Review Category: Books

Review: The Alleyman / Author: Pat Kelleher / Publisher: Abaddon Books / Release Date: Out Now

The Alleyman is the latest book in the No Man’s World series, a delightful blend of World War One adventure, castaway drama and survival horror. The series follows the adventures of the 13th Pennine Fusiliers who have been scooped up from the battlefields of France and deposited on a hostile alien world. In The Alleyman, the brave tommies not only have to avoid all out war with the insectoid creatures who live there, they’ve also got a madman to pursue and the very planet itself seems to be doing its best to kill them outright.

This third book in the series contains revelations that the series has been building up to so far, and also focuses on the exploits of the crew’s single fighter ace, Lieutenant Tulliver, who teams with an unlikely but entertaining ally, the titular Alleyman. Obsession and duty mark both characters, and this underlines the desperate situation the protagonists find themselves in. This is a lovingly researched World War One action adventure story with striking characterisation, addictive drama and a big pile of strangeness. There’s a strong sense of history here, and it adds weight and power to a story that is as dark and serious as it is fun.

Good genre mishmashes are a rarity; it’s one thing to simply blend two ideas and use them as background for a story, and it’s another thing entirely to draw from radically different settings and weave them into an engaging narrative, and yet it seems effortless here. Kelleher’s writing is a constant surprise and delight, and those who like their war stories strange and gritty should be delighted with the latest instalment in a series that I hope to see more of.

Review: The Feathered Man / Author: Jeremy de Quidt / Publisher: David Fickling Books / Release Date: Out Now

The Feathered Man is a gothic horror that will put your imagination to the test. Klaus, the tooth-pullers’ assistant, is a young boy trying to survive in a world where the greed of adults dictates decisions. However, it isn’t greed that will decide how events will unfold, it’s curiosity, because as the tagline suggests “Curiosity is a killing thing…”

Set in a small German port town, Klaus is unassuming as he and his employer, Herr Kusselman, are called to the house of Frau Drecht. Herr Kusselman buys the teeth of the deceased, and then uses those to replace the rotten teeth of the living. When he finds diamonds in the mouth of a dead man the narrative begins to move at quite a pace. It is the strength of this book that it can involve so many characters but never becomes confusing or seems convoluted. Each of the characters’ motives are clearly described and they believe they are in the right. Whether it’s the priest Henriquez, trying to find the answers to his spiritual questions, or the Professor of Anatomy, using his knowledge of the human body to fulfil his own curiosity. While curiosity is a theme which carries through the book, the inevitably of having to choose is made very apparent. It is the feeling that something needs to be done that drives the characters and it is those choices that will directly or indirectly decide the fate of people inadvertently caught up in these events.

The town in which the story takes place is almost like an obstacle itself with its narrow passages, tall imposing architecture and side streets inhabited by the left-overs of society. There are many times when the chases through the town are being described and the thing that stands between the characters and safety is the maze of narrow alleys. These descriptions succeed in conveying a real sense of desperation, allowing you to empathise and support the characters in their efforts to escape danger.

Jeremy de Quidt has crafted a fine gothic suspense thriller which at times becomes gruesome as well as truly creepy. The Feathered Man deserves to be read as you’ll be left satisfied by a well written story, and may think twice the next time curiosity takes hold.

Review: The Emperor’s Might / Author: John Blanche / Publisher: Black Library / Release Date: Out Now

Coffee table books are always difficult to review, especially art books. Sometimes, they’re also filled with commentary and ideas which shed new light onto the pictures. However, The Emperor’s Might works on the idea that a picture is worth a thousand words, so there is hardly any text.

The sub-title for this book is Warriors of The Imperium, but it’s entirely composed of pictures of Space Marines. Given that the 40K world is filled with all sorts of warriors, many of whom work for the Imperium, this is more than a little disappointing. Worse, it makes the whole thing very, very samey. Despite the wide variety of art styles from the 25-year history of the franchise, it’s still a book filled with different artists’ ideas of what one thing should look like.

So we get pictures of different coloured Space Marines, pictures of the warriors holding different weapons, doing different things, etc. As it is all material created for a tabletop war game, the pictures are all about war. As amazing as some of this art is, and a lot of it is top notch, it’s still very samey.

For once, I’d like to see a picture of a Blood Angel drinking a cup of tea or something. I get that in the grim darkness of the future it’s all about scowling and hitting things, but you’d think they’d stop for a chocolate digestive every once in a while. Or at the very least, pictures of these heroes of mankind stopping to protect the weak.

