Ahmed and Cobley Reviewed at SFFWorld

A couple of days later than usual, but we’ve got another debut for Mark’s review and my review is (as it was for last week) the second installment of a trilogy. Our reactions from last week (Mark thumbs down and me big thumbs up) are a bit reversed, though my thumbs aren’t quite as drastically down as Mark’s thumbs.

Mark’s review concerns the Saladin Ahmed’s debut novel Throne of the Crescent Moon, which recently appeared in the UK after appearing in the US earlier in the year (and leaving me very impressed):

Crescent Moon taps into an area of Fantasy that seems to have fallen out of favour in recent years. With the genre’s concentration on Western pseudo-Medieval type tales, the ancient Arabian Nights type tales, based less on European culture, is ripe for revisiting.

There’s certainly enough here. We have Kingdoms, rebellion, canny thieves and honourable heroes, combined with mystical supernatural elements. It reminded me of those Arabian stories from Weird Tales in the 1930’s, but with a contemporary re-imagining.
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In talks of gods and religion, ancient evils and older spells, Saladin has tapped into the well-stone of good old-fashioned storytelling in an old established setting of ancient Arabia. This is Arabian Nights meets Clark Ashton Smith but with less purple prose and more adventurous actions.

I enjoyed The Orphaned Worlds the second novel of Michael Cobley’s Humanity’s Fire trilogy, but not quite as much as the first book:

With the universe a-flutter about the discoveries on Darien of potential ancient races and the reuniting of two of humanity’s lost colonies, Cobley paints his story on a very wide canvas and delves further into the past of Darien and the ancient races who may or may not still have their fingers in affairs. While Seeds of Earth focused primarily on the planet Darien and the inhabitants from the seed ship Hyperion and a bit of a focus on the planet of Pyre, populated by of the seed ship Tenebrosa, as well as the final seed ship Forrestal on the planet Tygra.
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One of the smaller plot strands, at least thus far, is that of Robert Horst, an ambassador from Earth and the artificial intelligence that has taken the form of his daughter. Horst is a tragic and sympathetic character at times, at others desperate to change the past. These sequences show something larger at play than any of the characters, especially Robert himself, could imagine. What I also found intriguing was how Robert’s ‘daughter’ aged as quickly as she did, not remaining at a static age as one would expect a simulated intelligence based on one’s memories to be. Here, I thought, Cobley’s playing with the A.I. trope of SF handled very well and differently than I’d previously seen.

Paul S. Kemp Official Author Forums @ SFFWorld

I’ve blogged in the past about how much I enjoy Paul S. Kemp’s fantasy novels, from his heavily Sword and Sorcery flavored Forgotten Realms novels which happen to feature the anti-hero Erevis Cale



... to his balls-to-the-wall Sword and Sorcery original debut The Hammer and the Blade



Recently, as of Monday of this past week, SFFWorld has started hosting official author forums for Mr. Kent so jump in and talk about his books!

Paul S. Kemp and Isaac Asimov at SFFWorld

As it is Tuesday, I present to you, my faithful readers, two new SFFWorld reviews. The usual suspects this week: me and a review from Mark.

I’ve been enjoying Paul S. Kemp’s brand of Sword and Sorcery through his Erevis Cale novels (here’s my recent Awesome Omnibus feature) and was very pleased to learn we wrote, The Hammer and the Blade an original (non-shared world) novel and it would be publishing later this year from Angry Robot Books. So, with all that, Paul was kind enough to pass along a super early advance e-copy of the book to me, the the review of which I posted today:

