Hole, but we are also introduced to some new characters and previously tertiary characters were brought forward into the spotlight. I commented in my review of the first book that it was unpredictable with lots of twists and turns which I really enjoyed. I believe the author was trying for that again in this volume, but for me it never quite achieved it on the same level, and in the end it felt a bit jumbled. To be fair there were a number of unexpected events that I never saw coming which kept me reading and it was never a predictable read. At no point did I say, well obviously so and so will die, and she’ll end up with that one, and they’ll live happily ever after. This book is very dark, so all bets are off and as proven in the first book and again this one, no character is safe. Weeks takes a number of risks in terms of plot and character development and I feel that he was mostly, but not always, successful.

In the second half of the book the action really picks up again when Kylar is forced out of his new life and must return to his old. It is something he was unable to leave behind for a number of reasons, including the manner in which he was raised, but also because he is now heir to a remarkable artefact that effectively grants him immortality. At this point the story threads start to converge and characters that were previously running in parallel start to interact with one other. There is a resolution at the end of this book, some story threads are tied up, but it feels very much like a chapter in Kylar’s life and not the end of his story. Some new plot threads are left dangling to be picked up in the third book and the finale was interesting, but parts of it left me puzzled. A previously important character was relegated to a supporting role until the latter part of the book and given very little do, which was another surprise, but not a good one this time.

There are a lot of interesting ideas in this book, new angles on familiar archetypes which demonstrate the author’s creativity, so Weeks cannot be accused of writing a fantasy story by the numbers. Sometimes a middle book in a trilogy can suffer from being flat and treading water until the finale in the series, and again that is not the case here. There is a lot of action and plot twists, but compared to the first it lacked clarity and focus. I think character development was flat and incredibly juvenile in some places, and fascinating in others, especially the character of Logan. I hope in the last book there will be a chance to see the long term repercussions of his incarceration, because they will have left an indelible mark.

I am intrigued and still want to know what happens next to the characters and I will be reading the third book in the trilogy, but I will be approaching it with a fair amount of trepidation. I hope it returns to form and is more tightly written like the first, with more adult dialogue and less modern day slang which was distracting and ineffective. This book hasn’t put me off the author or the series. As ever, this is just my opinion so let me know your thoughts.

Cover Art & Synopsis | War in Heaven by Gavin Smith (Gollancz)

The high-powered sequel to VETERAN sees an unlikely hero make an even more unlikely return to take the reader back into a vividly rendered bleak future. But a bleak future where there are still wonders: man travelling out into the universe, Bladerunneresque cities hanging from the ceilings of vast caverns, aliens that we can barely comprehend.

Gavin Smith writes fast-moving, incredibly violent SF thrillers but behind the violence and the thrills lies a carefully thought out story and characters who have far more to them than first meets the eye.

Never one to avoid controversy Gavin Smith nevertheless invites you to think beyond the initial shock of what you have just read. But in the meantime? Another fire-fight, another chase, another flight of imagination.

VETERAN was a slam-bang dive into a violent SF future. Now things get serious.

War in Heaven is the sequel to Veteran (review) by author Gavin Smith and to be published by Gollancz this coming September. This artwork, like that for Veteran, is the creation of Martin Bland, and is awesome. I actually prefer this one to Veteran because it's more obviously sci-fi, but it also keeps the same style from the first book. My only slight criticism is the colour of the title and author name - they don't stand out as much as they should and could do with being amended slightly to achieve this.

I'm very much looking forward to getting my grubby little hands on War in Heaven as I enjoyed Veteran a great deal. Roll on September!

Review | Secret Six: Danse Macabre (DC Comics)

Title: Secret Six: Danse Macabre (Vol 3)
Author: Gail Simone
Publisher: DC Comics
Format: Paperback
Release Date: December 2010

Reviewed by: Steve Aryan

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

Amanda Waller and her Suicide Squad have captured Deadshot to try to force him to rejoin their ranks, but his current teammates in the Secret Six don't see that happening any time soon. As the two groups go toe-to-toe, the Black Lanterns show up and force the teams to work together to defeat these heroes and villains that have risen from the dead.

