Review Category: Books

It is 1779. Recently widowed Charlotte von Steinbeck has just arrived at the Eszterhaza Palace, where her sister Sophie is Prince Nikolaus’s mistress. Among the other visitors are the famous castrato singer Carlo Morelli, Edmund Guernsey – a supposedly English gentleman who might possibly be a Prussian spy – and the mysterious alchemist Ignaz von Born. Events move swiftly. While Charlotte finds herself romantically drawn towards the castrato, two of the actors in the palace’s opera company are found horribly murdered and a mysterious smoke-like creature roams the corridors. Charlotte’s maid is recruited by the opera’s Kapellmeister, the renowned composer Joseph Haydn, to replace one of the dead singers, while another member of the company is recruited into a secret society whose dark robed members seem to be both everywhere and nowhere. And then there is the matter of the second alchemist Count Radamowsky, who performs a terrifying séance that none of them, will forget. All of these elements combine into a devious plot driven by black magic and political intrigue – Charlotte and Carlo must penetrate the masks worn by seemingly everyone in the palace, if they are to prevent an assassination that could change the course of countless lives.

Masks and Shadows is YA author Stephanie Burgis’ adult debut and although it isn’t completely successful, it is a hugely entertaining work of fiction, weaving real-life historical characters and locations into an engrossing and richly embroidered supernaturally enhanced stew. Burgis’ descriptions of the opera and the powers of music are especially compelling (if you never wanted to listen to opera, this book may well change your mind) and she juggles a vast cast of characters extremely well while keeping the tension high.

It’s an intricate story but Burgis’ never bogs the reader down in unnecessary detail, which is quite a trick considering how much historical and alchemical ground she has to cover. The only real disappointments are the climax, which feels a little bolted-on and winds everything up rather too quickly, and the tentative attraction between Charlotte and Carlo which doesn’t really convince. Burgis’ prose might also be too blushingly romantic for some tastes, although this may be a stylist choice that works well considering the time period she’s writing about. All in all, a terrific book that you’ll have trouble putting down once you start reading.

MASKS AND SHADOWS / AUTHOR: STEPHANIE BURGIS / PUBLISHER: PYR / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Saint’s Blood continues the saga of the Greatcoats and sees a religious fervour descend upon the tainted nation of Tristia. The Saints, immortal beings that wield supernatural abilities and each embody an aspect of humanity, are turning up dead, murdered by some mysterious rising power. Falcio, Kest and Brasti, three of the last remaining Greatcoats – warrior magistrates who upheld the laws of the now deceased king – must uncover the source of the slayings before chaos once again returns to the country.

While the Saints have been regularly invoked throughout the series in various colourful exclamations and have occasionally made brief appearances, their nature went previously unexplored. Now we get a little more exploration into their origins and nature, as well as the kind of religion that could thrive in a country constantly teetering on an abyss of anarchic lawlessness, and a brief overview of its history that gave birth to such ingrained despair. 

Worn down by the seeming pointlessness of his efforts, Falcio finally starts to accept that not only is the world of idealistic chivalry of which he dreams now lost forever, but in all likelihood it never existed in the first place. However, he still manages to maintain his idealistic streak, albeit tinged with an increasing level of frustrated resignation as he ponders precisely why he constantly attempts to save people from the casual murder by decadent aristocrats who rule them when they are so pointedly resistant to his efforts. 

The combat sequences that are the series’ hallmark are given an added level of intensity with most of the villainous mooks encountered being an assortment of religious fanatics amped up on some mysterious stimulant that makes them impossible to reason with and that much harder to kill. While the exposing the hypocrisy of fundamentalist zealotry is generally satisfying, such people make for easy targets as antagonists, as they by definition do not require their motives to be in any way rationalised. 

Saint’s Blood feels like something of a placeholder instalment, as if the main narrative is being held in stasis, while this interlude episode of the saga plays out. Indeed, the next novel in the series, Tyrant’s Throne, was initially proclaimed to be the one published after Knight’s Shadow, so it was evidently decided that some of the occurrences here were necessary before the main story could continue.

