SFFWorld & SF Signal - Last Week of February (Butler, D'Lacey, Hamilton, Ottesen)

The great Hobbit of SFFWorld, Mark Yon, turned 50 this past week and 'celebrated' with a list of what he deems "50 Books to Read before You Die." Mark also looks at Peter Hamilton's first novel for younger readers, The Queen of Dreams:

The plot is briefly summarised as follows: Agatha (Taggie) and Jemima Paganuzzi are two young sisters who go on holiday to their divorced father’s farm, Orchard Cottage, for the summer vacation. As they are settling in, the appearance of a white bespectacled squirrel seems a little unusual. Things turn stranger when they find the squirrel talks and then their dad is kidnapped down the garden well by some evil creatures doing another’s bidding… and it becomes clear that Taggie, Jemima and Felix (the aforementioned squirrel) are the ones to rescue him…

However, if I was, say, a 7-12-year old girl, I suspect they would love it. The energy and frenetic pace keep the pages turning, even when the tale veers into the decidedly twee, (and I’m thinking of, as an example, the point where there is the enrolment of a certain Princess Elizabeth Windsor in 1940’s Blitz-hit London.) Generally though there’s enough charm and verve to carry the story forward over the odd bump.

I posted my review of the second half of Joseph D'Lacey's Black Dawn duology, The Book of the Crowman:

The Crowman as a figure has increased in prominence. In Black Dawn he was a whisper, a myth, but here in The Book of the Crowman, the figure is said to have been seen by other characters. He is a lightning rod, hunted by the Ward, elevated to a savoir figure by the Green Men (the rag-tag groups who oppose the structured order of the Ward). Gordon’s sole purpose is to find the Crowman by any means.
...
As the story/novel draw to close, the environmental theme of a Mother Earth is still strong, but more Judeo-Christian overtones vie for control of the story. These overtones were hinted at during the lead up to the story’s climax, but the theme thundered full force during a very graphic scene at the end. The allegory and resonant nature of the closing elements go from hints to being actually played out by the characters. The graphic nature of that pivotal scene is much more in-your-face and visceral than the earlier horrors hinted at in the novel. Considering much of D’Lacey’s previous fiction is very much in the horror genre, this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. For me, this shift worked in the larger context and themes I felt from of the Black Dawn, but I can see this element being a divisive point for readers.

Yesterday, the latest installment of my Completest column was posted to SF Signal, and features Lilith's Brood / Xenogenesis by the late, great Octavia E. Butler:

A big theme here, obviously, is that we need to look outside of ourselves to survive. Related to that, is the theme of The Other: coming to accept the Other and the consequences of rejecting the Other. There is also an implied resonance with Lilith’s initial situation and slavery; she has no choice in being taken from her land. In being the mother to her “owner’s” children, she gains a family and secures safety for that family. This conflicts with her feelings for the remainder of humanity on the space vessel as she tries to help some of them escape. The race conflict, is of course, writ large on the conflict between humans and Oankali.

Butler plays with symbolism in the names, too. Lilith, of course has many ancient and biblical connotations. Dawn, as the title of the first novel in the series, hints at things anew on the horizon, Adulthood Rites to the maturation cycle, and Imago is the final stage of an insect’s metamorphosis which is appropriate for the title for the final novel in the series.

Nila White reviews Golak by Josefine Ottesen (Translation by Martin Aitken):

The story begins with an attack on their village. The golaks, the result of terrible genetic experiments, approach the village walls pleading for food and help. The villagers, along with Jonah and his brother, attack the golaks, driving them off.

In the process, Jonah kills two of the golaks who look a lot like a woman and child instead of the monsters he expected. After the ordeal, once everyone is safe behind the village walls, they realize Jonah’s younger sister, outside the walls grazing her cow, has been taken by the fleeing golaks.

A search party is organized, including Jonah, his estranged brother, and another village boy who is slated to marry Jonah’s sister. They scour the nearby woods, but do not find her. Jonah is convinced if they just keep at the golak’s trail, they’ll find her. Jonah loves his sister and will do anything to save her, but the elders in the search party determine it is too late. The girl is lost. They order that everyone turn back before it gets too dark.

SFFWorld Weekly Round-Up: Harris, Bach, McAuley, D'Lacey

Lots of good content (reviews, author guest posts) were posted to SFFWorld this week, here's the rundown...

Mark reviewed Joanne Harris's The Gospel of Loki over the weekend.  Mark is one of many folks signing the praises of the author's first novel for adult readers: 

Joanne writes this story with panache and skill, infusing it with humour and a wry smile throughout. As I’ve said before in these reviews, humour’s very difficult to pitch right, but this one worked for me. It’s clever and literate, yet surprisingly still accessible. Through Joanne’s writing Loki becomes something tangible, at times liked, at others strangely melancholic.

