Review Index

Abyss & Apex
Issue 26, Second Quarter 2008

Ashley, Allen
The Elastic Book of Numbers (ed.)
Somnambulists
Urban Fantastic

Birtolo, Dylan
The Shadow Chaser

Bisson, Terry
Numbers Don't Lie

Bott, Claire
Time Hunter: The Clockwork Woman

Brooke, Keith
Genetopia

Brust, Steven
The Gypsy (with Megan Lindholm)

Burr, James
Ugly Stories for Beautiful People

Burton, David C.
Hell Cop

Campbell, Ramsey
The Grin of the Dark

ChiZine
Issue 37: July-Sept 2008

Cobley, Michael
Iron Mosaic

Connell, Brendan
Dr Black and the Guerrillia
The Translation of Father Torturo

Copithorne, Dana
The Steam Magnate

Couzens, Gary
Deep Ten (ed. with Sara-Jayne Townsend)
Extended Play: The Elastic Book of Music (ed.)

Coward, Mat
So Far, So Near

Cryptopolis
Tales from the Secret City

Cyr, Heidi
X and Y and Other Like Stories

De Pierres, Marianne
Nylon Angel

Diet Soap
Issue 2: Sex and Gender

Duncan, Hal
Vellum

Duntemann, Jeff
The Cunning Blood

Electric Velocipede
Issue 10

Faust, Minister
The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad

Films
In Search of a Midnight Kiss

Fintushel, Eliot
Breakfast with the Ones You Love

Frost, Gregory
Attack of the Jazz Giants and Other Stories

Gaiman, Neil
Fragile Things

Gibson, Cleveland W.
Moondust

Gibson, Gary
Angel Stations

Grant, John
New Writings in the Fantastic

Green, Jonathan
Unnatural History

Green, Mitis
The Ardly Effect

GUD Magazine
Issue 1: Autumn 2007

Gunn, James
Gift from the Stars

Gurwitch, Annabelle
Fired! Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized and Dismissed

Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts

Hemingway, Amanda
The Greenstone Grail

Hendrix, Howard V.
The Labyrinth Key

Herter, David
On the Overgrown Path

Hook, Andrew
The Alsiso Project (ed.)
Moon Beaver

Huff, Tanya
Blood Price
Stealing Magic

Interzone
Issue 217: August 2008
Issue 218: October 2008

Kaye, Marvin
The Dragon Quintet (ed.)

Jupiter
Issue XIV: Thebe

Lebbon, Tim
Dawn
Dusk

Lee, Tony
Premonitions: Causes for Alarm (ed.)

Lennon, J. Robert
Pieces for the Left Hand

Lindholm, Megan
The Gypsy (with Steven Brust)

Lone Star Stories
Issue 28, August 2008

McBean, Brett
The Last Motel

McCarthy, Tom
Remainder

MacCauley, Kay
The Man Who Was Loved

Malcolm, Claire
Magnetic North: New Work from North East Writers (ed.)

Mann, George
The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction (ed.)
Time Hunter: The Severed Man

Marley, Louise
Singer in the Snow

Midnight Street
Issue 6 (Winter 2005/6)

Moore, Christopher
A Dirty Job

Morden, Simon
Brilliant Things

Nazarian, Vera
The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass
The Duke in His Castle

Nemonymous
Cone Zero

Newell, Paul J.
The Turning

Nevill, Adam L.G.
Banquet for the Damned

Nicholls, Stan
Orcs: The Omnibus Edition

Page, Ra
Parenthesis (ed.)

Parker, Rosalie
Strange Tales (ed.)

Parziale, Michael
Twilight of the Past: A Rift in Time

Pettersson, Vicki
The Scent of Shadows

Postscripts
Issue 14: Spring 2008

Rabid Transit
Long Voyages, Great Lies
Menagerie

Ramsden, Chris Lee
Small Voices, Big Confessions (ed.)

Redwood, Steve
The Heisenberg Mutation and Other Transfigurations
Who Needs Cleopatra?

Rhodes, Dan
Gold

Robinson, Neil
Oliphan Oracus

St. Clair, Jennifer
The Secret of Redemption

Scifantastic
Vol. 1, Issue 3

Secombe, Andy
The Last House in the Galaxy

Shunn, William
An Alternate History of the 21st Century

Sinha, Indra
Animal's People

Snow Patrol
Final Straw considered by DH

Something Wicked
Issue 6, Summer 2008

Svendsen, Hanne Marie
Under the Sun

Swann, David
The Last Days of Johnny North

Swartz, Mark
H2O

Teague, Christopher
Triquorum One (ed.)

Tevis, Walter
Mockingbird

Townsend, Sara-Jayne
Deep Ten (ed. with Gary Couzens)

VanderMeer, Jeff
Shriek: an Afterword

Welch, Patrick
Cynnador

Welsh, Louise
The Bullet Trick

Whiteley, Aliya
Light Reading
Mean Mode Median
Three Things About Me

Williams, Conrad
The Unblemished

Williamson, Neil
The Ephemera

Wooding, Chris
The Fade

Wright, Sean
Jaarfindor Remade
The Twisted Root of Jaarfindor
Wicked or What?
Interview with Sean Wright

Wright, T.M.
I am the Bird

Yamaguchi, Jeffrey
52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity

Yolen, Jane
The Pit Dragon Chronicles

Zebrowski, George
Macrolife

Blood Price by Tanya Huff

I’ll be honest with you: sometimes it’s hard to keep a sense of perspective. These days, I have an in-built mistrust of epic fantasy, even though I know that, when written with care and skill, it can be just as good as any other kind of fiction. Likewise, it’s essential to have strong female protagonists; but that doesn’t stop me wondering whether one will tip over the edge and become a clichéd Feisty Series Heroine. And it’s the same with vampire stories, or – and this makes me even more apprehensive – stories in which strong female protagonists get involved with vampires.

Which brings me to Blood Price. It was first published in 1991. and so actually predates most of the stuff we might instinctively compare it to. At first glance, though, it still looks like more of the same old same-old: Vicki Nelson, PI, hears a scream in the subway but is too late to stop a man being brutally slain by something. Then she’s on the case, trying to bring an end to a chain of similar murders across Toronto – and she doesn’t mind treading on the toes of her former police colleagues. Meanwhile, also investigating the killings is one Henry Fitzroy, the vampirized bastard son of Henry VIII. Needless to say, his and Vicki’s paths cross in due course…

So far, so ordinary. But it would be unfair to describe Tanya Huff’s novel that way, because there’s more to it than that. For a start, the protagonists are not the ultra-glamorous individuals you might expect. Yes, Henry has the typical mystique of a vampire, but he also pays the rent by writing trashy romance novels. And Vicki had to leave the force because of her failing eyesight (one complaint: Vicki pushes her glasses up her nose seemingly every few pages, and it is highly irritating). She is also, unusually, a good deal taller than Henry. These are minor points, but they make Blood Price stand out from its competitors.