It probably seems a little odd to review what is actually the third trade paperback in a series without having covered the first two, but this will be a fairly general review of the overall series with only a few minor spoilers. As you might guess, I read quite a lot of comics every year and whenever a Secret Six trade arrives it quickly ends up on the top of my to read pile. Secret Six is one of the best kept secrets at DC comics and one of the most interesting, dark and funny series in a twisted way.

The story focuses on a group of villains. These are not nice people in any shape or fashion. They are not good guys turned bad who are secretly working towards redemption, or undercover good guys, or troubled souls doing bad things but secretly they just want to be stopped. These are hardcore villains, including Bane, the man who brought Gotham to its knees, who beat and broke Batman mentally and physically.

Most people don’t know how to handle Bane, in terms of writing the character. He was this big supervillain who came in, broke all the toys and then was beaten and put back on the shelf, but I was always fascinated by him and his origin. Bane has occasionally appeared in the odd mini series, but never an ongoing title before now and with good reason. He’s almost like the Borg used to be in Star Trek. They used to be scary and the mere mention of their name made me think about some of the darkest episodes in The Next Generation. But then they left the Borg in the spotlight for too long and they became cuddly and turned into Jeri Ryan. Thankfully the writer Gail Simone handles Bane with a deft touch that keeps him faithful to his origin. He’s a juggernaut and once he sets his mind on something he will not be stopped. He’s very intelligent, cunning, can speak a dozen languages and lives by his own set of rules. At this point he sounds similar to Batman, except with Bane if anyone crosses him he has no compunction about killing them. I’m very glad to say that Simone has not deviated from the core truth of the character and Bane is still a ruthless and very dangerous man.

The leader of the group is Scandal Savage, the daughter of Vandal Savage, an immortal megalomaniac who has been butchering people and committing all sorts of atrocities for centuries. He treated his daughter Scandal like any other of his countless progeny, he put her through a series of brutal trials as a child which were designed to kill her. If she survived it indicated she had some small potential and could one day be worthy of his name and attention. A lot of people think Lex Luthor is the ultimate evil, but if you stacked up what Vandal Savage has done over the centuries against Luthor, it makes him look like a teething infant throwing a hissy fit.

As you can imagine, Scandal has a lot to live up to and as a member of the Secret Six, a group of mercenary villains, she is making good headway. They take on missions from very unpleasant and ruthless clients and the comic is often awash with blood and body parts. The rest of the team are not much better, and to be honest, all of them are some of the most fascinating characters in the DC Universe. They are all seriously flawed individuals and each has a rich history that we dip into from time to time. For decades people have been exploring every corner and facet of the well known characters, such as Batman, Superman etc, but it’s rare that so much time is given to the study of a group of villains.

If you’ve never read a DC comic before Secret Six might be a little confusing at times when a new face shows up (at which point Wiki is your friend) but on the whole I think this series can be enjoyed by anyone. The comic sits firmly in the mainstream DC universe, which means the Secret Six could run into Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and so on, and yet this comic is definitely not for children and is not an all ages book by any stretch of the imagination. People die. They die hard on the page, not just off screen and the sort of missions the Six go on are pretty harsh. They work for money, they kill people, they break the law and will go through anyone, hero or villain, that gets in the way.

Each trade paperback focuses on one or two missions and they build on the previous one. There is no reset button, characters die, the group has a revolving cast, and there are repercussions and debts to pay for everything they do. If you like adult action stories in a superhero setting, following a group of interesting characters that just happen to be villains, then I would highly recommend picking up the first trade of the Secret Six. This is a real hidden gem from DC comics and it deserves a lot more attention.

Review | Kraken by China Miéville (Pan)

Title: Kraken
Author: China Miéville
Publisher: Pan
Format: Paperback
Release Date: May 2011

Reviewed by: Andy Venn

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

Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears?

For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he's been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it's a god.

A god that someone is hoping will end the world.

Someone has got into the Natural History Museum and removed a preserved giant squid. There are no traces of it. No evidence of how it was taken. But there is a squid shaped gap where it was yesterday evening. The police are investigating, but without any evidence what can they do? There now follows a ride through a London that no one could imagine. Poor Billy Harrow, the man who was, yesterday, preserving giant squids and other creatures, is thrown into this bizarre version of our capital city. He doesn’t want to be there and doesn’t understand any of it. He is bewildered and amazed, threatened, befriended, aided and lost.

