Review Category: Books

DEVOLUTION: A FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT OF THE RANIER SASQUATCH MASSACRE / AUTHOR: MAX BROOKS / PUBLISHER: DEL REY / RELEASE DATE: MAY 12TH

When Kate and her husband join an isolated eco-community established near Seattle they hope to leave the troubles that have plagued their recent lives behind. What they find is a group made up of colourful eccentrics, choosing to live far from normal civilisation in the pursuit of a kind of societal nirvana. If only each one didn’t have their secrets. If only each family’s closet wasn’t groaning under the weight of barely hidden skeletons.

And if only there weren’t so many damn Sasquatches around!

Max Brooks’ new novel is similar characteristically to his 2003 monster hit World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. Apart from the slightly cumbersome titles – intentionally adding the credence usually associated with non-fiction works – both are constructed through diary entries, official reports and interviews conducted by the author. With Devolution Brooks has taken the remains of a journal written by Kate Holland that was found amidst the remains of the aforementioned village and formulated it into a narrative that is both horrific and intellectually engaging. As the community becomes cut-off during the eruption of the nearby volcano Mount Ranier they are forced into contact with a family of Sasquatch and the result is so terrifyingly real as to make you question your next glamping trip.

As with World War Z,  Brooks has taken something fantastical and cemented it firmly in reality, expertly blending a good old-fashioned creature romp with inter-social tensions. This is a work of suspense and hope, where the lines between eye-witness accounts and provable truth blur. But above all it is a horror story, one based solidly around an inherent will to survive when threatened by the most formidable threats nature can release.

THE TWISTED ONES / AUTHOR: T. KINGFISHER / PUBLISHER: TITAN BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: 17TH MARCH

When Mouse’s dad sends her to clear out her late grandmother’s house, she knows the task will involve unloading difficult family baggage alongside the old woman’s acres of junk. What she isn’t expecting is to find herself on the precipice of the boundary between the real world and the world of our nightmares. There’s an evil in the woods behind the house… and it’s coming for her.

So goes the premise of The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher (the pseudonym of prolific author Ursula Vernon). Essentially, it’s a sequel to Arthur Machen’s seminal entry in the folk horror genre, The White People, but there’s no need to be familiar with that story to enjoy this one, although an extra layer of appreciation can be derived from noting how Vernon mirrors Machen’s work (eg. the “book within a book” concept).

The first-person perspective is used effectively, with Mouse’s narration generating the feel of being told a ghost story one-on-one. Plus, it allows us to live inside the character’s head and understand her as a three dimensional person. It should also be stressed that there’s a lot of humour throughout, employed to punctuate the tension, and you’ll fall in love with Mouse’s faithful if dim dog, Bongo.

Like the best occult fiction, the novel’s building sense of unease comes from the unexpected, the incongruous and the unexplained. The horrors featured in Vernon’s tale are crimes against nature, things which worm their way into the characters’ minds and corrupt their thoughts. Sure enough, there are certain images you’ll be thinking of long after you’ve finished.

The Twisted Ones is an unsettling, atmospheric read that demands to be consumed in one sitting… and then will have you checking the windows and the doors before you go to sleep. Then make faces like the faces on the rocks, and twist yourself about like the twisted ones, and lay down on the ground like the dead ones.

Wait, what?

LIGHT OF IMPOSSIBLE STARS / AUTHOR: GARETH L. POWELL / PUBLISHER: TITAN BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Anyone who has read the first two instalments of Gareth L. Powell’s Embers of War trilogy will have been eagerly looking forward to the finale, and the year between novels has certainly felt like a long one. At last the wait is over, and Light of Impossible Stars reunites readers with the Trouble Dog and her crew. It’s as if they’ve never been away; right from the start, Powell throws us back into his universe as the characters are given a brief chance to regroup and remember the fallen, before being thrust into action by a plot that rockets along.

