Review Category: Books

THE DROSTEN’S CURSE

For the last few years, BBC Books has been attracting well-known writers (Michael Moorcock, Stephen Baxter, et al.) to write ‘proper’ Doctor Who books. But it is with this latest outing, courtesy of A. L. Kennedy, that the range has really reached its peak.

Featuring a companionless Fourth Doctor, the tale takes place in the Scottish town of Arbroath. Beneath the everyday banality of a golf course, something is discovered that may mean the end of the world. But then, if you’ve read the Time Trips novella The Death Pit, you already knew that; the novel is a greatly expanded adaptation of it.

Kennedy’s delightful way of writing the world around the characters means that there is something that will make you laugh at least once in every short chapter. She has a way of stating the absurd in a way that makes it sound quite whimsical, really (for example, a character is taken aback at having woken up with “only the usual number of limbs that day”).

This talent for winning descriptions owes a lot to famous teller of Target tales Terrance Dicks, but this is one case of the student far outclassing the master; where Dicks’ prose was workmanlike with touches of genius, (this is not as much of a criticism as it may appear; Dicks has his admirers for a reason) here the genius is practically in every line. You’ve got to love lines like “the Doctor paced up to the Spa Welcome Desk like a jolly tiger in a maroon jacket” or “a both angry and stealthy mammoth was creeping up behind them to tread on precious and fragile things – things like their heads”.

But those are a few quotes. To really appreciate the beauty of the book as a whole, you really have to read it. With just one contribution, Kennedy has rapidly risen up to become one of our favourite Doctor Who authors of the modern range. Hopefully there’s more where that came from.

INFO: AUTHOR: A. L. KENNEDY / PUBLISHER: BBC BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (HARDBACK), JANUARY 21ST (PAPERBACK) 

DESTINY QUEST – THE EYE OF WINTER’S FURY

We often forget how short adventure game books are. The ‘turn to page 400’ format chops up the narrative in such a way that you’re essentially getting a novella length story surrounded by the trappings of a book. The Destiny Quest series breaks this mould by simply being huge in size, and using clever game design innovations to tell a neat interleaved narrative that is also a game

The plot of Winter’s Fury is the usual fantasy affair. You’re a young and privileged prince, with access to resources that you can’t use properly. The kingdom that is your home is plagued with monsters and evil that only you can deal with. The story is told through a series of modular adventures. Each is a short story in its own right, and you can choose to skip many of these quests if you so wish. Doing so risks missing out on valuable equipment, however. Some sections are mandatory, and they all stack up to tell a rather dark story with some brilliantly written set pieces.

One criticism of the book (and, in fact, the whole series) is the rather silly inclusion of a pack of evil magic users referred to as The Wiccans. The use of this term to describe supernatural monsters is pretty jarring. In the UK, Wicca is a recognised religion, and every time an attack by Wiccans in mentioned, it’s impossible to picture them as anything else than a bunch of rather kind looking people with too much eyeliner, shiny jewellery and a preference for lentils. Apart from this, the monsters are pretty cool and the book features ‘boss fight’ sections that are splendid fun.

It is flawed in some key places. For a start, it has way too many little rules. Though old-fashioned gamers may delight in all the little extras, it makes the game unsuitable for low attention span-style casual play. Having to flip to the back of the book to check every other trait and sub-rule gets old after a while, and the combat simply requires way too many dice. Those looking to read this book on train will have to cheat, which is a pity because the mechanics are a key part of the experience.

Overall, Destiny Quest – The Eye of Winter’s Fury is a worthy addition to the growing range of adventure game books out there. It’s heavily written style and dark tone make it a pleasing (if odd) mix, one that is not swiftly forgotten. We look forward to seeing what Mr Ward does next.

INFO: AUTHOR: MICHAEL J WARD / PUBLISHER: GOLLANCZ / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
 

CITY OF DEATH

James Goss has picked up the mantle of adapting the Douglas Adams Fourth Doctor story City of Death from Gareth Roberts. While we will never know how this might have turned out, we can be very pleased with the results. To add to the confusion, the cover also tells us this is from a story by David Fisher – a book with much ancestry, it seems!

