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Title: Sharp Teeth
Author: Toby Barlow
Publisher: William Heinemann
Published in Hardback: 02 August 2007
Price: 12.99
Review Copy

Before I get into the book itself I have to say that I would buy more hardbacks if they were made like this.  It doesn’t have a dust jack only a striking illustrated cover with a slight bit of texture to it. And it’s that new compact size that’s becoming more and more popular. Much more reader friendly as I don’t have to worry about ripping the paper cover and it fits nice in my hands.

That’s not the only thing unique about this book. It’s a novel-in-verse. No don’t stop reading it’s not what you think. We’ll I’m not sure what you think but if you are imagining some Shakespearean-esque poetic purple prose you’d be wrong.

 To quote Toby Barlow:

‘…I tried to write to the way my eye, a somewhat lazy and easily sleepy eye, tends to work through a page’

And it works; the words just flow as if it’s written in a kind of novelist short hand. Another reviewer suggested that Sharp Teeth ‘is closer to Raymond Chandler, another chronicler of the underside of L.A., than to any poet’ and I’d tend to agree.

The poetic leanings come from the structure and the way story slips into your mind and as with any engine you don’t need to see how it works, you just need to hear it roar.

On top of this engine is a hardboiled crime novel with an animalistic twist:  packs of werewolves’ flight and scheme as a dog-catcher falls for a woman who can’t escape her blood. It has everything you need guns, girls, and a mystery to solve. Oh and blood though blood doesn’t bond these animals. Loyalties change when the wind is no longer blowing in the right direction.

Barlow, has thought this tale through. He sets up the game but the players and their hands remain hidden until the end. There aren’t that many flaws either at least any that wouldn’t count as nitpicking.  

These are no clichéd moon-howling-hounds – they are myths made real.  As with the best urban fantasy, this highly original novel-in-verse grounds itself in reality. So much so you might not look at a stray dog the same way again. You are going to be hard pressed to find something as complete and compelling as this for a while. My only doubt is how Toby Barlow is going to top this. If Sharp Teeth doesn’t win a few awards I’d be highly surprised.

Title: Winterbrith - The Godless World Book One
Author: Brian Ruckley
Publisher: Orbit
Price 7.99
Review Copy

I shouldn’t like this book. It’s a war story and I try to avoid war stories as best I can but when delving into the realms of fantasy it is very hard to avoid them. The good ones make manage to go beyond the fighting and I’m glad to say that Winterbirth does just that. Don’t get me wrong there is a lot of fighting here and blood, a lot of blood but there are also characters that you can’t help routing for.

The back story in Winterbirth is complex and it shows that we can’t really escape our history as It always comes back to haunt us if we want it to or not. It’s also not an easy book to explain as there are a lot of things going on both above and below the surface.

Brian Ruckley shows us two sides to this world: those of the South who are ‘True Bloods’ and those of the exiled ‘Black Roads’. The uneasy truce of the ‘True Bloods’ is weakening as the High Thane goes to war against one of his own. And it is this time that the Black Road march South.

I could spend many paragraphs going into who is fighting who, who is betraying who, who is helping who, and who doesn’t know that they need to be acting much faster. Luckily this is all explained as you read. This is no slight tale. There is a weighty and mighty book and knowledge of all the pieces is needed if you are to understand the rules of the game and what the game actually is.

As you follow the central band of characters you are left sometimes questioning if events unfold they way they do because of the choices that they make. If you are on the side of the ‘True Bloods’, as our band are, then you may believe that it is all your fault. Though, if you are with the Black Road it is all pre-written and what will happen is already decided.

I found Winterbirth a hard but satisfying read. Ruckley, it seems, has the story all thought out in so much so that he can’t help it pouring out into sections of over-detailed explanation. Not that I can think of a better way of doing it. Everything is there for a reason – there are no meaningless wanderings through forests – though there is a lot of walking that takes place.

The quest element is quite simple – first they need to escape and then they need to find their way back as safely as possible. Not that it’s simple with danger at every turn and there is no where to get back to.

I enjoyed the bands journey and reading the history of the places they passed through. There is also magic in this world. It is however kept frustratingly enigmatic and hidden that I couldn’t really handle what those who wield it can and can’t do.

This could be considered an overly long introduction to a trilogy, but at this level of the fantasy genre this may be expected, as by the end this story is only just beginning.

If there was something that kept me reading even when I was getting swamped in the detail was Ruckley’s excellent characterisation – all the characters are solidly portrayed even those whose blood flows a few pages after they are mentioned. He does have a way of making you care about them and you may find yourself gasping about how merciless he is.

Winterbirth ends on a high level of expectation and I really can’t wait for the next one in the series and to find out the true potential of magic in this tale.

Updated (07/08):

I’ve been mulling over this review for the last couple of days and I need to a add a few points I think.

This is a complex book. It reminds me of a chess board with all it’s pieces in play. I’m not used to reading stories with such a big playing area and that’s really when I mean when it’s a ‘hard’ read - you need to keep the board very much in your mind whilst you’re reading. If, like me, you are not used to reading complex stories with a complex history be prepared that you need to be reading when you are fully conscious throughout.

I think that saying this is an ‘over-long introduction’ and has ‘over-detailed explanation’ is a being a little too harsh on the book. Both stem from wanting to get back to the main characters and their story rather than wanting to know more about what is happening everywhere else.

The greatest strength in Winterbirth is the characterisation of all the characters - they feel real - rather being wooden pawns- they could actually live in this world. Something is learnt from each shift in focus and for me it’s probably more than I need to know - hence the the ‘over-detailed’ - but it works in the structure of the novel.