This is not easy. The difficulty in telling the traditional tale (for me, anyway) is that there are aspects of the Norse pantheon that are usually a bit hard to swallow, never mind the fact that some of the names have always been a bit of a personal difficulty, frankly. Just trying to get your reading head around terms such as Yggdrasil has always seemed to be more effort than its worth. Here Joanne/Loki cleverly sidesteps this difficulty for me by mentioning some of the more imaginative (some would say outlandish) parts of the traditional tale, but then explains them away as mere exaggerations, the sort of tall tale often bragged about over beer.

On Tuesday, I posted my review of Rachel Bach's second Paradox novel, Honor's Knight. Rachel Aaron/Bach is becoming a go-to author for me, as I connect with her work very well. This particular book was a great cure for a reading lull I hit. Some thoughts:

Bach ratchets up the politics in Honor’s Knight and dials back the romantic element a bit. There’s also an ongoing discussion in the novel about the price of security and safety, in that can the fate of humanity be measured against the life of innocent girls who lose their identity and humanity? A difficult question to answer, and sometimes the easiest answers prove to be the incorrect answer in the long run. In other words, war breeds difficult moral choices, which leads to drastic consequences. The black ink-like substance afflicting Devi also happens to be like kryptonite to the phantoms, but Devi has little control over it and when it comes out on her skin.

There’s more action in the novel and Bach opens up the universe to a greater degree, bringing the phantoms more into the folds as the most alien creatures thus far encountered. At times described like bright firefly like creatures and other times, the larger creatures seem like something out of a Lovecraftian nightmare. In fact, what comes to mind are the Drej, the blue alien creatures from the animated film Titan A.E. (An animated film with the classic Don Bluth look and feel that deserved a much better fate at the box office than it received.)

Yesterday, we had a guest post from Paul McAuley on revisiting and touching up his popular Confluence trilogy in preparation for an omnibus publication of the series:

The three novels, published in 1996, 1997 and 1998, were caught up in corporate takeovers in the UK and the US; when Gollancz agreed to republish them in a fat omnibus, the original files used to set the books were long gone. So I resurrected my old WordPerfect 5.0 files and read through them, and then went over them again to remove a few niggling inconsistencies in the narrative and to give the prose a further polish. My younger self didn’t need my help move a story through its twists and turns. He’d learnt from Robert Louis Stevenson how landscape can shape and reveal the actions of the characters, and to keep action scenes short and sharp. He’d crammed plenty of eyekicks and estrangement into the narrative. And Yama’s story, his discovery of the costs and obligations of escaping from his mundane fate and becoming a hero, and the sacrifices he must make to find a way of saving his world, was fixed by the course of the river he follows.


So in its omnibus incarnation, the story and almost all of the narrative of the trilogy remains the same. Revision was mostly a question of tightening the focus of sentences and paragraphs, and sharpening certain passages

Lastly, we published a guest post from Joseph D'Lacey wherein he attempts to answer the question I threw at him:

“Do you see Post Apocalyptic fiction as a great way to explore Horror elements in a setting more associated with the Science Fiction branch of the Speculative Fiction tree?”

My ‘visible’ work categorises me as a Horror or, more specifically, Eco-Horror writer. But, like most authors, what I have ‘on display’ represents a fraction of the whole. There’s also the almost published, the limitedly published and, of course, the unpublishable – tons of that!

So, when a question comes up about exploring Horror elements in a Post Apocalyptic world, from my particular, and probably quite odd, writerly point of view, there’s no simple answer.

It’s partly because I write in such a naïve and uncalculated way. I’m instinctive (haphazard, an overwriter, rarely plan anything), lazy (avoid research, reality and work of any kind – especially writing), whimsical (whimsical, basically) and my work is organic (I write the bits I feel able to write first and the bits I feel unable to write just before the deadline).

Double Duty at SF Signal: Podcast and Completist

This past week, I had two "appearances" at SF Signal. I participated in the SF Signal podcast, which was the first podcast I've ever done. You can all now her my (not so) dulcet voice opine on the three books publishing in 2014 I can't wait to read: City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett, Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey, and The Book of the Crowman by Joseph D'Lacey. Also participating in this podcast were host Patrick Hester, and panelists Jeff Patterson, Carl V. Anderson, and Derek Johnston.

My latest Completisst column was posted yesterday and features a terrific action-sf trilogy: Joel Shepherd's Cassandra Kresnov trilogy.