The original TV story, City of Death is easily brought to mind with a few prompts – Paris, Mona Lisas (plural), one-eyed alien, and a cameo by John Cleese. It is also one only two Adams-penned stories to make it to screen, the other being The Pirate Planet (of course the third project, Shada, never made it to screen, though has survived on audio/novel).

James Goss is no stranger to the work of Douglas Adams; he worked on a radio version of the aforementioned Shada and met Adams when adapting Dirk Gently for the stage. With City of Death, he takes a well-liked story and adds to it with some gorgeous prose, evoking the sense of both the city and the characters. He isn’t afraid to add depth to the interactions between the Doctor and Romana, and fills out various other characters. Whereas in the 1970s, some Target novelisations might have scarcely taken tens of minutes to read and barely stretched beyond the bare bones of the televised plot, with this novel James Goss takes the time to enjoy the writing, the setting and captures the essence of the city and evokes Adams without slavishly imitating. A first class job of work.

There is much to enjoy about James Goss’s adaptation, and little (if anything) to criticise.

INFO: AUTHOR: JAMES GOSS, DOUGLAS ADAMS / PUBLISHER: BBC BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: MAY 21ST
 

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO BLOFELD’S CAT

He sat quietly on his master’s lap, a Turkish Angora cat largely untroubled by dreams and schemes of world domination and destruction and generally unconcerned by the frequent interruptions to his cosy life by a certain MI5 secret agent whose name must remain a mystery because if publishers Tumbleweed aren’t going to risk the wrath of Eon Productions then we sure as Hell aren’t either.

Subtitled ‘Unofficial Musings from the Volcanic Lair’, this is a book which could very easily have just been called ‘Grumpy Old Cat’ and we could all have moved on with our lives. But it appears that Blofeld’s cat, after years spent skulking in volcanoes and secret subterranean bases, has developed an antipathy towards humanity second only to his owner. Blofeld’s Cat hates everything about the modern world and living in it and he digs his claws deep into the usual suspects, from reality television, tabloid newspapers, politics, children, supermarkets and even poor old seaside town Sidmouth. This, in essence, is the problem; there’s nothing particularly original about Blofeld’s Cat’s targets – he hates all the things that most right-thinking people detest in an increasingly-trivial twentieth-century world. There are odd references to his master’s activities and his struggles with… that secret agent… but most of it is just a string of familiar rants aimed at familiar irritations. A spryer, cleverer book might have made an attempt to present a skewed worldview from the perspective of a closeted cat who has spent much of his life pampered by a raving megalomaniac but instead we’re just treated to his furious opinions on package holidays, fast-food restaurants, musicals, astrology and, inevitably, dogs. It’ll raise a smile of recognition and agreement now and again and Adrian Teal’s witty illustrations provide some welcome relief from the one-note text, too much of which reads like the sort of tirade your Granddad might come out with at Christmas (which BC also hates) after one too many bottles of stout.

Inoffensive but entirely inessential, The World According to Blofeld’s Cat will take you no more than thirty minutes to rattle through. It might provide the odd smile or chuckle but it’s hard not to read the entry on page 26 – Cat Literature – and not come to the conclusion that BC’s despair at “what sort of simpleton would willingly hand over £7.99 of their hard-earned money on an insipid and derivative collection of feline anecdotes” might not be quite as ironic and self-deprecating as its authors might have intended in the circumstances. The World According to Blofeld’s Cat will set you back £7.99. It’s definitely not the cat’s meow and we’d advise you to paws before investing in this less than purrfect publication.

INFO: AUTHOR: BLOFELD’S CAT, MARK BEYNON, ALISTAIR BEYNON, CHRIS PAUL / PUBLISHER: TUMBLEWEED / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
 

THE AGE OF SCORPIO

The Age of Scorpio is driven by three plotlines, each revolving around a search quest. Far in the future, a pair of ruthless bounty hunters are hired by a mysterious benefactor to recover a valuable piece of stolen technology; in modern-day Portsmouth an ex-con searches for her sister with a technologically enhanced enforcer amidst the petty thugs of the criminal underworld; and in the past of ancient Britain, a druid chases after otherworldly warriors who kidnapped her tribe for some nefarious purpose. You spend the book waiting for the point when the narratives will converge and everything suddenly makes sense and your patience and concentration for the last 500 pages will pay off. Thing is, they don’t.

