Review Category: Books

Science fiction gives the opportunity for scientists to explore and speculate about our universe, far beyond the realms and restrictions of their academic world. As an astrophysicist working at Imperial College London, David L. Clements certainly uses this form of literature to stunning effect in his collection of short stories. 

As you might expect, most of the stories are about probability and the paradoxes and mysteries of our existence on a galactic scale. In Re-Creation, he tells of how a huge rock travelling through space, is examined by a space crew over a period of thousands of years. One faction on the craft wants to get on with the task of destroying the object, another want to probe it for signs of intelligent life. What they discover, without giving the twist at the end away, is easily understood by us but remains a mystery to those space faring ‘gods’.

Although Clements looks at such mind numbingly huge sweeps of time and space, he also finds room for humour and some rather quirky tales. Cases in point are his stories about guerrilla gardeners who oppose the exclusive ownership of seeds by huge corporations. The situation gets so controversial that the BBC’s Gardener’s Question Time programme becomes a ‘hot potato’ that has to be cancelled. As a guerrilla seed distributor, the main character is called Percy Thrower, a pleasingly appropriate name that harks back to Britain’s first celebrity gardener.

For a quirky story, we get His Final Experiment that meets the challenge of using the future tense to tell the story of investigating whether or not we are governed by predetermination or not. It is a mix of Inspector Morse meets quantum mechanics, with a rather unsettling dilemma at the conclusion.

Clements provides a few words at the end of each story, which tells us what factors brought them into creative existence and how they attempt to tackle and discuss them, in the light of current knowledge. As such it follows a long line of ‘hard science fiction’ literature but, unlike some of those works, it is never dull or pedestrian.

DISTURBED UNIVERSES / AUTHOR: DAVID L. CLEMENTS / PUBLISHER: NEWCON PRESS / RELEASE DATE: 11TH APRIL 2016

2054. Virtual gaming has gone mainstream. The Rage Tournaments are the new Super Bowl, and 20-year-old warrior Kali Ling, is fast on her way to becoming the MVP of sports entertainment. That is, until her usually unbeatable team Defiance, suffers an embarrassing defeat and Nathan, her teammate/lover, overdoses in her bed. 

Ling is ordered to take over Nathan’s captaincy and must guide her fragmented team to victory, whilst navigating the pitfalls of a life in the spotlight, a team owner more concerned with sponsorship deals than the welfare of his players, mandatory therapy sessions and integrating Nathan’s replacement; the brooding and mysterious James Rooke, into her team. Duke Nukem never had to deal with any of this shiz! 

Holly Jennings’ debut novel is a well-told and ambitious story, which unfortunately never maximizes its full potential. It’s made clear immediately that the characters are never in genuine jeopardy; once they lose their lives in the virtual world, they merely return to the regular one; train harder, hit clubs and tease the paparazzi. Their main rivals InvictUS, aren’t featured heavily enough to be considered a threat on any personal level, and for that reason it’s hard to take them seriously as dangerous antagonists.

Most curious of all is the titular setting of the arena itself. Given that this is a world where technology has advanced to the point where humans can be transported into real-life avatars, it’s hard not to wonder at the lack of variety shown in the scenery on the battlefield.

Skilled pioneer Ling is an excellent choice of protagonist; particularly at a time when even sci-fi heavyweights like Black Widow, cannot command their own franchise, it’s refreshing to see a young woman willfully take the reigns in a sport dominated by men. That being said, the attitude that is refreshing to begin with quickly grows weary, although her verbal sparring with Rooke remains entertaining throughout.

The rest of the team (Nathan’s former rival Derek, and lovers Hannah and Lily) is given little to do, in terms of their own development. Derek’s lack of resentment at losing his place as head of the team reeks of missed opportunity, and the romance between Hannah and Lily is remarkably obstacle free. There’s no foul play to Nathan’s demise, nor is any suspected. Rooke is a welcome addition, as is the subplot of Ling’s growing dependency on drugs, but the summation of both these plot points lacks the twists you’d expect.