A strange pair of assassins has been hired to find Billy as someone believes that he knows where the squid is. Other gangs from the London otherworld are also hunting him, and anyone he has come into contact with. His friend is eaten, his friends on/off girlfriend is threatened. And the one man who seems to be able to help him is kidnapped and tortured.

There is a belief that the squid is a God, returned to the sea for some final battle where London will burn. Some want this final battle and others are required to stop it. Meanwhile, a secret department from the Metropolitan Police is starting an investigation into this as well. And guess who they want to interview. Billy Harrow is getting more popular by the minute.

I have read a couple of China's previous novels and I was a little wary of this one. I have found that the novelist has a strange imagination, certainly stranger than mine and I thought that mine was weird! I find that China's books are immensely difficult to sink into. I really have to fight to get any sense of the world that he is writing about, certainly for the first half of the book anyway. Then, somewhere about ½ way through a veil is ripped apart and I can see where this is going and really start to enjoy it.

It is a clever story with some fantastic, and fantastical, characters. Billy Harrow has the lost and slightly hysterical feel about him that I always associated with Arthur Dent in Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy. A man who’s world has suddenly changed, and not for the better. While I found hard to empathise with him at the start by the end I was hurting with him, and just as bewildered!

It was a book I had to keep putting down and walking away from, it was, at times, tiring me out just trying to follow the dark and twisted path that this book was leading me down. Normally I would have put it down and not gone back to it but I have learnt that if you stick with China's story it does pay a dividend. It still took a couple of weeks for me to finish, though, and I am a man who can generally read a book a day.

If you have read his books before and know what you are letting yourself in for, then buy it. If you haven’t then get it from the library as it is an acquired taste.

---

About Andy Venn
I'm Andy Venn, aka Giant68 due to being 6'8" tall. I have been reading science fiction for 35 years since picking up the Lensman series. And fantasy since I pinched "Lost Worlds" by Clarke Ashton Smith from my uncle. I read both in, pretty much, equal measures. I write a blog occasionally, containing the whimsical, or bad tempered, meanderings of my mind at http://giant68.blogspot.com. Go and have a look, you'll find out all about me, and Lord knows I need the followers! Or email me at andy.venn@gmail.com.

Review | The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks (Orbit)

Title: The Way of Shadows
Author: Brent Weeks
Publisher: Orbit
Format: Paperback
Release Date: October 2008

Reviewed by: Steve Aryan

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

The perfect killer has no friends. Only targets. For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art. And he is the city's most accomplished artist, his talents required from alleyway to courtly boudoir. For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned the hard way to judge people quickly - and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint. But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics - and cultivate a flair for death.

Brent Weeks is someone I came across on the internet from time to time in relation to new names in modern fantasy, but it was only last year that I picked up the first of his Night Angel trilogy. Weeks is also someone who obviously has a good sense of humour as he went head to head with English fantasy author Joe Abercrombie on a shared Borders blog which turned out to be entertaining and very funny. I’m sure they both earned some new readers from the whole thing.

The Night Angel Trilogy, starting with The Way of Shadows, is Weeks’ debut series which came out in 2008 and I have labelled it dark fantasy, or maybe crime fantasy is more accurate, because it deals with the seedier side of a fantasy world less commonly seen. The major events in the book don’t take place on the battlefield or in the palace, but at the end of a knife in a dark alley. Since coming across Weeks I’ve nosed around the internet and have seen there are other fantasy series in a similar vein, such as the trilogy by Pamela Freeman. The commonality between the books of Weeks and Freeman is that usually in traditional fantasy the main character is a young Prince, a baker or farmer, or just a young boy who grows up to a hero of some kind, a great wizard, warrior or leader of men. In this case the main character, a street urchin called Azoth, grows up to become an assassin.