It is very hard to rate this sort of work; the pictures are quite nice, but as a source of inspiration, there are other pictures in other books that are more useful. Given that all of this art has adorned book covers and product boxes in the past, there’s a good chance that fans will already own some of it. The Black Library has done better than this in the past, and I hope that they do better in the future.

Review: Back to Frank Black / Editor: Adam Chamberlain, Brian A. Dixon / Publisher: Fourth Horseman Press / Release Date: Out Now

Millennium was showrunner extraordinaire Chris Carter’s follow-up to the phenomenally successful X-Files, starring Lance Henriksen as Frank Black, a serial killer profiler with a gift for seeing into the heart of darkness. Cancelled in 1999 after three seasons, it’s remembered as a uniquely thoughtful and groundbreaking series and as a highlight of Carter’s career.

This book is just the kind of weighty tribute such a seminal show deserves. It contains a number of illuminating and well-written essays on the symbolism, mythology and background of the series, but its real strength lies in its unusually lengthy and frank interviews with the key participants, including Henriksen (a “compulsive potter”, we learn here) and composer Mark Snow (who apparently was once in a band called the New York Rock & Roll Ensemble. Hmm, must check out their stuff on iTunes… or maybe not).

Best of all are the interviews with the talented writers who toiled behind the scenes to make Millennium what it was. These explore how the show changed from season to season under different runners, and also provide a wealth of insights into what it’s like to pen scripts for the high pressure, short deadline world of network TV. It goes without saying that, if you’re a fan of Millennium, this excellent book is a must-read, but the budding scriptwriters among you should also seek it out for its fascinating depiction of the inner workings of a major TV show.

Review: Mrs Midnight And Other Stories / Author: Reggie Oliver / Publisher: Tartarus Press / Release Date: Out Now

Reggie Oliver has enjoyed considerable success as a playwright and biographer, but his first collection of short stories, The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini (2003), also revealed that he has a rare gift for tales of the uncanny. This, his fifth collection, confirms that he is one of the finest purveyors of the traditional ghost story working today.

Many of the tales enjoy a shabbily theatrical setting. In the title story, a TV celeb is roped by a girl he fancies into helping with the restoration of a derelict music hall, only to discover that the rotting hulk, home to dossers and junkies, harbours a grisly secret. Set in the early ’80s, The Dancer in the Dark concerns Allan, a jobbing actor who lands a part in a tired drawing room drama written, directed by and starring a clique of superannuated has-beens known collectively as “the Oldies”. As the Oldies give vent to various long-held grudges and jealousies, Allan looks on, an appalled and helpless witness.

The scene shifts to Kenya in the 1970s for The Look, the tale of a brittle, gin-soaked plantation owner’s wife which references the infamous Happy Valley murder case (subject of the film White Mischief), and to the Crimea in 1919 for The Philosophy of the Damned, where a bizarre theatrical troupe descends upon a seaside resort stranded by the tides of civil war.

Oliver handles these changes of period and locale with consummate ease, sketching in people and places with elegant, polished phrases that make him an absolute joy to read. He’s a very funny writer, too, with a sharp eye for the crassness and absurdity of human behaviour – as in the lightest of these stories, The Giacometti Crucifixion, about the controversy stirred up by the Master of an Oxford College when he tries to install a piece of modern sculpture in their historic chapel.

In his world, the most bland, untroubled settings seem to be a breeding ground for sinister undercurrents. The impressive Meeting with Mike starts off as an almost Graham Greene-ish tale about a group of elderly aristos at a plush Swiss clinic before taking a sharp turn into weird science, while You Have Nothing to Fear channels the glamorous, country house vibe of a Jilly Cooper blockbuster as a posh photographer seduces and exploits an attractive model against a background of the early ’70s pop art scene.

Genteel and civilised, certainly, but far from dry and dusty, this collection delights from beginning to end with its winning mix of sparkle and chills. Illustrated with vignettes by the author, it’s a handsome-looking book, too, one that would make an excellent Christmas present for anyone fond of old school spookiness.

 

Review: The Soddit / Author: Adam Roberts / Publisher: Gollancz / Release Date: Out Now

The Soddit is the inevitable cash-in parody novel of The Hobbit, re-released in time for the new movie. It originally came out in 2003, (to cash-in on the Lord of the Rings movies), which is why you may have seen it before. Ironically, the sub-title of the book is Let’s Cash in Again, proving the rule that true words are often spoken in jest. This newer, smaller version of the same novel is as good as ever and it’s nice to see it is easily available again, because as parodies go, it’s a good one.

