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Title: The Burning Man
Author: Mark Chadbourn
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 17 April 2008
Review Copy

The Burning Man brings the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons closer to the end of the world. And after eight books (three in Age of Misrule, three in The Dark Age and this is the second in The Kingdom of the Serpent.) it has been a long and challenging fight. The lives of the characters have been torn apart and rebuilt, as has the world around them. Magic has been released and it’s now being extinguished. The Brothers and Sisters have one final chance to stop the magic and hope in the world being extinguished forever.

As hinted at in Jack of Ravens the Tuatha Dé Danann are not the only Gods to be awakened in the world. As events have spiralled the quest of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons brings them in contact with other Great Dominions some aren’t as friendly to the cause as others.

Mark Chadbourn is one of the best writers I have ever read regardless of genre. He manages to mix characterisation and storytelling so that one feeds off the other and neither is sacrificed. Not an easy thing to manage as stories need an emotional core without being emotional and soppy and characters need a journey and purpose no matter how much you like then.

In The Burning Man the pace never slows. That’s partly down to Chadbourn’s non-indulgent style. He gives just enough information and moves on. So this whole section is told in 329 pages and at no point do I feel short changed. He’s crammed in a lot.

It’s partly style but mostly he’s built up so much momentum that the story carries you forward. It’s rarely that I pick up a book just to see what happens next whilst waiting for a computer to boot or software to install (I got a new computer and usually I’d be staring at the machine keeping an eye on progress) or in ad break or choosing to read over everything else.

There were several sad and surprising moments, events happened where I wanted our heroes to hold on to their happiness a few moments longer and twists came seemingly without warning (though the signs I think were there if I’d have been paying a bit more attention).

Chadbourn has managed to make each of the characters rounded; they have their flaws, their own strengths and their own agendas. They act and react in their own and sometimes surprising (but not out of character) way.

I’d love to say more but if you’ve read this far it’ll only spoil it and if you haven’t it’s not going to make much sense if I said more about the plot apart from he ends The Burning Man in such a way that I have no idea if or how are heroes are going to save the world and what world they’ll end up saving.

I can’t wait until Book Three of The Kingdom of the Serpent.

10/10

Additional:

Here are links two reviews of books two and three of The Dark Age cycle.

A review of Jack of Ravens is here.

An overview of the series so far by me is here.

Tags: 10/10, Fantasy, Gollancz, Mark Chadbourn, review

Title: Dead Men’s Boots
Author: Mike Carey
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 06 September 2007
Price: £7.99
Review Copy

Felix Castor, exorcist, doesn’t like funerals and at the start of Dead Men’s Boots that’s exactly where he is when a lawyer turns up to exhume the deceased (a former exorcist and someone Castor avoided before he died) so he can be cremated and it’s only the start of his problems. His new client is the wife of a man who is accused of murder only she’s convinced that he didn’t do it and it was done by a woman that’s been dead for forty years.

Told in the first person we follow Castor’s investigations as he figures out clues left by the deceased and wonders how a ghost can wield a hammer though the poor fella doesn’t know what he got himself into. Trouble finds Castor like a drunk finds a chippie. It’s part of the deal when you take that first drink.

As I said in my review of Vicious Circle, the second book of this series, Carey is a master plotter. His plots are focused and well planned though with enough clues that you mentally kick yourself when you start to see the connections.

Dead Men’s Boots is a stand alone title but it’s probably better to start at the beginning as you get to see more of Castor’s make-up as well as the history behind the some what’s going on and his history to some of the other characters. And there are some great fully formed secondary characters.

The subplot from the previous books is kept ticking over quite nicely with a few teasers that I hope are going to make an appearance soon.

It’s a great read. You can’t help yourself from wanting to know how deep in shit Castor can go before he drowns.

If I have one negative I’d say that some things are a little too neatly tied off at the end but I don’t really care as it’s a great read that keeps you thinking and guessing all the way to the end. And it’s left me wanting more.

Tags: 10/10, Fantasy, noir, reading lists

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

There isn’t much point in reviewing this final book in the series – at this point you either love it or you hate it and you’ve either bought it or you haven’t. But just in case you are yet to enter the hallowed halls of Hogwarts then I’ll offer a few of my own thoughts on this once in a life time literary phenomenon.

As I’ve pointed out recently the Harry Potter series is never going to see Ms. Rowling honoured for Nobel Prize for Literature but that was never its intention. HP is a children’s story that happens to appeal to an adult audience – though this attraction to an older audience has been played on with the Adult Editions and perhaps some of the adult related content as suggested by Catherine Bennett in the guardian. And as a children’s story HP has a lot to stimulate the imagination from the use of magic, to the magical creatures, to the whole conflict between good and evil.

If there is a negative to HP in general and DH in particular is that it might be a bit too immersive with a large casts of characters, locations, spells, and artefacts. Though strangely scenes are often rushed and key moments dealt with over a few lines that should have been lingered over longer.

Now this does show either a lack of good editing or lack of skill in the finer details by Rowling and this is the most disappointing thing – that in order to keep the story under wraps it missed having that vital feedback that could have polished it a bit more.

Overall, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows brings the series to a satisfying if bloody conclusion. It is an amazing achievement to keep so many threads not only tight but tied off cleanly in the end over 7 books and goodness know how many words.

This is a series that will be read again and again and is going to take some beating in the future.

Tags: Fantasy

The brilliant people at Blackfish Publishing have managed to release another fabulous

Death Ray #3 is in the shops!
The third issue of Death Ray is on the newsstands.

And of course we have the latest issue of the long running Interzone:

T3A Space » Archive » Interzone 211 Has Mailed Out
It’s the Michael Moorcock special issue – guest editorial, interview by Andrew Hedgecock, extracts from works in progress and a short story – and we hope you enjoy it.

I’m picking mine up next time I’m in Borders.

Tags: Fantasy, Magazines, Scf-Fi