Book Review: Sacrificial Magic – Downside Ghosts Book 4 / Author: Stacia Kane / Publisher: Voyager / Release Date: Out Now

Pill-popping, tattoo-twitching, ghost-busting witch, Chess Putnam is back in Stacia Kane’s fourth Downside Ghosts novel. In the fantasy world of Downside – a sleazy ghetto in Kane’s fictional city, Chess works for the government – The Church of Real Truth – who came to power when ghosts started attacking the living. The Church protects the population and reimburses those harassed by ghosts. False claims of hauntings are made in the hope of making a profit, and it’s Chess’ job to investigate and ‘Banish’ the ghost. But keeping her little drug problem – as well as her involvement with two local crime lords – a secret from her bosses is becoming increasingly difficult and could prove to be a fatal mistake.

Chess has been assigned by The Church to find out if there really are murderous ghosts in a Downside school – if so they’ll get compensation. But as usual it’s not long before she’s drawn into a murder mystery on both sides of the Downside divide and has to play a careful game between crime bosses Bump and Slobag.

Someone is sacrificing humans to gain power and Chess needs to find out who before they find her. Are the sacrificial murders linked to the school ghost? Why is Slobag’s daughter so involved in the school? Is Chess being played? Who can she trust?

In the Downside Ghosts series Stacia Kane has created a great world, with sparkling dialogue and clever street patois. You can feel the sleaze ooze off every page, while Chess’ emotions make you cringe and hurt for her. Chess is the classic dysfunctional character with a bad childhood: strong willed, a loner, an orphan – a bit like Eve Dallas in J.D Robb’s In Death series.

At the heart of the book is Chess’s relationship with Bump’s henchman, Terrible. Chess doesn’t feel she deserves a loving relationship and in one painful, drug fuelled scene she succeeds in pushing him away. But even in the world of Downside Ghosts love conquers all, and maybe, just maybe, Chess might start loving herself more in future books.

Stacia Kane is a great storyteller but she has to be very, very careful about not falling into the trap of writing too much sex in the books because sex always seems to stop the narrative. Otherwise she could end up like Laurell K. Hamilton and lose the elements of great mystery storytelling.

All in all, Sacrificial Magic is a great emotional read. We are inside Chess’s mind all the way, feeling what she feels. Sometimes it’s torturous but in the end there is always hope – and Chess knows it in her own weird way. You don’t need to have read the previous Downside Ghosts books, then, to enjoy Sacrificial Magic but you might well find yourself seeking them out afterwards.

Book Review: Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture / Author: Rob Salkowitz / Publisher: McGraw Hill Publishing / Release Date: August 20th

Rob Salkowitz has written a fascinating, in-depth look at the ever changing landscape of the commercialization of the transmedia world of collecting that takes place at the granddaddy of all conventions – the five day San Diego Comic Con.

A page turner of information, Salkowitz takes us on a journey step-by-step, day-by-day at the convention of how the simple act of riding one’s bicycle down to the local drug store as a kid checking out the spinner rack of comic books for that latest issue has morphed collecting into a maelstrom of media invaders marketing the public’s needs through the global pop culture world of electronic arts, movies and games influencing billions of fans around the world.

The book covers the pros and cons of comic book collecting and the new e-media downloads that are becoming ever popular. The conundrum, however, is that collectors won’t pay the $2.99-$3.99 for something online that they can get for free downloading at Bit Torrent or by obtaining a pirated version. Yet, if the price of an e-comic comes down, retailers themselves will retaliate by canceling orders because less and less hard copies will sell. The main question is; will this devalue hard copy comics now that they are readily available online anytime, anywhere with new and younger collectors at the press of a button? Will the comics of old be worth the paper they’re printed on?

Salkowitz talks about companies marketing to the geek culture. The new superhero movie-tie ins, digital publishing, game makers, stores that are here and gone tomorrow, specialty boutique stores and the constant need for new projects to draw the buyers in.

With San Diego Comic Con being the template, will science fiction, horror and fantasy conventions around will the world follow its lead if they haven’t already?