One other refreshing thing that Huff does is to use multiple third-person viewpoints, as opposed to the single first-person narrative that we find in most tales of Feisty Series Heroines. This technique does two main things: it takes the weight of the telling off the character of Vicki, and allows Henry to become a protagonist in his own right. And the characters themselves are nicely drawn: even Vicki’s bizarre quasi-relationship with Mike Celucci, a former colleague whom she can’t stand, comes across as believable in context. Only Norman Birdwell, the nerdy summoner of the evil spirit doing the killing (and no, that’s not a spoiler), comes across as a stereotype.

Huff’s storytelling is also appropriately brisk, peppered here and there with a few striking images, and a nice line in dry humour: ‘Even in an age of science, the dead were considered bad neighbors. Henry couldn’t understand why; the dead never played Twisted Sister at 130 decibels at three in the morning.’ It’s not going to set the world alight, but it does its job very well.

In fact, that’s Blood Price in a nutshell. It’s not a radical reworking of anything; it’s not going to change anyone’s perceptions; but it is a great supernatural yarn. There are four more books in this series, and if they’re all like this, it will be a series worth reading.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

SF Site reviews

Here are links to all my reviews which have appeared on SF Site to date:

The Shadow Chaser by Dylan Birtolo

Attack of the Jazz Giants and Other Stories by Gregory Frost

Time Hunter: The Severed Man by George Mann

The Secret of Redemption by Jennifer St. Clair

Further links:
Dylan Birtolo
Gregory Frost
Jennifer St. Clair
Inkwater Press
Golden Gryphon Press
Telos

The Zone reviews

Here are links to all my reviews which have appeared on The Zone to date:

The Gypsy by Steven Brust and Megan Lindholm

The Ardly Effect by Mitis Green

The Dragon Qunitet, ed. Marvin Kaye

The Last Motel by Brett McBean

The Twisted Root of Jaarfindor by Sean Wright


Further links:
Steven Brust
Megan Lindholm
Orson Scott Card
Elizabeth Moon
Tanith Lee
Mercedes Lackey
Michael Swanwick
Marvin Kaye
Brett McBean
Sean Wright
Tor /Orb
Brambling Books
Biting Dog Press
Crowswing

The Last House in the Galaxy by Andy Secombe

Major Matt Fripp is on a mission to retrieve the Helian Cartogram, an ancient map of the universe. This he does, but the dastardly Gologons are on his tail, so he flees – accidentally travelling through a wormhole to the gardens of Hambledon Hall in rural Devon.

It's the perfect place (thinks Fripp's companion, General Glaak Raffin of the rat-like Argusians) for the peoples of the United Planets Federation to meet and plan to strike back against the Gologons. They just have to hide their existence from the hall's owners. And Fripp has to go back through the wormhole to find the Cartogram, which he lost on the way to Earth; but not without a quick detour to rescue his beloved Mariella from the clutches of Gulgus Filch, leader of the Gologons...

In these days when there seem to be so many unfunny genre comedies about, it is such a pleasure to read one by an author who knows what he's doing. Andy Secombe doesn't waste time on redundant exercises like trying to milk genre clichés for laughs; nor does he neglect to give us a good story. In fact, the story is one of the great strengths of The Last House in the Galaxy. This is one of those genre comedies where the jokes don't come thick and fast, but the tale has room to breathe. In particular, there are some neat action set-pieces, which is most unusual in comic SF and fantasy.

But don't let this make you think that Secombe has forgotten to put some humour in his book. There are some smart one-liners ('Their monitoring equipment is a lot less sophisticated than ours, which means it works.'), and some nice comic ideas. However, the jokes don't always work (after Fripp recovers from an anaesthetic, he has a habit of getting words wrong, a running gag which I found quite tedious), and there are no great belly-laughs to be had.

That's not the only problem with the novel. The characters sometimes seem interchangeable, and the flippant tone can mask serious issues: Fripp is afraid to see someone kill in 'a cold, calculated fashion' towards the end of the book; but thinks nothing of lopping off some heads a hundred pages earlier. Yet Secombe makes nothing of this. Still, The Last House in the Galaxy is a superior space romp and, if it never makes your ribs ache, it does keep you reading to the very end, raising chuckles all the while. I suspect that this is not the last we'll see of these characters, and their return would be welcome. Start reading about them now.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:

Andy Secombe

Tor UK

Oliphan Oracus by Neil Robinson

In 1995, Kate Wallis, a young scientist working for a pharmaceutical company, is accidentally exposed to an experimental longevity virus which results in her falling into a coma for 262 years. On waking, she learns from a computer in the military hospital in which she has been kept that the Western world was overcome by a plague of mental illness in the early 21st century. Now, in 2257, the forest has taken over outside and a simpler form of human society prevails. Kate falls in with the inhabitants of a small settlement named Streamside; most notably Keef, who is a 'television', able to create visions in the minds of other people; visions sent (so the Streamsiders believe) by Oliphan Oracus, who may be a god, of sorts.

What to make of Neil Robinson's début novel? On the one hand, we have a superbly depicted future society: with a few choice words, the author creates a convincingly alien culture from the ashes of our own. This comes through especially in the Streamsiders' speech, with its unusual abbreviations ('pologies' for 'sorry', or 'comp' for ‘comprehend') and striking transformations of twentieth-century terms (at one point, Keef says of Kate, 'She swallowed the Big Mushroom Cloud and she's been in Televisual Heaven for two hundred and sixty-two years'). On the other hand, we have to grapple with imagery like this: 'she found it as irritating and exhausting as attempting to tear open a litre carton of life-long orange juice.' Sometimes it feels as though one is reading two different books.

Oliphan Oracus is a very self-conscious novel: as narrator, Robinson often refers to what happens in 'science fiction stories' – for example, the hero travels to the future and proceeds to show the poor ignorant inhabitants how superior his (or her) time is. The implication is, of course, that this sort of thing is not going to happen in Oliphan Oracus, and indeed it doesn't; all Kate's efforts to introduce twentieth-century technology to Streamside fail. One of the novel's main themes is how Kate struggles to adapt to her new environment and lifestyle, and comes to accept that 'modern' technology is not appropriate for the society in which she now finds herself.

There are some problems here, though. For one thing, it is hard to believe that Kate would take almost the entire book to realize something the reader understood early on (perhaps even after reading the blurb on the dustjacket). Another problem is that Robinson's contention about 'science fiction stories' is flawed: there are a good number of time travel stories whose protagonists reject their own time (Jack Finney's Time and Again springs to mind). Factor in all stories which involve encounters with another culture (which is what Oliphan Oracus is at heart), and you find plenty more examples which undermine the idea that Robinson's novel is a radical departure.

Still, as I noted earlier, the life and society of the Streamsiders is vividly depicted; one gets the feeling that Robinson has a great love and respect for nature. Unfortunately – indeed, frustratingly – having created this society, he doesn't do much with it. There is not much human drama in the book, until near the end; and what there is feels awkwardly tacked on. Furthermore, the Streamsiders are not as sharply differentiated as they really need to be; too often, it's hard to see them as distinct personalities. The business of reading it becomes a great chore.

