Review: The Language of Dying / Author: Sarah Pinborough Review / Format: Kindle / Publisher: PS Publishing / Release Date: April 13th

A woman sits beside her father’s bedside as the night ticks away the final hours of his life. As she watches over her father, she relives the past week and the events that brought the family together . . . and she recalls all the weeks before that served to pull it apart.

There has never been anything normal about the lives raised in this house. It seems to her that sometimes her family is so colourful that the brightness hurts, and as they all join together in this time of impending loss she examines how they came to be the way they are and how it came to just be her, the drifter, that her father came home to die with.

But, the middle of five children, the woman has her own secrets . . . particularly the draw that pulled her back to the house when her own life looked set to crumble. And sitting through her lonely vigil, she remembers the thing she saw out in the fields all those years ago . . . the thing that they found her screaming for outside in the mud. As she peers through the familiar glass, she can’t help but hope and wonder if it will come again.

Because it’s one of those night, isn’t it dad? A special terrible night. A full night. And that’s always when it comes. If it comes at all.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. I’ve heard good things about Sarah Pinborough’s writing and thought that this novella was as good a place as any to start.

The story is told from the point of view of the middle child in a family of five, caring for her father who is dying of lung cancer. As the tale progresses, she looks at the history of her family and how the impending death of her father will be the thing that finally pulls them all apart.

I’m going to come right out and say it. This is an astonishing piece of work. The characters within the book are as well rounded as any I’ve ever read. Their individual hopes, dreams, fears and secrets are laid bare with clean and almost poetic prose that is never pretentious or overdone. By the time I finished this book, I could believe that these characters were real and that I was reading an autobiography instead of a horror story. Each of them is broken and flawed in some way, and its these flaws and the relationship the family members have with each other that brings this story to life.

The horror in the tale is subtle and disturbing as her father, who had such a huge influence on her life, slowly wastes away to little more than a shell. It’s a horror grounded in reality, the loss of a parent is something that all of us will have to deal with at some point, and having it laid bare on these pages was a disturbing and thought provoking experience for me.

There is a supernatural subplot that runs through the story, pushing it over the boundary into genre fiction, about a creature seen in the fields outside the house at times where the protagonist was in great pain, which, to be honest, was a distraction from the very real horror happening inside. It didn’t spoil the book for me, but if those sections had been left out it would not have made much of an impact on the overall story.

The Language of Dying is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It’s a subtle, beautifully written, harrowing story that gets under your skin and stays with you long after you turn the final page.

Highly recommended.

Review: Garbage Pail Kids / Author: Art Spiegelman, John Pound / Format: Hardback / Publisher: Abrams Comic Arts / Release Date: April 1st 

If, like this reviewer, you can remember a time when you’d think nothing of walking for miles, your sweaty pre-pubescent palm clutching 15p, desperate to find a newsagent that stocked a controversial bubblegum card series featuring warped versions of popular dolls The Cabbage Patch Kids, then keep reading. If you don’t, you might as well stop here, this book is not for you.

Still there? Great, you’re going to love this. Publishers Abrams Comic Arts have created a beautifully presented reminder of just how strange you were back when you were young. A celebration of the phenomenon that was GPK.

Kicking off with a brutally honest, information packed foreword by creator Art Spiegelman (who would years later go on to atone for his sins here with the Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel Maus), the book then showcases full page reprints of every card from series 1-5. Within these pages you’ll be re-introduced to long forgotten characters and facts, the first surprise being that these five series were produced over just two years (1985-1986), with makers Topps capitalising on their sudden success and churning them out in quick succession (the book later elaborates on this with the admission that each card was painted in a single day!). With 16 series in total, naturally the law of diminishing returns soon applied, with desperation clearly showing in later designs. Abstract situations in favour of actual characters became more evident, losing the iconic nature of earlier creations. The names too got increasingly lazy (Mel Meal? Really?), not that they ever were particularly clever in the first place (unless you were 10 of course), but this is again provided context with the revelation that the naming process came only after a piece of art was submitted. While the simple alliteration and word play serves only to highlight just how easily amused you were back in ’85, the quality and inventiveness of the artwork continues to impress to this day.

