Review Category: Books

Review: The Better Part of Valour / Author: Tanya Huff / Publisher: Titan Books / Release Date: Out Now

Returned only a short while from her previous recon mission, Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr finds herself being sent into combat once more. Having insulted a superior officer, her well-earned leave turns into a reconnaissance mission of the worst kind. A massive UFO of unknown origin has emerged far across the galaxy. Paired with a glory-hungry superior, her task is to ensure the survival of a scientific expedition boarding the derelict. A task which increases in danger with every passing minute.

Despite a much more interesting premise than Valour’s Choice, The Better Part of Valour proves to be the weaker of the two novels. While the humour, characterisation and other elements which made the previous tale fun to read remain, the end result is much more flawed.

One cause of this is the near-total change of all the supporting characters. When there’s an established ensemble to build upon it tends to be best to make use of that, and while the new characters are a good match for the first it really is like going back to square one.

What is much more unfortunate is that the environment and combat don’t hold up. While it’s good that the novel does not opt to openly rip off Space Hulk, there really isn’t enough done to impress upon the reader the alien nature of the craft. Similarly the combat feels oddly neutered and lacking in description compared to the first. This is exacerbated by a tale which feels as if it has skimped on the inciting incident in order to make room for a very irritating addition to the ending.

The good news here is that, for all these weaknesses, the novel does continue to build upon the universe around it, with some interesting moments of world-building which never get in the way of the narrative.

Many of the strengths of the first tale remain, but this is clearly the weaker of the two. If you want a novel with no heavy lifting and with plenty of enjoyable elements, take a look, but don’t expect anything special.

Review: Valour’s Choice / Author: Tanya Huff / Publisher: Titan Books / Release Date: Out Now

A problem with some military fiction is it can be hard to strike a good balance between humanity and the horror of conflict. Go too far in one direction and you end up driving the reader away with relentless nihilism, too far in the other and you end up losing the pressing danger of battle. Tanya Huff manages to strike an interesting balance with strong characters and a distinctive setting.

Centuries in the future, the alien coalitions of the Confederation and the Others battle relentlessly across the stars. As an opportunity arises to recruit another species as allies, Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr and her platoon are assigned as an honour guard to ensure things go smoothly. Unfortunately, things quickly prove to go anything but smoothly.

The book’s greatest strengths are its characters and its self-awareness. Kerr herself is a great protagonist, likeable, skilled and talented at her profession. There’s an obvious element of Sharpe at play here, with other figures (a distinctive cast of ambassadors, troopers and officers) mostly serving in supporting roles rather than as viewpoint characters, but all prove to be solidly written.

Humanity and the races of the Confederation are well integrated by this point, but the aliens themselves are made out to be clearly alien, with distinctive physiologies, gestures and mentalities which help them to be a cut above your average mono-characterised Star Trek-type race.

Huff’s style flirts with cliché, but in a way that is a source of fun rather than eye-rolling irritation, and the dialogue is packed full of pop culture references of the sort that sci-fi fans will pick up on easily.

Sadly there is one flaw which definitely holds the book back. With character interaction such a strong point, the action feels like a side event. The story itself is more one of survival than a campaign, and the battles lack the descriptive punch other authors are able to deliver. This will likely put off readers who value intricately described environments and brawls over character chemistry.

While no Honor Harrington, Valour’s Choice still proves to be a strong start to the series. Combining together a great mix of humour, internal strife and rapid pacing, it’s undeniably easily consumable entertainment.

Review: The Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince / Author: Robin Hobb / Publisher: Harper Voyager / Release Date: Out Now

Novellas can be tricky things; not quite as snappy as a short story, not long enough to tell the sort of in-depth and detailed tale you get in a novel. The Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince is a novella set in Robin Hobb’s Farseer series. Specifically, it’s one tale split into two parts which provide backstory and insight into Hobb’s rich world. This is the tale of Felicity, a handmaiden to Princess Caution. She is witness to an incredible scandal, one that could have dire consequences not only for the realm, but also for the future of everything.

The tale is deeply rooted in the Realm of Elderlings series, detailing the origins of the prejudice that makes up much of the conflict within the core books. Fans of the novels won’t be that surprised here; this is very much a fleshing out of stuff that readers already know or have already surmised. Hobb’s key style is to generate a narrative in which you build an empathy for the main characters. Because this is a novella, this means that there is less time to develop an understanding of what’s going through Felicity’s head, and just as you’re getting into it, the pace changes and the story almost starts again. Despite these flaws, Hobb’s writing never fails to delight throughout, and though the work is simply too short, it is a treat.