In my review of The Name of the Wind, I mentioned Kvothe is someone who has potentially changed the whole world. And in The Painted Man, Arlen is seeking to change his own destiny and then stop everyone living in fear by finding a way to kill all the demons and effectively reshape society. The Way of Shadows does involve events on a grand scale, but for the largest part of the book Azoth is just a tiny pebble being bounced around while others shape events and he learns how to kill under the tutelage of his master, the infamous wetboy Durzo Blint.

There is actually a young prince in the book, Logan Gyre, who crosses paths with Azoth from time to time, but the majority of the book is focused on Azoth, and Logan is in essence reduced to a B level character, which was an unusual and welcome change. Logan is someone who grows up with the potential to be a great man and King, but there again events do not move in a predictable fashion and he is utterly changed by some shocking events. I think that’s what I enjoyed most about Weeks’ writing. His style is fairly tight and punchy, and while the book is a hefty tome at over 600 pages, the chapters were not long and drawn out. Also the story moves quickly, starting with Azoth as a young boy and then skipping forward a few years from time to time, so we see the important events in his life but not every day of his training. As he grows and learns his trade, and as Durzo repetitively tries to drill it into him that he shouldn’t feel anything for his targets, world events continue to turn and then they start to overshadow everything. There are a lot of twists in this book that reshape the landscape which forces the reader to constantly reassess what they thought they knew. I never saw many of them coming but they are all organic developments and not changes that make no sense and leave you scratching your head afterwards.

I’ve not read a series before where a lot of the story is set around gangs, street crime and beggars. Scott Lynch has a series about a group of con artists, or Gentlemen Bastards as they’re called, but that is a world away from this. Growing up on the streets is a horrible place and we are not spared any of Azoth’s misery in his early years. The book is also intentionally quite brutal in places, but most of it is implied and takes place somewhere off the page, but there is enough menace to make the reader feel uncomfortable. Even when Azoth is older and does eventually kill people, it is never clean and heroic. For example his target is never a terrible man who has done something bad and therefore deserves to die. There is a lot of grey in this book, in the story and the characters, but it is still easy to root for Azoth and a couple of the other characters. He is someone who is not inherently evil despite what he is sometimes forced to do. He takes no pleasure in the killing and his original motivation to be like Durzo was that he didn’t want to be afraid anymore and be a victim.

By the end of the book the landscape of the world has shifted but Azoth was not the one responsible for the radical change. He is involved in events and connected to those pulling the strings, but he was not the driving force. By the end of the book Azoth has become a grown man and only at that point did I feel like it was just one part of a much larger story. As mentioned there is a lot of plot development, and I have the impression that Azoth, or perhaps his children, will be more involved in world events to come, but there again this will probably be done from the shadows, as an unseen assassin cutting strings and poking holes in the plots and schemes of others.

If you like a darker slice of fantasy, one involved crime syndicates, murder, street crime, a dash of magic, and enough plot twists to satisfy a fan of Lost (without it being ridiculous) then The Way of Shadows is the book for you. I’ve already picked up the second and third book in the trilogy and I am looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Review | Sweet Tooth Vol 2 by Jeff Lemire (Vertigo Comics)

Title: Sweet Tooth – In Captivity
Author: Jeff Lemire
Publisher: Vertigo
Format: Paperback
Release Date: December 2010

Reviewed by: Steve Aryan

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

An all-new series from Jeff Lemire, the award-winning creator of The Essex County Trilogy and THE NOBODY. A cross between Bambi and Cormac McCarthy s The Road, SWEET TOOTH tells the story of Gus, one of a rare new breed of human/animal hybrid children, having been raised in isolation following an inexplicable pandemic that struck a decade earlier. Now, with the death of his father, he s left to fend for himself... until he meets a hulking drifter named Jepperd, who promises to help him. In this second volume, Lemire explores the heartbreaking story of Jeppard and how he went from devoted husband to ruthless mercenary. Meanwhile, Gus is captive with other hybrid creatures in a camp where he meets a scientist studying the plague that s wiped out so much of the world.

Tom Jepperd is a tough man and a survivor. In the post apocalyptic world of Sweet Tooth, after the terrible plague that wiped out millions, he has all the skills you need and more importantly the will to act. But what kind of a man was he before all of this? In this second volume we find out about his background, his family and even his job, which was a bit of a surprise. Something is driving Jepperd and terrible events in his past come to light. He’s always had a fire in his belly, always been a scrapper, but there used to be more to the man than rage.