When several plots are told in parallel their development should be concurrent if they are part of the same story, or if like here they take place in different times, they should at least exist in developmental harmony. However, aside from some recurring details of the background mythology the three stories have virtually nothing to do with each other, and only in the novel’s dying pages do they have any direct link, by which point you’re past caring.

The three tales certainly do not need to be read simultaneously to make sense of them, so instead of a single book with three entirely disparate plots it would have worked better as a trio of novellas, a literary triptych driven by the concept of portraying the same ideas during separate periods in history. The main link between the stories is the use of ancient and powerful alien biotech and the differing perspectives of its operation: in the far-flung future, it’s merely expensive and largely illegal equipment; in the present, it’s incomprehensibly hi-tech weaponry; and in the distant past, it’s magic; the latter tacitly invoking Arthur C. Clarke’s famous observation regarding significantly advanced technology.

Tension is lost when characters periodically cheat death in various manners, such as being cloned back to life; consciousness being destroyed but then replaced by some other entity with no discernible difference in personality; or being physically killed but hi-tech augmentations allowing for self-resurrection. Minor characters drift in and out of the action as and when demanded (and sometimes even when they’re not) with no greater purpose than to be thinly-sketched plot devices, and the perspective frequently jumps between various characters and back again for no other reason than certain points needing to be made at that particular moment.

As a further minor niggle, some details mentioned in the book’s synopsis – such as a Dune-esque war between galactic powers in the future or an End-of-Days scenario in the present – largely refer to background settings and actually bear little relation to the main events.

You can’t deny that Smith has a wealth of intricate, innovative and ambitious ideas, but as was seen recently in the Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending, there is a difference between mashing lots of great ideas together and the telling of a compelling and coherent story. He makes an effort to not spell everything out for the reader, as any decent novelist should, but unfortunately, also fails to provide the requisite context for the myriad concepts to be fully realised.

AUTHOR: GAVIN SMITH / PUBLISHER: GOLLANCZ / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
 

 OATHKEEPER

Oathkeeper is an outstanding second instalment to this series, and continues to prove that this could be one of the most uniquely layered and complex universes since Frank Herbert’s Dune. The world is one of sentient warsuits, cannibalistic offshoots of the elf species, ancient oaths and immortal societies. As the growing onslaught of the reptilian Zaur threatens all and ancient oaths drive the Aern to war, two princes initiate a desperate gambit to preserve their kingdom from the storm and enlist the help of new allies.

Easily the greatest strength of the book is the truly staggering detail and thought put into the world as a whole. With each culture and species varying wildly from any expected fantasy tropes, and instead taking on entirely new forms. The story here is one of complex political manoeuvring as it is war, with the very ambitions and acts to take the throne hitting just as hard as a full scale siege or armies annihilating one another. It builds a sense of grim atmosphere and a thread of surprising realism for all its otherworldliness. Combined with the thought behind the world’s history, this assists in giving events far more grounding and substance.

The characters themselves also prove to be astoundingly diverse, the most prominent of who retain a clear voice and arc despite the vast number of characters involved. While they can occasionally be hard to keep track of given the multiple threads, there is never a point where it’s possible to start confusing one for the other. This is helped substantially by one of the better uses in recent years of having each figure effectively fulfil an archetype or representation of one aspect of their people.

The serious criticism to be made here is that it locks out new readers from the story. There’s no real moment to truly catch up on what’s happened beyond the blurb, and very little time to catch up. No sooner do you start the book, the plot takes a dramatic turn with a crippling loss in Tranduvallu. It’s a location of obvious importance and home to a major faction in this war, yet there’s little opportunity to take in the unusual nature of its populace or role in the world before it is besieged. The story itself also rarely lets up, meaning that if you’re confused or having difficulty in the opening chapters; it will not be any easier as you progress.

On the whole, Oathkeeper is hardly light reading material, but those seeking an incredibly detailed and sprawling fantasy saga would do extremely well to seek this one out.