SAINT’S BLOOD / AUTHOR: SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL / PUBLISHER: JO FLETCHER BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW 

Even after nearly 130 years, the well of new Sherlock Holmes stories that need to be told refuses to run dry. This is surely due to the flexibility of the character and the inventive directions that fans-turned-writers find to take him in. Take Alt.Sherlock.Holmes, for example, an anthology collecting three novellas that dare to uproot the Great Detective from his familiar Victorian/Edwardian surroundings and deposit him in different locations and periods of American history.

Jamie Wyman’s ‘The Case of the Tattooed Bride’ casts Holmes as a carnie in 1930s Indiana, one who aids the Pinkerton Detective Agency in solving their most inexplicable crimes. Wyman has a lot of fun reinventing the wheel, and the notion of Sherlock as a circus sideshow attraction is certainly a neat and enticing idea.

‘A Study in Starlets’ by Gini Koch sports a switcheroo you would really expect to be more common than it is; Sherlock Holmes as a woman. The female Holmes is possibly the standout revamp of the detective in the anthology – she’s a vibrant character all on her own, possessing a love for reality television and a James Bond-like Aston Martin. The modern American setting and the gender-swapping could be reminiscent of the TV series Elementary, but Koch thankfully spins it in a different direction.

It’s Glen Mehn’s ‘The Power of the Media’ that offers the most eye-raising alternative view of the world of Sherlock Holmes, however, as it is set in the drug-addled New York of the 1960s. While the idea of Holmes as a user is nothing new, reading about how respectable old Dr Watson turned into Walter White from Breaking Bad is pretty startling.

Though each presents an original, well-told mystery, the most enjoyable aspect of these novellas is noticing all the references to usual Holmes lore and seeing how they have been skewed to fit into a new context. It is also a nice touch to have each story preluded by an account of how these alternate Holmeses and Watsons met. Because no matter how much the detective is changed, he must always have his Boswell.

It is a testament to Conan Doyle’s creations that the core elements of the characters and their stories can endure even after undergoing such radical reinvention. As such, this anthology is definitely worth a read for any Holmes fan that thinks something like Sherlock doesn’t push the character far enough out of his comfort zone.

ALT.SHERLOCK.HOLMES: THREE NEW VISIONS OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST DETECTIVE / AUTHORS: JAMIE WYMAN, GLEN MEHN, GINI KOCK / PUBLISHER: ABADDON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Fresh from the success of his Shattered Seas trilogy, Joe Abercrombie has returned to the world of the First Law series with Sharp Ends, a collection of thirteen short stories. Some have seen print before – either in anthologies or as extras at the back of novels – but more than half are new to this volume.

It’s fair to say that Abercrombie took the fantasy genre by storm ten years ago with his debut The Blade Itself, and the tone of that and his future work would become core texts of the Grimdark sub-genre. Reading that book a decade ago sent a thrill through many readers of fantasy, who sensed something special was in the making, and Sharp Ends brings back that sense of wonder. The first story centres on someone who features heavily in The First Law series, as does the last, and is saved from being self-indulgent by Abercrombie’s dark wit. It’s fascinating to see these two characters from the eyes of others – whether they be admired or downright terrified – giving further depth to his creations.

Two newer characters –Javre and Shev – form the spine of this collection, featuring in five of the stories. By setting the tales in chronological order (except the very last, for reasons which do become apparent) Sharp Ends charts the relationship between this fighter and thief duo. They’re great; a pair of women that bring laughs, disaster, betrayal and bloodshed aplenty, along with the intimate moments that Abercrombie can do so well.

There might not be much sorcery in the stories, but there’s magic in Abercrombie’s way with words; his prose almost borders the poetic and he has an uncanny gift of being able to put the reader right in the characters heads, even in stories where the point of view switches multiple times. However powerful or incompetent, these are people with hopes and dreams, not all of them fulfilled, some of them not quite what they expected and disappointing. Yet, the deeper the darkness, the stronger the light; there is hope, in the form of friendship, honour and trust. They may be rare commodities here, but that makes them more precious and worth the sacrifices, some of which may find even the most hardened readers having to wipe away a stray tear.