Adam Roberts (who is the author of this little book, despite the not-so-clever pseudonym) is better known for his work such as Salt and Jack Glass , and knows how to tell a story in a clever and engaging way. This extends to his parody work, which though slightly bland in tone, is filled with well observed barbs at Tolkien’s original. The humour is also layered on thick; every possible gag is here, from silly names and pointing out plot holes to breaking the fourth wall and cross-examining the rambling structure of The Hobbit. Highlights include some delightful observations about how elves are portrayed in fantasy fiction and a collection of fake adverts in the back, including a teaser for the parody novel of this parody novel, in which all the characters are potatoes. Such an animal does not exist, but give it time. Whilst we’re on the subject of sequels, as far as I am aware, the second parody in this series, The Sellamillion: The Disappointing ‘Other’ Book, has not been reprinted, at least not yet.

At best, this is a stocking filler; it’s funny enough for a rainy day, and is perhaps a decent distraction if you have to spend too long on the toilet, but it’s never going to be on anyone’s list of favourite books, not even the author’s.

Review: Star Wars – The Essential Reader’s Companion / Author: Pablo Hidalgo / Publisher: Lucas Books / Release Date: Out Now

This weighty and lavish tome is an exhaustive guide to all of the official prose fiction spawned by the Star Wars franchise – including not just the major novels but YA titles, eBooks and even a number of short stories scattered across various magazines and websites. With this much material to wrangle (we’re talking hundreds and hundreds of titles), some kind of structure is essential. The obvious approach would be to list everything by date of publication, but the one opted for here is much more ambitious – to arrange the stories according to their place in the millennia-embracing continuity of the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Thus we begin in the mists of time with tales of the ancient Sith and Jedi, then move on through the material that has entered into folklore through the two movie trilogies. What might come as a surprise to Star Wars novices is that at this point we’re only halfway through the book. You mean there’s more after the Death Star’s nobbled and the Ewoks jig about? Are you kidding, there’s masses: stories of the New Republic, big trouble with the Yuuzhan Vong and then the return of the Sith, taking us back neatly to where it all started.

As an arrangement, it works very well, creating as it does a sense of the majestic sweep of Lucas’ mythology. The book is broken into chronological sections, each with a useful scene-setting introduction. There’s additional info about many of the titles, and all of them get detailed synopses. With such a vast and populous cosmos evolving over so many decades, inconsistencies inevitably crop up, and Pablo Hidalgo takes us through these with supreme confidence, whether it be explaining how apparent contradictions in the culture of the Sith were ironed out over time, or noting that, while the cover art of the Lando Calrissian Adventures shows Lando with a moustache, as in the movies, he doesn’t actually grow one until the second title in the series.

If you’re contemplating the gargantuan task of reading all of these titles in order (a gauntlet that Hidalgo throws down in his introduction, and it’s crazily tempting), you might want to be careful where you look, because, unavoidably, spoilers abound. (Young children with a soft spot for Chewbacca should definitely avoid page 373, where they’ll find out how the big furry meets his end.) Not that you’ll be able to resist a good flick through – it’s such a lovely book, with its wealth of colour illustrations. A shame there’s not more about the individual authors and the process of writing the novels – especially the ambitious multiseries of the Del Rey era – but nonetheless, for creators of fan fiction or for newbies trying to navigate their way round this stellar oeuvre, this volume looks set to be an invaluable resource.

Review: The Taken / Author: Vicki Pettersson / Publisher: Harper Voyager / Release Date: Out Now

Noir is a genre that has an underrepresentation in the last few years, or should that be it is a genre that hasn’t caught the attention of this reviewer for a long time? I don’t know, but what stuck out for me about The Taken was its author Vicki Pettersson; her name alone and her previous background as a burlesque dancer screamed out at me that she was practically a noir character herself and could potentially bring the reader into her world. So I thought I would give The Taken a chance.

The story follows Griffin Shaw, former (living) investigator turned angel now responsible for seeing the deceased into the Everlast, as it is referred to in the book. However, his latest assignment to collect the soul of journalist Kit Craig leads Shaw to make a decision that could uncover his own murder and avenge the murder of his lost wife amidst a web of intrigue and murder.

What hooked me into The Taken as a reader is its dark humour, as epitomised by Griffin Shaw; he has accepted his angelic role and isn’t afraid to correct the age of his latest collection when she insists she is twenty-six (as if that’s the least of her problems!) Pettersson’s use of this humour snaps the reader out of the police procedure that could have been expected from the noir-ish cliché of the detective entering the scene of the crime, and you are reminded that this is something different. Meanwhile, another amusing feature of Pettersson’s writing style is she’s not afraid to make tongue in cheek meta-references to the genre that she is writing for; in the first chapter, as Shaw is referred to as ‘washed out’ and ‘B-movie’ this sets up the reader to expect the intricacies, absurdities and misogyny that come with the noir genre without becoming cliché. Finally, bold colours are peppered throughout the book’s description which is something so simple in order to remove the cliché of seeing the story through a black-and-white tinted perspective, as you would expect from the noir genre’s film adaptations.