As for the ‘over-long introduction’ - just I was getting used to the world, it’s characters and the chess game - the ending suggests that it’s actually another game we’ve been playing - and for me this was a little frustrating but thinking about it there are more than enough hints about what might be going on.

So overall, Winterbirth is a confidently written, well plotted, excellently characterised tale, that needs a good level of concentration and a strong stomach - but leaves you wanting more with a lot of questions that just have to be answered in the next book.

Tags: Fantasy

Title: Resistance
Author: Owen Sheers
Publisher: Faber
Published in Hardback: 7 June 2007
Price: £14.99
Review Copy

Owen Sheers’ debut novel follows on from his two award-winning poetry collections and The Dust Diaries the Welsh Book of the Year for 2005. So the pressure to live up his previous works is high.

Resistance re-imagines a Second World War where the Nazis successfully cross The Channel and bring the fighting to British soil. As a consequence the women of the isolated Olchon valley wake up to find their men missing presuming they have left them to go to join the war.

The novel focuses first on the woman’s reactions to their husbands’ disappearance and then their reaction to the arrival of a five-man Nazi patrol on mystery mission. A severe winter forces a co-operation which turns to a fragile mutual dependency one that could be shattered at any moment.

This all sounds very dramatic, but the tension here is more subtle and manipulated like a stop-frame animation; each move delicate and deliberate and considerate of the overall picture.

Sheers feels assured in his setting, a place I assume near where he grew up and is very familiar, and that familiarity with the landscape, the history and the isolation, echoes with the lives of the characters.

Most of the action is explored through the farmer’s wife Sarah and the Nazi officer Albrecht Wolfram as they both come to terms with their new situation and magical bubble that the harsh winter has created.

There are problems with some of the reactions and interactions between the women and the patrol. The women seem to accept their situation and the presence of the men all too easily, even if you accept that they are just keeping the farms running until their husbands return. The men mellow to their new situation and surrounds a little too easily.

But if you accept that that they do and how Sheers explains why each of the characters reacts the way they do and it’s not much of leap then it’s quite easy to get trapped in the valley along with the characters.

In some ways Resistance feels like an extended short story or maybe a novella. It fall shorts of being a fully fledged novel because there was much more that could have been explored as the story unfolded but this most likely would have stretched the story out of Sheers tight control.

There are also places where the tensions and the emotions could have been twisted more without making it overly dramatic and some of the descriptions could have been tightened without spoiling the poetic descriptions or bursting the magical atmosphere.

Atmosphere plays an important part in this novel and it does draw you in. The characters are believable, for the most part, and the plot well planned and imagined. But the ending might be a bit too enigmatic when the harshness of the outside can’t be resisted any more.

I’d definitely say this is an accomplished debut let down slightly by the lack of risks that could have been taken when dealing with the world outside the valley.

Overall, it does seem that Sheers can turn his hand to anything. Resistance is a satisfying and emotional read and I look forward to seeing what Sheers comes up with next.

Every Dead Thing
John Connolly
Coronet Books
£6.99
Published 2000

John Connolly has created a dark and flawed detective with Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker. After the murder of his wife and daughter at the hands of the Travelling Man, seemingly Parker  will stop at nothing to find him.

In Every Dead Thing we follow Parker from the streets of New York to swamps of New Orleans and the bodies pile up. He’s looking for a missing girl but instead finds more than he probably wanted to know.

Charlie Parker is not your classic detective. He is violent and dangerous. He moves easily with the criminals that as a police man he would have been duty bound to arrest and convict.

The power of this first-of-a-series novel is the pace. Nothing lingers too long but no details are skipped either. The descriptions of bone and rotting flesh are pungent and stomach churning but like any good horror you’re unable to look away. John Connolly shows you the reality behind murder and those who find pleasure and business in committing it.

This review was originally published on NextRead in Oct 2006

Anonymous Lawyer
Jeremy Blachman
Vintage Books Original Fiction
£7.99
Published 1 Feb
Review Copy

The cover gives you some idea about the character of the Anonymous Lawyer He has horns, a devil tail and what could be a good suit. Though to be fair lawyers aren’t known for buying halo polish. AL is a hiring partner at one of the world’s largest law firms and he starts a blog. Everyone has a blog: I’m expecting The Queen to start one, anonymously of course. Well she couldn’t be that anonymous; there aren’t that many people who do her job.

We’re presented with a series of blog posts and email exchanges as AL butts horns with ‘The Jerk’. And they do feel like blog posts. Everyone has a nickname matching their character. My favourite being ‘The Woman That Hugs Everybody’. He changes the places, dates, and outcomes of events to remain anonymous. But he worries for how long it will be before he found out.

If it was an actual blog printed out I could see this being less exciting. But it’s not just a blog. It is a novel with a plotline and character development. And that’s what makes it very readable.

Each of the posts give you a glimpse of behind the scenes of a law firm, at least it sounds convincing like a real law firm from the descriptions of the counting of Post-Its to the billing clients for researching in the bathroom.

But most convincing is the character of AL. He does start off as a bit of Devil, but through the posts and more usually the e-mails he seems to be as human as the rest of us, if a little cynical, and a bit too rich.

It’s not all successful. Making it blog-like with a compelling character and a plot that doesn’t seem too extreme for the world it inhabits doesn’t need to be promoted for having “up-to-the-minute references”, which are going to date it more than it needs to. It gets a little too soft in the middle when AL seems to run out of nasty things to torment the ‘summers’.

Anonymous Lawyer is also a live a blog (anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com). I’ve not read it yet as not to effect my impression of this debut. I’m hoping there’ll be a sequel. For writers of anonymous blogs there could even be few writing tips to be had.

Overall, an enjoyable and non-taxing read that had me laughing out loud more than once. Highly recommended.