Number 71 - Obsidian Heart 1- The Wolves of London - Mark Morris

 

And on to the final book I started on my holiday last week and I'm all caught up.. One good thing about my hotel being a three-hour coach ride from the airport, it meant the last day I had those three hours plus the four-hour flight for uninterrupted reading.

This is the first part of a trilogy by Mark Morris. I thought from the title that it would be about werewolves, but I was extremely wrong.

Alex Locke is an ex-convict, working as a lecturer in a university twenty years after breaking away from the criminal underworld and making an honest living for himself. When his eldest daughter is threatened, he makes a desperate call to an old acquaintance from prison for help and finds himself pulled back into the life he has successfully evaded for decades.

He is forced to steal an artefact from an old man– the Obsidian Heart that gives the trilogy its title- but things go very wrong very quickly. He finds himself on the run, trying to just survive the pursuit from the Wolves Of London, a group of supernatural assassins, intent on obtaining the Heart for themselves.

The Obsidian Heart is more than just a decoration, it’s an object of extreme power, and Alex must figure out how to harness it, before things go too far out of control.

This is the third book I’ve read this month that mixes crime drama with the supernatural. It’s very different to the other two though. Like Relics, it starts with a good grounding in reality, but in this book, the fantastical elements are far more pronounced. 

The bad guys are genuinely nightmarish and the storyline is unpredictable once the "one last job" trope is past. The whole thing is compulsively readable (I did it in 2 days although I did have a LOT of spare time the second day) and very well written, We sympathise with Alex and his plight, and his quest to save his daughters feels heartfelt (sorry).

The only negative I have about this book is the lack of resolution to any of the lead plotlines at the end. I appreciate a cliffhanger ending, but I would have liked to see at least one plotline completed, or some questions answered. I know it's book one of a trilogy, and I have books 2 and 3 all ready and waiting on my shelves where it will all play out, but this didn't feel like an ending, just a springboard to book two.

Nothing is going to stop me reading book 2, as this was a damned good read and up there with the best I've read from Mark Morris. I just hope book 2 has a more satisfying ending.

Number 70- The Salt Grows Heavy - Cassandra Khaw

 

After reading Khaw's previous work, I felt somewhat frustrated.  I liked the writing but couldn't bring myself to love the book. Full thoughts on that book here. However, I decided to give them a second chance, especially with that cover...

A mermaid and her companion, a plague doctor, travel across a destroyed kingdom and encounter a group of children in the process of hunting and killing one of their own.

To say any more would be unfair.  This is a book that's best experienced completely cold without knowing any more than is on the blurb in the inside flap of the dustjacket.

I absolutely loved this book. The tricksiness of her prose style completely suits the weirdness of the subject matter and made this into the new best horror I've read this year by a long way.

I pretty much read this in one sitting.  It's compulsive, gruesome, deeply strange and you'll never watch/read/think about The Little mermaid in the same way ever again. It's beautiful and repulsive in equal measure. A strange hybrid of Mary Shelley, Hans Anderson and...

I can genuinely say I have never read anything quite like this and just cannot find the final comparison point to finish that last sentence. But it's something horrifically violent yet gorgeous to look at...

Some of the imagery is seared in my brain still, a week after finishing it. Her use of language is stunning throughout. Not one word is wasted in this novella and every phrase is calculated for maximum impact.

I'm almost tempted to give this a 10/10 since I can't pick a fault with it other than I wanted more... even though Khaw finishes it in a perfect place.

If you weren't convinced by Nothing but Blackened Teeth, give this a go.  This confirms Khaw as a major talent. I will 100% be buying everything else she releases now.

Number 69- the Devouring - FW Armstrong

 

Excuse my hairy leg creepng into the shot there, possibly the most horrific thing to have entered this blog in the past 4 years. The backdrop is a beach in Crete where I was on holiday last week, which is why I'm playing catch up on these posts.

FW Armstrong has appeared here once before with The Changing. Armstrong is a pen name for the usually very good indeed TM Wright. However, i recall finding the Changing to be greatly lacking, and sadly this is not much of an improvement.

Shortly after he failed entirely to save any lives in the Changing, our psychic detective Ryerson Biergarten gets mixed up in what starts out as apparent vampire attacks in the town of Buffalo. He also finds love with a fellow psychic and must save her somehow from the evil spreading through the town.

While I say this isn't much of an improvement on the Changing, it is an improvement. It's a very different take on the vampire story initially and morphs into something quite different by the ending.