INFO: AUTHOR: J.F. LEWIS / PUBLISHER: PROMETHEUS BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 9TH (eBook), JULY 9TH (paperback)

BOOK REVIEW: SLEEPING LATE ON JUDGEMENT DAY / AUTHOR: TAD WILLIAMS / PUBLISHER: HODDER PAPERBACKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

The angel Doloriel, known on Earth as Bobby Dollar, is not having a good time of late. After falling in love with the demon Caz, he endured Hell itself to rescue her, only to be betrayed by an Infernal Archduke who now holds Caz prisoner. Back on Earth and not knowing how to carry on with his life, Bobby finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy that appears to threaten the very existence of Heaven itself.

Sleeping Late on Judgement Day is the third of Tad Williams’s Bobby Dollar novels, continuing from The Dirty Streets of Heaven and Happy Hour in Hell. By now, anyone who’s read the first two will be eager to find out what happens next, and it isn’t good – for Bobby, that is. For his readers, Williams has delivered another treat, populating our own world with angels, demons and bizarre creatures that are something in between. From villain to bit-player, his characters are entirely three-dimensional, his hero realistically flawed and damaged by bitter experience. Williams is an author who is not afraid to put his characters through the wringer, and his book is no exception; at times, it’s hard not to think he’s maybe gone too far.

This, fortunately, is something Williams is incredibly adept at, and he uses that talent to draw emotions from his readers without them feeling cheated or manipulated. He also delivers a story that is a startling combination of modern noir, urban fantasy and horror, along with some philosophy on religion and the nature of love; while the previous book was about the lengths a man will go to for his beloved, this one is about how he has to try and continue without her. There’s laughter, sadness, joy and regret within these pages, and not often from expected sources.

In all three Bobby Dollar novels, Williams starts with his hero in trouble, then goes back to tell the tale of how he got there. It’s a narrative device that’s very much in vogue at the moment, yet feels very unnecessary here. For a big event, there’s a strange lack of jeopardy this time around, which is a shame as there are genuine moments in the book where Bobby’s fate hangs in the balance. There’s also a lot of introspection that, while necessary, does sometimes bring everything to a halt rather than just slow it down. Bobby’s narration is as wry as ever, although his familiarity with all things demonic can reduce the terror felt during the book’s more horrific moments.

All in all, Williams hasn’t let down any of his fans. He’s given the trilogy the bitter-sweet ending it deserves, while still ensuring there are enough plot threads dangling for any future adventures. There’s plenty of scope for Bobby Dollar to return, and we hope to read more about him in the future.

 

BOOK REVIEW: COSPLAY: THE FANTASY WORLD OF ROLE PLAY / AUTHOR: LAUREN ORSINI / PUBLISHER: CARLTON BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: MAY 7TH

Lauren Orsini’s Cosplay: The Fantasy World of Role Play is a love letter to one of geekdom’s more misunderstood branches. Despite its relatively short length, it proves surprisingly comprehensive, covering a wide spectrum, from anime to pop culture to furries. But more than that, it showcases the art, and yes it is an art, dedication and community of the vibrant subculture.

In her introduction, Orsini traces cosplay back to the 1939 World Science Fiction Convention where proto-cosplayers Forrest J. Ackerman and Myrtle R. Jones dressed in outfits inspired by the sci-fi flick Things to Come. They sparked what can only be dubbed a counter-cultural sea change. But it wasn’t until 1984 that the term was coined by reporter and manga publisher Nobuyuki Takahashi, and then the genie was well and truly out of the bottle. It’s since become a household term, with many involved finding celebrity status, corporate sponsorship and prosperous careers.

The rest of the book is broken down into five sections, each showcasing a different aspect of the diverse cosplay circuit. Anyone who’s already involved will know all of the information on offer. It’s more a gateway for people of the fence, watching from afar or just looking for a new hobby. That’s not to say it only caters for newcomers. The strength of the book is the impressive gallery of high quality images that show off the many different permutations of costuming, the variations and, above all, the sense of belonging.