In the second chapter, Robinson writes: 'In the spring of 1995 Kate could never have guessed that she would soon find herself living the plot of a science fiction soap opera.' And a soap opera is what this book resembles: not only in its focus on relationships and its episodic nature, but most especially in its ending: there's no true sense of closure: the novel ends 'out of frame'. Now, this can be a very effective technique, if it's handled correctly, as characters set out for wider horizons that the reader only glimpses. But Oliphan Oracus just stops abruptly: it's a deeply frustrating and unsatisfying denouement, and a late guessing-game over the narrator's identity fails to make up for that frustration.

So, what we have in Oliphan Oracus is a well-realized future in need of the right vehicle to do it justice. Robinson's ideas would probably work better as a novella or a series of short stories; but as a novel, they are spread too thinly. It's a great disappointment.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:
Immanion Press

The Heisenberg Mutation and Other Transfigurations by Steve Redwood

Now, I'd heard of Steve Redwood – I knew he had one novel already published, Fisher of Devils – but I hadn't read anything by him before I picked up The Heisenberg Mutation. Nor was I familiar with the publisher of this chapbook, D-Press; so I had no idea what to expect of the four stories in the pamphlet. What I got was a diverse bunch of tales with, as the title suggests, change (in all its forms) as a common theme.

The collection gets off to a fine start with 'Going Back', in which a young man named Simon Brent is goaded into raping Jenny Smith, a girl he's attracted to, on a drunken night out. In the aftermath, Jenny stumbles into the path of an oncoming car, and is run over. Wracked with guilt, Simon devotes his life to funding research into time travel, in the hope that one day he will be able to return to the past and change things. But, when he gets his chance, will he use it wisely?

The story is told in patchwork fashion, flitting back and forth between times and narrators, leaving the reader thoroughly disorientated, in a way that only great fantastic fiction can. Yet Redwood controls his tale superbly; if we need to read 'Going Back' more than once to understand it, that's because of our own inattentiveness the first time. Such a feat of storytelling would be remarkable enough on its own; but add to that Redwood's vivid imagery and skilful depiction of emotion, and you have something very special indeed.

After such a start, you wonder how the author is going to keep up the momentum. Yet, keep it up he does, with 'Off the Shelf', set in a future (or perhaps sideways) world where men borrow women from a Library staffed by the alien Blueskins. John William Smith is due to return Maria 8, who is in desperate need of a Service; but her memory would be erased in the process, and John doesn't want that to happen, since he has become attached to Maria. Trouble is, she has been reserved – by no one less than the Prime, who rules the city. So there is nothing for it but to run away...

This story asks questions about love and humanity, and is certain to leave you with plenty to think about. But... just when you think you have a handle on the story, Redwood pulls the rug from under your feet. It's a bold move but, as with the first story's unusual structure, the author is skilled enough to pull it off. Also like 'Going Back', this is a welcome reminder that science fiction and fantasy enable us to address concerns and tell stories in ways that mimetic fiction does not.

I mention this because it came to mind when I was reading the third story, 'The Solaris Effect'. Here, we meet Mike, who has convinced Jenny to come back to his flat on the pretext of watching the original film version of Solaris. In fact, Mike has been talked into a bet, that he can't get Jenny into bed before the night is out. The story chronicles their relationship until the next morning. All the elements I had come to expect of Redwood were present: the dialogue is sharp, the imagery evocative, the characters rounded; but I still came away feeling disappointed. It felt almost as though Redwood was relying on the dialogue to make up for a dearth of something else, even though there was nothing that seemed particularly to be lacking. With hindsight, the reason becomes clear: the previous two stories were so extraordinary that 'The Solaris Effect' felt lesser simply because there is nothing in it to give that sense of dislocation. Rest assured that, in fact, it is not lesser at all.

The final story in the book is, unfortunately, also the weakest. 'The Heisenberg Mutation' is the tall tale of the elderly – and fabulously rich – Charles Algernon Soames, whose fortune is so sought after by other people that he turns into his own Last Will and Testament. It's a marked change of pace from the previous stories, and one that is not entirely successful. The main problem is that it reads too much like sub-par Robert Rankin. This is perhaps a little unfair on Redwood, since it must be extremely difficult to write a story of this type and not sound like Rankin; but I'm afraid I didn't find it funny enough. Still, judgements on humorous fiction are always going to be highly subjective, and there are far worse authors to sound like than Robert Rankin. And, with the other riches on offer here, I think we can let this one go.

So, out of the four stories in The Heisenberg Mutation, two number among the best short fiction I have read in quite some time, one suffers only in comparison with those two, and one is not so good. A 75% success rate is good for any short story collection, even more so when the good stories are of such a high calibre as these are. I will resist the temptation to make a cheap pun about this book changing your life; but it is a very good read, and you should hunt down a copy right away.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:

D-Press

Orcs: The Omnibus Edition by Stan Nicholls

This volume collects together the three parts of Stan Nicholls' Orcs: First Blood trilogy - Bodyguard of Lightning, Legion of Thunder and Warriors of the Tempest - along with an associated short story, 'The Taking'. It is, put simply, a fantasy quest with the orcs as protagonists ('heroes' doesn't quite seem an appropriate word). Though it isn't quite as simple as that... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We follow the fortunes of the Wolverines, a thirty-strong band of (mostly) orcs in the service of the half-human, half-nyadd Queen Jennesta. The main personalities in the band are its commanding officers: Captain Stryke; his two sergeants, Haskeer and the dwarf Jup, who are constantly at loggerheads; and below them, two corporals: the elderly healer Alfray, and Coila, the band's only female member. They, along with the other 'elder races' (almost every standard fantasy race you can think of), inhabit the land of Maras-Dantia, whose equilibrium has been disrupted by the insurgent humans. Human activity has been 'eating the magic' of the land, changing its climate and causing glaciers to advance south.

The main trilogy opens in the thick of action, with a raid by the Wolverines on the human settlement of Homefield, where they have been sent by Jennesta to retrieve a message cylinder. After successfully doing so, the cylinder is stolen by kobolds; rather than face Jennesta's wrath, the Wolverines decide to chase after the thieves. They recover the cylinder, and rescue a gremlin names Mobbs, who reveals that it contains an 'instrumentality', one of five such artefacts which, when brought together, may somehow release the elder races from human dominion. By now, Jennesta has ordered search parties to be sent out to look for the band; and the Wolverines decide to hunt for more of the instrumentalities, with a view to perhaps using them to barter with Jennesta, or trying to tap into the objects' power in some way. In due course, Jennesta declares the band outlaws, charging her orc army, her dragon riders, and three human bounty hunters, to find them. And that's as far as I am prepared to synopsise.

The Orcs trilogy is an odd mixture of the subversive and the clichéd. Subversive, of course, because we're rooting for the characters who would be considered 'bad guys' in the standard generic fantasy milieu. And Nicholls gives a pleasingly complex portrayal of 'race' in his work: it certainly isn't a straightforward case of 'orcs good, humans bad'; and even the Wolverines can be bloodthirsty (though, since they have known nothing but war, is that so surprising?). Having said that, the nature of the quest Nicholls gives the Wolverines is highly traditional, perhaps even more so than most: the instrumentalities are standard-issue 'plot coupons' for the characters to collect; and the fact that the orcs discover the location of each instrumentality through hunches and chance encounters serves to highlight the mechanical nature of the plot.