The consistently high standard of the stories in Sharp Ends make it a triumph. Granted, readers would be advised to acquaint themselves with their setting, but anyone who was excited by Abercrombie’s debut ten years ago will feel those butterflies again. It’s a masterful approach, displaying everything that’s great about the short story format, from a writer at the height of his powers.

SHARP ENDS: TALES FROM THE WORLD OF THE FIRST LAW / AUTHOR: JOE ABERCROMBIE / PUBLISHER: GOLLANCZ / RELEASE DATE: 26TH APRIL

The one mythical creature that is guaranteed to make an appearance in many fantasy novels is the vampire, but I, Vampire, despite being published in the 1980s, gives a refreshing presentation of the infamous creature. 

Sterling O’Blivion has been a vampire for 900 years, and has spent her life observing the evolution of a human race – and now works at a dance studio. Thankfully, she is not an obsessive, sulky vampire like those found in some of the more famous fantasy novels! Scott crafts a dry, witty protagonist, whose voice and observations concerning society and humanity will keep you captivated and more often than not, make you laugh or keep you deep in thought. Then one day, after becoming content with her modern life, O’Blivion meets Virginia Woolf – also known as Benaroya, an enthusiastic, bubbly alien that soon becomes O’Blivion’s lover, while they work together to defeat a rival alien threat, and start a business selling Famous Men’s Sperm. 

The plot in this novel is unlike one we’ve ever encountered before – it’s wild and complex, but intriguing and one that definitely keeps the book on your mind, even days after you finish it. Scott also creates fantastic characters that carry the story, and even when the plot gets complicated, Benaroya’s enthusiastic quips or Sterling’s witty and cutting thoughts will carry you through the more technical side of the plot, which can lose you at times. Thankfully, if you do get a bit lost, it won’t impact your enjoyment of the book, as the sci-fi elements don’t ultimately carry that much importance to the story or it’s overall message.

Scott crafts an intriguing, funny, and extremely clever story that entertains, while also offering enlightening observations on elements of society. While the outlandish plot and age of the book might put some readers off, we wouldn’t let it stop you. Reading it is an experience that you will want to have, if only to see a vampire and Virginia Woolf try to set up a business to sell sperm to housewives! That, and it’s an extremely well written, witty and thoughtful novel to boot.

I, VAMPIRE / AUTHOR: JODY SCOTT / PUBLISHER: DIGITAL PARCHMENT SERVICES / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

There’s nothing quite like a big new Star Wars film with all its associated merchandise to make the inner child in all of us yearn for simpler times, and while it may be paradoxically true that nostalgia isn’t what is used to be, it’s always nice to sit back and bask in the golden glow of bygone times and remind ourselves of the fan frenzy that occurred back in 1980, when The Empire Strikes Back was released.

Author Gary Gerani has followed up his book about the Star Wars Topps trading cards that were released in 1977-78 with the inevitable sequel. Volume 2 covers the three series of cards that tied in with Empire, providing the reader with an authoritative and keen insight into the trading card business from his position as the editor of this series of Topps cards.

One might be forgiven, I suppose, for dismissing this volume as a mere picture book, but the meat is not only in the quality of the presentation of the cards on these pages – both front and back of each of the 352 cards, including the hard to find chase cards (their rarity being the bane of every serious collector’s life) – but also Gerani’s own commentary and recollections from 36 years ago.

Of particular interest is the first series of cards, and Gerani’s anecdotes about the veil of secrecy Lucasfilm built about the plot. Several key plot points couldn’t be relayed to Gerani and the Topps team, despite their obvious need for every detail about the film as they were recounting the story in the card set. It’s a strange realisation that trading cards were the equivalent of internet spoilers back in the day.

