Number 88 - Project Clio - Stephen Baxter

 A quick cheat read from my growing selection of novellas from PS Publishing. I only know Stephen Baxter's name from his collaberations with Terry Pratchett (which I shamefully haven't read, or indeed bought, yet). Still if Pratchett was willing to team up with him for three books, he must have something going for him.

And on the strength of this he probably does.  This is a fun little romp through a very fictionalised late 60's where the John Steed and Emma Peel Avengers series was based on a real agency who were using it to hide in plain sight. 

A mysterious company, known as the company, is producing advanced technology and, through a magazone known as Magazine, is making the nation's children produce strange toys from kits known as kits whilst they listen to endless guitar solos broadcast from the Company's own pirate radio station known as... the station.

There's a lot of ground covered in this book in a very short number of pages.  We have assassins attempting to kill ex-soldiers to stop them killing an ex-nazi scientist who  holds vital information about the company. We have a pair of agents trying to take down the evil version of Radio Caroline.  We have a good cop trying to reconnect with her stepson who is under The Company's control. Oh, and a potential alien invasion from within, setting the groundwork for invaders from beyond the Solar system to swoop in and destroy humanity.

The characters are as developed as you can get in such a short book.  The prose is witty and to the point. It's not laugh out loud funny but I did have either a broad smile or an ironic grin on my face for most of the time I was reading this.

 It's still available from PS Publishing. If short and witty take-downs of 60's tv sci fi are your thing, go ahead and buy it.  You won't regret it.

Number 87 - Wrestliana - Toby Litt

 

Toby Litt is a bit of a literary chameleon. He never seems to write in the same genre twice. he also seems to be equally adept whether he's writing a science fiction epic Journey into Space, or chick-lit, or hard boiled crime. You're never quite sure what you're going to get from a Litt novel. His most recent two (Notes from a Young gentleman and Patience - both reviewed on this blog) were particularly experimental.

This one is very straightforward in prose style as it's a biography of his great great great Grandad - William Litt, a celebrated wrestler in Cumbria in the early 1800's and a slightly less celebrated writer and poet.

This being non-fiction, it doesn't fit into the A-Z he's been building with his other books.

In addition to telling us about his great etc grandfather, he tells us a lot about himself, his own family, and his process of learning about his ancestor - the effect this had on him as a person.

He explores the meaning of masculinity then and now, the importance of being a man and the meaning of fatherhood.

He starts by telling us about his own father, and how it was his father's wish for him to write this book.  One of my favorite lines in the book appears here when he describes his father as having reached the age where "standing up from a chair is a paragraph, not a sentence". That's quietly heartbreakng as well as incredibly evocative of the fragility of age.

William Litt won over 200 belts in Cumberland & Westmoreland wrestling and wrote one of the first sports manuals - a treatise on the sport of wrestling.  He was very likely a smuggler in his younger days, but after his success in the wrestling ring, he eventually fell foul of a local lord and emigrated to Canada where he died aged 62.

In the course of his research, Toby Litt faces up to his own insecurities. How does he compare as a man to his ancestor, even to his own father?  How do his talents as a father compare? And what does fatherhood mean?

Non-fiction is not normally my genre to read in - book 87 this year and this is the first pure non-fiction so far. But this was fascinating throughout, disarmingly honest and genuinely moving in places.  All the moreso for being true.

The Lowther family get mentioned frequently as playing pivotal roles in William's life.  This is particularly interesting to me because my own Great Grandfather was a lowther, quite possibly from Cumbria... I will admit that's not something to keep many people outside of my immediate family engrossed in the book, but it certainly helped me.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Toby's ancestor is a genuine character, and Toby himself comes across as a genuinely nice guy, somewhat in envy of old William's earlier exploits. It's clear that this book was a labour of love and that comes shining through the page.  What could have been the equivalent of someone gettng the photo album out is turned into an engrossing history of a remarkable man. Through the power of prose, Toby has wrestled his ancestor onto the page, and quite definitvely won this round.

This is available through Galley Beggar Press

Number 86 - The Little Gift - Stephen Volk

 

Stephen Volk is another writer primarily known for television.  He's probably best known for the BBC fake reality show Ghostwatch that caused a bit of a stir when it first came out. He also wrote the film Gothic, the tv series Midwinter of the Spririt and Afterlife (starring Andrew Lincoln of Walking Dead fame)

So he has a very classy screenwriting career.   despite having a few of his books I'd never quite got round to reading them.  I needed a cheat read while I wait for the next few volumes of the Walking Dead  so this seemed like as good a time as any. 

I'm glad to say his prose writing is as classy as his screen work. This is one of the most thought provoking things I've read this year. I'm not even sure what genre it belongs in - and that's a good thing.

The story begins with our narrator's wife finding the little gift the cat has brought in for the family. The narrator is asked to put the bird out of it's misery and dispose of it. The very beginning is told in present tense. As he's walking to the bins to dispose of the latest gift, his mind drifts back to a day that started when the cat brought them a dead vole, and the events that followed.

The story now switches to past tense and we hear the tale of his past infidelity and what came after. To say more would be very spoilerific. 

