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Title: Scar Night
Author: Alan Campbell
Publisher: Tor
Published: May 2007
Price: £7.99
Bought It

Before I say anything else Alan Campbell’s debut novel Scar Night is an amazing creation. Not only does he create rounded characters, he creates a believable world for them to live. I enjoyed reading it immensely but it’s not without its problems. Though before I get into all that let me tell you what it’s all about.

Dill is the last of his line. A battle-archon whose role is to protect the faithful and the Temple of Deepgate. But he’s not a fighter. The role is now ceremonial as the battleships do the fighting and the flying. Dill is left to stand on the roof unable to fly and release the occasional bucket of snails from his room in the Temple kitchens.

The city of Deepgate is suspended by great chains that have been interlinked over the years by lesser chains and ropes. This combined with its industrial needs have created several districts but overlooking them all is the Temple of Ucis. Ulcis is the undead God who is gathering an army of Ghosts, the dead of Deepgate, to reclaim his place in heaven.

As events unfold it is Dill who has no choice but to descend below and find out what hell really looks like.
When I started reading I wasn’t sure what expect. I expected Dill to go for feeble boy to a warrior man and save everyone. But he doesn’t, well not in that Hollywood hero way and that’s a good thing.

Instead Alan Campbell presents an exploration of life, death and faith and how what we believe can build and build until its foundations are forgotten. He also shows that no one is as bad as they first appear.

The trouble is I’m not sure that Campbell always had the balance quite right. The bad characters have some qualities that strip away some of their nastiness, which is alright, but somehow made me pause and wonder about their motives.

Saying that though he does well to give individuality to the minor as well as major characters and my thoughts about some of the motivations didn’t distract or undermine my enjoyment of Scar Night.

In fact I couldn’t wait to see what Campbell did next. Somehow he kept managing to surprise me in terms of what happened in the story and how he got there.

And at the end he left me in no doubt that this was only the beginning.

I recommend this for anyone who likes their fantasy to break and twist conventions and who likes their stories dark with a light at the end of a tunnel. I’m eager to read the just released Iron Angel.

8.5/10

Tags: Alan Campbell, debut, review, Tor

Title: Un Lun Dun
Author: China Miéville
Publisher: Pan
Published: 5 Feb 2007
Price: £6.99
Review Copy

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading Un Lun Dun. All I knew about Miéville was that he was an imaginative and political writer who could be categorised as writing in the New Weird tradition plus this was his first novel for Young Adults. After reading Un Lun Dun I’d say he was all of the above and then some.

Two girls find themselves in an alternative London where London’s lost and broken things end up along with some of the people. The strange this is that the girls are expected and there is a prophecy to fulfil; the Smog is bent on it’s destruction and the city needs a hero.

Mieville has created a unique twisted take on not only London but on the quest novel where nothing quite works out as planned. And the unexpected is one of Miéville’s strengths. He plays with words, conventions, and draws from a very fascinating imagination. I can’t see anyone else making a pack of blood-thirsty giraffes quite so scary or coming up with the same wide-range of unique areas and inhabitants of Un Lun Dun like rock climbing librarians or ghost houses that fade in and out. But cutting through that is the journey that Miéville takes us on.

What at first seems right and proper is in fact quite the opposite and vice versa. It’s not every novel you read when the hero fails and falls at the first hurdle but then continues in un-expected ways. Miéville is really playful with not only the companions of our hero but also how they go about fulfilling that role.

What I liked the most is that it’s a modern fairy tale with slight mix of politics but it doesn’t preach or moralise. Any messages it does have are delivered through the events and the decisions that takes place.

Overall, Miéville’s furtile and playful imagination along with a strong story telling skills has created a modern fairy tale for young adults and adults who love a good story. Though some of the language is quite complex so it might be a challenging read to some less experienced young readers. It’s well worth reading.

There is also a slight door left open to revisit Un Lun Dun again and I hope he does. But in the meantime I’ll be reading more by China Miéville.

9/10

Tags: 9/10, China Miéville, Pan, review

Title: No Dominion
Author: Charlie Huston
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 5 Jul 07
Price: £6.99
Review Copy

You gotta feel sorry for Joe Pitt. He can’t seem to help finding himself in serious trouble. Out of blood and out of cash and being behind on the rent Pitt needs a job. Though being a Vampyre and a Rogue it can’t be a 9-5 gig. Unfortunately he’s in the wrong place and the wrong time and a job finds him and it involves a trip Uptown.

Carrying on from the sucked dry Already Dead Charlie Huston delves deeper into the Vampyre Clans on Manhattan.  Huston keeps it simple. We see it all from inside Joe’s head as follows the trail set out in front of him.  But Huston isn’t a simple storyteller not by a long shot. He’s created a deep, dangerous and moral man in Pitt and throws that up against the different Clans who are more establishment than Pitt likes getting close to. And Huston plays on this tension, as well as tensions from the hunger for blood and from his girlfriend who needs him a lot right now.

Huston is a master of set-up and pay-off even if the payoff isn’t what it first appears and in most cases isn’t a pay-off at all but another set-up.  Something is about to go down.

I can’t wait to get my teeth into Half the Blood of Brooklyn, which happens to be out now from Orbit.