And yet, far from being a weakness, all the clichés become something of a strength. They make the quest seem more like the plot of a fantasy game rather than a novel, which is entirely appropriate: arguably, the modern figure of the orc (and the many other 'elder races' of fantasy) owes at least as much to the gaming industry as it does to Tolkien. And it is only by winning the game (which they do, though not in the way you might expect) that the orcs can break free of its rules. Furthermore, Nicholls' main point, about fantasy's 'racial' stereotypes, is rendered all the more forcefully by the generic storyline. Anything other than a tradional quest would be out of place.

Amid all this talk about the subtext of Nicholls' trilogy, we should not overlook the fact that it's also a cracking fantasy adventure. The author's action sequences are superb, and the story moves along at a nicely brisk pace (it's nice to see that there are still some fantasy trilogies being written which have relatively short volumes!). Nicholls' characterization is also generally good: Stryke is a well-drawn reluctant champion, and the constant sparring of Haskeer and Jup is particularly entertaining. That said, some characters do remain caricatures: Jennesta, for example, never really rises above the level of a stock evil sorceress, which is a disappointment when many of the other characters are more rounded. Overall, though, the trilogy is well conceived and skilfully written.

'The Taking' is a short story that prequels the main trilogy, beginning as Coilla joins the Wolverines. The story both gains and loses from being uprooted from its original context and placed alongside its parent series. It loses because much of the first half of the story, which introduces the characters and the world, is made redundant; but it gains because we understand the significance of the relationships established here (for instance, we know how important Coilla will become to the Wolverines). The story itself, in which the band attempt to recover a stolen idol, is reasonably entertaining, but suffers inevitably from comparison to the main trilogy. It seems to have been included for the sake of completeness more than anything.

It's very pleasing to see all these stories together in one volume (though you may prefer not to read them all at once). The main trilogy especially is well worth reading, far more entertaining than many other trilogies, and at only a fraction of the length. It's a worthy addition to any fantasy fan's reading list.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:
Stan Nicholls
Orion / Gollancz

Brilliant Things by Simon Morden

It's a risky move to name a collection something that suggests the stories within are great, because it also leaves the way open for obvious jibes if someone disagrees. Yet the responsible reviewer should resist such jibes. So I don't really want to say that the stories in Simon Morden's book are not 'brilliant things' but... well, frankly, they're not.

I was really looking forward to reading this. The jacket and accompanying press release are full of praise for Morden's work; and surely, I thought, as editor of Focus, the BSFA's fiction magazine, Morden should know a thing or two about what makes good science fiction. But there's no denying that reading Brilliant Things was a hard slog.

The main problem is Morden's use of language: these stories are full of cumbersome imagery and awkward turns of phrase. A typical example comes from 'Empty Head': 'Three computers, separate but together, white gloss cases diffusing the hot yellow light slanting through the open slats of the blinds.' Or, from the book's title story, set in the First World War: 'Stones and soil clattered out in a stinking cloud that bloomed and faded like a poppy.' This sort of thing highly distracting, and disrupts the reading experience.

It's a shame, too, because Morden's ideas are often good in principle, just not so good in practice. For example, 'A Forgotten Corner of Hell' is set in a wounded WW1 veteran's country house, where people start freezing to death after a relative of the owner comes to stay. It turns out that the relative has built a machine granting access to a 'forgotten corner of hell', and a demon is passing through the machine and killing people in this world. It's an interesting idea, but the story is again let down by the writing, both the specific ('Every panicked step he took covered a pace's worth of floor...') and the general; there's something artificial about the whole telling of the story.

The tales in Brilliant Things cover a lot of ground in terms of genre and setting, and some of them do hit the mark. 'Terra Incognita' is an atmospheric tale of 18th-century seafarers that rattles along nicely and raises a smile at the end. 'Whitebone Street' is mostly effective for its deadpan delivery of surprises, so I had better not say any more about it. 'The Northman's Shroud' is another interesting piece, in which some plainsfolk are cursed by the titular Northman, and permanent dusk subsequently descends. Again, I risk spoiling the story for you if I reveal any more.

In summary, then, Brilliant Things contains a few good stories, but there are also some of a considerably lower standard; and, sadly, the good stuff is in the minority. It's not a book I can recommend - and I say that with no small amount of disappointment.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:
Simon Morden
Subway

Moon Beaver by Andrew Hook

Andrew Hook's first novel tells the story of Benny Henderson, who works for the Company, a giant concern which has practically taken over Norwich. Benny is happily in love with his fellow Company employee Louise – that is, until the dazzling Moon Beaver comes into his life.

The Company promotes conformity, and the security that comes with it; but Moon lives by a different philosophy: that of doing just what you want, a philosophy which has made her immortal (or so she claims). She whisks Benny away on an international odyssey to experience living, while Louise is left behind to puzzle over just who Moon Beaver really is.

And elsewhere, we meet Lou, an egg farmer who is one of Moon's previous acquaintances (companions? lovers?), and Christian and Alice, maker and reluctant star of pornographic films, who have their own encounters with the Company, and whose lives change as a result.

Moon Beaver is about the conflict between the desires of the self and the constraints of society, a conflict that we all experience at times. Welcomingly, Hook offers no easy answers: Moon's colourful individualism might seem infinitely preferable to the Company's drab conformity, but Benny recognizes that her self-gratifying lifestyle is ultimately hollow and unsustainable. The best answer (as so often) is to strike a balance between the two as well as you can.

The only grumble I have about Hook's presentation of this conflict is that the contrast between the Company and Moon isn't perhaps drawn as sharply as it ought to be. We tend to hear about the Company's oppressiveness rather than experience it first-hand; as a result, the Company tends to fade into the background instead of being a reality of the novel. Similarly, Moon Beaver herself doesn't leap off the page as much as her role suggests that she should. All this may, of course, be deliberate; but it does lessen the impact of the book a little.

But that should not detract from what is a fine debut novel. Andrew Hook is known for his short stories, but proves to be adept at the longer form. He does sometimes crack self-referential jokes (about this being a novel) that some readers may find annoying; but, on the whole, his narration is very good-humoured and likeable, with some arresting turns of phrase.

Moon Beaver is a thoroughly enjoyable ride; be sure to book your place on it.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:
Andrew Hook
Emperor's New Clothes Press

Deep Ten, ed. Gary Couzens and Sara-Jayne Townsend

The T Party are celebrating ten years of their existence, and have published this volume to mark the occasion. Good for them, you might be thinking, but who are they, and why should we care? Well, the T Party is a writers' group based in south-east England, concentrating primarily on the fantastic genres (perhaps the only one in the region to do so, according to the introduction). And we should care because they write a mean story - and there are quite a few amongst the ten in this multi-genre anthology.