Filled with eye-opening information, this is a must read book for anyone who is a fan of comics and a great insight for retailers, artists, writers and publishers to see where the future is headed.

Book Review: High Moor / Author: Graeme Reynolds / Publisher: Horrific Tales Publishing / Release Date: Out Now

To John Simpson, a savage animal attack in his hometown of High Moor can mean only one thing: werewolves. He should know, he is one. The attack immediately brings back childhood memories of his summer spent hanging out with best friends David and Michael and their sister Marie, playing in the woods and standing up against the school bully, Malcolm Harrison. It was an idyllic time which was shattered by a series of werewolf attacks which John would eventually be on the wrong side of, losing both of his best friends and finding his perfect little world crushed in the process. Now, with a lifetime of pain and torment in tow, John heads out to face his past and, in all probability, shorten his future.

This isn’t a werewolf book. Okay, technically it is, but what stands out the most about High Moor are the beautifully written characters and a palpable sense of childhood nostalgia. Not since Stephen King’s IT have I read a story with such a tangible sense of what it meant to be a child, seamlessly blended into a genre-heavy tale. John’s innocent affection of his friends David and Michael and subsequent puppy love of their sister Marie is so well constructed it makes the incredible circumstances that surround them all the more easily accessible.

Two thirds of this book is set in 1986, and to be honest this comprises the most immersive part of High Moor’s story. Wrapped around this is essentially the ‘plot’, bookending John’s childhood trauma with a more adult confrontation that both surprises and shocks in equal amounts as it wraps up the loose ends of the 80s tale. To his strength, Reynolds has seemingly written this in a very cinematic style. The action punches out (although there are a few missed opportunities for great set-pieces) and the solid framework adheres perfectly to Hollywood’s three-act structure. The writing isn’t perfect and the time/date stamps at the beginning of every chapter grind, but this is forgivable as this is his first attempt at a novel.

As for the werewolves? History has shown that this particular supernatural beast is very hard to get right. There have been very few movies that have really sold the concept well, and even less books. This, however, is a cut above the rest, slicing through the competition with razor claws and gnashing teeth. Dabbling in both the rage-fuelled beast and morphing-at-will variations, High Moor deftly creates a believable sub-culture of werewolves working within and outside of an organised ‘pack’.

Ripe for a film or TV adaptation and left open for a sequel, High Moor is an excellent example of great British writing that deserves to be read.

Book Review: vN / Author: Madeline Ashby / Publisher: Angry Robot / Release Date: August 2nd

A vonNeueman machine is a mechanism that can make a copy of itself; and also the central conceit of Madeline Ashby’s vN, which is a novel about self-replicating androids and their relationship with humanity. Rather than being a clichéd romp filled with killer robots and mankind being hunted down by its unnatural creations, this is a book about what it means to be human and the things that we inherit from our parents.

The plot revolves around Amy, an android who has been raised in a loving environment with her human father and robot mother, an environment made all the easier when you realise that the androids are programmed to love humanity. Things go wrong when tragedy strikes and the general public realise that the machines may not be as caring as they’ve come to expect.

The initial explanation as to why the androids were invented is an amusing idea (I won’t spoil it for you), and is believable enough to explain why mankind has permitted the world to be filled with android replicas. However, as Ashby adds more detail to her world, the real origins of the machines become more apparent and are more disturbing. This lends a level of creepiness to the novel that it doesn’t really need – the story is interesting enough without this sort of horror and it actually breaks the flow of the story to some extent.

It also suffers, to some extent, by being the first part in a series. It feels incomplete and lacks a certain degree of perspective; the world feels very large in some areas and tiny in others. I suspect these aspects will get filled in later, it’s just a pity we have to wait.

vN is a strong debut novel; its central premise is interesting and Ashby draws us into a highly detailed and technologically literate world. Fans of Bladerunner, the Portal games and Raising Cain will find this an interesting read with more than a little bit of food for thought.