Some of the images aren’t up to the same resolution as others, and it does make the book look like something fished from a bargain bin at The Works. But with the cosplayers names given where known, and photographer credits duly listed, there’s more than enough cues to go and start your own search. The images prove to be a great yardstick to glean the popularity of younger franchises; it’s telling that there’s plenty of Game of Thrones and Frozen cosplay. There’s also the usual staples, from Darth Maul to Final Fantasy.

The text might repeat a lot of the same information, but it does touch on important issues. The most pressing being that cosplay is not consent. While it’s only fleeting, it does get at the wider pervasive problem that plagues many conventions. But it also expresses the opportunities of new technology, namely 3D printing and the precision and possibilities it offers. The Fantasy World of Role Play is hardly the definitive word on the subject, but it’ll make a cracking stocking filler.
 
 

BOOK REVIEW: THE DREAD OF DIFFERENCE: GENDER AND THE HORROR FILM (SECOND EDITION) / AUTHOR: VARIOUS / PUBLISHER: UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

If there’s ever a discussion that comes up in the discussion of horror movies, it’s the violence — and, specifically, the way that violence is directed at women. However, in the second edition of The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, the discussion of gender is not limited to violence perpetrated upon women, but also to how women respond to violence, how patriarchal control is limned in boudoir-based horror, and even how violence as perpetrated upon the male body can be seen as a commentary on gender dynamics.

In his introduction, Editor Barry Keith Grant makes the point that “along with the historical epic and the war film, horror is one of the most profitable genres for addressing the always present but forever shifting dilemmas of difference.” It’s a statement that will be proven quite true in the essays which follow.

Of all the essays in The Dread of Difference, Carol Clover’s 1987 essay, “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film” might be the most important. Not only do several essays which follow build upon or take off from Clover’s points, but it’s also a necessary read. It’s necessary not just for horror fans, but arguably more important for those who are opposed to horror films, as it does such a wonderful job of ably demonstrating that while there may be violence readily and repeatedly enacted against the female characters in the slasher genre, it is usually a woman – the now-standard “final girl” – who vanquishes the male villain, and mostly through guile, cunning, and wit.

Thomas Doherty’s “Genre, Gender, and the Aliens Triology” builds off Clover’s essay quite well, even if it does lapse a bit from discussion of genre-gender dynamics and devolves into disappointed film critique of Alien3 and its overall failings as a film. Pointing out that, for the earlier moments of the first film in the franchise, the viewer thinks it’s going to be a film about Tom Skerrit’s character, but in the end, is about Ripley and her triumph. Granted, Doherty’s conclusion, wherein he posits that Ripley’s death at the end of the trilogy is “a failure of artistic imagination” on the part of director David Fincher is a bit harsh, but it does demonstrate that the big-budget movies will always shackle the woman in some way – even if it’s to death – rather than allow her unqualified success.

It’s that refutation of Clover’s “final girl” theory that Tony Williams takes especially to heart in his “Trying to Survive on the Darker Side: 1980s Family Horror”, which is essentially taking Clover to task for failing to notice certain things: most notably, the fact that the final girls of the Friday the 13th franchise are frequently left “alive but catatonic”, which is “certainly not victorious!”

The essays contained within the pages of The Dread of Difference cover slashers, sci-fi, classic Universal monsters, and more, even going so far as to look at Eli Roth’s Hostel films and In My Skin. The breadth of topics is quite amazing, and while some works might be more readily readable than others, they all offer up viewpoints well worth entertaining.

My only quibble is that I feel that 23 essays and not a single one that mentions Sleepaway Camp and its final reveal – especially in a context regarding how the transgender community is frequently portrayed as being comprised of deviant murderers – seems a wasted opportunity. Given that Linda Williams ever-so-briefly touches on those aspects in the book’s first essay, “When the Woman Looks”, by examining Psycho and Dressed to Kill, one wishes that someone else would have taken the baton and really examined the ramification of these films and others in further detail.

However, that’s why there could always be a third edition. Editor Grant has chosen a wonderful selection of authors and essays for this second edition of The Dread of Difference, and it should be an immediate addition to the shelf of every horror fan who wishes to go beyond the surface aspects of the films examined therein.