Roseanne Rabinowitz contributes one of Deep Ten's finest pieces, 'Be Positive, Be Very Positive'. At the age of eight, Hannah was sexually abused for the first time. She discovered that she could enter the mind of her rapist and experience his feelings during the assault. We now find Hannah following her ex-boyfriend, Steve, and using her ability to participate vicariously in both sides of his new sexual relationship. Rabinowitz draws her protagonist skilfully: Hannah's pain and obsession come across strongly, giving the story its great power.

'Ask ASE' by Martin Owton is another winner. ASE, or 'All-Seeing Eye', is a computer system that can run a household, keep an eye on the kids, and appear to its users as a holographic avatar. Mike has installed an unusual combination of ASE modules, such that his system begins to act rather strangely after his son, Thomas, dies after being run over. ASE appears to Mike as both his son and his partner Jane, who has left him. Like Rabinowitz, Owton delivers a rewarding character study that uses its fantastic elements to great effect.

David Gullen's 'The BDM' is about the legendary director Leopold Seraphim Mazurski and his ambition to create the ultimate cinematic experience: the Billion Dollar Movie. Mazurski's desire for his moviw to be as realistic as possible involves cosmetic surgery to turn his leading lady into a real Venusian amazon; filming a war between two groups of mercenaries hired solely for that purpose; and even creating life, in the shape of the alien god Y'golonac. Gullen tells his story with great skill: no matter how absurd events become, there's always a nagging feeling in the back of one's mind that, one day, something like this might actually happen...

Not all of the stories in Deep Ten are successful but, generally speaking, it would be unfair to describe any of them as bad; rather, they just don't work as well as they might do. Perhaps the clearest example of this is 'Closer to God' by Jon Jones, in which the unnamed protagonist is plagued by nightmares of a figure being stabbed to death. The main problem with this tale is that it does not lead up effectively enough to its ending, and is undermined by what appears to be a continuity error. However, with a little cleaning and polishing, 'Closer to God' could have been considerably better, and the same can be said of several other stories in the anthology.

Deep Ten is a mixed bag of stories, in terms of both genre and quality. That said, the quality definitely leans towards the upper end of the scale, and there is nothing irredeemably bad. It certainly has something for everyone, and is well worth a read. Here's wishing the T Party many more fruitful years of writing!

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:

The T Party

Iron Mosaic by Michael Cobley

Michael Cobley is best known as the author of the Shadowkings epic fantasy sequence; but this, his first short story collection, is more wide-ranging than that might lead you to expect. It contains stories from across (and beyond) the entire range of fantastic fiction, divided into fantasy and science fiction, with a bridging section of 'Scottish' stories. It certainly isn't possible to accuse Cobley of staying in a rut. Unfortunately, though, the stories in Iron Mosaic prove to be quite a mixed bag in terms of quality.

Let's start with the good stuff: the best story here is the non-genre 'Heartbreak (with Incidental Music)', a series of brief snapshots chronicling the life and death of a relationship. Beautifully told, I'm sure it will resonate with anyone who has been in love. 'Writing for a Dying' is the darkly humorous tale of a writer's ghost who wreaks revenge upon a paranormal investigator, with surprising (or perhaps inevitable) consequences. 'The Dance of Shiva' tells evocatively of a chase through alternate worlds to stop a criminal who brings disaster to the worlds he creates with a stolen artefact. These, and others, are all fine pieces of work.

However, I found much of the rest... not so much bad, as unengaging. For instance, in 'The Recondite Rebus', a king and his inner circle become trapped inside a deadly enchantment, and must solve a puzzle to escape. The story is told well enough, but, since the puzzle to be solved is pictorial, it's not really possible for the reader to join in, which would seem to be the point of this kind of story. I'm not going to list any more examples because, in all honesty, I can't pinpoint exact reasons for not liking particular stories. They just didn't 'click' with me, and it doesn't seem fair to criticize Cobley for that. Other people might like the very same stories for their own equally inexpressible reasons.

My comments so far might suggest that I am not interested in reading any more of Cobley's work. But that's not the case at all. Two of the pieces in Iron Mosaic are related to the author's other projects, and both make me want to know more 'Travelling in the Dark' is set in the world of Shadowkings, and does exactly what a good sword and sorcery tale should: the action sequences are gripping, and the atmosphere of a medieval world soaked in magic is brought effectively to life. If the trilogy is as well written as this, I am sure it is worth a read. 'A Turret in the Fury Eternal' is, Cobley hints, related to a planned future work. Again, its post-technological world is evoked superbly; and I look forward to exploring that world further in due course.

I can't deny that I found quite a lot in Iron Mosaic to feel indifferent about. Yet there is also quite a lot to enjoy, and nothing that I could fairly describe as bad. Those readers who are familiar with Shadowkings will discover many new sides to the author's work in this book. Those who (like me) aren't familiar with the trilogy may find themselves wishing to become so. All stand a good chance of finding something to like in Iron Mosaic. Read it: it's worth a try.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:

Michael Cobley

Immanion Press

Hell Cop by David C. Burton

A Hell Cop is someone who is hired to retrieve souls that have been mistakenly sent to the wrong destination from Purgatory. This novel is narrated by Getter, a Hell Cop of twelve years' standing, whose mission it is to rescue ten-year-old Brittany Hightower, wrongly sent to Hell for accidentally causing a car crash by distracting the driver, her mother. Of course, things don't quite go to plan, as Getter becomes caught up in a plot to take over Hell, and discovers that he may be destined to play a greater role in events than he imagined...

David Burton's Hell is a vast region of uncertain geography: souls undergo their punishments in one of its many discrete areas, and the only way to navigate the shifting paths between them is with a device called a Find, which Hell Cops carry. The different areas of Hell are populated by all sorts of nasties lying in wait for the unwary; and Getter spends a good deal of the book either fighting or escaping from some kind of monster. Burton has gone to town imagining all his monsters, and he comes up with some good ideas for the different areas of Hell - such as one section which is a giant tree; or the school that Brittany has been sent to, where the souls of bullies are tormented.

True, perhaps Burton's supporting cast - characters such as Sneaker, another Hell Cop, whom Getter takes a shine to; the Scotsman Gregory, whom he befriends; and the various demons that he falls foul of - are not drawn as sharply as one would like (they often seem to be there to drive the on plot more than anything). But the story fairly zips along, and it's great to see an author let his imagination run wild.

However, this is a book which could still be improved quite considerably. For one thing, Hell Cop's plot feels less like that of a novel, and more like that of an average computer game or role-playing adventure; too much of it seems to be taken up with running from one encounter to the next, which can become wearying. One reason for this, I fear, is built in to the very nature of the setting: by and large, Burton's Hell is not a place where people are living lives, as such; its locales are there to be travelled through; so perhaps any story set there would take on the same shape as this. Still, Burton is only introducing us to this setting here; if he writes more stories set in this Hell, he might explore the world more deeply.