Book Review: The Games / Author: Ben Ted Kosmatka / Publisher: Titan Books / Release Date: June 22nd

Somewhat ironically for a tale about the dangers of genetic science, The Games is itself a case of successful cloning, in that it’s a pretty decent attempt to mimic the kind of Hollywood-friendly techno-thrillers penned by the late Michael Crichton. In the near future, a gory warm-up event has been added to the Olympic Games – gladiatorial contests between colourful creatures engineered from non-human DNA. But for the U.S. team, there’s a dilemma – the genome for their contestant has been created by an enigmatic supercomputer, and, as the baby gladiator sprouts bat-wings and far too many teeth and displays signs of demonic intelligence, they start to wonder if they’ve gotten more than they bargained for…

The plot moves along fairly predictable lines and there are one or two naively transparent… uh, let’s call them homages… to the Jurassic Park movie – for example, a venerable white-haired impresario who might be the evil twin of the character played by Richard Attenborough, and a fat, messy computer guy who evokes memories of the fat, messy computer guy who makes such a tasty lunch for that cute ink-squirting thing. But it’s still never less than a tense, engaging read thanks to Kosmatka’s coolly measured prose, his eye for the telling corroborative detail and his skill at orchestrating both small, intimate scenes and large-scale set-pieces. The beasties, which include a killer kangaroo from Australia, are fun too, although by some unfortunate oversight we don’t get to see the British contestant – and I was so looking forward to a swan-bulldog hybrid with traces of lion and unicorn.

Book Review: Whispers Under Ground / Author: Ben Aaronovitch / Publisher: Gollancz / Release Date: June 21st

When geeks gather, we often like to play a game where we debate which fictional hero would win if we pitted two such characters in mortal combat. Hulk versus Spiderman or Judge Dredd versus Robocop, that sort of thing. Fans of stories featuring supernatural investigators may be tempted to ask who would win in a fight between Harry Dresden and Peter Grant. After reading Whispers Under Ground, there is no doubt in my mind; PC Peter Grant would win hands down over the American.

Ben Aaronovitch’s latest novel is the third in the series that began with Rivers of London (renamed Midnight Riot in the USA for some odd reason), and is lovingly detailed and brilliantly paced. London is an ancient place filled with history and a rich vein for spooky tales and urban grime. Whispers Under Ground is filled with the right mix of supernatural thrills, police procedural drama and geek humour. Expect the odd counter-culture reference here and there, but nothing too obvious or draining, just enough to bring the story into the sort of world the reader lives in.

As you may expect from the title, Whispers Under Ground features that most iconic part of London; the Underground. Not only is it crammed with ideas that will make any rail nerd make little happy sounds, each chapter is also named after a tube stop. (Real train nerds will be able to work out much more besides.) Aaronovitch (whose name may be familiar to fans of McCoy era Doctor Who) improves with each novel he does; this is the best so far, and the previous books were a lot of fun as well.

This book is squarely part of a series, you should absolutely read Rivers of London first, especially if you like your crime thrillers mixed up with the supernatural.

Book Review: Angel of Fire / Author: William King / Publisher: The Black Library / Release Date: June 27th

Angel of Fire is an interesting release for two reasons; the first is that it deals with the Macharian Crusade, a sparsely detailed part of the Warhammer 40,000 setting and the second is that it’s written by William King, a well loved novelist who has only recently returned to writing after a 10 year break.  Fans will be happy to hear that the creator of Gotrek & Felix hasn’t lost his touch; Angel of Fire is a return to form.

King tells his tale in a relaxed, almost conversational style; you can almost imagine the novel’s main protagonist (a tank driver called Leo) bending your ear with this nicely crafted war story.  Like all of the Black Library books, it’s told through the eyes of a less then reliable narrator. There’s a deep vein of humour throughout the book, and this adds much needed spice to a gritty tale of death and destruction.  Angel of Fire is the tale of a world under siege. The inhabitants of the planet Karsk IV have fallen under the spell of a sinister cult, who prefer flame and fanaticism to reason and duty. The intergalactic empire, known as The Imperium of Man, refuses to stand for this sort of corruption and decides to root out the cult with extreme prejudice.