Through an engaging prologue Kemp introduces the readers to Egil and Nix through a quick dungeon adventure whereby the Priest (Egil) and Thief (Nix) rob the tomb of an ancient entity. The prologue would work excellently as a short story but also sets a solid foundation for the story Kemp will tell in The Hammer and The Blade by giving a sense of the relationship between the two protagonists. Egil and Nix planned on using the payout from their treasure to buy their favorite tavern so they could retire and live out their days in relaxation rather than fighting and adventuring.
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Revealing too much more would rob the potential reader from enjoying the novel themselves, though I will say the final quarter of the novel was exhilarating, leading to an extremely satisfying conclusion. What I will speak to, in general terms, are the elements that worked, didn’t work, etc. First and foremost, what comes across very strongly is how much fun Kemp seemed to have writing this story. The protagonists are old chums in the greatest sense of the word and their humorous, sarcastic rapport provides for a smooth way to reveal story elements. This sense of camaraderie extends as Egil and Nix become more acquainted with Rakon’s ‘crew’ over the course of their journey since our heroes and Rakon’s men don’t exactly see eye to eye with the sorcerer’s means and goals.

The ‘catching up with the classics’ theme for Mark continues with a classic novel from Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel:

A book that tackles issues of race, bigotry and hatred, written before the US race riots of the 1960’s? This still has a narrative drive and the power to shock. Whilst it is a mystery story, what makes it work is the matter of fact placing into a future regulated society where atomic war has led people to live in vast regimented ‘caves of steel’, where food is regulated (and mainly yeast-based), travel is not by car but by walkway, living space is a premium and jobs are increasingly scarce and under threat of being given to a robot at any time.
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What was amusing in my teens - Lije's use of 'Jehoshaphat!' as a swear-word - is a little annoying now and the need to end some chapters on a grand reveal ("Your honour, it was the butler that did it!") belies its pulp origins. The singular view of the Bible as the most important religious book in the world may also jar in today’s more secular global network, though perhaps understandable from a 1950’s viewpoint. So too the use and acceptance of tobacco in social circumstances.

Awesome Omnibus: The Erevis Cale Trilogy by Paul S. Kemp

In a growing trend for The Awesome Omnibus feature, I’m featuring the past work of an author I’m reading RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT. Okay, maybe not RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT since I'm sitting at a desk in front of a computer, but the book I’m currently reading is is Paul S. Kemp’s forthcoming Sword and Sorcery novel The Hammer and the Blade publishing in June from Angry Robot

So, the Awesome Omnibus for today is The Erevis Cale Trilogy, one of Paul’s early works in the Forgotten Realms for the fine folks at Wizards of the Coast, a publisher with a long history of publishing their series in omnibus format. One of my RPG group friends was reading this omnibus when we last had our gaming session and was enjoying it. Fun Rob fact: The Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy, originally published as the big white book to the left when Wizards of the Coast was known as TSR, is one of the major gateway books that pulled me into fantasy.


Back to Paul, who has been plying his brand of Sword and Sorcery for a while now and when Wizards of the Coast released The Erevis Cale Trilogy as an omnibus, they repackaged the books more in line with his later Forgotten Realms novels by gracing the covers with iconic and superb artwork by Raymond Swanland who manages to pack so much energy and action into his images:




Although I don’t own the omnibus, I do have the books which comprise the omnibus as I reviewed the trilogy in their original Mass Market Paperback form as whole almost five years ago (!):

Paul S. Kemp’s Erevis Cale Trilogy is no exception; the quality of his writing and storytelling is what should be judged on its own merits, and those merits are quite good indeed. The story, as is no surprise given the title, follows the former assassin and a current priest of the dark god Mask as he tries to make peace with himself, for those he once respected, and to save the world.

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The entire trilogy has a caper-like feel to it, as the titular character, himself a rogue, becomes embroiled in a plot to irrevocably change the world of Faerûn for the worse. Kemp introduces the villains, or antagonists, into the story line first. It does not become clear in the first book why the bad things are afoot; however. Cale, intends to get to the bottom of the matter, and takes his friends and the reader along for the ride. Kemp reveals these things to the reader as Cale and his companions discover what is occurring.

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So, how to compare this book to others? Well, my only other experience reading anything from the Forgotten Realms was R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt novels, and some of my earliest reading in fantasy/science fiction was Weis/Hickman’s original DragonLance trilogy. The Erevis Cale Trilogy at the very least, holds up well against my memory of those books, not the least of which is due to Kemp’s ability to put the reader in the character’s head.

