Review Category: Books

DOCTOR WHO – AT CHILDHOOD’S END /AUTHOR: SOPHIE ALDRED / PUBLISHER: BBC BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 6TH

Played with a tomboyish enthusiasm by TV newcomer Sophie Aldred in the last years of the ‘classic’ Doctor Who series, Ace has come to be regarded as something of a template for the more grounded, real-world companions that populated the series when it returned in 2005. The leap from street-savvy, snarky Ace to the independently spirited Rose Tyler isn’t a huge one.

Doctor Who aficionados love nothing more than to indulge themselves in a bit of fan service and, as the TV series itself starts to embrace and reinvent its past in ways it never has before, what better time for the old series and the new series to cross paths once again? In modern day London Dorothy McShane (aka Ace), now a middle-aged woman running the philanthropic foundation A Charitable Earth (as established by Russell T Davies in his 2011 Death of the Doctor serial for spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures) is troubled by strange, disorientating dreams where she is lost in a weird alien landscape. A huge space vehicle has appeared near the moon, strange creatures are lurking around the streets of London, and kids and homeless people are disappearing. Dorothy teams up with an ex-boyfriend to travel to the spaceship where she discovers that her old friend the Doctor has already arrived with her team in tow to investigate the mystery. But of course, The Doctor has changed several times since she and Ace travelled together and there are some raw wounds still open and a few old scores to settle even as the group find themselves caught up in the ongoing battle between the equine Astringr and the mysterious Wraiths.

At Childhood’s End is a huge nostalgia jolt for older fans; as ever in a piece of licensed fiction, the book is heavy with arcane continuity references (Ace and her friend Will set off on their space mission from the Research Centre location from 1975’s Tom Baker serial The Android Invasion) and although Sophie Aldred’s name is on the cover, closer inspection reveals that the book is also the work of regular BBC Books writers Mike Tucker and Steve Cole. Consequently, it’s hard to find a proper authorial voice and the book tends to read like a piece of standard licenced Doctor Who fiction with an old character thrown into the mix and the story quickly becomes a fast-paced space race with the Doctor and her various friends trapped in various locations and prone to spouting sci-fi technobabble or obscure multimedia continuity references. Ace has grown up and the Doctor has changed beyond recognition but there’s some fun to be had here as they come together against a new common enemy and try to make amends for past misdemeanours and misunderstandings.

WRITER: DAYTON WARD | ILLUSTRATOR: CHRISTIAN CORNIA | PUBLISHER: TITAN | RELEASE DATE: MARCH 3RD

As cadets will be aware, although Starfleet is primarily a peaceful organisation, we do on occasion – particularly nowadays – find ourselves in a combat situation. This includes hand-to-hand (not to mention hand-to-claw, hand-to-fin, and sometimes even hand-to-tentacle) combat. It is essential, therefore, that cadets know a variety of defensive and offensive techniques. For this reason, Starfleet Academy has enlisted the existence of one of the most legendary figures in the Federation. A man whose unique fighting style may seem comical to some but is nonetheless highly effective. A man who – although he didn’t necessarily invent all the moves illustrated in this guide – certainly perfected them. The legendary Captain James T. Kirk.

Kirk’s fighting style has become almost as famous as the man himself, and Starfleet Academy has enlisted the captain to produce this invaluable guide to some of his most famous moves. The Kirk-Fu (it took the Starfleet self-defence sub-committee three weeks to come up with that name, by the way, they’re very proud of it) manual illustrates a dozen of the captain’s most famous moves, along with notes from Kirk himself, excerpts from his personal logs recounting famous occasions when he used them, and a step-by-step guide to recreating the moves (where recreating them is even possible of course).

As Kirk’s a busy man, he’s had some help on writing duties from Dayton Ward, who apparently is an author specialising in some 20th-century sci-fi show (not sure how that’s relevant here). Between them, they provide an invaluable, humorous insight into the man’s most famous moves. Everything from the legendary flying dropkick (aka the ‘flying drop Kirk’) to rolling thunder (that’s a shoulder roll, knocking your opponent over to lesser mortals such as you and I). 