Once you’ve poured through all 206 designs, we’re treated to an afterword by chief GPK artist John Pound. While admittedly a dry read, it’s no less information packed than Spiegelman’s foreword, and makes no bones about their mission statement. Kids got pocket money, and Topps wanted every last penny!

The coup de grace here you’ll find stuck to the very back page – 4 new GPK cards exclusive to this book. These ‘lost’ cards were originally destined to appear in series 10 & 16 but were ultimately rejected, surely due to their depictions of bodily harm (2 x gunshots to the face, nails to the head and scissors through the nose). The company did have a line they wouldn’t cross after all. Who knew!

If you’ve long misplaced your old collection, this book delivers a nostalgia fix that only a couple of years spent trolling eBay to buy them all over again could possibly provide.

Topps marks!

Review: Star Wars The Old Republic – Revan / Author: Drew Karpyshyn / Format: Paperback / Publisher: Titan Books / Release Date: June 22nd

The original Knights of the Old Republic game was released only a couple of months into this writer’s second year of university and it’s safe to say that it, along with its sequel a year later, provided dangerous distraction from many of my assignments.

Set just shy of 4,000 years before the original trilogy, the game told the story of Revan, a Jedi Knight who defied the Jedi Council to help the Republic wage war against the Mandalorians, disappeared and then returned with his apprentice and an army of dark-siders to attempt to enslave the Republic. During the course of the game, Revan was seen to be betrayed by his apprentice and captured by the Jedi. He then gathered a crew of companion characters together and set off to defeat his former apprentice; players could choose to make Revan return to the light-side and save the Republic or fall back to the dark-side to enslave them all. The canon ending is that Revan returned to the light and fell in love with companion character and fellow Jedi, Bastilla Shan. The novel begins two years after the end of the first game and three years before the second, but finishes after the end of KotORII. If you haven’t played these games and are getting a little lost; don’t panic. Whilst the book is certainly better if you come to it with the knowledge gained from playing the games, it explains everything that one needs to know; beginners, fear not.

The book follows former-Darth Revan as he begins to piece together the missing fragments of his memories and attempts to track down the hidden threat from the Unknown Regions that turned him to the Dark Side in the first place. He aids former ally, the Mandalorian mercenary, Canderous Ordo before setting out for the Unknown Regions in search of truth. Without spoiling the plot, Meetra Surik is sent after him when he does not send reports to his wife, Bastilla. Meanwhile, a new Sith Lord, Scourge is assigned to serve Darth Nyriss of the Emperor’s Dark Council and is wrapped up in back-stabbing treachery and intrigue, which question his beliefs. The threat of the Sith Emperor and his designs on the Republic hangs like a shadow over everything.

Writer Drew Karpyshyn has an extensive knowledge of Star Wars and of Revan in particular, having been the lead writer for BioWare on the original Knights of the Old Republic game and working on the new MMO, The Old Republic. I feel, however, that this familiarity with the characters and the worlds they inhabit serve as a detriment, rather than a boon. Some characters, particularly Revan himself, do not feel fully fleshed out. New character, Lord Scourge and Meetra Surik (player-character from KotORII) receive the best treatment. Scourge because he receives the lion’s share of the book to set up his character and Surik because she was essentially a blank slate. Strangely, the character with perhaps the best characterisation is Darth Nyriss’ advisor Sechel; from the first meeting we understand him and he grows or is expanded upon with each encounter. These characters needed to be fleshed out, whereas the seasoned gamer already knows who Revan, Basitilla and Canderous are, this over-familiarity is definitely a failing of the book.

The characterisation is not the only unbalance within the book. Whilst there is some interest in the activities of Scourge and in Revan’s search for clues to his past, the pace doesn’t really get going until Surik finally meets Revan. Unfortunately, despite the exciting denouement, the final confrontation is pretty much the only part of the book that will stay with you. It wasn’t until my second read through that I fully recalled the references to other characters from the KotOR games, interactions between characters and reasons for set pieces. As mentioned earlier, the majority of the book follows the activities and thoughts of Lord Scourge and the chapters that do follow the title character, Revan, feel far too short. We’re left wanting more from him than we’re allowed.