The relationships in this book are beautifully drawn - easily the equal to any whirlwhind romance I've read in a Rupert Thomson or a Jonathan Carroll novel - and coming from me that is high praise indeed. Despite not liking the narrator for his actions, you know where he's coming from and can understand him. I was genuinely moved and shocked by some of the events that transpired.  

The metaphors inherent to the story never overpower the storytelling and the ending is well nigh perfect. I finished this late last night and it's been on my mind all day. This is a dark meditation on love and the turns life can take.

Even by PS Publishing's normal high standards, this is a well put together book.  The cover art and internal illustrations are excellent. They perfectly match the darkness at the centre of the story.

I have a few more of Mr Volk's works on my shelves.  They have all been moved much higher up the TBR pile.

There are still copies of this available through the PS website.  https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/ 

Buy it there while you can.  Jeff Bezos doesn't need any more of your money.

Number 85 - Luther The Calling - Neil Cross

 

Neil Cross is known primarily these days for his tv writing.  He wrote two episodes of Doctor Who for Peter Capaldi's doctor (and very good they were too), he was a lead writer on the spy show Spooks, he wrote a recent serial called Hard Sun and of course, he wrote the whole of the show Luther.

He's also an excellent novelist. His book Holloway Falls was one of my highlights last year. This of course, is a novel based on his show Luther.  I'm not sure the star of the show is the most unbiased source they could find for a cover quote, but that's what the marketers went for.

It serves as a prequel to the tv show, with an early case in his career that paved the way for the unpredictable character the viewers know and love.

A young couple have been murdered in their home, both of them cut open and mutilated. The woman was 9 months pregnant. The baby is missing. Luther is assigned the case to find the murderer and to try to recover the baby if it's still alive. Are there links between this and some cold case kidnappings from many years previously? He also has to help an old man being victimised by local heavies and try to save his precarious marriage.

This is fast moving, brilliantly paced, violent and shocking throughout. Subtlety is not a strong point in this book.  It's  written in a no-nonsense, very immediate and tension inducing present tense.

The opening line, "John Luther, a big man with a big walk, crosses the hospital car park, glistening with the rain." sets the tone perfectly for what's to come. Tough guys doing what they do best.  Having said that, he does have his sensitive side and we keep full sympathy with  him throughout.  His build up of rage is understandable. When Luther bends the rules it's because someone deserves it.

This man is not a good policeman.  He can solve a crime.  He's great at that part of the job, but he's distinctly lacking in the following the right channels part of the job.  As such he's the classic renegade cop.  Pretty much all that's missing in this is the "you've got 24 hours or you're off the case" speech from his boss. Without leaving spoilers I hope, there's actually a neat reversal of that oh so familiar trope in the middle of this book.

There are twists and turns galore. It's not entirely unpredictable - I did see one of the biggest reveals in the story about 150 pages before it happpened - but it's never boring, it's never tedious and it keeps you turning the page. Also, I do have a talent for spotting plot twists before they happen.

 The villain is spectacularly evil. One of the main weaknesses of the book is the partial explanation given for this... I'd say more, but spoilers. This book also breaks the rule of making the villain the hero of his own story.  The most interesting villains don't think they're bad people. They think they're good people forced into doing bad things.  The bad guy here knows he's in the wrong and doing it for entirely selfish reasons.  As such, he's definitely scary, but not particularly credible.

Having made that criticism, it must be said that the tension in the closing chapters is almost unbearable. Knowing he doesn't care about anything other than himself does raise the stakes immensely.

I've raced through this one in a couple of days.  It might not be the strongest of Neil Cross's books, but it's still damned good and well worth getting hold of, especially if you're a fan of the tv show.

7.5/10

Content warning - there is some cruelty to animals and children. this is not for the faint hearted.

Numbers 84 & 82 - The walking Dead Vol 24 Life and Death, Dogs think Every day is Christmas - Ray Bradbury

 

This seemed quite slow compared to the pacing of other volumes.  However it packs the biggest emotional impacts so far.  having said that, this is laying down an awful lot of plot threads.  The new societies are not running entirely as smoothely as Rick would like. Maggie has been provoked into an action Rick will certainly not approve of.  Dwight isn't taking to leadership and there's potential trouble brewing with the saviours again.

The whisperers are a fine bunch of new villains and their leader, Alpha. is a creepy creation. Negan was violent, but you could almost see why he was doing what he was doing. You could guess his next course of action.  Out would come Lucille and someone would be hurt.  

Alpha is just... woah... unpredictable would be mild.

One of the final pages of this volume made me shout "No!" loud enough to scare the cat. This is possibly the biggest shock ending of any volume so far. The ending is drawng closer and it's been a wild ride, which looks set to get wilder.

This is a whimsical little poem by Bradbury, charmingly illustrated.  A nioe little compaanion piece to Cat for Comforter which is similar to this, but an illustrated poem about cats.

Both are necessary for Bradbury completists, or for people who like charming little poems with sweet illustrations.  Not much else to say about it.