Without spoiling anything, Jepperd and Gus are now in different locations and we follow their stories in parallel. While we delve into Jepperd’s past we also see a bit more of what little civilisation remains in the present. For all of our advances, the world looks a lot like something out of a Mad Max film, where booze, bullets and gas are the most important commodities and the weak are crushed underfoot. Jepperd tried to get along with other people when the plague first hit, but when resources and food is scarce, people turn on one another and start fighting.

There have been a number of articles over the years that claim for all of our accomplishments, civilisation is just a thin veneer and that we are only a few meals away from anarchy. This is very much what happens after that. Most of the world’s population has been wiped out and the only way to get by is to look after yourself and not help other people. Or at least, that’s what it looks like on the surface and anyone doing the opposite will appear weak, which is not a good idea with so many predators about. There’s definitely a lot of darkness in this story, it’s bleak and sometimes quite sad, but I don’t think the whole story is going to be that way and there are bright moments too.

Gus finds himself alone without his protector and in the company of some other hybrid children. He’s at the mercy of some scientists who are looking into the hybrid children and the plague that killed most of the world’s population. The scientists claim to be all that’s left of the government and they are determined to find out why the hybrid children didn’t get sick along with everyone else. There are just too many questions and not enough answers. Some think the children are a by-product of the plague, others think they were the cause, which partially explains why there is so much hostility towards them. There’s also the fact that because they are so radically different to look at, people are immediately afraid of them. You can draw your own parallels between the hybrids and other groups in human history that have also experienced prejudice, racism, segregation, violent hostility and being locked up in camps. On the one hand you can read this story and it’s just a charming tale about weird children and revenge in an alternate future, but there is a lot more going on if you scratch the surface.

It’s hard to say much more without spoiling what happens to Gus, but I can say we find out a lot more about where he came from. There are some startling revelations and they made me reconsider what I thought I already knew. When reading any book or comic it’s easy to settle into a comfortable rhythm and it carries you along from one encounter to the next. It’s rare that a plot twist comes along that makes me want to go back and read it from the start to look for clues, but that is exactly what happened here. In some ways Sweet Tooth sounds like a fairly simple story, but with this volume the writer shows there are more layers to it and he offers a few clues about the larger mysteries.

Comics are a unique medium and in this volume Jeff Lemire does some remarkable things with the page. I’m not someone who normally notices and I’m a reader who pays more attention to the story than the artwork. However, in this volume there is a scene where one of the characters is hypnotised and we take a trip into their mind. It’s very cleverly done and because of the nature of comics, Lemire has created some stunning and interesting visuals that I’ve not seen before but will remember for a long time.

I’m a fan of post apocalyptic stories and as I mentioned in my review of Volume 1, there is a genuinely sweet and magical element to Sweet Tooth that is uncommon. Gus and Jepperd represent the opposite ends of the spectrum in this shattered world; one a true innocent and believer, and the other a man with no illusions who understands how the world really works. I’m somewhere in the middle, between the two of them, and as the story continues I think the truth about what happened will lie in that grey area. A great second volume and I can’t wait for the third to come out in June.

Cover Art & Synopsis | Daylight on Iron Mountain by David Wingrove (Corvus)

CHANGE IS ON THE AIR: The generals of the Middle Kingdom await the decision of the emperor.The campaign to secure the border from China to Iraq has reached a strange impasse. Two blood enemies - Arabs and Jews - have united against their common cause. But with the lives of thousands at his whim, the exalted Tsao Ch'un, the Son of Heaven, cannot decide. Destroy the Middle East in one blinding flash? Or take another path?

BUT THE WAY IS UNCLEAR: In the court of Tsao Ch’un, men of power have become smiling lackeys, whose graces conceal their fear, or their ambition. A man that can be trusted absolutely is a rare thing. And so, with his family held hostage by the empire, General Jiang Lei finds himself appointed to a special task: the orchestration of the last great war against the West. The total dominion of America.