Younger readers will appreciate the concept and entertaining fight scenes, but anyone who spent a significant portion of their formative years sat in a darkened room, barking orders into a headset, while fending off vaguely homophobic slurs from 14 year old boys, may find themselves frustrated that the player setting on this novel is firmly set to safe.

ARENA / AUTHOR: HOLLY JENNINGS / PUBLISHER: ACE BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: 7TH APRIL

Fans of genre literature will happily tell you that tastes and trends in books come and go. Currently, the big thing is dystopia and steampunk, though that is in the process of changing. The popular sub-types have launched the careers of some, many of whom will go on to break away from their sub-genre of origin into bigger and (hopefully brighter) things. Back in the ‘80s however, it wasn’t the cogs and brown leather of steampunk that sold books. Instead, bats, black leather and all things gothpunk defined that era. Amid it all, the undisputed queen of British gothpunk was Storm Constantine.

Splinters of Truth brings together fifteen short stories from throughout Storm’s career, including four new tales. Prolific authors often scatter their work across magazines and small press publications, so it’s nice that all of this is finally in one place. The stories themselves are an interesting hodgepodge of ideas that serve as a bit of an overview of Storm’s back catalogue.

Many focus on interesting and intelligent characters trying to make their way in the real world, whilst trying to cope with mundane nonsense that tries its level best to crush creative spirits. Others are fragments of what it was like to be goth in the ‘80s; these tales are filled with a mix of weird magic, delusion, illusion and desperate love. Constantine’s talent for twisting the mundane and making it dark and delicious shines out on each page, making the whole thing fascinating reading.

As this is a collection drawn from the breadth of her career, the stories do vary in quality. Some feel rushed, as if too much has been crammed into a short space, whilst others stretch out one idea for too long. This pacing isn’t much of an issue because each tale is a gem in its own right. The collection also includes a Wraeththu story, which is sure to delight followers of that quintessential gothpunk series.

Splinters of Truth is a great way to get into one of the most genre-defining authors of the age. Stick on The Mission or a spot of Sisters of Mercy, scrawl on the eyeliner and dive in.

SPLINTERS OF TRUTH / AUTHOR: STORM CONSTANTINE / PUBLISHER: NEWCON PRESS / RELEASE DATE: 11TH APRIL

The Map of Bones is the sequel to The Fire Sermon, which in this reviewer’s opinion, was the finest fantasy novel of 2015. If you haven’t read The Fire Sermon yet, you should. And then you should read The Map of Bones because, if possible, it is even better. 

How much can I tell you without giving anything away? Centuries ago, an apocalyptic explosion laid waste to the world. Now what’s left of humanity is divided between the privileged, physically perfect Alphas and their mutant twins, the Omegas, who are branded and forced to live as outcasts, struggling to survive in the ruined wilderness. But no matter how much they despise their Omega siblings, the Alphas still need to keep them alive – a fatal bond between twins means that when one of them dies, so will the other.

This is the continuing story of Cass, an Omega-seer, whose psychic abilities make her feared and mistrusted even by her own kind. Cass is still struggling to make sense of what she discovered at the end of The Fire Sermon, and the awful tragedy that unfolded. Her dreams of the blast that consumed the world in fire are growing stronger, and she knows – because of what happened to other seers before her – that madness cannot be far behind. But she still has to stop her Alpha twin, the cruel tyrant called The Reformer, from completing his mission to wipe every Omega off the surface of the world and imprison them in the not-dead-but-not-alive nightmare of the tanks, safely out of sight and mind, allowing the Alphas to rule supreme. Yet not even Cass can foretell how far The Reformer will go to make that happen. He has unearthed a terrifying secret from ‘the Before’ that could destroy everything, all over again.

In her quest to stop The Reformer, Cass must confront the past as well as the future. She must learn to become a warrior, and she must attempt a dangerous alliance with one of the Omega’s deadliest enemies. She will see many people killed, she will be confronted by horrors she cannot even imagine (there is a scene at the mid-point of the book, that is as terrifying as it is heartbreaking), and she will learn that, despite what her visions may tell her, not everything is as it seems. The tension runs high, the odds for success are always against her, and all Cass and her closest allies, Piper and Zoe, can rely upon are their collective courage, resourcefulness, and hope. And hope can easily be crushed, even at the final moment.