My main criticism of the book is that it feels that there are parts of the story that are being held back; like the book purely serves as promotional material for The Old Republic. The book creates a bridge between the original games and the new one, setting up the changes is Revan’s status quo and explaining his disappearance, as mentioned in KotORII. As someone who simply doesn’t have time to play an MMO (certainly not one that charges monthly), I feel a little cheated. It’s evident from the book that there is more to come and the journey of Revan within the story simply doesn’t feel complete. I doubt that this was completely intentional, but likely a side-effect of the writer’s intimate familiarity with the source material and an attempt to balance the jigsaw-like pieces of the whole story.

That being said, the book is enjoyable. There’s sufficient explanation given to the characters’ motivations and the climax is big enough to fit with what we expect of Star Wars fiction. The inevitably downbeat moments work well and should not be used by fans to denounce the book’s good points. If we were to sum the book up in one word it would be ‘disappointing’, not because it is bad, but because it has taken over half a decade for the conclusion of Revan’s story to be told, but we are given an uneven continuation of the story rather than a wholly satisfying conclusion.

Review: Iron Knight / Author: Julie Kagawa / Format: Paperback / Publisher: Mira Ink / Release Date: Out Now

As a rule, one should never judge a book by its cover, and in many cases, this is literally true. For example, if one was only going by appearances, you would probably miss out on Julie Kagwa’s Iron Knight, because it’s covered in sparkly glitter and the front declares that it’s “The next Twilight”. So you’d be forgiven for assuming that it’s yet another clone of the popular supernatural romance series, when it is in fact nothing of the sort. Rather, it’s quite an entertaining tale of supernatural horror and love, though one aimed firmly at girls of all ages.

Iron Knight is the last book in the Iron Fey series, though works reasonably well on its own. As the name suggests, the Iron Fey books are about the creatures from the lands of faery. In Kagwa’s world, the fey live in their own dimension parallel to our own, and they are three factions; Winter, Summer, and the newly formed Iron, a realm inspired by the inventions of man.

Iron Knight follows the adventures of Ash, the lovesick prince of the Winter realms. The poor fella has sworn an oath to find a way to be with the woman he loves, which, because this a story inspired by fairy stories, requires him to find a way to become mortal. Along the way, he is assisted by some of the super stars of fairy inspired fiction; Puck Goodfellow is along for the ride, as is the Big Bad Wolf. This is a tale of unexpected surprises and wild ideas, and a reasonably strong one at that.

Kagwa has a real talent for engaging and readable dialogue. Iron Knight is very far from my usual comfort zone, and being a middle-aged, slightly grumpy and jaded chap, I am certainly not the target audience, and yet I found it effortless to read and a nice way to pass the time, though it is a little slow in places and the pacing is quite uneven. Fantasy fans will get a kick out of this, as will those who enjoyed the likes the TV series Grimm and the Fables graphic novels.

Review: From Byfleet to the Bush / Author: Jacqueline Pearce / Format: Hardback or Paperback / Publisher: Fantom Books / Release Date: Out Now

From Byfleet to the Bush is the story of a desperately damaged life. Actress Jacqueline Pearce earned her ignominious place in the science-fiction Hall of Fame courtesy of her role as the evil Servalan in twenty-nine episodes of Blake’s 7 between 1978 and 1981. Her CV includes roles in Doctor Who, Danger Man, Man In A Suitcase, Dark Season (one of Russell T Davies’ first TV writing credits), two Hammer horrors in the 1960s and a string of acclaimed film and theatre credits.

But her life story isn’t that of a successful, fulfilled, glamorous TV star coasting into old age sharing her warm memories of a long and illustrious career but rather the tortured, agonized memoir of a woman battling with insecurity, mental illness, poverty, homelessness and disillusionment. It’s a difficult, sometimes distressing read but despite its often bleak and relentlessly downbeat content it manages to be heart-warming, life-affirming and never less than utterly compelling.

Life was never going to be easy for Jacqueline Pearce. Born in 1943 in Woking Jacqueline spent an uneasy childhood in Byfleet, abandoned by her mother who walked out on the family when the baby was just sixteen months old. Her father, determined she should grow into “a lady” sent her to the crippling environment of a Catholic convent where she was educated by tyrannical “brides of Christ”, emerging some thirteen years later with a lifelong aversion to organised religion and a string of psychological problems which would haunt and torment her throughout her adult life.