WAR APPROACHES: But life in the world of levels continues. No hint of war, or want, or discontent can infiltrate the oppressive, ordered society that replaces the world Jake Reed once knew. Since the first airships rolled over the horizon, nothing has been the same. His new life means new thinking, new customs, a new way of behaving, and with his every move scrutinized, Jake can only serve the bureaucracy of new China. But he is not the only citizen who feels discontent with the anodyne new order.

Here's the cover for the next Chung Kuo book, Daylight on Iron Mountain, by David Wingrove due in November this year and the second of twenty in Corvus' massive re-release of the series. I like the fact that it's keeping to the same style that they used for the first book, Son of Heaven, and I'm hoping that this will continue for the whole series. I'm not sure if this is final or not, but be sure to expect the dust jacket to have nice shiny foil finish like Son of Heaven. I still really need to read Son of Heaven...

Review | City of Ruin by Mark Charan Newton (Tor)

Title: City of Ruin
Author: Mark Charan Newton
Publisher: Tor UK
Format: Hardback
Release Date: June 2010

Reviewed by: Steve Aryan

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

Villiren: a city of sin that is being torn apart from the inside. Hybrid creatures shamble through shadows and barely human gangs fight turf wars for control of the streets. Amidst this chaos, Commander Brynd Lathraea, commander of the Night Guard, must plan the defence of Viliren against a race that has broken through from some other realm and already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of the Empire’s people. When a Night Guard soldier goes missing, Brynd requests help from the recently arrived Inqusitor Jeryd. He discovers this is not the only disapearance the streets of Villiren. It seems that a serial killer of the most horrific kind is on the loose, taking hundreds of people from their own homes. A killer that cannot possibly be human. The entire population of Villiren must unite to face an impossible surge of violent and unnatural enemies or the city will fall. But how can anyone save a city that is already a ruin?

This is the second book in the Legends of the Red Sun series and although it takes place chronologically after the first, it is very much a standalone novel. The major characters from the first book are picked up in City of Ruin and you are introduced to some new ones that are interesting and original creations. A minor point worth mentioning is that although plot threads from Nights of Villjamur are touched on, the majority of the focus is on current events. Previous events are nudged along but not resolved and in some ways they are replaced by more pressing concerns or put to one side and they might be explored later in subsequent novels.

The story moves from Villjamur to Villiren, a decaying and desperate city which is directly in the path of the approaching alien army. Commander Brynd has been sent there to save the Empire and Investigator Jeryd has fled to the city to start a new life, free from the corruption and political schemes that riddled Villjamur. Unfortunately they have both jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire as the city is in many ways much worse.

The main focus of the story is around Jeryd’s investigation of strange disappearances in the city, and Brynd’s attempt to fortify and defend the city from an invading army of creatures they don’t understand and can’t communicate with. Randur and the ousted Jamur sisters also feature but their story is less prominent in the first half the book. The other new main character is Malum, a gang leader who is incredibly tough and physically commanding, but is in many ways emotionally crippled and unable to relate to anyone. He is also a subversion of a familiar horror archetype, and this is just one of the many ingredients from other genres that Newton introduces to create a new kind of fantasy. He also subverts his own creations, taking something from Nights of Villjamur and turning it on its head, so this book is not one for those who don’t like surprises or atypical fantasy.

More space in City of Ruin is given to Commander Brynd, the albino Commander, and there is an in depth exploration of his lifestyle and the effects it can have on his job. In the story many people cannot tolerate his sexuality, from a moral and religious standpoint, and this issue comes to a head with some unexpected results.

Like Nights of Villjamur, City of Ruin is as much a story about the city and the people living there as it is about the war and the coming Ice Age. Both of these are pressing concerns on the minds of everyone, and major events in the book are shaped around these issues, but a lot of space is given to explore relationships as they affect the characters’ ability to do their job. Inspector Jeryd is a favourite character of mine, despite the fact that he is not the best investigator in the world, but he does have this dogged approach that made me think of Peter Faulk’s Columbo, only he isn’t quite as sharp. In some ways I think this allows Newton to hide some clues in plain sight and it’s almost as if he uses Jeryd’s bumbling nature as a distraction. Because we amble along with Jeryd, stumbling into dead bodies and coming across new evidence by chance, we’re not looking really paying attention to what’s there.

