Review Category: Books

FORMAT: HARDCOVER | RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 17TH

With its original box office failure and its steady stream of dodgy sequels, the first Highlander film has always been a cult hit struggling for mainstream recognition. But, as proven by Jonathan Melville’s new book, it’s the cult films that have the most interesting stories to tell. As a die-hard Highlander fan, this writer has been waiting for a book like A Kind of Magic for nearly two decades, and it’s a delight to finally read it.

This thoroughly researched book takes us through the making of this weird and wonderful film, showing us previously unseen photos and doing a lot to uncover forgotten information and dispel old myths. For example, debunking a trivia titbit some of us have trotted out for years – Sean Connery’s echo-filled voiceover was not in fact recorded in his bathroom. I also learned that the widely ridiculed backflipping in the first scene was actually planned, rather than just improvised on the day as many had assumed. Nuggets of information like this will keep you engrossed throughout, no matter how much you think you know about the film’s production.

It’s hard to believe that it’s taken nearly 35 years for a definitive history to come out, but Melville has written one which every fan should read. The end result is for anybody who thought they knew everything about Highlander. They’ll be happy to be proven wrong.

 

FORMAT: HARDCOVER / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 1ST

This first instalment in Francesca Gibbons’ new fantasy trilogy, A Clock of Stars follows Imogen and her little sister Marie. Their own world is full of conflict and impending threat, with arguments between themselves and external threats in the shape of Mum’s new boyfriend, who Imogen stops from needlessly killing a moth in their house. It’s that moth Imogen follows, sensing it’s grateful for the rescue. It leads them to a door to another world. Lost and alone, they are found by young, isolated, and spoilt Prince Miro and learn of his world where threats to identity and family are far more deadly. The girls must overcome struggles between themselves before they can find a way to save his world and return to their own.

The central relationship between Imogen and Marie is touching and truthful, both in the characters’ personalities and how their relationship grows by developing separately. Neglected only child Miro’s harder time learning vulnerability and true strength is as compelling as his parallel world, its magic and its politics. The threat of stepparents, or ‘spare parents’, as invaders is deeply ingrained and takes an interestingly traditional path through the moral twists and turns of beauty, loyalty, love and power. Along with respectful nods to Narnia, we have a kinder moral universe than Pullman’s with a modern sensibility of the pain and panic around missing children, acknowledging we don’t magically get back the time we spend.

FORMAT: HARDBACK, DIGITAL (REVIEWED) / RELEASE DATE:  OUT NOW (DIGITAL), NOVEMBER (HARDBACK)

Robert E. Howard’s sword and sorcery hero Conan The Barbarian is considered to be an archetype of the fantasy genre. The muscle-bound power fantasy has inspired countless creators. From the Elric stories, to He-Man and the Masters of The Universe and even Game of Thrones, the idea of a mostly naked warrior king beating up horrors in an unforgiving landscape has either been directly copied or inverted and re-told many times.

Of course, you can’t have a fantasy hero without amazing fantasy art, and Conan’s popularity lies in the artwork the stories have inspired almost as much as the stories themselves. Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed game is packed with fantasy art inspired by the Hyborian age. It would be inaccurate to describe this book as 120 pages of an overly muscled man punching a snake, but there is more than a fair bit of that going on.

The book is divided into seventeen chapters. Each one is inspired by a book from Modiphus’ game, but conveniently this works as a theme. So cunning Conan appears in the Conan the Thief section, the Horrors of the Hyborian age section is mostly full of monsters and so on. The list of artists involved is impressive and includes by Brom, Sanjulián, Simon Bisley, Alex Horley, Val Mayerik, Daren Bader, Carl Critchlow, Tim Truman, Mark Schultz, Phroilan Gardner, Paolo Parente, Tom Grindberg and many more.

We’ve only seen the digital version of this book and all the art does look lovely on a big computer screen. However, we understand a nicely sized hardcover is planned for later this year, likely in time to treat the barbarian fan in your life.

FORMAT: HARDBACK / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Eleven months after the first book in the duology – Destroyer – Stephen Baxter returns with Creator, another hefty tome full of his trademark alternative history world-building. Destroyer collected its cast from three distinct timelines, all in search of the mysterious beings who played feng shui with the solar system, and Creator picks up where that book left off, with the survivors of Charon II’s crash landing on Persephone II adapting to their new surroundings and torn between further exploration and looking for a way home.

All the familiar Baxter tropes are here, and by this point it’s moot to discuss their efficacy, suffice to say that most of his characters are built to a level which allows just enough emotional attachment without getting in the way of the real point of a Stephen Baxter novel: how things could have been if the science was slightly different. And, as usual, the science is plausible, because Baxter is a scientist himself, and grounds his sources in the latest academic research, detailing the relevant studies in the afterword.

If Creator has one drawback, it’s that it climaxes with a fizzle rather than a bang, more questions are left than answered, and the identity of the World Engineers is unusually woolly for Baxter. Still, for fans of his work – and those interested in speculative science fiction – there’s much to recommend here. And, as always with Baxter, it leaves you excited for next year’s novel.

FORMAT: HARDBACK / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal. – Paulo Coelho.

Beth Cartwright’s debut novel Feathertide is a mesmeric coming of age story bursting with magical locations and extraordinary characters. Maréa is a wondrous protagonist born to a human mother and a bird-like father. This hybrid child hides her true self like the feathers she is scared to expose, or more precisely forced to hide. As she grows into a woman, Maréa feels the pull of her estranged father tickling in the downy feathers on her back. She realises to find herself she must first find him. When she turns eighteen, she leaves the comfort of anonymity and sails across the long waters to the City of Murmurs, a collection of islands connected by bridges and enchanting inhabitants.

There she discovers love, loss, heartbreak, and the beginnings of herself. These self-discoveries are latticed with beautiful writing. But it’s not all poetic prose and succulent language. There is a deep human story in here about difference and acceptance. Mermaids that transform to human only to long for the sea. Bird people who abhor their feathers only to realise freedom is within their flight. The choice of love that can only bring pain in the end.

Fear of growing and being trapped are woven through this story. From ominous freakshow boats that may capture those who appear different. To holding onto the past like a hot coal which burns with each touch. Though Maréa has mentors, both in her childhood home and in her new life, neither knowledge taught through books as a child or magic bestowed as a woman from these people can truly guide her. She must literally decide if she wants to spread her wings.

Feathertide sometimes swirls like the jars of healing mist the people of the islands carry with them. It promises revelations with each page turn while floating new secrets before they are even exposed. You may get lost within these remarkable worlds that Cartwright has furnished in such imaginative detail. But the map is always a paragraph or two away and leads back to a beautiful story of growing, learning and love.

A highly accomplished debut and an author to watch.