Basically, it's like this: if you are looking for some fun, entertaining novels in the sword and sorcery vein, this omnibus is fine place to go.

As with my Eli Monpress Awesome Omnibus Feature, I'll drop some other links/bits of information:

Sample chapters from Twilight Falling the first novel/book in this omnibus

Paul continues the story of Erevis Cale in the The Twilight War.

After some delays and changes at Wizards, Paul continues stories in his corner of the Forgotten Realms with Godborn, the first book of The Cycle of Night.

Paul's also been writing some well-received Star Wars novels.

Lastly, bringing this post full circle to what inspired it, here are samples from Paul’s forthcoming novel The Hammer and the Blade, his first non-shared world novel coming from Angry Robot in June. I’d go so far as to say the prologue works as an excellent short story, although the novel builds nicely on that foundation.

Throne of the Crescent Moon & Dangerous Visions at SFFWorld

Yes, today is Wednesday, so a slight slippage in the weekly SFFWorld review shout-out’s here at the o’ Stuff. Unchanged are the authors of the book reviews, Mark and me. I’ve got a hot new writer who has received award nominations for his shorts and bursts onto the scene with his spectacular debut while Mark looks at one of the most important and praised anthologies in SF history.

Two months of 2012 in the books, and we already have two supremely impressive debut novels in the books. The one I write of today is Saladin Ahmed’s, Throne of the Crescent Moon which is his take on sword and sorcery, with slight dashes of epic fantasy. Whatever the ingredients, the resultant stew is wondrous. Below is the typical cover shot review excerpt:

A fat old wizard/demon hunter as the hero and central figure of the story, the swordsman as the more mature, but younger sidekick, and the setting a desert empire that resembles a Middle East and Egypt of myth. Not exactly the most typical ingredients for sword & sorcery novel, but the elements are somewhat familiar and the framework of the story – an impeding doom with an oppressive government – is recognizable. One can’t just add new ingredients to a new formula and expect it to magically work. Technique is required, and in this case, Saladin Ahmed breathes vitality and life into the sword and sorcery sub genre with Throne of the Crescent Moon, his debut novel and the first of the Crescent Moon Kingdoms saga.
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The threat of the ghuls is more than just random occurrence. The monsters encountered by Adoulla and his partner are larger and more powerful than any he’s encountered in the past. This leads the good doctor to surmise that a larger threat is present and creating these larger, more monstrous ghuls. When Adoulla and Raseed first encounter the Falcon Prince, Adoulla hesitantly allows for the thief’s safe passage and misleads his pursuers, strking up a somewhat early, if tenuous alliance with the vigilante. Adoulla is admonished by his pious, and young apprentice about breaking the lay and being an accomplice. Makhslood shakes him off a bit since the Doctor shares many with the Falcon Prince, specifically the increasingly strong and oppressive hold the Khalif has on the city.

That landmark anthology Mark reviewed is Dangerous Visions by the living legend Harlan Ellison:

In SF circles, Dangerous Visions is one of those that many know of by reputation but have rarely actually read. It was the Gone with the Wind of SF anthologies when it was first published in 1967. Like the film Gone with the Wind before its release, there was great speculation in the genre about Dangerous Visions before the book was published. Heralded as the best of cutting edge New Wave SF at the time, the rumours of what Harlan was doing and which authors were included, and perhaps more importantly which ones were not, were rife. Its content was allegedly salacious, sexy, outrageous, exciting, and thought-provoking, at a time when SF was maturing into something beyond the space opera pulp of the 1940’s and 50’s.
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The eventual list of 33 stories from 32 authors reads like a Who’s Who of SF writers: Philip K Dick, Samuel ‘Chip’ Delany, Robert Bloch, Philip José Farmer, Robert Silverberg, Brian Aldiss, Theodore Sturgeon, JG Ballard, John Brunner, Norman Spinrad, Fritz Lieber, Frederik Pohl, Lester del Rey, Roger Zelazny, and even Isaac Asimov, who amusingly explains in one of his Introductions why he’s not in the collection, other than for the Introduction. Ellison cherry-picked who he saw as the best in the US at the time and the emerging British New Wave at the time.