9/10

Tags: 9/10, Charlie Huston, Orbit, review

Title: The Houds of Avalon
Author: Mark Chadbourn
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 08 June 2006
Price: £6.99

There are some writers who build whole new worlds and some who raise questions about the world we are already in. Mark Chadbourn has created his own brand of urban fantasy by building a story around the myth and legends surrounding the British Isles and asking what if these old Gods and creatures of myth and legend returned?

The Hounds of Avalon sees a diminished British government coping as best it can when an unstoppable army of mystical creatures attack with intention of eliminating everyone in their tracks as they march towards Oxford, the government’s new home. Their only hope of salvation is the actions of those chosen to be champions of humanity; those known as the Brother and Sisters of Dragons. But the government doesn’t realise how important they really are.

To say more about the plot would end up with me getting in a muddle, giving away spoilers and confusing you. Because, unofficially, this is book six in the series and book three in the second story arc, so a lot has gone on already to get to this point (see here for details).

You can read it as a standalone but some of the significance of the events and characters might pass a new reader by. Though saying all that Chadbourn does a grand job keeping the events self-contained enough so that the story works in its own terms and is accessible enough for new readers and those of us who has left it a while between books.

What’s impressive is the amount of action, information, and emotion that Chadbourn builds into each page. His skill is how he weaves the exploration of what it is to be human with a story of what could be the last moments of the human race. He shows how we all deal with situations differently; some of us hide away, some of stand and fight, but in the end we all have a role and we can’t always see the role we play or how vital it is.

Chadbourn’s other strength is that he sets a lot of different threads in motion, some placed books ago, as he recalls to the roster characters who had fulfilled their jobs in previous books and it seemed that they had no further role to play.

As a storyteller he keeps the reader moving along a roller coaster that could come off the tracks any second and the characters could fail in their missions and the world could end before they have chance to fight back. One thing he does show is that there is always hope. Oh, and the end really isn’t the end.

Personally I’d say read all the previous books as Chadbourn is a master storyteller and all the other books in the series are tell different parts of the tale but stand in their own right as masterpieces of fantasy.

An excellent end to The Dark Age sequence and sets us up for the next one with The King of Serpents and the first book, Jack of Ravens.

Score: 10/10

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

Title: In The Woods
Author: Tana French
Publisher: Hodder
Published: 14 November 07
Price: £6.99
Bought It

You can never escape your past or so they say. And Tana French plays with this idea in her debut novel, In The Woods. Rob Ryan retells the investigation into death of a small girl found in the same woods where he, but not his two friends, had a lucky escape twenty years ago.

French hasn’t created a conventional detective novel. Ryan’s past comes back to haunt him during this investigation. She pitches it right. Ryan unravels as the case gets tougher. And as you read you wonder if he can solve it before he unravels too far.

It’s a very emotional read. French keeps you reading by playing with you. She builds the connections between the main characters and sparks them off each other. It’s a small world after all.

The strengths of this novel is how well French sets everything up. As I was reading I thought I had a good idea of who did it, if not why, and I was wrong. French, through Ryan’s eyes, gives a lot of leads and clues but these are muddied by Ryan own biases and obsessions. Another strength is how she explores the effect the investigation has on the relationship with his partner DI Cassie.

French foreshadows a lot of the major events, sometimes a little too heavily, and this gives a drive to find out the truth. And it is truthful and a bit brutal in its honesty. It’s an interesting balancing act between keeping plot moving in terms of finding the killer and showing us the emotional tensions surrounding it.

In The Woods keeps you reading as Ryan recounts and explores this investigation from beginning to end. French has created a well-crafted story with a believable, if highly fictional set events, told with strong compelling voice. A strong performing and haunting debut. I’m looking forward to seeing what she does next.

Tags: 8/10, Bought it, crime, debut, debut review, Hodder, New Writers, review

Title: Never the Bride
Author: Paul Magrs
Publisher: headline review
Published: 3 May 2007
Price: £7.99
Bought it

This is one book that after I read the blurb and just had to read.

Never the Bride is set in Whitby, which is also a setting in the original vampire novel Dracula, so it’s no stranger to scenes of weirdness and Paul Magrs has made it very strange indeed. B&B landlady Brenda and her best friend Effie like mysteries. And with age reversing beauty salons, more than perfect guests, psychic investigators and games of bingo at the Christmas Hotel there is more than enough to go round.

It’s a gentle humour filled adventure that’s split into seemingly unconnected episodic chapters. Each slowly reveals more about Brenda and shows that Effie is more than a pensioner who has taken a judo class last summer.

Magrs draws on old myth and monster tales and adds a big dollop of unique twist. The strange characters he’s created seem at home and normal in the company each of them keeps. He also makes it seem that this tale could be happening in Whitby right now.

They are a quirky couple, in a quirky place, in a wonderfully entertaining tale that’s only just begun.  Even though we meet a few strange characters this time there are other residents of Whitby who maybe more than they seem.

Paul Magrs has set himself up for a series with a lot of potential. I can’t wait to see what trouble Brenda and Effie get into next and how they manage to get out of it.

Tags: 8/10, Bookshelf, horror, reading, reading list, reading lists, review, Whitby