The Map of Bones is a wonderful book – thrilling, emotionally engaging, booby-trapped with some incredibly inventive twists and turns and some excellent action sequences and, from beginning to end, it is intensely moving. Like its predecessor, this is a book that forces us to consider what it means to be human, and how important it is to respect the humanity in others. Francesca Haig’s writing is exquisite, loaded with turns of phrase and lines of dialogue that are so perfect and so beautifully realised, it reminds us how powerful the written word can be. And, on top of all that, it is – along with The Fire Sermon – the most exciting and rewarding novel we have read in a very very long time. You have got to read these books, they are storytelling at its absolute finest.

THE MAP OF BONES / AUTHOR: FRANCESCA HAIG / PUBLISHER: HARPER VOYAGER / RELEASE DATE: 7TH APRIL

With over fifty years of history, and as many bumps in the road as there have been changes in style, Doctor Who is a fascinating series to analyse – and certain stories are more intriguing than others. It’s with this in mind that Obverse Books have begun their series The Black Archive, in which each publication will spend twenty to forty thousand words picking apart a single televised story. And what better story to start on than that which brought Doctor Who back to TV screens, after a sixteen-year hiatus, and set the groundwork for the popular phenomenon it would soon become?

This hundred-page volume from Jon Arnold comprises of four essays analysing Russell T Davies’ 2005 series opener Rose and its place within Who history. First, Arnold explores Rose as a starting point for new viewers, comparing it to the successful simplicity of An Unearthly Child and the not-so-successful 1996 TV movie; he also makes some very insightful points about the character of Clive as a gently mocking representation of classic Who fans. Next, he analyses Davies’ take on the character of the Doctor, and the decision to give him some proper character development, perhaps inevitable given the changes in genre TV since 1989. Third, Arnold talks about the character of Rose Tyler and Davies’ success in making the companion an equal to the Doctor in terms of dramatic possibilities. And in the final chapter, he discusses Davies himself, and how the writer’s crossing of populist sensibilities and artistic ambition crafted Doctor Who into the massive success it became.

Though it’s not a long book, and can be read in one easy afternoon, the first Black Archives instalment has a lot of interesting things to say about its episode of choice. Arnold has a tendency to go off on tangents about other areas of Doctor Who history, but everything ties back into the episode in question, showing a thoroughly contextualized understanding of its success. He also brings in expert knowledge of what else was going on in TV and pop culture, and how this affected the revived Who – though an analysis of Rose’s character arc throughout series one in comparison to the narrative arc of an X-Factor contestant does seem to stretch the point! 

Whovians wanting to learn a bit more about what made Rose so successful, will take a lot out of this book. For those not so keen on Eccleston’s Doctor, Obverse are releasing three other titles this month, covering The Massacre, The Ambassadors of Death, and Dark Water/Death in Heaven – all the way from Hartnell to Capaldi! There are so many more Who stories worthy of this kind of quality criticism, so we’ll be looking out for what’s next. 

THE BLACK ARCHIVE #1 – ROSE (DOCTOR WHO) / AUTHOR: JON ARNOLD / PUBLISHER: OBVERSE BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

There are three simple truths to effective storytelling. You create a hero. Your hero is then assigned a near-impossible mission and then, most importantly of all, you infuse your hero with some seriously repressed, messed up and potentially life-threatening mommy and daddy issues.

In the real world it’s a tough pill to swallow for us fantasy-worshippers that we’re not likely (although we’re not saying it’s impossible) to become parents to the next generation of Peter Parkers and Jessica Jones’. Luckily for us, that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from the relationships that our heroes had with their parents and apply them to every day life, which is just what this helpful compilation of mini-essays sets out to demonstrate.

Divided into five sections, and drawing from examples encompassing the worlds of cinema, literature and television, Geek Parenting is a delight from the start. It’s filled with honest advice, with a voice that encourages but never preaches. Highlights include the importance of a good old-fashioned father and son game of baseball (DS9’s Benjamin and Jake Sisko), setting boundaries with your kids (Cersei and Joffrey), handling sibling rivalry (Thor and Loki – who else?), as well accepting them no matter what (Aunt May and Peter Parker).