It struck me that there is a strong moral dimension to the work of a Hell Cop, which Burton never really touches upon in this novel. Getter admits himself that he's not one for introspection (though he does open up a little), which is a shame, especially in a first-person narrative, and particularly so in the world of this story. Several times, Getter reminds himself not to interfere with or judge the meting out of punishments to the souls he observes, however much he'd like to. Yet, he does rescue Gregory from his predicament (for reasons he does explain eventually), and he does judge some souls as undeserving of their punishments. Even the very fact of being a Hell Cop can be seen as a sort of judgement. It would be pleasing to see more exploration of this.

The full mechanism of how misplaced souls are identified and retrieved is not fully explained in Hell Cop. It seems that the process is not infallible (there are hints that Brittany might have done something to deserve her place in Hell after all), and there is no mention of what happens to souls who are sent to Heaven by mistake. Both these areas would provide fertile ground for further stories, but it would have been nice to see something of them in this one.

I don't want to suggest that Hell Cop is a particularly bad book, because it isn't. But it is hard not to wish for it to be a little more ambitious. What we have here is an entertaining adventure story (though the typos are quite distracting), but nothing more than that. There is clearly potential here for a great story to be told in this world, and David Burton is surely capable of telling it; whether or not he will rise to the challenge of doing so remains to be seen.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:

David C. Burton

Silver Lake Publishing

Time Hunter: The Clockwork Woman by Claire Bott

This is the third in Telos Publishing's series of novellas relating the adventures of Honoré Lechasseur and Emily Blandish. Honoré is a 'time-sensitive', able to perceive a person's timeline (though he cannot fully control this ability). Emily, on the other hand, is a 'time channel', able to travel through time when she comes into contact with a time-sensitive. In The Clockwork Woman, the pair jump back to the 19th century, and the home of Sir Edward Fanshawe, the inventor of many fantastic devices, including the mechanical woman of the book's title.

One of the most striking things about The Clockwork Woman, when compared to the first two Time Hunter titles, is how Honoré and Emily are made members of the supporting cast. This first-person tale is narrated by - and is very much about - the 'clockwork woman' herself. Originally created as a servant and plaything for Sir Edward, she finds herself going against her programming when she helps the time travellers escape after they have been imprisoned by the master of the house. Fleeing with Honoré (Emily having flown off separately on a glider), the woman gives herself a name - Dove - and is tricked into going to London, where she is sold to a brothel - and finds Emily in the same predicament. But Honoré is not far behind...

'Shared world' enterprises can be maligned for being unimaginative, formulaic and not willing to take risks. Quite often, such criticisms are valid; but there are always exceptions - and what an exception we have here. Admittedly, Time Hunter isn't your average 'shared world' because its canvas is so large; and you would expect Telos to be a cut above the rest anyway. But, even so, Claire Bott has produced something special in this novella.

The Clockwork Woman explores such themes as being human, freedom, selfishness, gender and coming of age, as well as being a superbly written adventure story - and all in the space of a 74-page novella. Who needs doorstops when you can read something like this? The previous two entries in the Time Hunter series set a high standard; but this one surpasses them. If the series maintains this quality, it will become essential reading. Mind you, on the strength of The Clockwork Woman alone, I'd happily argue that it already is essential reading.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:
Telos

Somnambulists by Allen Ashley

Before Somnambulists, I was ambivalent about Allen Ashley's work: I thought some of the stories of his that I'd read were very good indeed, but others I wasn't keen on at all. So I was hoping this new collection would help make up my mind, which, I'm pleased to say, it has. In fact, at the risk of gushing, I have to say that this is great. Stop reading my review and buy a copy now.

What's that? You need to be convinced further?

Very well...

A lot of 'slipstream' fiction is vague about the reality (or otherwise) of its fantasy elements: it's left to the reader to decide whether events are real or just hallucinations. This is fair enough, but tends not to go far enough for my liking. More interesting, in my opinion, is to assume the fantasy is real, and just get on with the business of telling stories. Ashley does this many times, and it works magnificently, as in 'Sequel', for example, which makes entering a sci-fi B-movie seem the most natural thing in the world. And perhaps the most startling example of this is 'In Search of Guy Fawkes', where a scientific experiment gone wrong causes history to collapse, leaving behind an early modern world where some technology from our present day nevertheless survives. It's a credit to Ashley's skill that he makes this sort of thing seem utterly believable, rather than absurd.

Throwing us in at the deep end, however complex the background, is not an approach that makes things easy for the reader (nothing wrong with that, though!); but it does make for some fascinating stories. One very welcome consequence of the technique is that it brings the characters right to the foreground, when Ashley could easily concentrate on dazzling us with his fantasy ideas. The aforementioned 'Sequel' explores what might happen to a B-movie hero after he saves the world from alien invasion; it wouldn't work nearly so well if it dwelt on the fact of someone passing into the world of a film. Then there's 'Downsize', a story about a devoted employee, which treats its 'loyalty machine' as something relatively unremarkable, thus allowing the characters to take centre stage.

'Downsize' also illustrates another strength of Somnambulists: the way in which the fantastic elements and settings of the tales reflect the characters. This isn't always satisfying - 'Siberia' perhaps labours its point a little too much - but, most of the time, it works very well. An example would be 'The Twilight', where a permanent darkness mirrors the emotional disconnection of its protagonist.

There's a sharp vein of humour running through some of the stories, which comes to the fore especially in two satirical pieces. 'Pumpkin Coach' recasts Cinderella as a 'people's princess' who dies in a road accident in Paris. And in 'Matthew Saint', we meet a struggling author living in ancient Judea. Both these stories raise a good deal of wry laughter.

This review has deliberately tried to avoid evaluating any of the stories in Somnambulists in detail, because the overall quality is genuinely so high that it seemed inappropriate to single any out as being 'bad'. Nigh on everything about this collection is superb (and let's take a moment to praise Dean Harkness's gorgeous cover). It shows Allen Ashley to be a master storyteller and fantasist, and is yet another outstanding volume from Elastic Press. Put simply: if you like fiction, read this book. Go on, what are you waiting for?

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:

Allen Ashley

Elastic Press

The Labyrinth Key by Howard V. Hendrix

Jaron Kwok works for the National Security Agency, researching historical mnemonic systems, in the hope of allowing the US to beat China in the race to build a quantum computer - a computer of enormous processing power, and hence the ultimate tool of encryption and decryption. One day, in a Hong Kong hotel room, Kwok plugs into a virtual world he has constructed which will enable him to explore the documents he is working on. He has an enigmatic encounter with some other entities in the virtuality, before his real-world body (apparently) bursts into flames, leaving behind a pile of (what seem to be) ashes.

Other characters enter the story. Ben Cho, who takes over Kwok's work. Lu Mei-Lin, the Chinese police detective who investigates his murder and remains. Don Sturm and Karuna Drang, who witness a holocast of Kwok's final moments in the virtuality, and try to make sense of the symbols embedded within. Jim Brescoll, Deputy Director of the NSA, who tries to keep track of everything that's going on. Conspiracies abound, as it becomes apparent that a quantum computer might do far more than make and break codes… And The Labyrinth Key turns out to be a frustratingly unsatisfying experience.