Of more concern to Starfleet are the illustrations, by some junior ensign who goes by the name to Christian Cornia. Yes, they’re gorgeous, but rather treating Kirk’s moves with the reverence they deserve, Ensign Cornia often verges on poking fun at them. For example, yes we’re aware Kirk has an unfortunate habit of ripping his shirt in combat situations, but do we need to be reminded of it every time? If he’s not careful, Ensign Cornia is likely to find himself reassigned to sanitation duty.

As we’re aware Kirk’s moves are somewhat unique, and mere mortals may struggle to recreate them. Kirk and his co-writers have consented to allow one of his colleagues to offer tips on an alternative style. This has the advantage of only one single, far less energetic move, but the slight drawback that it may be ineffective unless you’re of Vulcan heritage.

In conclusion, Kirk Fu is an entertaining, invaluable guide for Starfleet cadets wishing to emulate the legendary captain’s fighting style – to the degree that anyone can emulate it. While Starfleet would always recommend attempting a peaceful resolution to any situation, sometimes there’s no substitute for a good Kirk karate chop or (should you be feeling particularly adventurous) the Jimmy wall banger. We’d therefore recommend Kirk Fu for admirers of the great man everywhere, whether they’re brave enough to attempt the moves or not.

THE LAST DAY / AUTHOR: ANDREW HUNTER MURRAY / PUBLISHER: HUTCHINSON / RELEASE DATE: 6TH FEBRUARY

The world is on the edge of collapse. Its rotation has stopped and half the world is either freezing or uninhabitable due to extreme heat. England’s temperate climate and its position has turned into it an oasis in a world which is either frozen or boiling hot but the country’s Government has had to take harsh and desperate measures to protect its borders and the interests of its population, offering shelter and solace only to those who can bring something useful to a new society teetering on the brink of extinction.

Dr Hopper works on a rig out on the heavily-barricaded English Channel, conducting research on alternative sources of energy and oxygen as the planet staggers towards an inevitable oblivion. She’s suddenly visited by two stony-faced Government officials who whisk her back to the mainland and the deathbed of Dr Thorne, her Oxford University mentor, who needs to speak to her urgently before he succumbs to cancer. Hopper, alone and largely friendless in a cold and unwelcoming London, finds herself drawn into a strange conspiracy where the stakes might well involve the entire future of the human race or determine if it even has a future.

Murray (a writer and researcher for BBC2’s QI, no less), has written a grim and uncomfortable tale full of secrets and lies, shadowy figures lurking on street corners, conspirators vanishing in the night and totalitarian Governments policed by brutal paramilitary thugs. Readers of Len Deighton’s SS-GB might recognise the world Murray has fashioned here, a world which has lost much of the technology we take for granted and has fallen back towards the 1950s. Murray’s London is cold and austere, food is scarce, most newspapers have been closed down (those that remain are fussy and old-fashioned and their content is dictated by the Government), road travel is the exception rather than the rule and the whole books reeks of a world which is regressing as it starts to wind down. It’s a hugely atmospheric novel powered by character rather than incident as Hopper is drawn deeper into a world she doesn’t understand and doesn’t really want to be part of and, as she gets nearer the truth, she finds herself in ever greater danger.

The odd punch-up and a dramatic climactic gunfight aside, this isn’t an adventure story and Murray often allows himself to be distracted by his fascination for the end of days he’s created. He often goes off at tangents to explain some background to his world, some new facet of the Apocalypse, some extra hardship suffered by humanity – it’s all interesting colour and detail but it does tend to bring the story to a dead stop from time to time (appropriately enough, perhaps, considering what’s happened to the world) and, bearing in mind that it’s not exactly a high octane read, it does make the reading a bit of a chore from time to time.