This is not a book for those who don’t know who Robin Hobb is. Those who love her work should consider adding it to their Christmas wish list.

Review: Ecko Burning / Author: Danie Ware / Publisher: Titan Books / Release Date: Out Now

Sarcastic and violent antiheroes are something that genre fans never seem to grow tired of, and Ecko, the titular hero of Ecko Burning, is a vicious, crazy and unpredictable lunatic who makes this novel a strange and yet brilliant delight. It also helps that the character swears in a constant yet entertaining way; the filth spouting out of his mouth matching the high octane action that fills the pages of the novel. Despite all this, Ecko is a sympathetic character; it’s a testament to Ware’s dense and relentless storytelling style that we can’t help ourselves liking this madman, even though at times he is quite repulsive.

Ecko Burning is the sequel to Danie Ware’s debut novel, Ecko Rising, and though it works okay as a standalone book, it’s (obviously) filled with spoilers for the first one. There are some familiar faces and though they do steal some of the limelight from the main protagonist, their relative sanity makes a nice change of pace from the larger than life central character. The central plot is a mash-up of fantasy and gritty science fiction genres, and the dissonance between the two reflects the madness of our hero in a clever yet easy to understand way.

It is yet another novel that both romanticises and criticises the city of London, and though there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s the scenes set in the fantasy world that are more interesting. Oddly, many genre novels set in England’s capital tend to dip into other world fantasy quite quickly; maybe there’s something about the city that makes novelists want to turn it into something different and more interesting. This is a dense and engaging read which keeps the reader hooked by stacking up one amazing thing after the other.

Ecko Burning is not a subtle novel; it’s violent, sarcastic, filled with nods and references to all things geeky and fun, and features perhaps one of the most scenery-chewing, over-the-top bad guys that we’ve seen in some time. Those new to Ware’s work are firmly advised to start at the beginning. There is of course a sequel planned for sometime next year, and we can’t wait.

Review: Pandorax / Author: C.Z. Dunn / Publisher: Black Library / Release Date: Out Now

There is a tendency amongst a certain sort of reader to dismiss tie-in novels out of hand, seeing them as mere advertisements for existing products, rather than works in their own right. These people should be pitied; tie-in fiction can offer excellent insights into complex shared worlds and when done well, we get a fully detailed tale that is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Pandorax is certainly a novel that draws from a great many sources. It features some of the major heavy hitters from the Warhammer 40,000 universe, from the utterly ridiculous (but completely awesome) Kaldor Draigo to the awful and revolting prince of terror and darkness, Abaddon. There are also some new characters, ordinary mortals doing the best they can, and they really make this book entertaining and engaging. It’s an action-packed romp that starts with a big bang and carries on that way all the way through, filled with cinematic action scenes and just enough characterisation to keep the reader going until the next big thing.

C.Z. Dunn is a steady pair of hands at this sort of thing. His previous works include zombie splat-fest Hive of the Dead, over-the-top space opera Dark Vengeance and the strangely haunting audio drama, Malediction. Fans will be pleased to hear that Pandorax is very much more of the same. The beats can be seen a mile off, and this is not a bad thing; the steady pace makes this an easy and fun read. It’s very much a roller coaster of a novel; you know what to expect, you’re pretty sure you know how it’ll end and all of that doesn’t matter, because all you need to do is strap yourself in and have fun.

As with any roller coaster, there are some dips; for example Dunn returns, yet again, to his beloved Dark Angels, giving them a great deal of the spotlight. Sadly, the thing about Warhammer 40,000’s Space Marines is that they’re near invulnerable, unstoppable warriors, and when put in the same place as frail and tragic heroes desperately struggling for survival, they just seem a bit dull. The action scenes do a lot to make the mere notion that an ordinary person could survive this hell remarkable and engaging, and this is rather ruined by the presence of super-human killing machines running in and fixing things. It doesn’t break the pace too badly however, as very swiftly there is another cool action scene and something big and heavy explodes.

Pandorax is not for the casual fan; it’s deeply immersed in the lore of Warhammer 40,000 and is certainly one for the aficionado. However, if you know your Blood Angel from your Blood God, and your Blood Axe from your Blood Pact, then you’ll have a lot of fun with this.