Credit must go to the author for weaving so many concepts together into a coherent whole. New characters and expansive ideas fit in as if they were there right from the start, interacting seamlessly with those already established. It’s a fantastic read, Powell’s prose punchy in one chapter and almost poetic in others as he offers varying points of view, telling an epic story on a personal level. As for that express train plot, you’ll get no spoilers here; suffice to say that the stakes are high, the crew are physically and emotionally battered and the odds are nigh on impossible. Powell’s influences are evident but he’s never a slave to them, adapting them to suit his own purpose and throwing in several surprises that make it a delight from start to finish.

Light of Impossible Stars is a fitting end to a superb sci-fi trilogy that has seen its author grow from strength to strength, never sacrificing character in favour of plot concepts. Rather than tell it in a series of weighty tomes, Powell has distilled the story into what is important, ensuring it doesn’t suffer from its fast pace and still gives the reader moments of poignancy as well as food for thought. Like its predecessors, it is wonderfully crafted and – although it comes to a satisfying conclusion – there’ll always be room for more Trouble Dog, Sal and Nod in our lives. We’re looking forward to seeing what this shining star of science fiction delivers next.

EDEN / AUTHOR: TIM LEBBON / PUBLISHER: TITAN / RELEASE DATE: APRIL 7TH

Nature and nurture join forces and turn on a group of wily, well-equipped adventurists voyaging through a largely uncharted jungle ‘Virgin Zone’ in Tim Lebbon’s heart-quickening new horror thriller. The prolific Lebbon is usually more inclined to wipe mankind out altogether – his 2015 page turner The Silence is probably still his most compelling work – but in Eden it’s the unpredictability of Nature that’s the threat, the book implicitly warning us that we damage the ecosystem at our own risk and that we mustn’t expect that same eco-system to not fight back with whatever strange, unknowable forces it has at its disposable.

Land has been given over and back to Nature, Man has retreated and thirteen vast tracts of land all over the world are designated as ‘off-limits’ to humanity in an attempt to create massive green zones that can eventually become established as the ‘lungs’ of the over-exploited planet. But, of course, humankind can never really leave things alone and daredevils and thrill-seekers are regularly smuggled into the Zones determined to cross the unpredictable wildernesses purely for the hell of it. But few return and those who do speak of incredible creatures and unspeakable horrors. Seven – it’s always seven – experienced explorers penetrate the wild Virgin Zone known as Eden and most of them do so for reasons they have chosen to keep secret from the others. Expedition leader Dylan and his daughter Jenn have come to Eden to find Dylan’s estranged wife Katt who vanished in the Zone months before but unbeknownst to Dylan Jenn has been in secret contact with her mother who herself had a terrible personal secret. The team travel good-naturedly and assuredly into Eden for the first day or so… but it soon becomes obvious that Eden – and very probably the other Zones – is like nowhere else on Earth. Nature has consumed and subsumed the landscape in ways beyond their imaginings and it’s not long before they are under attack by Eden itself, its unusually hostile fauna and a form of life and existence that they can’t begin to comprehend.

Eden – like the jungles and forests which it depicts – is a dense and demanding read. The first few chapters, establishing the characters and their various personality quirks and motivations, are a bit of a slog but once the group are alone in Eden, the tension and edginess starts to crank up as they discover its strange, often horrific secrets and, eventually, the unearthly truth about Katt’s fate. Lebbon’s writing, as ever, is bold and pacey, his descriptions of Eden’s terrain vivid and colourful. But he really excels in the book’s numerous breathless action set pieces as the group, eventually separated from their equipment and their resources, have to fight to stay alive with whatever weapon they can fashion out of the debris left behind from man’s retreat, as strange, hungry forces close in around them in the dark and Eden enfolds them in its ruthless, invasive embrace.