Segal and Lupescu are charming narrators who present their ideas with warmth, humour and inclusivity. The essays are short, well researched and make their points effectively, by drawing from significant moments between their chosen characters from work, that many science fiction fans are likely to be already familiar with, although be prepared for some surprises.

If there’s one criticism to be levelled it’s that the book’s length is a little on the short side. Whilst the range of the studies is plentiful, the beauty of this particular genre is that there’s such a rich history to choose from that you hope there’s a sequel in the pipeline.

If you haven’t yet had children (or if you begin panic-cellophaneing your mint condition Issue #1’s at the very thought), don’t be put off by the title; at the very least this collection serves as a poignant index of the very human side of science fiction.

On the other hand if you are a parent, at least you’ll know how best to dialogue, when your kid returns home from his science trip with a spider bite and newfound sense of acrobatic ability. Or maybe just when he doesn’t get asked to prom. Either way, this is a thoroughly enjoyable compilation.

GEEK PARENTING / AUTHORS: STEPHEN H. SEGAL, DUDYCZ LUPESCU / PUBLISHER: QUIRK BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: 5TH APRIL

Set in a South Africa where apartheid never fell, Azanian Bridges tells the parallel stories of Sibusiso, a young Zulu tribesman caught up in the struggle for racial equality, and his interaction with Martin, a white psychologist and creator of a device that allows people to experience each other’s thoughts and feelings. In a society maintained by enforced segregation to prevent people seeing each other as equals, the invention’s capabilities make it a very dangerous one.

The book has more than a few echoes of the totalitarianism of Orwell’s Nineteen Eight-Four, although not with the same dystopic intensity but more a speculation of the kind of authoritarian regime South Africa could very easily have descended into, had apartheid continued and further isolated the country from the rest of the world.

As well as the more overt racism of the security services who murder black people with impunity and without consideration, there are other forms so insidious that those engaging in it might not even realise it. Martin genuinely believes in his colour-blind perspective, yet is well aware of the perceived inferiority of black people making Sibusiso a more viable (ie expendable) test subject for his device. The different ways Sibusiso and Martin are persecuted give striking examples of what white privilege actually means, and in doing so hold up a mirror to our own modern society, that likes to believe in its notion of equality and justice for all, yet still finds innumerable ways to highlight the superficial differences between each of us, and pre-emptively punish those falling outwith certain applied categories.

While the book’s subject matter is inarguably significant, the style in which it’s written leaves something to be desired. The regular injection of Zulu and Afrikaans into, respectively, Sibusiso and Martin’s thoughts, may well provide some authenticity of how people think and speak in a multilingual society, but the words frequently lack the necessary context for the reader to establish what they actually mean, and so quickly become annoying. Wood’s prose style is one of short clipped sentences, that allow for little in the way of personality to come through, as though they are being dictated to us second hand, rather than the characters telling their own story. As a result, the narrative is a flow of statements without empathy, that prevent us from truly experiencing what the characters are thinking and feeling. Which, given the book’s central premise, is an unfortunate irony.

AZANIAN BRIDGES / AUTHOR: NICK WOOD / PUBLISHER: NEWCON PRESS / RELEASE DATE: 4TH APRIL

On the highways and back roads of the USA, a secret society allied to the legendary Knights Templar is working to keep the population safe from all the serial killers and supernatural entities that prey upon the unsuspecting traveller. It’s a dangerous job that takes a very heavy toll on its membership, especially the trucker Jimmie Aussapile, who has followed his father into the Brotherhood and is finding it increasingly difficult to keep his family removed from his life on the road. He is behind in his mortgage payments and his heavily pregnant wife is about to give birth at any moment. Jimmie Aussapile needs a rest but events take a chillingly personal turn when a young girl climbs into his cab, knows his name, warns him about the obscene menace that devoured her friends — and then disappears.