Review: A Dance in Blood Velvet / Author: Freda Warrington / Publisher: Titan / Release Date: Out Now

Originally published in 1994 and having been out of print for more than a decade, A Dance in Blood Velvet is the second book in Freda Warrington’s Blood Wine sequence, which is being reissued by Titan Books.

Following on from A Taste of Blood Wine, Charlotte forsakes her human life so that she can be with her vampire lover Karl. However, a vampiric existence is not without its problems, as whilst Charlotte’s thirst for blood repulses her, feeding brings exquisite ecstasy. Further problems arise when Karl’s former lover, the seductively beautiful Katerina, is rescued from the Crystal Ring (a sort of vampire trans-dimensional rapid transit system) and now she wants to reclaim her life… and Karl.

Charlotte is, naturally, none too happy about her suitor’s ex muscling in on the scene and so, in her despair, becomes fascinated by the prima ballerina Violette Lenoir. But Violette isn’t as human as she appears to be, being a descendant of the goddess Lilith, and if she should be turned… Well it wouldn’t end well for anybody or anything.

It would be easy to dismiss this sequence as yet more teenage, Gothic, horror-lite romance, but then you’d be doing the books a disservice. This is an extremely well plotted tale of complex, believable characters. Yes, they are vampires and they are often vicious and terrifyingly deadly. But rather than being portrayed as cruel, motiveless monsters, or moping, emo sops, they are essentially human, albeit with pointy teeth and an appetite for haemoglobin. They fight, they love, they are adults and all that that implies.

Freda Warrington’s prose is simply stunning, sumptuous and graceful and as seductive as the vampires she portrays. She also has an imaginatively nifty creation theory on how vampires came into existence.

Charlotte, especially, will strike a chord with many readers. Here is a real woman dealing with a myriad of dangers and extraordinary events all for love. She is both feminine and tough, a proto Buffy if you will. So if you like the densely plotted, character-driven works of Anne Rice, minus her often irritating purple prose, and you want something very definitely adult (and we don’t mean that in the top shelf of a newsagents way), then this could just be what you’ve been looking for.

Review: Virulent Blurb – Reflections / Author: Kneel Downe / Publisher: Lulu.com / Release Date: Out Now

This, the third book to be released from Downe’s Blurb universe, serves as both the follow-up and prequel to the earlier Fractures. What started out as an experiment, using the confines of Twitter to tell his tale, has expanded into a pan-dimensional story encompassing several arcs, each of them intertwined, and all collapsing in on each other.

The first part of the book follows Joshua Knight, the youngster who founded PolyPhazeProductions, the makers of tech which flows through all the strains of the story. This is a world of malfunctioning memory boxes, nasty viruses and gene splicing (birthing the Mickey Spillane-esque Kurt Lobo, a wolf-spliced detective). This is also the story of the days before “the Fall”, which leads to the events of Fractures. There’s also a part based after the “sky broke” as well as a short story involving Lobo’s brother and fellow wolf detective, Lyca. A duo of poetic pieces ends the book (one set in the more mythological realm of the last book). Each section is presented in slightly differing ways, but works perfectly well together.

The story is, once again, peppered with references to Downe’s influences but certainly not in a derivative way; these are so obviously affectionate nods that they don’t throw you out of the flow of the text. There’s also a wonderful layer of satire at play, which rewards further reading. As with the previous books, there are as many questions left unanswered as there are resolved, essential to keep one wanting more. The conversational style makes the most of the unusual format and allows it to flow from the page into the imagination with ease. Don’t let the fact that it’s self-published put you off; this is intelligent and fun sci-fi at its best.

Review: The Monster Club / Author: R. Chetwynd-Hayes / Publisher: Valancourt Books / Release Date: Out Now

R. Chetwynd-Hayes is fondly remembered for his spooky yet witty tales of horror. The Monster Club (filmed in 1981 with Vincent Price and Donald Pleasance) is at the lighter end of his oeuvre – a collection of playfully tongue-in-cheek short stories presented as a series of anecdotes told to an unfortunate human who finds his way by accident to the club of the title.

The best of the stories are firmly on the side of the monsters. The Werewolf and the Vampire recounts the courtship and marriage of two meek, well-meaning supernaturals who end up suffering at the hands of a zealous vicar and a sadistic schoolboy. Meanwhile, the big-eared, pointy-toothed narrator of The Mock gradually moves from bewilderment and disgust at his bafflingly complex monster heritage to the realization that it can be a source of pride and strength. Funny, disturbing and brilliantly imaginative, this story is the highlight of the book and well worth the price of admission alone.