Cue our brave tank driver and his companions. Under the guidance of the legendary general Lord Solar Macharius, Leo finds himself first in a difficult and dangerous war and then coming  closer to Machiarius than he ever thought possible. This is a novel filled with big tanks, huge detachments of Imperial Guard soldiers, sinister goings on and yes, big angelic things on fire. The main characters are likeable and engaging, the pacing quick and accessible and the plots and sub-plots are the sort of thing you demand from a series which has the tag-line “In the grim dark future there is only war”.

Fans of future war stories with a supernatural bent will enjoy this, and those unfamiliar with the Warhammer 40,000 books looking to get into the setting may find this a good place to start.

Book Review: The Void / Author: Brett Talley / Release Date: July 14th

I made no secret of the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed Brett Talley’s Bram Stoker Nominated novel That Which Should Not Be earlier this year, and so when I got my grubby hands on an advance review copy of his latest book, The Void I was both excited and a little nervous. Would the second novel match up to the success of his first book, especially given the huge differences in style and setting?

The Void takes place in the year 2169. Mankind has mastered interstellar travel and through the use of warp drives can cross light years in a matter of hours. There is only one problem. During the warp transition, the human passengers need to be put into stasis to prevent them going insane, but while they are in stasis the dreams come. Dark, terrible dreams that not everyone awakes from unscathed, if they wake at all.

The book starts off with Aiden Connor being discovered floating in an escape pod at the edge of the solar system. He is the only survivor of his space craft, which seems to have been destroyed by a warp core breach. The only problem is that Aiden can’t remember anything that happened on the ship. When he returns to earth orbit, no one will hire him because of their fear that he cracked under the pressure of the warp dreams. Before he can sink into a fit of alcoholic depression, however, he is approached by Captain Caroline Gravely with a job offer. She needs a navigator for her new ship, The Chronos on a routine cargo and passenger mission, and Aiden is the best man available for the job. As you can imagine, however, once The Chronos enters warp and the dreams begin, things start to go badly wrong.

There are obvious parallels between The Void and the movie Event Horizon and even video games such as Doom, however The Void is very much its own book. Once the story gets going it takes on an often surreal and hallucinogenic feel, interspersed with creeping psychological terror and episodes of graphic, brutal violence. Many writers would struggle to bring such disparate threads together but Talley masterfully weaves them into an unsettling and highly effective story that is more reminiscent of something like The Shining than the works mentioned above, and one of the dream scenes could very well have been a sly wink in the direction of Stephen King’s masterpiece.

As a jaded old horror reader, it’s been quite some time since I read something that actually made me feel nervous and uncomfortable in the way that this book did. The prose is fluid, the descriptions vivid without being overdone and the characters are all three dimensional and believable. The real star of the show, however, is the pervading sense of menace that oozes from every page.

The Void is one of the best horror novels that I’ve read this year, hands down. It is a vast improvement on That Which Should Not Be and firmly establishes Brett Talley as an author to watch out for in the future.

Book Review: 11.22.63 / Author: Stephen King / Format: Paperback / Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks / Release Date: July 5th

11.22.63 is the date remembered by millions across the world. The date that Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

This is Jake Epping’s story, a 35 year old divorcee teacher living in Maine –where else – who travels back in time to prevent Kennedy’s assassination. There’s a catch: the time portal opens in 1958 and each time Jake uses the portal history is reset. Jake has to live five years in the past before that fateful day in Dallas can begin. Enough time for Jake to carve out a life for himself, fall in love and make mistakes along the way.

Most of us have a passing familiarity with Kennedy’s death or, at the very least, watched JFK (’91) directed by Oliver Stone. Conspiracy theories abound, and King is quick to debunk these as pure hokum, staking a claim that Oswald was the sole gunman – and who can say, perhaps he was! Either way, it’s a smart move. Epping stalks Oswald, bugs his house, moves in next door, and through this we’re given insights into the man, indeed the monster, that Oswald was set to become. King’s portrayal of Lee Harvey Oswald is perhaps the novel’s strongest point.