However, he completely drops the ball on the ending and I have no real idea of how or why the evil was apparently stopped... there are major plot threads left hanging and not resolved.

It's difficult to take bits of this book seriously with character names like Irene Sabitch scattered around. There are almost no normal names in the entire book and it becomes distracting.

Saying this, it's not all bad. It's just a weak book by Wright's standards. The writing doesn't have his usual compelling draw but it's more than competently written. The concepts being played with are really quite disturbing. Although there is a major plotline left dangling, the final confrontation with Ryerson and the Big Bad is actually really tense and a genuinely good piece of horror writing. 

Ryerson appears in two books under Wright's real name (Goodlow's Ghosts and Ascension), and is a much better character in those.

This is probably a book best suited for TM Wright completists. 

Number 68 - Reborn - F Paul Wilson

 

Four books into the series, and finally we have an actual follow up novel to The Keep. I’ve also managed to keep to the same style of covers so far in this series because I just think these look like proper horror novels. I love the old 80s and 90s OTT artwork like this.

Set twenty six years after the events of the first book, the action moves to Long Island USA. Dr Roderick Hanley, millionaire geneticist, dies in a plane crash with his working partner. In his will he leaves a struggling writer, Jim Stevens, his mansion, and the vast majority of his estate.

More importantly, it solves a mystery Jim, who was adopted as a baby, has been struggling with his whole life- the identity of his birth father. Far from making his life easier though, it leads to more questions and some shocking revelations.

Meanwhile, his wife Carol has started having horrific dreams of torture and violence. Also, a disparate group of religious believers have received divine word that a great evil is coming. Led by a wandering monk, they form an alliance to fight it when and where it surfaces.

We finally have a returning character from book one as well.

This is just as good as the first three in the series that this was officially (at the time) part two of. The main characters are fleshed out nicely and they’re all believably flawed. When Carol makes a horrendously stupid decision at the midpoint of the book, we go with it, despite thinking she’s a complete idiot. As the story unfolds, there could be more to it though.

I’m not sure if it’s just because I was on holiday and trying to sleep in a strange bed, but while I was reading this, I was having deeply unsettled sleep, and this book was a definite part of my dreams including a persistent nightmare that I struggled to shake off for nearly an hour. It’s the first horror novel to invade my dreams quite so insidiously in I don’t know how long so it must be applauded for that.

There’s a very 1980’s debate near the end that truly dates the book even though the book is set in the late 60’s.

There are some completely unexpected character deaths, and this book never quite goes in the direction you think it will. By the end of the book, morality is so grey, that it’s hard to tell if the group fighting to stop the rebirth of what they believe to be the antichrist are the good guys or the bad guys.

That type of ambiguity sets this book apart for me and raises the whole thing significantly.

I loved it. My biggest regret is not buying these as they came out all those years ago.

Easily one of the best horror novels I’ve read this year.

Number 67- The Last Call of Mourning - Charles L Grant

Despite that romance novel cover, this is actually an early horror novel by Charles L  Grant.

Cynthia Yarrow has returned home to Oxrun Station from her year long travels in Europe to find that not all is right in her family. family heirlooms have gone missing, the estate they live on is increasing run down, and things seem odd in a way she can't quite pin down.

Then she finds she is being stalked around the town by the Greybeast- a limousine that chases her on numerous occasions, trying to run her off the road. The shop she is trying to open, to break free from reliance on the family money and prove herself as independent, is targeted. What dark forces are surrounding her and her family?

This is a very early novel by Grant. It's only the third of the Oxrun Station novels. It has many of Grant's strengths, the atmosphere is suitably creepy throughout, 

However, it's also one of his weaker novels. Plotting was not necessarily his greatest strength as a writer, and in this book, that's quite evident. Despite the fact that the clues are laid carefully throughout the story, the explanations when they come are something less than convincing. The mechanics of the solution just don't quite add up. The idea is good, but the execution it lacking.

It's also quite low on incident even for one of his novels.

There's a few deliciously creepy moments, a good car chase or two, and an intriguing concept hidden in there somewhere. It's just a bit pedestrian by the standards I've come to expect from Grant's fiction. As a completist, this was worth reading. If it was the first Charles Grant novel I'd read... I'm not sure I would read another. 

Number 66- Peter Crombie Vs the Grampires - Adam Millard

 I'm several books behind at t6he moment. the reason for this might be apparent in the backgrounds of the pictures in the next few posts.

This is the sequel to Peter Crombie Teenaged Zombie.  Peter is still a member of the undead, resurrected by his father who is still the leading mad scientist in town.