But it could all have been so different. Jacqueline entered RADA where she counted a young Anthony Hopkins as one of her contemporaries; at one point he took her aside and told her, earnestly, that she had the potential “to become the greatest actress of the 20th Century.” Alongside Hopkins she was singled out ‘most likely to succeed’ but her demons were already taking control and her lifelong battle with depression was beginning to have a cripplingly-detrimental effect on her career. Her professional momentum – two starring roles for Hammer and a leading-lady role in a movie with Jerry Lewis – was lost when she fled to America in the aftermath of a short-lived unsuccessful marriage.

From Byfleet to the Bush may be the best ‘celebrity’ autobiography I’ve ever read – although undoubtedly Jacqueline herself would deny that she’s any sort of ‘celebrity’ at all (despite being second choice behind Jennie Bond for one series of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here). Written with eye-opening honesty Jacqueline has left no stone in her life unturned, regardless of whatever nastiness lay beneath it. Sexual hang-ups, persistent disastrous romances and affairs, a long stay in a mental institution in America, it’s all here and more (including one revelation on page 120 which actually made me drop the book!) and told with an unflinching honesty and a very raw lack of self-worth.

But wait! This is the woman who played Servalan; surely there are pages and pages of amusing anecdotes and recollections of her time working on Blake’s 7, memories of on-set antics with Gareth Thomas and fooling around with Michael Keating? Nope. Chapter eight is entitled ‘Blake’s 7’ but even here the show gets short shrift (Jacqueline forgets to tell her readers what the show was actually about or even that it was a sci-fi show) because she’s rightly more concerned with detailing her human condition at the time of the making of the show, her fragile and vulnerable state of mind (and body) even as, unrecognised and unacknowledged here, she became a household name across the UK. Jacqueline’s role as Androgum Chessene in the Doctor Who serial ‘The Two Doctors’, her television return after a couple of years in the wilderness after the end of Blake’s 7, gets a more enthusiastic write-up than her four years locking horns with Blake and his gang.

But then that’s the point and yet it might also be the frustration for Blake’s 7 fans. For From By fleet To The Bush isn’t about the actress who played Servalan, it’s about the woman in whose life the role of Servalan was just a small part. It’s hard to imagine how Jacqueline, lost and alone and completely adrift from the world she found herself living in, managed to find her way through the madness (in every sense of the word) and the peace of mind and the sense of ‘belonging’ she finds in her new and continuing role working with the Vervet Monkey Foundation in South Africa is not only well-earned it’s hard-earned. In the end this isn’t a fluffy back-slapping showbiz tale of dizzying professional highs and occasionally troublesome lows, this is the uncompromising true story of an emotionally-fractured, hugely-talented, warm-hearted woman who battled against impossible adversity and survived. From Byfleet To the Bush is an astonishing piece of work and is beyond highly recommended.

Review: The Company of the Dead / Author: David Kowalski / Format: Paperback / Publisher: Titan Books / Release Date: March 23rd  

When a sealed safe is lifted from the sunken, rotting wreck of the Titanic, all the jewels, heirlooms and items of monetary value are whisked away. The man behind the dive is thrown what is thought to be a worthless handwritten diary as a small token of appreciation. Suitably underwhelmed, he plans to give it away but after reading it, he realises he has accidentally been handed the most world changing diary ever known to man.

The diary tells the story of Dr Wells, a surgeon who’s called into a military base to help a seriously injured man with his pioneering techniques. He’s whisked across America and down into the depths of desert to a secure bunker. There he operates on a man with a false spine, a technology not yet invented. The dying mans injuries are a result of the pressure from time travel. The doctor knows he has seen too much and won’t be left to walk away and when he realises the time machine is his only escape, he makes a run for it.

Hurtled back to the early 1900’s, he decides he’s been given the perfect opportunity to write the wrongs in history. So he decides, that on the 15th of April 1912, he would start by single-handedly saving The Titanic.

The man reading the Doctor’s diary is living in the reality that Wells created. A world of war, conflict and later he discovers, annihilation. A crew of men come together to undo Wells’ changes in an attempt to save the work from atomic devastation.