But this is undoubtedly a thoughtful, considered novel that ultimately offers a ray of hope for the human race despite its colourless, ravaged world and the sense of tired despair displayed by many of its characters. An interesting and sometimes hard-hitting and disturbing entry into the ‘dystopian fiction’ canon, TV and film rights for The Last Day have apparently been snapped up – this has got “four-part BBC Sunday night thriller” written all over it. Recommended.

YOU LET ME IN / AUTHOR: CAMILLA BRUCE / PUBLISHER: BANTAM PRESS / RELEASE DATE: 5TH MARCH

Cassandra Tipp has disappeared. 74 years old. A successful romance novelist. Her entire life she’s been considered severely mentally ill, following the gruesome murder of her husband whose various body parts were found flung around the woodlands. Except for his heart. Pepper-Man, the imaginary suitor who had inhabited her husband’s body for so many years, needed to eat the heart to make the deception work. But of course, Pepper-Man is just another story Cassandra made up to conceal her guilt. After all, no-one has an imaginary lover who’s fed off their blood since childhood and takes them regularly into the world of faerie. No-one has birthed a child who is half-mortal/half-faerie and harbours a resentment that explodes into such awful, calculated violence. Because Cassandra’s husband wasn’t the only one to die and faeries aren’t real. Faeries don’t slaughter.

Except they are and they do. When Cassandra’s niece and nephew read the manuscript she’s left behind, they’ll find out everything. And they must read it, because there’s a password buried somewhere inside the text that gives them the right to inherit Cassandra’s estate. But Cassandra’s life is far more brutal and extraordinary than any of her estranged family members suspected, and inheriting the estate will also mean inheriting something that’s far less welcome.

You Let Me In is a bewitching slice of folk horror and fairy story disguised as a sensitively-written psychological thriller. It’s hard to believe this is Camilla Bruce’s debut novel because she juggles every facet of this tale so incredibly well, effortlessly combining the two states of human and faerie, keeping us guessing almost until the very end – was Cassandra Tipp a madwoman, or did everything she claims really happen? Even at the end she leaves the reader with choices and a sense of foreboding about what may lie ahead for Cassandra’s beneficiaries. This is beautiful writing: dense, intense and atmospheric. Pepper-Man is a wonderfully slick creation, brimming with nightmare and yet possessing more humanity than most of the humans populating Cassandra’s life. These are not faeries as you’ve ever imagined them, and you’ll never walk through the woodlands in quite the same way again.

Whatever you do, don’t step on a mound.

WRANGLESTONE / AUTHOR: DARREN CHARLTON / PUBLISHER: STRIPES PUBLISHING (LITTLE TIGER) / RELEASE DATE: 6TH FEBRUARY

It can sometimes seem that the already huge corpus of zombie literature will continue to bloat indefinitely. The shelves already groan with the dead-weight of ever more stories of animated cadavers munching their way through a fast depleting stock of plucky human survivors. It’s become increasingly difficult for any author to find an original take on the idea of a conflict between the living and the undead unfolding in the wake of a global apocalypse.

Darren Charlton’s sublime and affecting YA debut Wranglestone manages to achieve just that: this is a story of the aftermath of a zombie armageddon shaped by a highly unusual premise and explored from a distinctive perspective. The publisher’s catchline for Wranglestone describes it as “Brokeback Mountain meets The Walking Dead.” That’s not entirely inaccurate, but it’s the kind of characterisation that risks obscuring what’s so clever, nuanced and emotionally intelligent about the way Charlton brings his story alive on the page.

The community of Wranglestone is a clutch of wooden shacks strung across a series of islands in the middle of a lake in the shadow of the Shark Tooth Mountains. Created as a sanctuary by the authorities, life for the residents of Wranglestone is rough-hewn, simple and rustic. From Spring through to Autumn, the settlers cull the clutches of zombies marauding through the surrounding woodlands, and thrive as canoe-borne fisherfolk, hunters and traders. In Winter, the settlement hunkers down, keeping a watchful eye for zombie hordes now able to shuffle across the frozen lake.