His best friend is still a vampire ghost and the really-not-his-type girl next door still has a major crush on him. 

What is new is that the monkey can talk and Count Dracula has moved into the local old folk's home and is creating an army of elderly vampires.

The scene is set for as epic a showdown as is possible in this sleepy little town.  Luckily, there's another stranger in town who might be able to help- if he can persuade people his name isn't Vannel Singh.

This is typical Adam Millard in younger readers mode, fast paced, funny and self referential.

He doesn't care about being politically incorrect, even in a book aimed at children.  This is packed full of the sort of comments that we read are being removed from Roald Dahl's children's books- particularly when referring to the attractiveness, or otherwise- of the neighbour girl, and her lithp. And it's all the funnier for it.

It's a quick easy read- as you'd expect from a children's book.  It's probably not a future classic of children's literature, but it's good fun with plenty of laughs to be found in the surrealist world he's created here.

Number 65 - Relics - Tim Lebbon

 I normally try to not read books that are too similar close together, but this is the second full novel in a row with a secret society of supernatural beings hiding in plain sight from humanity and called the Kin.

However, that's where any similarity ends between this and the Alan Baxter novel.  The difference in treatment between the two storylines could not be much starker.

Angela Gough lives a happy life with her boyfriend Vince in London. When he goes to work but fails to message her one morning, and doesn't respond to her messages, she starts to worry. When she finds a mysterious note from him telling her not to go looking for him, the worry turns to panic.  

She uses her talents as an investigative journalist to do exactly the opposite of what the note said, and her happy little world falls apart and expands in directions she never dreamed possible. Vince had a double life, trading in the remains of supposedly mythical creatures. Now his world has turned dangerous and Angela gets dragged into the terrifying underworld alongside him.

It's a lot more down to earth than Bound was with the similar plot details. It's much more of a horror novel than the James Bond with magic treatment in Alan's excellent novel. This is just as good. 

When we meet the happy couple in chapter one, theirs is a relationship we can believe in, So when it all seems to fall apart with his disappearance, Angela's search and panic ring true. 

Frequently, leaving plotlines open for the sequel can feel cheap and cheesy.  However, the ending of this book is so well handled it leaves me wanting more.  This was just the  introduction to a new fantasy world existing alongside our own. and it's a world I want to visit again sooner rather than later.  We've just scratched the surface in this first volume of the trilogy. 

This was my first Tim Lebbon novel, and he's easily joined the scarily long list of writers I need to get the whole back catalogue of.

Number 64 - The Plot Vol2

it's a week since I read this. Whoops. 

The second and final volume of this mini series. i probably should have skimmed through part one a second time before reading this one as I initially got quite confused. The non-linear storytelling didn't help much. 

After I re-acclimatised myself to the story and who was who though,  it was an entertaining read. The artwork is really very good indeed and the monster is the stuff of nightmares.

The family are still under attack from the ancient evil that possessed their ancestors. The thing in the  swamps wants its sacrifice.  Can they escape and break the family curse?

I'm not 100% convinced that an ancient evil that was on the land before the houses would have been destroyed in the way they do in the story, but your mileage may vary. 

It killed an hour quite nicely, and is a pretty thing to look at. It's no classic, but it's well worth seeking down and reading.

Not much more I can really say without straying into spoiler territory.

Number 63- Bound - Alan Baxter

 

My regular readers will recognise the name of Alan Baxter as I have reviewed his books several times and never found any of them wanting yet.

This is one of his earlier works and part one of a trilogy.

Alex Caine is a prize fighter in the underground fight circuit in Australia. He wins most of his fights due to an ability to see his opponent’s actions before they do it. That, combined with an almost supernatural speed, ensures he’s almost unbeatable. This lands him in trouble when a local crime lord orders him to throw a fight and he refuses.

At the same time, a mysterious Englishman tracks him down and claims to know his secret abilities. Eager to escape the guns of the crime lord, Alex flies with him to London to learn more. With his special vision, he’s asked if he can read a particularly ancient magical grimoire. The book binds itself to him and slowly but steadily tries to change him. Control of his life is important to Alex. Can he break the artifact’s hold on him before he loses himself to it forever?

“Fast-paced” barely begins to describe this book. A globe hopping adventure with magic, violence, and sex, often all at the same time, with wizards, world-wide conspiracies, ancient evils rising again, a glimpse at the supernatural creatures that live among us and give rise to many of the more enduring monster myths, and a pair of very human villains for Alex to deal with, this book gives us everything we could want in a fantasy adventure.