The only real flaw for me, and this is a purely personal preference, is that The Taken over-complicates itself when trying to tell its story. It has taken a very specific genre and tried to gel it with fantasy elements such as Shaw being an angel, the Everlast and I found myself switching off at these points because these weren’t part of the genre I was expecting.

I really enjoyed The Taken; Pettersson clearly understands the genre for which she is writing and isn’t afraid to highlight its strengths and also let the reader in on the joke about its absurdities. However, where I was let down was I hoped it would have been more clear cut noir; more gangland as opposed to the fantastical. But again, I must emphasise, that this is a personal taste issue and didn’t stop me enjoying an extremely vivid read.

Review: Muchas Gracias Senor Lobo / Author: Thorsten Benzel / Publisher: Fab Press / Release Date: Out Now

If this book was a B-movie, its tagline would go something like “More one sheets! More lobby cards! More admats… Than you ever dared dream!” Boasting over 1200 colour images, it brings together between hardcovers a mass of rarely seen memorabilia relating to the weird and wonderful films of Spanish horror icon Paul Naschy. It’s a veritable treasure trove, and Naschy nuts will be reaching for a copy with wolfish claws. But it’s a delight for the general reader, too, because it offers, in the author’s words, a “journey through a lost world of movie advertising, the likes of which we’ll not see again.”

For those who don’t know, Paul Naschy was a weightlifter turned actor, screenwriter and director who put Spanish horror on the map with his reluctant wolf-man, Waldemar Daninsky, a character he played on numerous occasions. The bulk of the book focuses on his 20-year heyday from 1968 to 1988, with separate entries on each of his major films during this key period.

Naschy’s oeuvre is famous (or infamous, take your pick) for its gaudy visuals and gonzo updating of Universal-style monster rally movies. No surprise, then, that these pages offer a smorgasbord of ripped bodices, severed heads, hairy beasts and naked girls in dungeons. In terms of kitsch beauty, the standouts are the original Spanish posters and their Italian counterparts, many of them painted by top artists in the field. The real joy of the book, though, is in the insight it gives into how distributors in different territories would often organize their own marketing strategies to suit themselves.

As Benzel explains, all kinds of stunts would be pulled to get unwitting punters through the door – the actors’ names changed so that they sounded less foreign, and movies blithely retitled in homage to the latest trends. For instance, in Germany the werewolf movie El Retorno de Walpurgis became Night of the Diabolical Orgies (“Nubile girls possessed by Lucifer!”). No mention of a werewolf (you can imagine the audience wondering, “Where are the girls? Who’s the furry fella?”). Then again, sometimes it’s a complete mystery what the distributors were thinking. Also in Germany, posters for Los Monstrous del Terror (about Frankenstein and Dracula) featured two people who had nothing at all to do with the movie, Marty Feldman and a Munich sex show artiste called Count Horror Charly (separately, not together, in case your mind’s boggling).

Thorsten Benzel’s text provides a level of meticulous detail that will be invaluable for fans, historians and collectors, while still retaining an engaging playfulness and warmth – a worthy accompaniment to what is a stupendously lovely volume. Great, gory eye candy, and the next best thing to glutting yourself on the films.

Book Review: The Man from Primrose Lane / Authors: James Renner / Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux / Release Date: Out Now (Hardback), January 17th (Paperback)

In this ambitious head-scratcher of a novel, the author of a best-selling true crime book is in a state of numbness after his wife’s suicide. To get him out of the house, his publisher encourages him to investigate a local murder mystery. But wouldn’t you know it, the police and FBI take one look at him and decide he’s their prime suspect. Sucks to be a writer! 

The first half does a very good job of channelling Stephen King, especially his writer-going-crazy story Secret Window, Secret Garden. (There’s stuff about the creative process and the arrangement of the author’s desk that will ring a bell with anyone who’s read that particular novella.) The prose is rugged, the plot thickens compellingly as we learn that Neff isn’t quite such a stand-up guy as he seems, and the present day storyline is intercut with a nuanced portrayal of his troubled marriage.

But then the head scratching starts, as the novel takes a sharp turn into sci-fi, becoming a yarn about time travel and parallel dimensions somewhat in the vein of the Tony Scott film Deja Vu. We’re all for authors springing surprises, but in this case the transition is so abrupt it feels like you’ve been the victim of a bizarre binding error, with the first half of one book slapped onto the second half of another. Still, Renner’s definitely a writer to watch.