Jo Walton claims that it is ‘an astonishing anthology’. Harlan himself, with no lack of modesty, declares at the beginning of the collection, “What you hold in your hands is more than a book. If we are lucky it is a revolution.” (page xxxii)

Sullivan's Theft of Swords and Campbell's Stark's War @ SFFWorld

We’ve got another couple of reviews up at SFFWorld this week, one I’ve been reading / seeing very good things about for a while and a re-issue of an author’s earlier work under his current pen-name.

We’ll kick off this week with my review. Michael J. Sullivan’s Riyria series has been garnering praise and sales over the past few years of its eBook/Small Press life. Recently (as in within the past year) Orbit signed Michael to a contract and is, with the launch of Theft of Swords, is republishing the six books as three omnibuses over the course of the next three months. Here’s my thoughts on the first omnibus, officially releasing today::

Theft of Swords contains The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha, the first two novels in the series. Both books are just over 300 pages. In The Crown Conspiracy, readers are introduced to the anti-heroic duo of Royce Melborn, thief, and Hadrian Blackwater, mercenary. The two call themselves Riyria and are known as a competent duo, working outside the thieves’ guild taking on jobs for nobles who would otherwise not want to get their hands dirty. Off the bat, Sullivan gives readers fully formed protagonists who are mature and not the typical farmboys of epic fantasy. In fact, the feel I got throughout The Crown Conspiracy was more of a Sword and Sorcery adventure rather than Epic Fantasy. Of course, the comparison many people have made to Royce and Hadrian is to Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. The relationship between Royce and Hadrian comes across as something that is long-standing, but as of yet, Sullivan has yet to reveal how the two rogues became partners. This is good, and a pattern of storytelling which Sullivan employs throughout The Crown Conspiracy and a method at which he excels.

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Orbit was very smart to (1) snap up these books, (2) pair up two books into one omnibus, and (3) publish the three books in three months. Sullivan’s story fits in great with some of the recent books published by Orbit– I’d recommend the books to people who enjoyed the ‘old-school fantasy’ aspect of Daniel Abraham’s The Dragon’s Path and Brent Weeks Night Angel Trilogy. Outside of books published by Orbit, readers who enjoyed the modern sensibilities and characters of Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastard sequence and/or readers looking for something to remind them of the fun, adventurous romps associated with Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser sword and sorcery tales will find a lot to like in The Riyria Revelations.

In my review, I take a look at Jack Campbell has really been getting a lot of attention for his Lost Fleet Military SF saga this past year and more: sales and good buzz/reception. So what do the publisher’s do? Re-release the back list written under his real name, John G. Hemry, under his better known pen name Jack Campbell. Mark has a review of the first in Stark’s War series, which is also the name of the first book Stark’s War:

For books over a decade old they are pretty good mil-fic that Space Opera fans will like. Ethan Stark is the sergeant of a squadron in a future where people (well, Americans) have returned to the Moon and are establishing a network across the solar system. There is conflict between the corporate businesses of America and other countries, though the actual fighting takes place using multinational sponsored troops and materiel. There are ‘regular’ soldiers but the command groups, being too valuable to risk, are away from the battle-zone, directing actions through the lieutenants. All of this is shown live on television, which contributes by paying the costs of the engagements.
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This is a solidly written, action-packed mil-SF novel. The action scenes are very well done, the main characters fairly straightforward, the motivations for the characters clear. There’s the odd misstep – a scene where an infantryman has to explain World War One to his fellow soldiers seemed a little far-fetched to me, and later an explanation of the Spartans, for example – but really most readers will probably know what to expect and have bought it to meet those criteria: heroism, difficult odds, impossible situations, they’re all here, but in the end it is the loyalty and bravery of the soldiers and their camaraderie against all complications (usually of the bungling officer kind), and their function to get a difficult job done, that makes this a worthwhile read. In these days of Big Brother television, it’s interesting to see a possible consequence in future war.