I was expecting numerous time leaps in this immense 750-page novel but it approaches from a different angle to many speculative-history pieces. The main characters are already set in the alternate history so the story follows their desperate attempt to undo the changes rather than create them and time travel itself only happens at the beginning and end of the book. Most of the story is set around the crews epic travels across the country to get to the time machine; hiding from government bodies and the police, being set up as murderers and traitors and fighting in front line battle.

The first fifty pages of the book had me utterly gripped, the next fifty had me utterly confused due to the sudden influx of characters and alternate world history but as soon as I had a grip on the important personalities, I really found myself absorbed. Due to the alternate history style of this book, I am sure it will get comparisons to Stephen King’s, 11.22.63 or Shift by Tim Kring but after reading all of them, The Company of the Dead is definitely my favourite. 

The Company of the Dead really is like three novels in one, a concoction of sci-fi, thriller and war novel and the great thing about it, is that is does each style superbly. It may not be a book for people who only manage a page every now and then due to its complexity but for readers who love in depth twists and turns this exquisite piece of alternate history fiction ticks every box.

Review: The 13th Horseman / Author: Barry Hutchinson / Publisher: / Format: Harper Collins Children’s Books/ Release Date: Out Now

The 13th Horseman is very silly book, and this is a good thing.  

Schoolboy Drake Finn falls into a series of comic misadventures when three of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse (War, Famine and Pestilence) turn up and declare that he is the new incarnation of Death. Even worse, this isn’t the first time the horsemen have had to recruit a new member to their apocalyptic band. Indeed, poor Drake is the tenth person to have the role thrust upon them, with surprisingly comic results.

It’s firmly aimed at children of all ages, and those new to reading will find it a delight, filled with silly gags, clever turns of phrase and a very, very daft plot. More experienced types will get exactly the same experience, though perhaps be a little surprised at some of the genuinely laugh at loud moments. (The explanation as to what happened to the other horsemen had me giggling all day). Author Barry Hutchinson is now an old hand at this sort of thing, and his style is cartoon like, and like the best cartoons, filled with slapstick fun.

The plot is equally daft, owing more to the pages of The Phoenix or The Beano than anything else. If you want a clever, subtle pastiche on the biblical apocalypse as seen through modern eyes, this isn’t the book for you (Try Good Omens instead). If you want giant robots, jokes about goldfish and exploding schools, this is for you.

Grown-ups will find it a welcome distraction, and though you will zip through fairly swiftly, you’ll find yourself laughing all the way. If you’re looking for a gift for a younger person who’s just starting to catch the reading bug, this is certainly a nice, light read that will entertain them for over a long car journey.

(Yes, it’s that funny.)

Review: Hammer Fantasy and Sci-Fi / Author: Bruce G. Hallenbeck / Editor: Denis Meikle / Publisher: Hemlock Books Limited / Release date: Out now

Hammer Fantasy & Sci-Fi is one of the latest books from Hemlock Books, a new independent publisher specialising in genre-related film titles.

Best-selling author Denis Meikle (A History of Horrors: The Rise and Fall of the House of Hammer, Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out, Vincent Price: The Art of Fear) set up Hemlock only a few short years ago and the company already has an impressive list of titles under its belt including David Tappenden’s Fright Films, Mind Warp (an account of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures) by Christopher Koetting and Bruce G. Hallenbeck’s The Hammer Vampire. With more quality titles in the pipeline (include X Cert – a retrospective of 1960s and 1970s British Horror Cinema by Beasts in the Cellar author John Hamilton) Hemlock is rapidly becoming one of the best genre film publishers around.

Bruce G. Hallenbeck’s Hammer Fantasy and Sci Fi does not let the side down. Part of Hemlock’s series on British Cult Cinema, it’s a comprehensively written, meticulously researched and beautifully illustrated account of the science fiction and fantasy movies made by Hammer between 1949 and 1971, spanning Dick Barton Strikes Back to Creatures The World Forgot. Most people, of course, associate Hammer with horror films, but as Hallenbeck makes clear, the legendary British company also produced some of the most important science fiction and fantasy films of the 1950s and 1960s, including the immortal Quatermass films, prehistoric saga One Million Years BC (starring Raquel Welch) and the H. Rider Haggard classic, She. Hammer also employed some of the most talented film-makers then working in Britain: directors Val Guest (The Quatermass Xperiment) and Joseph Losey (The Damned, 1963) and writer Nigel Kneale. Not to mention actors Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, both of whom did their stint in the fantasy movies as well as the horror ones. Then there are legendary special effects technicians: Les Bowie, Jim Danforth and, of course, Ray Harryhausen. All are featured in Hammer Fantasy and Sci-fi.