Before he knows it, Jimmie is on a collision course with an immortal serial killer called The Pagan, who has spent centuries sacrificing victims to the Horned Man and now has a deranged plan to destroy the world. But New Orleans police detective Lovina Marcou is on that collision course as well – while tracking down a disappeared teenager she finds herself pursued by a relentless army of demonic Black Eyed Children, The Pagan’s footsoldiers in his war against humanity.

But to make matters even more complicated for Jimmie – he has a new ‘squire’ to train, a young biker who is dealing badly with the recent death of his father, a wise-cracking vigilante, who could either be a valuable new recruit or a dangerously loose cannon.

Jimmie Aussapile featured briefly in R S Belcher’s previous novel Nightwise but this is the first time we really get to understand who he is and the enigmatic Brotherhood he is a part of. This is muscular storytelling that takes no time charging out of the starting gate and, for the most part, it makes for genuinely exciting and unsettling reading. Belcher’s theories about the mythical Black Eyed Children are compelling, and his central concept, with its shades of The Wicker Man, keeps the pages turning. But there are one or two bumps in the road – a scene at a nightclub in the Bayou, when Aussapile introduces his friends to a famous rock n’ roll icon-turned-demon hunter, is a nice idea but flirts dangerously with pastiche, and the inevitable ‘countdown’ of an ending, as Aussapile rushes to prevent the end of the world, is entertaining to read but far too formulaic. We’ve read and seen this kind of ending far too often, and it’s a shame that Belcher couldn’t have found a more original, less by-the-numbers way, to wind up the climax, especially considering some of the outstanding writing that preceded it.

Still, these are small criticisms when the rest of the book is so impressive. This is a fantastic story masterfully told, the ‘unnerved glance over your shoulder while you’re reading’ quotient is reasonably high, and we hope Jimmie Aussapile will be climbing behind the wheel again very soon.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE WHEEL / AUTHOR: R.S. BELCHER / PUBLISHER: TOR BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Despite ending prematurely in order to make way for Rebels, Clone Wars was a series with a vast amount of potential and great ideas. With many plot threads, scripts and ideas left floating about, it was only natural that someone would adapt them into a full novel. In the case of Dark Disciple, this was to help finish off the story arcs surrounding conflicted Jedi Quinlan Vos and the now renegade Asajj Ventress. Their task? Hunt down and assassinate Count Dooku, ending his threat once and for all.

The story is simple, focusing upon two popular background characters and follows an interesting arc which is perfect for both Vos and Ventress. With both having switched sides and barely escaped brushes with the Dark Side, they are the best assassins to bring down Dooku and understand the threat he poses. Both have seen him fighting first-hand and the novel always utilizes their growing distrust and tension as a great source of meaningful conflict. Atop of this, having gone undercover, their questions of what it truly means to be a Jedi work surprisingly well, although sadly nothing we’ve seen before. This is the problem here, the book might be competently written when it comes to the fight scenes, but fans of Star Wars are extremely familiar with this song and dance. We’ve seen Vos doing this before, we’ve seen Jedi like Jacen Solo tempted by the Dark Side far more meaningfully explored in other stories, so much of Dark Disciple seems like a simple rehashing of over-used tropes.

Even the book itself is more reliant upon favoured characters than building new ones. While the Jedi Council (including an oddly out of character Mace Windu) are understandable, the massive ensemble of notable bounty hunters led by Boba Fett are not so much. These characters are there purely for fan service, and even the major outcome of their big fight scene is barely covered. This in of itself might have been fine, but even the story’s very structure is flawed, matching the television series too closely. There is little environmental description of many environments, or atmospheric detail of any kind, and the overall pacing is oddly stretched out meaning the story often makes you want to start skipping pages. Combined with a few too many unexplained switches in allegiances, and the book gradually devolves into an exercise in frustration.

Dark Disciple is unremarkable and, while it has a few good ideas, the execution is lackluster. If this is the standard to which the new and improved Disney driven setting plans to stick to then we were better off with the Expanded Universe.

STAR WARS: DARK DISCIPLE / AUTHOR: CHRISTIE GOLDEN / PUBLISHER: ARROW/ RELEASE DATE: MARCH 31ST