Thoughtful and reserved teenager Peter stands out amongst his peers. He seems to lack the killer instinct and ruthless streak that his kinfolk think all true survivors need. Yet Peter’s gentleness is one of the things that his rugged neighbour Cooper finds so attractive; a goodness and decency in his nature now absent from the world around them. Neither young man can quite believe that the other is genuinely interested in them, and their formative romance has to find purchase in a place where existence has become unforgiving and devoid of mercy.

Charlton’s prose is economic and direct, but hugely evocative nonetheless. He’s able to paint an immersive sense of a place that’s both a rural idyll and an inescapable prison. Like all the best zombie fiction, the focus here is on the human protagonists, with Charlton providing just enough description of the relentless decomposing undead to make the threat that they pose feel real.

His characterisation of this assemblage of frontier men and women provides real substance and texture. It’s impossible not to empathise with the stark choices that confront them. Survival for any of them is, of course, anything but guaranteed, and many of the losses inflicted on the group come with an emotional impact that feels palpable.

Both the love affair and the settlers’ dilemma unfold in ways that are far from predictable. Revelations come crashing in in waves, and consequences sweep through the community overwhelming long-held certainties in their wake. It’s all exciting stuff, that moves the story towards a fraught and gripping conclusion. But it’s the sense of identification that Charlton builds so skilfully with his leading men that ultimately makes this such a standout work.

Only the most stone-hearted of readers will fail to be moved by the fate of these young lovers, or be able to resist being caught up in the story of Peter’s cathartic transformation in what is the most harrowing of situations.

THE GOD GAME / AUTHOR: DANNY TOBEY / PUBLISHER: GOLLANCZ / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

The God Game is a sci-fi techno thriller set in the modern day. It’s the tale of five misfit friends who, though over-achievers with solid futures planned, get sucked into a strange online conspiracy. They discover a game which assigns tasks to each player and the more they do for the game, the more advantages in the real world the players get.

Deliver a box, get your high school grades modified, that sort of thing. The game is called G.O.D. and this apparently rogue AI believes its own hype. After all, thanks to things like mobile phones, Alexa and the internet, it can pretty much be all-seeing and all-knowing. Things take a sinister turn pretty quickly, or we wouldn’t have a story.

Despite the modern trappings, the vibe is very 80s. The kids have their own cool team name (The Vindicators), speak in pop culture references, care about their grades and so on. We have the scholarly one, the rich kid, the girl, the charming everyday character and the one with serious self-image issues. All pretty much cookie cutter characters from any given John Hughes movie. Each character has their own problems, guilty secrets and growing pains.

We often talk about how books tend to go for a cinematic vibe, and that normally means that they have tightly written prose that allows the reader to picture epic chase scenes and provide the sort of special effects only found in the imagination. The God Game doesn’t do this; instead it wants to crank out the retro music and have the reader reminisce about how tough high school was. It’s like a Hollywood movie in the sense that it doesn’t feel terribly original. It relies too heavily on the reader to fill in the gaps. This means that rather than second guessing the plot you can pretty much see through the storyline and figure out what’s coming next.

This would be fine if the characters were interesting. Unfortunately, it fails to make any of the characters distinctive. Even the two main friends in the story, Peter and Charlie (the rich kid and the everyday hero) are very similar to each other. Though we get a slow reveal that makes them distinctive over time, at the start all these kids seem equally likeable, dumb and optimistic. The pacing is uneven and the story begins to groan under its own weight at times. The combination of samey characters and plodding plot means that it’s easy to miss some of the good stuff.

There are some great highlights; the premise of G.O.D. is fascinating and the various payoffs are clever. Alas it can’t decide if it’s a thriller, a fantasy or something else, and the story suffers for that. All that aside, Danny Tobey is a dynamic and clever writer. We are keen to see what he does next.