Bruce Hallenbeck certainly has the credentials to write this book. He has been writing on the subject of Hammer since 1981, and is one of Hammer’s most important historians. This is his second book on Hammer for Hemlock, the first being the aforementioned The Hammer Vampire.

Hallenbeck expertly guides us through the history of Hammer fantasy and sci-fi movies starting from the early radio adaptations of the Dick Barton series, through to the hiring of Terence Fisher for two fascinating films, Stolen Face (1952) and Four Sided Triangle (1953), to the groundbreaking adaptations of the BBC dramas, The Quatermass Xperiment, and Quatermass 2. Hallenbeck discusses lesser known works such as The Abominable Snowman (1957) and The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) alongside these classics. As well as a historical overview of these films, Hallenbeck offers a wealth of background detail into their production. He zooms in for a closer look (with Denis Meikle) at two particularly significant films of the 1960s: Losey’s The Damned and Quatermass and The Pit (1967), films which offer two very different views of the cold war and impending ‘apocalypse’ of the 1960s.

Then there are the ‘luscious babes and lost worlds’ of films like She (1965) which saw Hammer arguably at the peak of its success in the mid-sixties. In contrast to the Ursula Andress box office smash, Hammer also produced lesser known fare such a Slave Girls (1966) and The Lost Continent (1967) during this period and, again, Hallenbeck offers a detailed background of these minor entries. By the end of the 1960s Hammer was pushing the envelope in terms of sex and on screen nudity, much as it did in terms of gore in the 1950s. Hallenbeck’s book culminates with a glorious account of the making of prehistoric classics One Million Years BC and the arguably superior When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1968). Animation fans, in particular, will love this chapter as it has ample discussion of Harryhausen’s contribution, as well as that of his successor Jim Danforth. Finally, Moon Zero Two illustrates Hammer’s gradual phasing out of science fiction, unable as they were to contend with big budgeters like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Moon Zero Two has a growing cult following though, and Hallenbeck’s is one of the few in depth pieces ever written on the film.

Throughout the book, Hallenbeck places Hammer’s fantasy and sci-fi films within the context of the genre as a whole, explaining what was going on in the field before, during and after Hammer’s sci-fi and fantasy films. He makes a convincing argument for Hammer’s place of importance in the development of science fiction and fantasy film – something often overlooked because of their eminence within gothic horror. Hallenbeck makes us realise that without One Million Years BC there would be no Jurassic Park!

Along the way he also gives a very enjoyable and fair evaluation of each film’s merits. He doesn’t make any great claims for the likes of Slave Girls or Creatures The World Forgot (1971) but on the other hand he makes a convincing case for the qualities of the often maligned Moon Zero Two (1969).

There is also a highly informative section on Journey into the Unknown, Hammer’s short lived foray into science fiction television for ABC that lasted seventeen episodes. It was cancelled due to lack of network interest and erratic scheduling on British television.

All film entries are given full cast and credits in an extensive filmography.

All in all, it’s hard to imagine anyone doing a better job than Hallenbeck and Meikle. The book comes complete with some rare behind the scenes production photographs and a lovely mid-section of colour photographs, including posters for films like Spaceways (1952), X-The Unknown (1956), and The Abominable Snowman (1957).

It’s unthinkable, then, for anyone interested in Hammer and Science Fiction not to have this book in their collection!

You can visit Hemlock books here.

Review: That Which Should Not Be / Author: Brett Talley / Publisher: Journal Stone / Release Date: Out Now

The works of HP Lovecraft have inspired horror writers for the better part of the last century.  Giants such as Robert Bloch, Brian Lumley and Ramsey Campbell have added to Lovecraft’s original mythos over the years, to the point where it could be considered a sub-genre of its own. The latest author to tackle Lovecraft’s creations is Brett J Talley, who won a publishing deal with Journalstone books for his debut novel, That which should not be.