Stephen King’s love for this era is evident in his attention to detail and manages to create a vivid sense of ‘50’s/‘60’s America. King was eleven in 1958, the year Epping steps through the portal, a year the King family bought their first TV set and also the year that he and his brother built a Super Dooper Electro-magnet in their basement and fused the whole of the street. There’s a nostalgic feel to the novel, but King tempers this with a cross-section of humanity complete with its many failings and strengths, and Epping makes for a strong protagonist with just the right levels of empathy and motivation to root for him right from the start.

This is the period that started King’s interest in film, such as: Night of the Living Dead, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Dementia 13, The Haunting, and of particular importance, Edgar Allen Poe’s, The Pit and the Pendulum. By the time ‘63 rolled along, King had turned 16: the time of race riots, James Dean, and, of course, JFK.

For fans of Stephen King’s work, there’s a subtle nod to Christine and the prison of Shawshank; a significant portion of the novel revolves around the fictional town of Derry – formally the stage for the sinister and insanely creepy It.

11.22.63 is a weighty beast coming in at over 700 pages. It’s been described as a slow-burner, and you’ll find no argument here. King has a tendency to over-describe, and draw attention to the mundane. In this regard the book flounders. It suffers from a sagging middle and loses itself in the period in which it is set. However, stick with 11.22.63 and you won’t be disappointed.

Kennedy and King, is there a stranger combination?

Book Review: Time’s Last Gift / Author: Phillip Jose Farmer / Publisher: Titan Books / Release Date: 22 June

Superficially Phillip Jose Farmer’s 1972 novel Time’s Last Gift, another of Titan Books’ excellent and thoughtful programme of Farmer reprints, is an absorbing and stately time travel story. However Farmer fans familiar with the broader sweep of the author’s work will recognise the book as falling into his famous Wold Newton Universe series and the book is generally accepted to be a prequel to Farmer’s Gods of Opar.

In Time’s Last Gift a scientific expedition from 2070 travels back to 12,000 BC, the furthest point back in time their technology will allow them to voyage, to investigate and chronicle the ancient Magdalenian culture. The four scientists – led by the mysterious and charismatic John Gribardsun – quickly fall in with a primitive tribe who, not surprisingly, regard them as Gods. The scientists are in it for the long haul; they’re due to spend four years in the past and as time goes on they not only ingratiate themselves with the tribe and its customs, their own weaknesses and secrets are exposed, conflicts and jealousies flare up. It also seems that there’s more to Gribardsun, who adapts to his new environment and his way of life with remarkable ease, than the others might have suspected.

If, like me, you’re largely unfamiliar with Farmer’s Wold Newton series and the complexities of the characters and the chronology they present, it might be best just to enjoy Time’s Last Gift as a languid, thought-provoking time travel yarn rather than struggle to make sense of the paradoxes thrown up by the machinations of Gribardsun which are, thankfully, made a little clearer by the addition of the detailed afterword ‘Gribardsun Through the Ages’. Gribardsun is, in fact, none other than Tarzan, Lord Greystoke (TLG – Time’s Last Gift) and Gribardsun has worked his way – by both fair means and foul – into the time travel expedition, with the intention of staying behind when the exhibition returns home, using a 21st century rejuvenation process to keep himself alive across the ages.

Beyond all this though, Time’s Last Gift depicts its futuristic time travellers/explorers almost as dispassionate observers, accepted by the tribe and other locals they encounter, without really accepting them. Apart from Gribardsun who has his own agenda, the others have to deal with the psychological effects of living for four years in the distant past, their own personal demons and the brutal, savage lifestyle they find themselves having to adjust to. Time’s Last Gift doesn’t blind us with science – Farmer’s own preference for pulpy SF means that 21st century time travel just requires “enormous amounts of energy” and the time vessel has “dials” and “instrument panels.” Farmer’s not interested in how his characters get to the past, he wants to tell us what they find when they get there and how they come to terms with it and how it affects them.

Time’s Last Gift may ultimately frustrate those not familiar with the mythology it’s clearly part of but there’s enough going on here to satisfy those just looking for an old-fashioned time travel adventure which, if never hugely exciting or packed with jeopardy, is rarely dull but always immensely readable and entertaining.