WES CRAVEN: INTERVIEWS / EDITOR: SHANNON BLAKE SKELTON / PUBLISHER: UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

When you mention the late Wes Craven to anyone in conversation, they will immediately connect him to the horror genre, and rightly so. Craven built his career creating independent genre movies that pushed some limits and made film lovers take note, even if they felt uncomfortable. However, Craven was always seemingly disappointed that the opportunities provided to him in horror were never really afforded him elsewhere as he tried to break away from being typecast as the man that created Freddy Krueger.

In this book, editor Shannon Blake Skelton has collated 29 interviews with the director which took place between 1980-2015, just before he passed away from brain cancer. The interviews are taken from various magazines and websites and a large percentage are from American horror staple Fangoria (although it’s nice to see there is even an inclusion from Starburst as well) but cover his career extensively.

Obviously there are some overlaps here and there, but the repetition is kept to a minimum as the years roll over to follow Craven throughout his career. Every main feature film he released is covered in some format, from Last House on the Left to Swamp Thing, from Nightmare on Elm Street to Music of the Heart, in addition to some projects that he was connected to but never got across the line.

Each interview is an interesting snapshot of where both Craven and cinema were at that point, even though it only covers 40 years or so. It is repeatedly mentioned how Craven seems so far separated from the persona you’d expect from the man who gave us the bastard son of a thousand maniacs and Ghostface. Indeed, his influences show that he was well educated in cinema and there are also additional cameos within some interviews from those he worked with, including Meryl Streep, Bill Pullman and, of course, Robert Englund.

What could have been a dull collection of time capsule pop culture chats is instead an interesting read that gives us an insight into so much more. An essential read for genre and general cinema fans alike.

THE GOLDEN KEY / AUTHOR: MARIAN WOMACK / PUBLISHER: TITAN BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: 18TH FEBRUARY

When Samuel Moncrieff arrives in London, he is a haunted man. Firstly, he’s trying to escape from the memory of the woman he loved, who died suddenly during a freak accident. Secondly, a recurring dream of a decaying house on the Norfolk flatlands seems to be luring him into a part of his psyche he does not wish to visit. But, beyond that, not even Samuel knows who he is. He is a man without a past, born at the same moment three young girls disappeared without trace on the Norfolk fens.

The celebrated medium Helena Walton-Cisneros is determined to solve the mystery of the vanished girls but, to do that, she must also solve the mystery of Samuel Moncrieff. Yet Helena has a secret of her own – she’s not a medium, she’s a private detective. Beyond possessing extraordinary powers of instinct and observation, she has no genuine connection to the afterlife. But her investigations will change all of that, and bring her into a shadowy realm where the real and the unreal co-exist and where man’s upheaval of the natural world (in this case, stirring up something highly toxic from beneath the already dangerous flatlands) has made the veil between worlds even thinner. And that’s not all. After Queen Victoria’s recent death, interest in psychics, séances and mediumship has never been greater. Divisions are already beginning to show between the various occult societies, and The True Dawn, led by the mysterious Hungarian aristocrat Count Bevcar, is creating a sinister stir. Could he be involved in this too?

Anyone whose spine was tingled by the murky marshlands and mouldy gothic architecture of Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black will find themselves in familiar territory in The Golden Key, although the atmospheric settings and mannered (sometimes hypocritical) Victorian aesthetics are where the similarities end. At its heart, The Golden Key is a beautifully told detective story that masterfully evokes the Victorian obsession with contacting the dead (there’s a particularly creepy séance scene at the beginning of the book) while also juggling a ghost story, folklore and fairy lore with a subtle nod towards contemporary environmental concerns. It’s a fantastically absorbing and often unsettling novel with a marvellously assertive charismatic heroine and a fine balance between the science and the supernatural. We hope Helena Walton-Cisneros will be making a return visit to our bookshelves very soon.