Carter Weston is a student at Miskatonic University in the nineteen twenties, who is sent to retrieve an ancient manuscript called Incendium Maleficarum (The inferno of the witch) from an isolated village by one of his professors. On his arrival, Carter meets four men in the village’s tavern who regale him with tales of their own horrific encounters with creatures of myth and superstition, all of which relate in some way to the book that he is seeking.

The four stories are very well done indeed, and tie back to the main narrative in a way that not only makes sense, but that helps drive the over-arching story forward.  Despite these stories being past tense narrations, Talley does a fantastic job of building the levels of suspense and tension, and absolutely nails not only his descriptions, but the tone of Lovecraft’s work. In addition, the stories have a much more visceral edge than the material it drew its inspiration from, so in addition to the creeping psychological dread and haunting imagery, there is plenty to keep the gore hounds happy.

If I had to nitpick (and I do), the only real problems I had with the book were due to the style it was written in. Because the book is based on a “found journal” it meant that everything was written in Carter’s voice as he transcribes the four stories and then tells his own. It meant that in some instances the voice didn’t quite match up to the character telling the story. This was most apparent in the first story with the fur trapper, as I would have expected his language to be rougher around the edges than it was. As this is a narration of a narration though, it was not something that bothered me too much.

The other issue I had with the book were some of the character names. Harker, Seward and Bathory are all nods to Dracula and the vampire myth in general. Using names from classic literature in this manner pulled me out of the story a little bit, if I’m honest. Not sufficiently to spoil the book, but enough that my sense of disbelief wavered the tiniest bit when I read the names.

Those very minor niggles aside, this is a fantastic debut novel and fits right into the Lovecraft mythology. Even if Lovecraft is not usually your thing, I would still say that this book is worth checking out; such is the quality of the writing and the gripping nature of the stories being told. It more than deserves the nomination it received for this year’s Bram Stoker awards.

Suffice to say that when I finished this book, I had an uncontrollable urge to go back and read some of the original Lovecraft classics. I can’t give it a better recommendation than that.

Review: Structura 2 – The Art of Sparth / Author: Sparth / Publisher: Design Studio Press / Release Date: Out Now

Non-textual books are sometimes difficult to review, especially if you don’t fully know the subject or person that the release celebrates. However, whether you’re aware of it or not, you will know the output of Sparth (aka Nicolas Bouvier) via the mediums of concept game art or sci-fi and fantasy fiction cover art.

As the title suggests, this is a sequel to a previous release that covered the art of Sparth, and it is fair to say that his ideas are delightful. As you flick through the pages, you will find that if you pause long enough on each individual picture, you will start to imagine the world or dimension created within that little box coming to life. This is a skill that some fantasy artists fail at, which is a real shame.

This title highlights the compositions of the artist over the period of 2008-2011 and shows that Sparth is not an artist that likes to rest on his laurels. Within these covers, there are some epic illustrations that encompass expansive space ports and skylines through to open world vistas and tundras that seem to go on forever. Some of these pieces are so lush and fantastical you can start to create a whole universe in your head just by glancing at them. But to do that would be a disservice, as the subtle details in each piece deserve a closer look.

Sparth has included some pure concept and experimental items here, including his attempts to work with just squares to create a work of art. Alongside these are more recognisable book covers from series such as Dune and Star Trek and even some Halo commissions.

The artist is a self-confessed child of Photoshop, and it is an inspiration to see such a range of work undertaken by one individual. He even includes some tutorials which take the reader through each step of an image as it’s created, layer by layer. For an artist to open up so freely is refreshing to see and it will hopefully inspire many more artists of the future.

If there is one downside to this release, it is the size of the book. Most of these images deserve to be shown in a much bigger coffee table tome, to fully realise the grandeur that is intended by the artist in each piece. Most of the images would not look out of place on a wall as a full size painting, they are that breath-taking and beautiful to admire. Unfortunately, that kind of release would probably push the retail price far too high for most to consider a purchase.

So, we would recommend buying this portfolio of work if you enjoy sci-fi or fantasy art and, if you can afford it, see if you can commission the artist to create a full-size piece just for you!