There are some strong female characters in the book and they stand shoulder to shoulder with the men when events go from bad to worse. I was pleased to see they were not painted as emotionally retarded figures, because as tough as any of the characters are amidst the slaughter, we also see their frailties, and the women in the story are not immune either. I can’t say too much more without spoilers, but I will say by the end of the book I was very attached to a minor character that had irritated me for the most part, which was a surprising turnaround.

As I mentioned earlier this fantasy series is not typical and sprinkled throughout are ideas and concepts from other genres, as well as art and history parallels from the real world. Even in the first book we knew that the current society was built on the ruins of a much older and advanced civilisation and this is explored in more detail in the latter part of the book. New weird elements creep into the book and at one point something happens which almost strays into science fiction, which for me personally felt out of place, but other readers might not mind it at all.

Although the story is brutal, violent and bloody at times it also explores a number of real world issues such as discrimination, sexuality, corruption and politics, and it touches on religion. None of it is overt and forced, and characters do not suddenly break the fourth wall to stop and point out the issues. With the city on the brink of destruction, both from the ice and the invaders, the story is also about how different people react in their final days. For those who want to lose themselves and forget the world exists beyond their pleasure, places exist where they can indulge in as many fantasies as their coin allows. Others find they can’t stand idly by and when faced with oblivion they spit in the eye of fate and brace themselves for a fight. All of the events and characters give the city of Villiren a very unique feel and Newton has done a great job of making it very distinct and different to Villjamur.

There are a lot of ideas packed into this book and it’s very inventive. On the whole I didn’t mind most of what was introduced as it enriched the world and added more texture and layers. However, I felt that the focus of the book was not as tight as the first in some ways and a couple of the minor events seemed contrived to manoeuvre characters into place rather than something that developed organically.

Overall it was a very entertaining and enjoyable read and I believe Newton has a vivid imagination which he puts to good use. He also doesn’t strike me as someone who will write the same kind of book twice and this novel was more challenging than the first, in terms of scope and because it was very surprising on more than one occasion. I suspect he will continue to push boundaries and stretch himself as a writer, so if you are looking for a new breed of fantasy book containing a wide variety of unusual elements, pick up Nights of Villjamur and City of Ruin.

The cover artwork for the City of Ruin paperback has also been released and it looks cracking. If you have read Nights of Villjamur and City of Ruin and are looking for something similar, then I would recommend something by China Mieville. He is an author who is not afraid to mix genres and create something completely unique, disturbing and utterly refreshing. Take a look at Iron Council, Perdido Street Station, Kraken, King Rat and The City and The City.

Review | The Naming of the Beasts by Mike Carey (Orbit)

Title: The Naming of the Beats

Author: Mike Carey

Publisher: Orbit

Format: Paperback

Release Date: September 2009

Reviewed by: Steve Aryan

Available from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, but if you ask Castor he'll tell you there's quite a bit of arrogance and reckless stupidity lining the streets as well. And he should know. There's only so many times you can play both sides against the middle and get away with it. Now, the inevitable moment of crisis has arrived and it's left Castor with blood on his hands. Well, not his hands, you understand; it's always someone else who pays the bill: friends, acquaintances, bystanders. So Castor drowns his guilt in cheap whisky, while an innocent woman lies dead and her daughter comatose, his few remaining friends fear for their lives and there's a demon loose on the streets. But not just any demon - this one rides shotgun on his best friend's soul and can't be expelled without killing him. Looks like Felix Castor's got some tough choices to make, because expel the demon he must or all Hell will break loose. Literally ...

The Naming of the Beasts is the fifth book in the Felix Castor series, so there will be some mild spoilers from the previous four books. At the start of the first book we learnt that Castor did something terrible to his friend Rafi Ditko. Something so horrible that he’s never been able to move past it, and as a result Rafi ended up in a mental institution because he has a demon bonded to his soul. The story of the why and how is covered in the other books, but at the start of this fifth book you know this major story arc must come to an end, because Rafi has escaped his incarceration and the demon, Asmodeus, is in the driving seat. In the hands of another less accomplished author, this could turn out to be a predictable story with a happy ending, but Carey never disappoints and you never see it coming. I also took nothing for granted when I started this book, because characters can and do die, and I had been told it was probably the last in the series. With all of that in mind, and after the nail biting cliff-hanger at the end of book 4, I eagerly got stuck into this book.