Fans of Lost World-style adventure stories will find much to enjoy in Lebbon’s unsettling story of humanity venturing into places it’s not welcome but there’s more going on here than just running, screaming and dying. It never hurts to be reminded that we live on this planet because the planet allows us to; in increasingly uncertain times we can’t help but wonder now and again if we’ve outstayed our welcome and if nature itself is starting to regard us as a nuisance and an anachronism. Eden will thrill you and it will make you shiver… but it might also make you think…

THE WISE FRIEND / AUTHOR: RAMSEY CAMPBELL / PUBLISHER: FLAME TREE PRESS / RELEASE DATE: APRIL 23RD

It is not overstatement to describe Ramsey Campbell as a master of horror. His back catalogue of work is impressive, as are the many awards he has earned. He has a powerful reputation for being able to write delightfully creepy stories and his latest work, The Wise Friend, certainly lives up to that reputation.

The Wise Friend is told from the perspective of Patrick, a middle-aged and divorced professor of literature who has not had the easiest of childhoods. His aunt Thelma was a well-known and well-loved artist who died in tragic circumstance. Patrick’s son, Roy, was very young at the time it all happened and years later, both father and son find themselves drawn into the tangle of Thelma’s life, both out of curiosity and out of a yearning for a sense of closure.

As the story unfolds, we learn that Aunt Thelma kept more than a few secrets and had a strong interest in the occult. Her research was tied to the sort of everyday wild places that many of us walk past or ignore. Locations with charmingly British names like Monks Cross and Dancers Oak; run down patches of the wild, mostly caught up in the urban sprawl. The sort of sites that even mundane and unimaginative types describe as haunted.

Roy is just a teenaged boy yet he becomes more and more fascinated with his Aunt’s work and finds himself drawn into her moody and solitary art, which is famous for its mysterious figures and hidden messages. We get flashbacks to Patrick’s childhood, and we slowly discover that all is not well and all is not what it should be.

The writing is incredibly fluid and mesmerising. We get a mix between the mundane and the magical here; everyday people are mean, suspicious and fearful. Artists and dreamers possess something special. There are a handful of flaws here, though it’s mostly down to personal taste as some of the peril seems obvious. It’s a style of story that doesn’t really bluff its way into terror more so that it just makes you wait for the surprise until it’s far too late for you to turn back.

The writing style is incredibly accessible and the whole work has this gentle yet steady tempo that just keeps you turning the page. It’s one of those stories that builds up slowly, meaning that the tale lingers long after the book is done. A truly haunting tale and an example of a master at work. It’s is superb stuff. One of those books you’re doomed to try and read in one sitting, so make sure you have your schedule clear.

FALSE VALUE / AUTHOR: BEN AARONOVITCH / PUBLISHER: GOLLANCZ / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

False Value is the eighth book in the Rivers of London series and begins with a reset of sorts. The books follow the adventures of Peter Grant, a detective constable and apprentice wizard who works in a very modern-day London. Magic is real and rare (though getting less so) and Peter, as a member of the Metropolitan Police Service is typically on the sharp end of the ‘weird’ side of things.

The previous book, Lies Sleeping, ended the first major arc of the series and this new novel is a takes us back to basics. It sees Peter taking on new responsibilities both at work and at home and there’s a definite shift in tone towards the stranger side of magic and the broader implications of what a resurgence of strangeness means to the world at large. Aaronovitch is clearly having a blast building on the world he’s already created. As False Value is the start of a new major plot thread, it’s a place for new readers to jump on, though to be honest, we recommend you start with Book One; if you like it you’ll want to read them all, it’s that sort of series.

The main character is a delight as always and the central plot revolves around a tech-bro billionaire and various shenanigans. Pacing is a little wonky this time round, mostly because of the structure of the story at the start, but it evens out as you carry on reading. The tone is light, witty, and action packed as always. Cinematic where has to be and detective chic in other places. And, as always, the description of London is so solid and real that you can practically feel the familiar layer of grime the city has.

Fans will be relieved to know that there is plenty for the various supporting characters to do, from the mysterious Nightingale to Toby himself. As a stand-alone novel it’s a solid book and a fun story. As part of the greater series it’s much lighter than the previous book but that’s to be expected. If this novel is anything to go on, the next books in the series are going to be a thrilling ride; we have a solid start and a steady tempo and it will be a thrill to see where the author goes with the broader themes going forward. As always, Ben Aaronovitch takes the reader on an unforgettable ride into the fantastic.