Even in the more conventional, less monster-centric tales, the human characters tend to be depicted with an acid pen. In The Shadmock, a ghastly nouveau riche businessman and his trophy wife find themselves held prisoner in their own stately mansion by a staff of grotesques (“Will it be convenient for madam to be drained at eight O’clock?”), while the titular bat-like demon of The Fly-by-Night draws out the underlying tension between an apparently contented father and daughter. At times the tone and prose style are almost Harry Potter-ish to modern ears, but the edginess of the themes makes for a far from cosy read. This long-overdue paperback reissue comes with a useful introduction by Stephen Jones and a suitably lurid wraparound cover by John Bolton.

Review: The Smell of Evil / Author: Charles Birkin / Publisher: Valancourt Books / Release Date: January 7th, 2014

Sir Charles Birkin (1907-1985) was an aristocrat and Old Etonian as well as an occasional horror story writer, and this collection, first published in 1965, has a distinctly lordly quality to it, for good or bad.

The volume concludes with a science fiction story, but the majority of the pieces are of a twist-in-the-tail type akin to Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected. Their theme is the pettiness and ugliness of human nature – which might make for a certain monotony, if it weren’t for the variety of backdrops that the tales enjoy. The rocky coast of Cornwall is the setting for a gruesome murder mystery; there’s a nasty tale that takes place in WWII Germany in the shadow of the concentration camps; the South Seas crop up twice, most interestingly in The Interloper, about a colony of lesbians who serve up rough justice to a sailor who washes ashore.

In addition, two of the stories have memorable theatrical settings. Ballet Negre concerns an African dance company that makes highly creative use of voodoo (zombies got talent?), and The Cornered Beast takes us behind the curtains of a seedy freak show.

Even when it originally appeared back in the mid-’60s, The Smell of Evil must have felt out of step with the times, steeped in the values and milieus of an earlier era (despite occasional jarring references to jukeboxes and televisions). Birkin’s attitudes to race and class are unlikely to endear him to modern readers, and some of his plots run along fairly predictable lines. Yet for all that, he’s an impressively smooth and urbane writer, positively dripping with sang froid, and if your tastes lie in old-fashioned tales of the macabre, then this is one lord who should definitely leap to the forefront of your attention.

Review: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Annihilation / Author: Drew Karpyshyn / Publisher: Arrow Books / Release Date: Out Now

Besides having a title with too many colons, Annihilation is another solid effort to build upon the era of The Old Republic. Tied into the MMO, it displays new areas of the universe while invoking what came before, but unlike the seething bile present in Revan, this is an obvious love letter to the era. Following the tale of Theron Shan, the book depicts efforts by the Republic to weaken the Sith’s hold on their systems by bringing down the legendary Imperial battle cruiser Ascendant Spear before it can potentially turn the tide once more in the Empire’s favour.

With a Sith Lord, a Jedi Master, a roguish Republic agent and a superweapon, it has everything you’d want from something in this universe. Any fans who were excited to see the first films will feel right at home here, despite a setting several thousand years prior to Luke’s birth, helped especially by a few choice set pieces. Starting in a hive of scum and villainy before moving onto a mission within an enemy stronghold, it evokes memories without directly replicating them. That said, the book is far from reliant upon nostalgia, with character elements such as Gnost-Dural’s history with his now traitor student and Shan’s mild hostility to the Jedi. Wait! Those panicking, calm down. Karpyshyn doesn’t pull a Traviss with the character.

The battle sequences are also truly something to behold, especially when the Ascendant Spear is introduced to the reader. Peppered throughout the tale, the book is far from reliant upon them but has them emerge often enough to deliver a constant sense of momentum and pace within the writing. One which does not utterly sacrifice character moments as others might.

However, there is one critical flaw which holds the tale back: a lack of exposition. Many environments and details are not outlined to the reader, with names or events simply told. While the death of the Sith Emperor and Nar Shaddaa will instantly visualise images in the minds of major fans, others may be left lost. All too often it feels as if the book was written with those familiar with the setting in mind, and opts to explain very little. It doesn’t crush the book, but others may simply have to accept certain facts will not be explained to them about the setting.

A solid tale if a little lacking in substance, Annihilation should please anyone with fond memories of a galaxy far, far away. It’s not the absolute best introduction to The Old Republic, but it’s definitely a fun one.