Number 83 - Mordew by Alex Pheby

 

You have to hand it to the fellows at Galley Beggar Press, these black paperback editions are rather handsome and distinctive.  The postcard in the picture shows the artwork on the hardback edition they sell and is a thing of beauty in itself.

GBP are a small press who release only 4 books a year normally.  Unlike a lot of small presses, they don't charge through the nose for the books, even the signed  limited editions (which the black paperback copies all are).

Any company only printing 4 books a year, you have to assume is applying strict quality control on the writing contained therein.  So far, I can only agree with the editor's fgood taste in the few of their books I've received so far.

Alex Pheby is a new name to me, but has been published through GBP before.  This is the first book of a new trilogy, set appropriately enough in the city of Mordew.

As you might guess from the picture on the postcard, it's a fantasy novel. Mordew is an unusual place.  The mud in the slums is living mud which births strange creatures at random, known as flukes. This is because of the corpse of God which is buried deep beneath the surface after it was murdered many many years ago.

Our hero is Nathan Treeves, a womb-born boy who has a spark inside him. This is a source of incredible power. The first we learn of this is when he can create his own flukes in the living mud rather than randomly fishing for them like all the other peasant children.  Unknown to him, forces are gathering that want to use his power and he soon finds himself an unwilling pawn in battles he struggles to understand.  He encounters new friendships, betrayal and double-crosses.

A lot of the individual ingredients in this are admittedly cliches of the genre - young boy with magical powers - check.  Family secrets - check. Magical spellbooks - check. Evil overlord - check. Or is the overlord evil or just misunderstood? - check.

However, the execution of the storytelling is really very good indeed. The prose is never less than a pleasure to read.  Before this book I never thought that a narration could feel so whimsical, almost twee in places, but have such a dark heart at the centre of it all. Nathan is a magical Oliver Twist, passed from pillar to post, conned and cheated and betrayed by the people he should trust.  Despite the familiarity of the concepts and the plot details in the story, I was constantly wrong-footed - and the ending of the novel itself left me begginig for more, which is always a very good sign.

 I'm not sure that the glossary at the end of the book is strictly necessary - the length of it cries a little of pretentiousness, but there are some really nice hints about future developments which make me want to get the next book in the trilogy even sooner.   

This is one of the more memorable books I've read this year and scores an easy 8/10.

I should have another GBP book on the way very soon and I can't wait.  They have a buddy scheme, where for less than the price of  a p[late of fish and chips a month, they send you every one of their books as they're released.  And that's a really good deal.  You can find them here.

 https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/ 

Alternatively, you can just buy the individual books as they come out.

Number 81 - Wyrd and Other Derelictions - Adam Nevill

 

The last book of my October horror marathon, and what better way to finish than the new collection by Adam Nevill?

I count three of Adam's novels in my top 5 scariest things ever written.  His short story Mother's Milk in his first collection - Some will not Sleep - guaranteed for me that the title of the collection was true.  It was a particularly vivid fever dream transplanted to the page.

This collection is an odd beast. Derelictions is a term that Adam uses for aftermaths. In this collection there are no characters, no living protagonists, no people, just the bodies left behind after a series of happenings.

The only other time I've seen anything like this is Ray Bradbury's story There Will Come Soft Rains from the  Martian Chronicles. That is my favourite Ray Bradbury story, and IMHO one of the best short stories ever written.

These aren't quite as successful as that (sorry Adam) but on the plus side - not as good as maybe the best short story I've ever read is in no way an insult. These are still more successful and more scary than a couple of the full length works I've read this (last) month.

These are mood pieces, and very creepy mood pieces at that. The reader is left to work out what caused the death and destruction we see dispassionately described in these tales. 

In each story we're taken on a journey over a detailed landscape (or shipscape) where violence has occured. In some cases it's still happening in the peripheral distance. That rather lovely creature on the front cover makes an appearance in one of the stories too.  

I think Low Tide was my favourite of the stories, but it's a close run thing as there are no real stand outs - for the best possible reason. The imagery throughout is nightmarish. the prose cold and precise as it describes the devastation left behind. The stories become larger in scale as you move through the book.  

We start with the description of an empty ship in Hippocampus. Next we see the result of a mass suicide/ritual slaughter for reasons unknown in Wyrd.  Turning the Tide features a seaside campsite where something has come from the sea and taken the unfortunate campers nearby. Enlivened takes us through a large manor house where something still lurks. Monument tells why it's a mistake to disturb the ancient monument you don't know is buried at the end of your garden - you and all your naeighbours are going to regret it. Low Tide features an uprising of assorted sea creatures, starting at a caravan park and moving on the nearby town.  In the final story - Hold the World in My Arms for Three Day and All Will Be Changed - it feels as though this is only a fraction of a planetwide phenomenon. 

All these are told in forensic detail. Occasionally we're given glimpses of the things that are committing these acts. In at least one story the acts are still in progress even though it's too late for the humans involved. The sense of dread never leaves the pages for a moment.

This is definitely a successful experiment for Mr Nevill and, while there isn't as much variation as in his other collections, it's still generates a fair few shudders on the way.

It's available through www.Adamnevill.com as a limited edition hardback, or through amazon in paperback and ebook format.