Fix isn’t safe, his friends aren’t safe and he has no real way to fight the demon. If by some miracle he did somehow manage to pacify Asmodeus, he has no idea of what to do with him or how to unravel him from his best friend. So finding himself in a very tough place, he makes a deal with someone who is as bad as a demon in her own way, despite being completely human, Professor Jenna-Jane Mulbridge. She is a scientist, but one that will do anything to anyone to further her cause. She experiments on the undead and all the flavours in between in a clinical and detached way, as if they don’t have feelings or rights even though most of them used to be people. The laws have not quite caught up on the rights of the undead, because it is such a new phenomenon, and she lives in that grey area, pretending it is all in a good cause. Because of her friendly demeanour and unthreatening manner, she is sometimes more terrifying than any demon. When other people lie, cheat or break their promises, she tuts and gives them a disapproving frown as if she is the epitome of good and forthright human behaviour and everyone else is just disappointing. She sees people as tools and manipulates them in a number of ways to get what she wants. Ruthless doesn’t even begin to come close to describing her.

Castor’s world starts to fall apart and the tapestry of the whole world is in fact changing. The undead landscape is shifting, rules that were previously taken as law are in flux and Castor is left with very little to hold onto to help save his old friend. What follows is quite often a terrifying story, where at all times I was anxious for the main character because of the demon on the loose with a personal grudge. Every time he walked around a corner or walked out of a door, I expected Castor to get a pool cue or a bottle in the face. Doggedly as ever, scrambling around for something he can use, Castor does his utmost and is willing to do almost whatever is necessary to save his friend. Almost. Even after making a deal with devils, there are some things he won’t do and all of Castor’s loyalties are put to the test in what seems like a final chapter. Without spoiling anything, the road is a very rough one and Carey adds a lot of detail to the mythology he’s set up without laying it on thick and stalling the pacing of the story.

Characterisation as ever is a particular strong point of Carey’s as his protagonist is pushed to his limit, both emotionally and physically. One of the most interesting things about the character of Castor, for me, is that most of the time he seems incapable of making new friends. Partly this is because he is prickly, difficult, stubborn and a loud mouth, to name but a few of his good qualities. But in this book, we see him forming new alliances in some unexpected quarters, in both a personal and professional capacity. There is definitely an evolution to the character and by the end of the story it sets up a very different future if it were to continue.

Overall this was an extremely satisfying and gripping read where no one is spared one form of agony or another. Carey is a very talented writer, not only for creating such a fascinating page turner and such great characters that the audience get deeply invested in, but because of the thought that has gone into the mythology. It could be that he has a giant tome somewhere at home that details the history and evolution of how the world reacted initially and then tried to cope with the new undead, but I sort of doubt it. I suspect he knows all of this, and it’s in the back of his head, so that when he puts it down on the page it flows naturally and logically to the point where you realise that if such a thing were to happen, it would probably be as he describes it. With other urban fantasy, or supernatural noir, whatever label you want to go with, at times I can’t forgot that I’m staring at a blue elf or troll walking around in the real world. With Carey’s novels there is a more organic feel to the supernatural, and a natural progression on behalf of everyone’s reaction from scientists, to religious groups, governments and politicians. It’s completely thought out, but he also doesn’t put all of it on the page to show us that he has done his homework like some authors who bog you down in research. There is detail where needed but never an indulgent amount and the prose is tight and pacy.

At the Alt Fiction event last year I was very privileged to meet Mike Carey and I had a chance to ask him if The Naming of the Beasts would be the last volume in the Castor series. He told me and others during a talk that he was indeed planning a sixth volume, but was writing something totally different first, so there will be a bit of a delay before it arrives.

It’s not a spoiler to say that the fifth volume doesn’t explain the larger mystery established in the first and the very reason Castor has a job. No one knows why the dead are rising and why it suddenly started happening and I believe the new book is going to dig more into this mystery.