Howard Hendrix says more than once in the book that he has tried to ensure that his research intrudes as little as possible into the narrative; so much so, in fact, that he's included an appendix about the science and history underpinning the novel. But still, The Labyrinth Key suffers from too much exposition. Now, of course, infodumping is a perennial problem for science fiction writers; and it wouldn't be fair of me to blame Hendrix for not finding a solution. But there's just so much of it. At times, it's hard not to feel one is being lectured by the author, which is not a pleasant feeling to have when reading a novel. All the exposition slows the story right down - and, worse, impedes understanding. I feel sure that the science Hendrix draws on in The Labyrinth Key is readily comprehensible to non-scientists like me; but he buries the essentials in so many details that it's hard to be sure. Of course, it might be helpful to refer to the appendix - but if that's necessary, it should be at the front of the volume, not the back. And if Hendrix had better integrated his research with his story, an appendix might not have been needed at all.

Some genre authors really like The Labyrinth Key. Gregory Benford is quoted as saying, 'Hendrix's sentences have punch, his plots have points, and he knows his science - what more can one ask of cutting-edge science fiction?' Well, I'd like to think the genre is mature enough that we can add good characterization to that list, and it's another area where this book falls short. None of the characters really leaps off the page; and some - especially the NSA scientists - feel like nothing more than talking heads. And I'd dispute the point about Hendrix's prose as well. The action scenes do their job well enough, and there is some effective imagery; but there's nothing here to mark out Hendrix as one of the genre's great stylists.

I don't want to sound too harsh, but the truth is that I have very little good to say about The Labyrinth Key. There's probably a good book in there somewhere, but it has to contend with a great deal that's mediocre at best. Even the plot is a let-down: the ending is pure Hollywood. I suppose that any readers who enjoy raw scientific speculation might find it a satisfying read; but, not being such a reader, I can't say for sure. Howard V. Hendrix has four other novels under his belt, so The Labyrinth Key might be an exception in his oeuvre. But I'm not in a great hurry to find out.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:

Howard V. Hendrix

Del Rey

The Greenstone Grail by Amanda Hemingway

Let's make our introductions first. Amanda Hemingway wrote some science fiction novels in the 1980s, but has become better known in recent years as Jan Siegel, under which name she wrote the series of fantasies that began with Prospero's Children (which was the only one of her books I had read before this one). Now she has reverted to her real name for The Greenstone Grail, the first volume in her Sangreal Trilogy.

It actually does the book something of a disservice to describe it as the first in a trilogy (though to be fair, it's only labelled as such inside, and not on the cover), because it's quite unlike the stereotypical images that the words 'fantasy trilogy' almost inevitably conjure up. It's thematically similar to Prospero's Children, with its child protagonist and its firm anchoring of myth and magic in the present day; but be assured that it isn't the same book in different guise.

The action begins in 1991, when Annie Ward, pursued by something, arrives with her baby son Nathan at the door of Bartlemy Goodman, a fabulous cook who lives in the big house of Thornyhill. Fast-forward to the present day, and Nathan discovers a hidden underground chapel in the forest, where he has a vision of a green grail filled with blood. And that's just the start of a sequence of mysterious events that will change Nathan's and Annie's very conception of reality...

One of the things I really appreciated about this novel is how dense it is with fantasy elements. There are far too many 'fantasies' out there that barely even scratched the surface of what is possible in the genre; so it's immensely pleasing to see that Hemingway gives us at least six or seven mysterious events or characters. Besides Annie's unknown pursuers, there's the woodwose that Nathan befriends as a young child; his friend Hazel's great-grandmother Effie, who might just be a witch; a new star in the night sky; and Rianna Sardou, the beautiful but aloof actress who is more than she seems. Even Nathan himself appears to have been conceived supernaturally.

Most impressive, though, is the way Hemingway handles Nathan's dreams of a distant, futuristic world where the sunlight is poisonous and soldiers fly on the backs of giant lizards. It's the kind of setting that we find more often in Saturday morning cartoons than anywhere else these days; but the author's strong sense of place makes it thoroughly believeable. It is no mean feat to combine fantasy of the English wildwood with 'Dragon Riders from Outer Space', and Hemingway does it superbly.

Much of the pleasure of reading The Greenstone Grail comes from discovering how all the disparate elements fit together; and I don't wish to spoil that pleasure by giving too much away. But the cup of the title is the Grimthorn Grail, an artefact belonging to the Thorn family, whose ancestral home is the house where Bartlemy now lives; and whose current descendant, Rowena, wants the Grail back from the German graf who currently owns it. But the cup has far greater significance than anyone in the village of Eade can imagine... and that is as far as I go.

The Greenstone Grail is not entirely without fault. Some of the secondary places and characters aren't as vivid as one would wish; for instance, the monastic school that Nathan attends never really comes alive as a school, which is a shame when Hemingway's depiction of other places, such as the forest and the world of Nathan's dream, is so strong.

There are also unwelcome hints that the series may turn into a standard hunt for what fantasy critics sometimes term 'plot coupons'; the generic magical items that fantasy protagonists assemble in exchange for an ending. I hope that doesn't happen. I hope the story continues to expand into something extraordinary. But even if the trilogy does become generic, its first volume is a delight. The Greenstone Grail is the kind of book that makes you look in the corner of your eye, and wish there were something there. It is the kind of book that fantasy is all about.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:

Amanda Hemingway

Voyager

Angel Stations by Gary Gibson

Gary Gibson’s debut novel takes us several centuries into the future, when humankind has begun to explore the universe, thanks to the artificial wormholes of the title, left behind by an ancient super-civilization dubbed the Angels. One other intelligent species has been discovered, on the planet Kasper; but humanity has left the inhabitants alone, limiting activity on the world to a remote polar region, where the Angels have left a mysterious artefact known as the Citadel, in which the rules of physics become strangely distorted.

Against this background, we follow the intertwining stories of several protagonists. Elias Murray, a former soldier whose genetic alterations give him brief glimpses of the future and the ability to revive the dead, travels to the Kaspian Angel Station in search of his former mentor. Kim Amoto, a prospector of Angel technology, spends most of the time lost (literally) in the memories of her dead lover. And on the surface of Kasper, Ursu is ordered to steal the statue of his city’s god – by the voice of the god himself. Add in the manipulations of a religious cult leader; a plague of insects that’s tearing apart the very fabric of the Angel Station; and an approaching gamma-ray burst that threatens to destroy all life of Kasper; and you have, it would seem, all the ingredients for a rip-roaring space adventure. And yet...

And yet, I found Angel Stations to be lacking in something, though it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what that something is. It certainly isn’t Gibson’s prose style, nor is it his characters. The plot does seem a little disjointed, with some changes feeling too abrupt: for example, the section in which the Kaspian Angel Station is under siege from the aforementioned insects is not resolved satisfactorily before Elias and Kim make the journey to the surface of Kasper; we don’t discover what happens to other characters we have been following on the Angel Station until a brief scene in the final chapter. And there are other problems with the plot, but nothing terribly wrong.