Joel Shepherd’s debut novel, Crossover, is firmly entrenched in the subset of science fiction – that of the SF-Femme-Fatale page-turner, to borrow a term from the back-cover blurb on the book. With this novel, Shepherd, and Cassandra “Sandy” Kresnov, joins the ranks of writers like Karen Traviss, Marienne de Pierres, and Elizabeth Bear. Shepherd’s protagonist, Cassandra Kresnov, is a defective operative from the League, looking to eschew her former country/employer. After being nearly killed by her country, she emigrates to its enemy, the Federation; specifically, the nation-state of Tanusha on the planet Callay. Kresnov differs in one major fashion from other folk: she is not human. She is a synthetic human, or artificial intelligence. This point is the core of the novel and series, and throughout the series Shepherd brings to light a wide range of arguments in the debate is an artificial intelligence a person? Can they have humanity?

Books in the Mail (W/E 2014-01-18)

For the first time in 2014 (and since before Christmas, so nearly a month) that review books have arrived physically on my porch / in my mailbox / in front of my garage or electronically on my Kindle.

The Book of the Crowman (The Black Dawn Volume Two) by Joseph D’Lacey (Angry Robot Books Trade Paperback 02/25/2014) – I read and first loved the installment of this series / duology last year and have been looking forward to see how D’Lacey finished out the story ever since.

It is the Black Dawn, a time of environmental apocalypse, the earth wracked and dying.

It is the Bright Day, a time long generations hence, when a peace has descended across the world.

The search for the shadowy figure known only as the Crowman continues, as the Green Men prepare to rise up against the forces of the Ward.

The world has been condemned. Only Gordon Black and The Crowman can redeem it.

Blades of the Old Empire (The Majat Code Volume One) by Anna Kashina (Angry Robot Books Trade Paperback 02/25/2014) – First in what looks to be a sword & sorcery / epic fantasy series and damn is that a purty cover.

Kara is a mercenary – a Diamond warrior, the best of the best, and a member of the notorious Majat Guild. When her tenure as protector to Prince Kythar comes to an end, custom dictates he accompany her back to her Guild to negotiate her continued protection.

But when they arrive they discover that the Prince’s sworn enemy, the Kaddim, have already paid the Guild to engage her services – to capture and hand over Kythar, himself.

A warrior brought up to respect both duty and honour, what happens when her sworn duty proves dishonorable?

Rex Regis (Imager Portfolio #8) by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. (Tor Hardcover 01/22/2014) – The writing machine that is a man releases another (eigth overall) in this series and fifth in this specific sub-sequence

The saga of the Imager Quaeryt, Commander in the forces of Lord Bhayar, reaches a new climax as the great struggle to unify the continent of Lydar enters its final phase in L.E. Modesitt's Rex Regis, Book 8 in The Imager Portfolio.

Only the land of Khel remains uncommitted to Bhayar’s rule. Their decision could mean a lasting peace, or more conflict across an already war-ravaged realm.

While the conqueror of Bovaria awaits emissaries to arrive with news of Khel’s decision, other weighty matters occupy Bhayar, his sister Velora, and her husband Quaeryt—not the least of which is the fulfillment of Quaeryt's dream to create the world's first Imager academy, where the magical abilities of these powerful casters may be honed, managed, and put to the service of the common good.

But before that dream may be realized, or Khel’s fateful choice made known, the spectre of high treason threatens to unravel all that Quaeryt has achieved, catapulting him toward a fateful confrontation with Bhayar's most powerful military leaders.

Dirty Magic (Book 1 of The Prospero’s War Series) by Jaye Wells (Orbit Books, Paperback 01/21/2014) – The prolific Wells launches a new urban fantasy series.

MAGIC IS A DRUG. CAREFUL HOW YOU USE IT.

The Magical Enforcement Agency keeps dirty magic off the streets, but there's a new blend out there that's as deadly as it is elusive. When patrol cop Kate Prospero shoots the lead snitch in this crucial case, she's brought in to explain herself. But the more she learns about the investigation, the more she realizes she must secure a spot on the MEA task force.

Especially when she discovers that their lead suspect is the man she walked away from ten years earlier - on the same day she swore she'd given up dirty magic for good. Kate Prospero's about to learn the hard way that crossing a wizard will always get you burned, and that when it comes to magic, you should never say never.

Black Feathers by Joseph D'Lacey up at Tor.com

My latest review for Tor.com is now live, Joseph D'Lacey's Black Feathers the first of his two-part apocalyptic duology The Black Dawn. I read the book in less than two days, there was an extremely powerful narrative pull and despite the post-apocalyptic/apocalyptic subgenre having a great many stories in it already, D'Lacey's story is a must-read for any fan of the subgenre.

Click here or the cover to read my full review.