The quote on the front cover says it’s “Jack Reacher with a spell book” and that’s as good a description as any. It’s action-packed high stakes magical adventure, spanning continents in an attempt to save the world from an ancient evil.

If I hadn’t already known that Alan Baxter is a real-life black belt martial artist, I would have guessed from this book. He really knows how to write a good fight sequence. This book has some of the best fights I’ve read in decades.

It’s not a flawless book. The frenetic pace does mean that it falls prey to the narrative trap that he suddenly knows how to do everything far too quickly. Maybe it needed the literary equivalent of a training montage in the opening chapters rather than just reading a few books and knowing how to do it… but that’s just a minor quibble that didn’t impact my enjoyment.

The only thing that pulled me properly out of the story was when he paid for two double whiskies in a London pub and got change from a twenty-pound note… I’m fine with wizards and ancient gods and the rest of it, but that truly stretched the incredulity a touch too far. Even if it is set in 2014 when it was written, the barman should have been asking for the rest of the money

The characters are entertaining, the writing is never dull. There are even a couple of good horror moments thrown in there for good measure.

Alan Baxter seems to be a hugely versatile writer.  With the exception og the Gulp and the Fall (which are similar for very obvious reasons) all his books have felt very different to each other.  And all equally good.

This is crying out to be filmed. It would make such a great new franchise. Exotic locations and exciting action that feels original. In the meantime, it’s a great book and I can’t wait to read the sequel.

I bought the full trilogy signed direct from Alan himself through his website 

Alan Baxter - Warrior Scribe - Horror, dark fantasy, and weird fiction from multi-award-winning author, Alan Baxter.

Please do the same, let's not give Mr Bezos any more than we have to.

Number 62 - The Good Earth - Pearl S Buck

 This month's book group read was this relatively obscure novel from 1930. Pearl Buck grew up in China, the child of missionaries, and spent most of her life there. She taught in Chinese universities when she wasn't writing. As she says on the back cover of this rather old penguin edition, her chief pleasure  and interest had always been people, and since she lived amongst the Chinese, Chinese people.

This is a story of the Chinese, told in microcosm through the story of a farmer Wang Lung. Wang Lung was a peasant who bought a slave girl from a local great house to be his bride.  The bride, O-lan, sorts his house out, bears him lots of children, and her decisions are instrumental in his rags to riches story. 

I'm sure there are a lot of parallels and references I don't understand since my knowledge of Chinese history is sketchy at best.

This covers the life of the farmer from a desperately poor peasant in his twenties, working his fields, to his dotage as a very old man.  In that time he deals with droughts, villainous relatives, second wives and moody offspring.

What is quite disturbing in this book is the attitudes towards women.  If this was written by a man it would be somewhat unbelievable, but since it isn't, it's worrying how close, historically  speaking, this book is set. O-Lan is directly responsible for Wang-Lung's success.  All the decisions that instigate his rise in society come from her.

But he treats her like a slave and only shows concern when she falls ill. And then it's mainly worry about who will clean and tidy. he still criticises her for having too big feet.

The writing in the book makes no judgements on any of the characters though, even when Wang Lung starts cheating on his wife and spending all their money on his new woman. The writing remains impartial and arguably quite dry. The reader is left to judge the characters based on their actions and Wang Lung is frequently frustrating.

Her missionary background shows through in the prose.  It frequently reads like the King James Bible- "And thus it came to pass..." and similar phrasing used throughout.

One distinct flaw in the book is a classic case of Women Writing Men, where the motivations she ascribes to Wang Lung are totally unbelievable with regards to his love life.

It may be that that is down to an allusion to Chinese history that I've missed entirely, but without lots of research, I have no way of knowing. And I do have a life outside of reading and writing this blog.

Another thing that bugged me was how many children she had for him.  Even when they were living for a year in a lean-to made of a half a dozen mats slung against the wall of a great house in a city in the south, she still fell pregnant. Where were they finding alone time? They already had at least two children living with them (and Wang Lung's decrepit father). This is especially strange given the revelation in chapter one that no person had seen Wang Lung unclothed for several years. It seems that his shyness must have evaporated somewhere down the line.

This is an absorbing and interesting (if occasionally frustrating) read throughout. I'm glad I read it and I'm tempted to find the sequels.

It's available from most good bookshops and online in much more recent versions.  Although this edition does win the best smelling book I've read this year by a country mile.