No, the worst thing that could be said about Angel Stations is that it’s just a little too ordinary. It is entertaining enough whilst you’re reading it, but it’s not a book to treasure. Still, this is only Gary Gibson’s first novel, and it will be interesting to see how his career develops.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:
Gary Gibson
Tor UK

The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust

The press release that came with my review copy of this book opines that The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad is 'possibly the funniest science fiction novel to come along in decades.' That's quite a claim. So, has the 'Afro-Canadian poet, playwright and political activist' Minister Faust (also known as Malcolm Azania) made an exciting an exciting and hilarious contribution to the genre with his debut novel? Almost...

Our heroes are Hamza Senesert and Yehat Gerbles, the Coyote Kings (the 'Space-Age Bachelor Pad' – or the 'Coyote Cave' – is the house they share): two educated, black sci-fi buffs stuck in dead-end jobs in Edmonton. Most of the novel is told in one of their first-person voices, and this is where the book stands out. Here, for instance, is Hamza seething at having to wash dishes for a living:

I get to both scrape AND wash the crud off of the shingles they slide in front of a bunch of rich kids' maws night after succulent night in this Tex-Mex-Cali-cocktail cesspit, before, during, and after they drain pitcher after pitcher of Can't Believe It's Not Urine!

The sheer energy of narration like this is undeniable, even though the narrators aren't always pleasant. But (and it's a big 'but'), this stuff is most effective in small doses; after 500 pages, it becomes wearying. To make matters worse, it is difficult to tell Hamza's and Yehat's voices apart. You notice certain mannerisms after a while (Yehat tends to use lists, for example), but the two never come alive as distinct characters, such that their voices seem to bleed into one. And that's not all: other characters take their turns at narrating the story. I lost count, but Coyote Kings must have something like ten separate first-person narrators – not all distinguishable, and some annoying (the cod-Victorian hoodlum Digaestus Caesar is especially so). It's not entirely clear what all these narrators bring to the novel, or why Faust couldn't have used the third person at least some of the time. As the saying (nearly) goes: too many narrators...

As we've seen, Coyote Kings is being marketed as a comedy; but it's quite an unusual one – and, sad to say, not a very successful one. For one thing, there are surprisingly few jokes, even of the kind that play with genre clichés (since the publishers compare the book to films like Galaxy Quest, I was expecting more humour of this kind). Indeed, the sci-fi references as a whole don't extend very far into the fabric of the story (unless I missed some, which is entirely possible). It is as though the writing style is expected to carry the weight of the humour, and it just doesn't work.

So, leaving aside any humour, how does Coyote Kings fare as a novel, in particular a fantasy? The plot is actually quite unclear, something about the search for an ancient artefact of immense power that Hamza and Yehat get caught up in when Hamza falls for a beautiful assassin who's trying to stop the artefact falling into the wrong hands (or are hers the wrong hands..?); it's not a highly original storyline and, although some of the action sequences are exciting, again there's a sense that the stylish narration is working hard to make up for deficiencies elsewhere.

It also seems that Faust has tried to cram too much in: he tries to get across a number of valid points that aren't often integrated into the text very well. Consider the following comment about music: 'There's no such thing as "Afrikan music", singular, any more than there's "European music", singular, or "Asian music", singular -' This is a point worth making, but since it comes during a conversation between two characters who already know as much, the impression left is that it has been placed there for the benefit of any eavesdroppers who don't; in other words, the reader. Done this way, such points become distracting sore thumbs that bring down the novel as a whole.

The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad is a book with plenty of flaws: it's too long (more than twice as long as it needs to be), and tries to do too much. But I don't wish to give the impression that it is all bad. There is clear talent on display here, but it needs to be distilled and focused. If that's done, Minister Faust will be a name to watch out for in the future.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:
Minister Faust
Del Rey books

Nylon Angel by Marianne de Pierres

At some (unspecified) point in the future, society (in Australia, at least - we aren't told about the rest of the world) has become stratified to the extent that the 'haves' live in gigantic conurbations like Vivacity, while everyone else is stuck in slums like the Tert (Tertiary Sector).

Parrish Plessis was born in the suburbs of Viva, but left for the Tert, ending up as a bodyguard for a crime-lord named Jamon Mondo. Having been abused at the hands of Mondo and his goons, Parrish wants out; easier said than done, however. But two opportunities become apparent: one, to trace the killers of newsreader Razz Retribution, who may have links with a rival gang that Parrish wishes to join; the other, to retrieve data for another gangster, Io Lang, that would bring Mondo down. Parrish takes her chances with both these possibilities - and there her troubles begin...

Nylon Angel is dedicated to an ancestor of the author's 'who loved adventure stories'. Presumably, then, that's what Marianne de Pierres intended her novel to be; so it's only fair to judge it as such. As you've probably gathered from the brief summary above, the setting is inspired by the worlds of cyberpunk, albeit slightly diluted. The language gives the game away: Nylon Angel is full of typical cyberpunk buzz words - biz, tek, stim - but the author makes everything crystal clear. There's no attempt to make the reader struggle to comprehend the world, as is the case in many cyberpunk stories. Nylon Angel is welcoming and familiar where so many cyberpunk texts are alienating, which is both a strength and a weakness. It's a strength because it puts the plot in the foreground, just where it should be in an adventure story. But it can also be distracting, when you notice that the setting has been built from a set of conventions, rather than hand-crafted. Not that it scuppers the story; it just impedes the flow.

Parrish Plessis herself is an example of the Feisty Series Heroine, an ideal kind of protagonist for this kind of story; especially since, at nearly two metres tall, she is not designed to fade into the background. The trouble is, the Feisty Series Heroine is a figure always in danger of lapsing into cliché, which does tend to happen in Nylon Angel, as on the occasion when she beats up a (male) character for calling her a 'girlie'.

And there are worse problems: there are far too many times when Parrish does fade into the background. De Pierres's prose is snappy enough, but Parrish's first-person narration lacks the vital spark that a story like this really needs. What's more, she spends much of the novel being tricked, rescued, or otherwise controlled by other characters; which is enough to make one question whether Parrish really is so streetwise after all. And that's a shame, because the best parts of Nylon Angel are those where Parrish takes control of the situation and finds her own solutions to problems. It is a pity that more of the novel isn't like that.

A good 80% of Nylon Angel is watered-down cyberpunk crossed with standard Feisty Series Heroine elements (gang rivalry, deceptions, a guy who can't be trusted but who's just so damn' sexy). The remaining 20%, however, is... still pretty much watered-down cyberpunk; but there are a few signs that there could eventually be more to this series than at first meets the eye. And, by the novel's end, Parrish is in a position to take charge of events herself. It seems that things may start to get interesting in book two.

But where does that leave book one? On finishing Nylon Angel, I was left with the feeling that I'd read what amounted to a 330-page prologue. There is certainly evidence here that Marianne de Pierres could go on to write an entertaining series of SF thrillers starring Parrish Plessis. Whether or not that makes Nylon Angel a worthwhile read is a matter of personal choice.

This review first appeared in The Alien Online.

Further links:

Marianne de Pierres

Orbit Books