So, while the initial series featured on-set photos of C3PO interacting with an all-white counterpart from a scene set on Hoth, and there is a shot of a medical droid examining a dead Tauntaun, both from scenes that were shot but ultimately cut from the finished release, there are no scenes showing the Wampa and more importantly, absolutely no mention of Vader being Luke’s father. The card for that scene has a bit of made up dialogue from Gerani reading “Hate me, Luke. Destroy me!” (Oddly echoing the Emperor’s taunt in Return of the Jedi.) The first that Gerani and his team learned of THAT all-important game changing plot point was actually while watching the film in the cinema.

Even Yoda’s dialogue is missing it’s odd back to front structure, as Gerani hadn’t heard it yet and had to make some up on the spot.

Other cards on display in the book are a wealth of behind the scenes photos, production shots, concept artwork and biographical cards of the main characters. Again, the bio cards give a wealth of information that is no longer considered canon, or has been expanded upon or since rewritten, such as C3PO’s origin being “unknown”.

All in all, the book is an appealing slice of pop culture history, attractively packaged with Gerani’s notes providing the cherry on top. It deserves a place on the discerning Star Wars fan’s shelf.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK – THE ORIGINAL TOPPS TRADING CARD SERIES / AUTHOR: GARY GERANI / PUBLISHER: ABRAMS COMIC ART / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

You might look at this on an online book retailer and thing ‘yeah, that’s one to keep the kids quiet at the weekend’. If you’re in an actual shop, you might be raising an eyebrow at the size and thickness of the book. You might even notice that the illustration on the front cover includes dots numbered in the high 700s.

This book contains 100 illustrations from the worlds of Star Wars. This is a complex, yet ultimately satisfying set of challenges. You may very well not have any clue as to what many of the illustrations are until you are a significant way through them, although a few are obvious before you’ve committed to joining any dots whatsoever. The dot sequences go to very high numbers, and there may be more than one set of dots in any particular illustration – these are colour coded so you know which set you’re supposed to be working on at any time, but we do wonder whether this might be problematic if you’re colour blind? Certainly, the dots and their numbers are very small, and we recommend excellent lighting to avoid errors.

There are hours upon hours of fun here, and if you’re on the bandwagon of adult colouring books, the ‘instructions’ do suggest that you could colour in the illustrations after you’ve completed them. There’s also an ‘Answers’ section at the back of the book if you’ve managed to completely confuse yourself. We recommend a pencil with a decent eraser to hand, in case of errors, because you’ll be gutted if you commit a mistake in ink and ruin the picture.

This then, is not a Dot to Dot for your kids, it is rather exactly the relaxing activity you have been looking for.

STAR WARS – DOT TO DOT / PUBLISHER: EGMONT / RELEASE DATE: 5TH MAY

The introduction to this year’s Nebula Awards Showcase states, nay warns, the reader that when gathering material for the sci-fi/fantasy anthology, one of the book’s key aspects is including the type of fiction that makes the audience think, but not necessarily be liked. Throughout the epic sagas included in this hefty volume, that much rings true. It’s a pleasure to discover then that there’s still plenty to like about this collection of the weird and the wonderful.

2016’s Nebula Awards Showcase allows twenty authors to run riot as they craft tales of adventure, death, romance, mystery and more, all in the head-spinning settings that speculative fiction brings. In true anthology fashion, each story here will intrigue just about every type of reader, but that in itself brings the feeling of disorientation. The Nebula Awards Showcase doesn’t read like a conventional collection of sci-fi/fantasy fiction – it ain’t meant to. We jump from mechanically-inclined science fiction to mermaid-themed fantasy in the blink of a page, skipping merrily across a diverse array of genre-twisting creativity.

However, there you have the biggest selling point of the Nebula Awards Showcase 2016 in a nutshell. Every story is in a league of its own in terms of style and consistency, meaning that any sense of fatigue as we journey from world to world isn’t felt at all. It’s hard also to feel overwhelmed at the wide variety of fiction here, when this book is tailor-made for dipping in and out of.

The Nebula Awards Showcase 2016 most definitely lives up to its promise of making you think. It’s ingenious, frustrating, spell-binding, imaginative, and sometimes even all too brief with its individual stories, but the one thing it isn’t is boring. A potent collection that’s more than worthy of residing on your bookshelf.

NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASE / AUTHOR: VARIOUS / PUBLISHER: PYR / RELEASE DATE: 15TH MAY

Catherine Schell is probably best known in cult circles for her role as shape-shifting alien Maya in the second season of Gerry Anderson’s Space: 1999 and as the urbane Countess Scarlioni in 1979’s City of Death, one of the best and most acclaimed serials of the ‘classic’ Doctor Who era. But her career spans decades of appearances in dozens of classic British TV series and starring roles in glamorous, big-budget feature films alongside the likes of Peter Sellers (who became a trusted confidante). Yet it’s her life away from the camera which makes her autobiography, A Constant Alien (the title a reference not only to her role as Maya but also to her slightly restless, bohemian lifestyle) such a terrific, engrossing read; showbiz memories and anecdotes nestle alongside a laid-bare, warts and all life story in which fact is very often much stranger – and much more interesting – than fiction.

Born of aristocratic Hungarian stock as Katherine Frelin Schell von Baushlott (she settled upon her stage-name after a considerable compromise), Catherine’s childhood was nothing if not traumatic. The Nazis requisitioned her parents’ estate at the start of World War II and the family fled to Austria where they lived in virtual poverty until 1948 before emigrating to the United States in 1950, where her father acquired American citizenship. Later in the 1950s the family returned to Europe and in Germany, Catherine became interested in acting and started to develop her skills in the Otto Falckenberg School of the Performing Arts.

It’s these early chapters of A Constant Alien, in which Catherine details the cold realities and privations of her early life, which really set the tone for her rivetingly-honest story. It’s a story about family and relationships, many of them forged in the fires of war and its aftermath, and the determination of a fearless, naive young girl determined to make her own way in a monstrously chauvinistic and single-minded (if not simple-minded) industry. Catherine’s prose is beautifully vivid and evocative and often unflinchingly-honest. It’s funny, too; her recollections of her first screen appearance in schlocky 1964 German-language adventure film Lana: Queen of the Amazon (shot on location, an experience she was lucky to survive) are hilarious because the circumstance of the film’s making is unthinkable in today’s health-and-safety first environment. But we’re there, up close and personal, with Catherine as her career starts to pick up steam and by the end of the 1960’s she’d joined that elite band of performers known as ‘The Bond Girls’ with her appearance in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (she even had some dialogue!) and by 1975 she was staying in opulent French hotels and rubbing shoulders with Peter Sellers as she co-starred in The Return of the Pink Panther.

Fans of Space: 1999 and Doctor Who looking for behind-the-scenes secrets and salacious gossip will find slim pickings here – she has nothing but fond memories of the former and knew next to nothing about the latter so had no real preconceptions – and as her career progresses throughout the 1970s her personal life becomes more and more chaotic, her tempestuous and often violent relationship with actor William Marlowe, followed by unashamed flings with some quite well-known and extremely married co-stars. Eventually, she found happiness and contentment with director Bill Lyons but by the end of the 1980s, the industry having changed over the years, the work dried up for both of them and they eventually decided to ‘up sticks’ and move to France where they ran a small guesthouse together until Bill’s death in 2006.

Catherine now lives in contented retirement in France and her story – warm and witty, engaging and relentlessly honest – is the chronicle of an actress whose dedication to her craft, as she admits towards the end of the book “did not go deep enough.” It’s also a story full of life, love and passion – her devotion to her parents in their declining years is heartbreaking stuff – dotted with the occasional indiscretion, told with a real sense of joy and with absolutely no regrets for what might have been. Catherine Schell may be best remembered for her roles in Space: 1999 and Doctor Who but A Constant Alien tells the story of a life which amounted to so much more. An unforgettable and oddly life-affirming autobiography; recommended unreservedly.

A CONSTANT ALIEN / AUTHOR: CATHERINE SCHELL / PUBLISHER: FANTOM FILMS BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW