Adrian Collins's Blog, page 138

REVIEW: The Shadow Glass by Josh Winning

If you ever danced with the Goblin King, if you cried when Artax died, if you were a little bit scared of skesis when you were young – then The Shadow Glass will have you pumping your fist and grinning like an idiot. This book was a love story to the wonderful, imaginative things I grew up with, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

Jack is the son of Bob Corman, an eccentric who made a cult classic fantasy movie called The Shadow Glass. As an adult Jack has been estranged from his father, who wasn’t the most present of parents. He hates Bob’s movie, as in his mind it represents everything that is wrong in his relationship with his dad. When Bob dies, Jack decides to sell the memorabilia from the cult classic film but plans abruptly come crashing down as he learns that the fantasy puppets are no longer only puppets. Somehow, they’ve become flesh and blood heroes and villains in a war that has spilled from fantasy into reality.

Jack is a very real, relatable character. The justified anger and bitterness he feels toward his dad is juxtaposed by a sense of responsibility and a fondness for his dad’s movie that he has pushed down over the years. He both loves and resents his dad’s creation, much as he both loves and resents his dad. The characters he interacts with showcase different aspects of his character and allow for development and change. The no-longer-puppets Zavanna and Brol bring so much to the book (I loved Brol in particular), and the superfans are a blast.

There are subtle nods to 80s pop culture throughout The Shadow Glass, which is just awesome. Far from distracting from the story, these little details brought that amazing sense of nostalgia to the fore, putting a smile on my face. The sense of excitement I got from seeing the name “Toby” is hard to explain (if you know, you know). I would love to chat with the author, to see if I caught all the references.

From the characters to the storyline, every word was perfectly placed. The Shadow Glass was a delightful smorgasbord of nostalgia and fun, while at the same time exploring themes of loss, love, grief, and self-discovery. I know- I didn’t think it was possible to cram all of that into one book, but author Josh Winning did it beautifully. The balance between fantasy action and extremely well-written character development is perfect. The battles and madcap adventures are a brilliant backdrop for a profound look at how broken relationships can affect every part of a person. Parts of the book had me on the edge of my seat and I actually teared up at one point.

The Shadow Glass is sheer perfection. Read it.

Read The Shadow Glass by Josh Winning

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REVIEW: Blood Reaver by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

In Blood Reaver the Night Lords traitor legion is starving. Ammunition is almost non-existent, stalling their ability to persecute the Long War against the Imperium. They hunger for the hunt, but lack the tools to do so. That is, until Talos and First Claw finally torture the right person who knows the location of Ganges, where the Mechanicus and Marines Errant store a treasure trove of munitions that will keep the hunt full for a long, long time.

Blood Reaver continues the enthralling story of Talos and his First Claw, of their squad’s inner struggle against the Exalted and those losing their humanity to the denizens of the Warp, of the humans who live and work enslaved beside them. Centuries of war with little or no replenishment, mixed with vicious infighting has also left their ranks leaner than ever before. But the Exalted has a plan, and it requires a momentary truce between Talos and what he hates most about what his legion is becoming.

The introduction to Blood Reaver just brings out that cool AF factor that Dembski-Bowden is so good at. Over ten thousand Night Lords gathered in one place—members of a Legion known for going it alone in smaller war bands—together in one location, just grants so much scope to the story we left behind in Soul Hunter. And that’s just the opening.

Blood Reaver is a slower book than its predecessor, but provides a heavier focus on character and character development, and for that this book is stronger. It has what feels like less action, but far more emotional involvement in far more people. And somehow, Dembski-Bowden has jammed in even more awesomeness into this book than the last one.

In Blood Reaver we are introduced to Huron Blackheart, a Chaos warlord leading the traitor chapter (not to be mistaken for a far larger and older traitor Legion) the Astral Claws. Huron is all kinds of bad arse awesome, and is kicking off a crusade, and the stealth hunting tactics of First Claw and the other Night Lords are key to his plan. Only, he has something Talos wants, and is unlikely to want to give it. Huron is an excellent character, and serves both as the immovable force driving the overarching story forwards, and one of the many big bads of the Warhammer 40K universe. This book is worth a read for Huron, alone.

The other members of First Claw and the supporting staff, however, are the anti-heros of this book. Their inner hate, old rivalries, misunderstood ugliness, punishments, callousness, and sometimes–yes sometimes–their heroics and self sacrifice are what makes this book, and this story, unputdownable. From the lowliest human hound to the loftiest, angriest traitor space marine, these characters are well worth investing in.

Blood Reaver is a study in anti-heroes, in being caught up in the unstoppable wave, in backstabbing and treachary, and in sacrifice for others. A magnificent extension of this dark military space opera that will have you scrabbling for book three before you’ve even finished.

Read Blood Reaver by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

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An interview with S.A. Barnes

Also writing under Stacey Kade, S.A. Barnes is a published author across multiple genres. She was kind to chat with GdM about her life and writing. Her latest Dead Silence from Nightfire Books released on February 8, 2022. A tale of “psychological horror and hallucinogenic madness,” you can read our complete review of Dead Silence here.

Dead Silence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">[GdM] Your previous written books published under Stacey Kade feature contemporary and YA elements. What inspired you to branch out into horror?

[SAB] I didn’t set out to write horror, believe it or not. I thought I was writing a (very tense and creepy) science fiction thriller! That being said, I love horror. It is one of the first genres I discovered as a kid when I was allowed to wander into the adult section of the library—Stephen King, VC Andrews, Dean Koontz, etc.

So, it doesn’t surprise me that those influences seeped into my brain and shaped my efforts to write this book.

[GdM] What aspects of horror fascinate you the most?

[SAB] For me, it’s always about the people. No matter what creature/killer/unknown evil force is chasing the characters, it’s always about their human weaknesses and flaws and trying to overcome them in the face of absolute danger. That struggle to be the better version of themselves.

And, on the flip side, my favorite horror stories are about how we—humans—are our own worst enemies. For example, in Aliens (LOVE that movie), it’s not the aliens I was most angry with but Paul Reiser’s character, Burke, for being all about the money. He was willing to sacrifice Ripley and Newt because of greed, and that just feels so much worse.

[GdM] Did any of your childhood fears find its way into Dead Silence?

[SAB] Oh, definitely. I have to be careful here because of spoilers, but the scene where Claire falls asleep in the cabin is drawn directly from a childhood fear. Actually, if I’m being honest, a fear that still exists today!

[GdM] Is there a horror author you’re specifically inspired by?

[SAB] Stephen King has been a huge influence my whole life, even before I knew I wanted to be a writer. But specifically, I loved his book, On Writing, as I was trying to figure out what I was doing as a writer. I still refer back to it regularly. (Though I would imagine he would be dismayed to hear this, given my continuing use and love of adverbs!)

[GdM] You work in a high school library, have there been any noticeable changes in what people are reading now?

[SAB] It’s interesting, people like to complain about kids being on their phones all the time, but I see students reading books—actual paper books—daily. They definitely prefer print, even if it means waiting on hold for a physical copy of a book instead of an immediately available e-book.

Book Tok has been a big influence on what titles students are requesting, which is cool because we’re seeing some authors/books that students may not have otherwise known about or been interested in.

I also see the effects of what’s being called a horror renaissance, in that when we were trying to put together a display, our supernatural/horror section was practically empty. All checked out!

[GdM] In Dead Silence, six hundred and fifty people had vanished on the once luxury spaceliner, the Aurora. The ship lost for more than twenty years until Claire and her team stumble up on it. Why choose space as the setting?

[SAB] I find space absolutely fascinating, along with our endeavors to live in/work in/explore it. It’s been interesting to watch all the strides made as space exploration shifts to private industry endeavors. For better or worse. (I have strong feelings on this, which is probably fairly obvious in the book!)

But from a purely practical standpoint, space is just an excellent setting for amping up tension and making the situation more difficult for our characters. If there’s a serial killer or evil clown in your basement, you can at least try to run, but in space? On a ship? There’s nowhere to go. Plus, there are all these restrictions we have to work around (zero-grav) and ways in which space can kill you without help from any outside force (faulty life support systems, etc.)

[GdM] The magnificence of the ship Aurora now turned graveyard creates a chilling ambience even before Claire ventures inside. Was creating such a strong atmospheric presence your original intention?

[SAB] Oh, heck yes! That was the part of the story I knew first. They find this ship and end up wandering through it, the rooms frozen in time. There’s something so eerie and compelling about places that have every sign of human habitation, but no humans. Abandoned amusement parks, Pompeii, Pripyat (near Chernobyl).

They feel haunted, even without a supernatural presence.

[GdM] You took particular care in not only detailing Claire and her team, but also the lost passengers from the Aurora. Were any lost passengers inspired by real events?

[SAB] I’m obsessed with the Titanic. I drew heavily on the idea that the Aurora would similarly be populated by the wealthy and famous. I had some fun with determining who would be famous and why, so you’ve got influencers on the ship, athletes, movie stars, and royalty. I particularly enjoyed writing the Dunleavys.

[GdM] Were there any characters either from Claire’s team or from the lost Aurora cut from the final version?

[SAB] Actually, no. Claire’s team and the passengers on the Aurora remained mostly the same. If anything, I added more passengers to the Aurora to give a broader sense of who was on board and the scale of the wealth and fame involved.

[GdM] Claire has a well-documented history of psychosis. Throughout the novel, she struggles to distinguish between actual events and her hallucinations. I love how we are never sure how much we can trust her. What inspired you to write such an unreliable narrator?

[SAB] Hmm. Is it psychosis or does she really see ghosts? That is the angle I was looking to play up. Because I’m very interested in the nature of our shared reality. In other words, reality is a mutually agreed upon decision. We point at something and call it “red,” for example, but I have no idea what you’re seeing versus what I’m seeing.

And how we treat someone who perceives reality outside that “norm” seems to depend on our own comfort level. We believe someone who talks to people who aren’t there is likely a person in need of treatment for mental illness. But someone who claims to see the future or talk to the dead can offer those services for payment, and we don’t bat an eye. (Clearly, the level at which these things disrupt a person’s life and make treatment necessary is a factor; I’m just interested in why some out-of-the-norm experiences are deemed acceptable, and some aren’t.)

Also, from a reader standpoint, I was curious why, if mediums exist now, why are they not represented in the future? Where are all the ghosts in the future?

But yes, I absolutely wanted people to be uncertain about what’s actually happening in Claire’s mind. Because Claire herself feels that way and I think the most terrifying thing of all is not being able to trust your own judgement, your own perceptions of what’s happening around you. I think our collective grasp on reality is far more tenuous than any of us would like to believe.

[GdM] Mental illness can be so easily misrepresented in media. What preparations were involved or how did you approach this aspect of Claire’s character?

[SAB] I did some research on PTSD, but I also drew heavily on my own experiences with clinical anxiety. I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder with OCD, and I spent years fighting it, trying to manage it myself before I realized I needed help. It was only when my anxiety was on the verge of taking over was I able to see that I couldn’t do it on my own, that if I didn’t get some help anxiety/OCD would become my whole life. (Years of therapy and, more recently, meds have made an enormous difference.)

I think Claire wrestles with some of the same issues I did—not being sure if she can trust her own judgment, not wanting people to treat her differently because of her mental health struggles, working to accept that this is part of who she is but not her entire identity.

[GdM] Where there any parts that were difficult to write?

[SAB] The beginning. I wrote the opening chapters a half a dozen times even before official revisions with my editor. At one point, it opened with a POV chapter from Reed Darrow. I scrapped that pretty quickly, but I learned from it, so it wasn’t a completely wasted effort.

For me, writing a book always feels like a complicated dance, and you have to start on the right foot or the whole thing is off.

[GdM] What are your future writing projects?

[SAB] I have a couple ideas in process right now. The first is another science fiction horror story, set on a planet where isolation, perpetual darkness, and proximity to eerie ancient ruins start to affect our characters…or maybe it’s something more.

The other is a more straight-forward horror story involving middle school friendships, backstabbing, and, you know, demons. It’s about the trauma we inflict on each other at that particular age and how it follows us—literally sometimes—into adulthood.

Read Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

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REVIEW: Rush #3 by Simon Spurrier

The tension gets seriously cranked up in The Rush #3 from Simon Spurrier and team. Things are going all kinds of crazy in the boomtown of Brokehoof for the intrepid Nettie as the search for her missing son heats up. After the major cliffhanger ending of the previous issue, where we were left with a heinous, spectacularly gory murder at the talons of an unspeakable and inhuman horror I couldn’t wait to crack the cover on this next chapter. And it seriously delivered. Within the mad, frozen, bloody pages of The Rush there is no shortage of danger that’s for certain and right out the gate Nettie must stare insanity square in the face—faces, actually. We find that the gold lust that sinks its claws into the treasure seekers of the north can drive them to violence at the blink of an eye, and Nettie is forced to flee for her life when it comes to light the claim her son had been working might be profitable.

This is where things in The Rush take what could generously be considered a turn for the worse, which is saying something given how fraught with danger, violence, and madness everything has already been. But this is also the first issue of The Rush where, I suppose you could say, things stop hiding. We’ve been treated to the occasional taste of the terrible hidden things preying on the poor bastards seeking their fortune in the snow, but it’s not until here in issue three that we’re treated to some seriously stunning shots of what kinds of nightmares we’re dealing with. In particular, there’s a certain splash page near the midway point of the book that’s absolutely mind blowing.

I’ve lauded the art team of The Rush before, how they’re able to convey so much emotion. How the blood and action pops off the page. But this particular splash, it’s…I stared at it for a few minutes. It’s gripping. Beautiful, even, and maybe even a little bit unsettling. For all that, in particular here there’s a narrative device that’s been threaded throughout the previous issues but which comes to add a serious gravity to the story of The Rush here and that’s the snippets of letters Nettie is writing to her missing son Caleb. Through them her grief and heartbreak is made tangible, along with her single-minded desperation to find her child.

Combined with Simon Spurrier’s natural ability to string dialogue along, it creates a compelling read that has thoroughly sunk its hooks into me. I’ve caught the glittering gold fever for The Rush and cannot wait for the next installment, with issue three earning itself four stars like the previous—verging very close to five. Time will tell. This is shaping up to be an unforgettable story.

Read Rush #3 by Simon Spurrier

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REVIEW: All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes

All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes is a survivalist horror novel set in Antarctica around the time of the First World War. After the death of his two brothers on the front, Jonathan Morgan is drawn to join the expedition of the great explorer James Australis Randall to the South Pole – though things start going awry rather quickly. It is situated squarely in the middle between historical thriller, focussed on keeping the main characters alive until the end of the story, and supernatural horror story, concerned with the strange and uncanny events that occur as part of the ordeal. This means All the White Spaces is likely to appeal to both a traditional horror/SFF audience and one that may come to this through other avenues.

Apart from the many other things I liked about this book, my favourite element was how casually queer it is in a time where this was much less commonplace than it is today. Jonathan Morgan, the main character, is a trans man. He is generally not out to the rest of the crew, and spends much of his energy worried about discovery – but being trans is only one aspect of his character, far from being his whole story. Oh, and he also happens to be gay. Which is just as much a taboo in the context of the book’s setting, so there’s that. This is handled really well, and made All the White Spaces a very positive reading experience for me.

However, the book as a whole is far slower paced than I expected from where it fits in terms of genre, and I felt that it dragged a bit in the middle parts. The story ultimately focusses more on character and the space where survival, grief and madness might interact than driving the mystery forward in a systematic way, and that is a strong factor in how well this story will work for you. The characters are well-developed and shine, especially as they are put in situations where they can only rely on themselves and their own wits for survival – which always brings out the true depths of someone’s personality. As this is set in a military and exploratory environment, the story features only male characters, which is quite unusual these days, but makes for interesting dynamics between the individual characters. And these dynamics and interactions are the strongest feature of All the White Spaces. So all in all, not a perfect book, but a very interesting one that I think will appeal to a lot of readers!

Read All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes

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REVIEW: The Spine of Night

I’ve just come back from a trip. It wasn’t entirely long, but it was certainly very strange, and I won’t be forgetting it any time soon. The Spine of Night is a surreal, blood-soaked fever dream of epic proportions that recalls esoteric animated classics like 1981’s Heavy Metal Ralph Bakshi’s animated adaptation of Lord of the Rings. It unfolds a fantastical and outrageously violent saga throughout the course of its runtime, a story that touches on at times deeply philosophical themes of truth, knowledge, and the futility of existence. At times, The Spine of Night is even profoundly nihilistic—but also beautiful, and thoughtful.

Ultimately, though, The Spine of Night is a series of stories interwoven together to create a larger narrative with a certain element as its central theme, or the core which all the players and other elements revolve. We are shown the stories of multiple characters, their tragedies and tribulations, as they suffer and survive in a magical, yet grim, world over the course of centuries. Most all of the individual stories are tragic in nature, with the struggles of the characters oftentimes feeling like they amount to nothing. They fight and scrape and often succumb to awful, violent ends. Perhaps, though, their struggle is a metaphor for something greater—an observation of the bigger picture of existence, universal existence, examined through the lens of intimate conflicts. Because that is a strong theme which runs throughout the The Spine of Night, the ultimate point of existence. What purpose our lives serve in the grand scheme of things in a reality where colossal gods and unbelievable magic exists. What value does a single human life hold in such a world? Or even a city full of humans, toiling away the days of their lives? It’s heady stuff, to be sure.

Beyond the sometimes heavy message woven through The Spine of Night, the movie itself is a joy to behold with lushly painted scenery and backgrounds as well as fantastic character and concept design. The art, all around, is simply excellent. So too is the voice acting, with The Spine of Night featuring a number of serious names in the voice acting department such as Lucy Lawless, Patton Oswald, and a number of others. Everyone is delivering a solid performance as well, fully investing themselves in their characters and bringing them to life. It all comes together to create an immensely enjoyable experience. There’s honestly not enough well-crafted, well thought out animation coming from western studios these days, which makes The Spine of Night all the more exceptional. We need more like this, more stories told through the unique lens of animation with its limitless potential. If you’re a fan of animation, of fantasy, of thoughtful stories that might leave you wondering at your place in existence, I cannot recommend The Spine of Night enough and feel very confident giving it a solid four out of five stars.

Watch The Spine of Night

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REVIEW: Scorpica by G.R. Macallister

Scorpica is the Kirkus starred epic fantasy debut novel from G.R. Macallister, although readers may have come across her before writing historical fiction as Greer Macallister. The first novel in The Five Queendoms trilogy it is a gritty matriarchal world that I had a great time reading, so thank you very much to Titan and Ms Macallister for the opportunity to read and review Scorpica.

I will say from the outset that I loved Scorpica, it is dark, unflinchingly violent, full of political scheming, sorcery, and swordplay so it was instantly appealing to me. But it also had some wonderful representations of love, loyalty, friendship, and family. Also as a matriarchal fantasy world it is something I have not come across in adult fantasy fiction before. Scorpica has characters that I loved and that I loathed. I was never entirely sure who to trust, and it was fantastic that all these characters women. As a fan of fantasy I know there are some great characterisations of women out there, but with a few exceptions female characters are the minority. It was so refreshing to have a novel where this was not the case and there were moments in it where I paused reading and thought “I absolutely relate to that and I’ve had that from a fantasy book before”. Scorpica is not a typical grimdark novel, but it definitely ticks a lot of the grimdark boxes, and I thought it was brilliant.

Macallister maintains a relentlessly fast pace in Scorpica and the plot moves very swiftly. It has an ensemble cast representing each of the five Queendoms in this world. Just over half of the gripping narrative is focussed on Scorpica, the titular military Queendom, but there are also the agricultural Sestia, academic Bastian, mercantile Paxim, and the magical Arcan which form the rest of the world. The main event that Scorpica focuses on is ‘the Drought of Girls’ a mysterious curse that has made all the children born into the Five Queendoms male. This ‘drought’ is the catalyst of political turmoil, destabilising the world and threatening all of the queens.

Macallister’s style was sometimes a little abrupt, it is not particularly lyrical and there are no vast swathes of descriptive prose or unnecessary dialogue. Everything that is written in Scorpica is purposeful and sharp, so close attention should be paid as even key information will not be repeated. Each of the Queendoms were clearly defined, and the characters were engaging. It is a completely unpredictable novel and Macallister held my attention to the very last page. The novel has created a strong foundation for the rest of the trilogy and I am excited to learn more about the Queendoms that have not featured so prominently in this debut.

My only criticism of Scorpica is that I wish it had been longer. Not just because I loved the world, but because at points it felt like the fast pace sacrificed some of the depth. The narrative covers fifteen years of action, alludes to five hundred years of peacetime history, the turmoil before that, and has a pantheon of new gods to explore. Although all this is explored in some way in Scorpica, at just over four hundred pages long, Macallister has not been able to cover it in as close detail as I would have liked. I am hopeful that the future installments will go into greater detail. Scorpica has certainly whetted my appetite to learn more and in it Macallister has created a world that I am excited to return to. Scorpica is a unique creation that is both beautiful and brutal and I was invested from the first chapter. I genuinely cannot predict what will happen next in the trilogy but I look forward to finding out. 4/5.

Read Scorpica by G.R. Macallister

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REVIEW: Scorch by Jesse Teller

A fresh new series by Jesse Teller, Scorch tells a story from two distinct perspectives. While we see shadows of his great epic The Madness Wars, this story is much smaller in scale and scope, but no less entertaining.

Our story takes place after The Madness Wars, but one doesn’t need to have read that series to fully enjoy this tale. It occurs in a separate part of the continent, and the references back to the larger series are subtle enough to serve as Easter eggs for the returning reader.

Tack is a young man that hasn’t found his place in the world, though he seems to be moving constantly in its pursuit. He’s an expert with the bow, or so he thinks until he starts training with the Ramblers, a small group of mercenaries that have taken on the duty of protecting the Queen of Syphere from all dangers, including the King. The training program he’s put through by the commander of the Ramblers, Xaxamire FyFy, proves to be much more than he bargains for.

“’At this point, the punishment I have thought up scares even me.’” – Xaxamire

Trap is the warlord sent to the city of Scorch to reclaim the Queen by order of the King himself, Ambush. He has a personal vendetta and rivalry with Xaxamire, as the mage had come close to killing him, leaving Trap stuck with a bronze hand (the spell had been intended to transform Trap entirely).

Fast-paced and much quicker in plot movement than previous works, Scorch moves along through the trials of Tack and frustrations of Trap. Along the way we meet some interesting characters, most notably the Ramblers, each of whom has a unique animal familiar or mount bonded with them that increases their battle abilities manyfold. Kelleck rides a huge hyena, and Sarc rides a giant fire ant, and then there is Tyson and his rather unexpected mount:

“’The most loyal of horse will carry you until the day it dies. The most well-trained horse will carry you until the moment it dies. But the greatest of the loyal, the greatest of the trained, will carry you when it has died and refuse to leave you no matter its decay, no matter its bones, and when those bones crumble to powder, the highest of loyal will serve you as a ghost.’” – Tyson

Scorch is a lot of fun, and is a promising first book of a new series set in the world of Perilisc., The Burden of Beasts. Jesse Teller has done it again with his unique take on the fantasy genre, delivering one gut punch after another as the players move through the scenes.

Read Scorch by Jesse Teller

 

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REVIEW: The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong

Have you ever thought about running away from everything and joining the circus? Would it have affected your decision if the circus was on an alien moon in another solar system? If this creates visions of four-armed, alien acrobats and insectoid psychics in your mind, then you have a good idea of the fascinating universe that Khan Wong creates in The Circus Infinite.

This is the situation in which we find Jes, the empathic protagonist, who is superstitious on a spiritual level. He has just escaped from a high-security research laboratory called The Institute, and is trying to hide amongst the denizens of the 9-Star Congress of Conscious Worlds. Specifically, the pleasure moon Persephone-9.

This is where Jes finds the Cirque Kosmiqa, a sci-fi version of Cirque du Soleil, filled with folks who take an immediate interest in Jes’s unique powers. In a universe where it is quite common for folks to have telepathy, accurate fortune telling, and all sorts of natural abilities, Jes is unique. He can alter gravity, an ability that sets him apart. This is a both a gift and a detriment, because it is the same thing that drives the Institute to hunt him down and lock him up for experimentation and vivisection.

Khan weaves a masterful tale in The Circus Infinite. He presents the story in the present tense, and intermixes numbered chapters with named chapters that are all flashbacks to Jes’s youth. His world building extends to nine different alien races who inhabit a galaxy that is brought together socially by a sentient star. He addresses the social dynamics of the different races and how they interact with each other. All the while tackling issues like the life of mixed breeds, various aspects of xenophobia, and a society that is both open and accepting while being close minded at the flip of a coin.

The Circus Infinite is at it’s basest nature a coming of age story that focuses on Jes while he discovers just who he is and what makes him tick. He comes to terms with several aspects of himself, and discovers how far he can be pushed when the wrong people learn of his abilities and take every chance to use him in nefarious ways.

Wong’s debut novel isn’t the type of story you can sum up in one word. It is fascinating and thought provoking. The Circus Infinite is beautifully written, the characters are both exotic and familiar, and the story is the sort that glues the book to your hands.

Read The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong

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An interview with John Birmingham

Over the years, John Birmingham has had his finger in many pies. He is an author that has penned over 30 books that run the gamut from humor to military science fiction. Recently he has released his second novel, The Shattered Skies, in his wild sci-fi space opera The Cruel Stars trilogy. In The Cruel Stars, a group of ragtag fighters come together and battle against fascists in space.

John was kind enough to sit down with me and discuss his writing career and his newest series, The Cruel Stars.

[GdM] You have a degree in International Relations; if you had decided not to be a writer, what would you have done with that education?

Nothing good, I’m afraid. I started my working life as a researcher for the defence department. One of my flatmates and good friends from that time is now the secretary of the department. His fingerprints are all over that recent nuclear submarine deal. I imagine if I had stayed in my original lane that’s the sort of shenanigans I would’ve been up to.

[GdM] When you were first published in the Semper Floreat at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, was that the moment you got the writing bug?

Oh no, I had it years before. I think I had it almost as soon as I learned to write in primary school, but I remember applying myself to the work of writing when I was in high school. I’d sit up late, like really late, on school nights, copying out huge slabs of text from books that I really liked. I was trying to reverse engineer them, to see how they worked. I learned later that Hunter S Thompson did the same thing with William Faulkner. So maybe I shouldn’t be too embarrassed by it.

[GdM] You have stated that you started as a horror writer and were heavily influenced by Stephen King, and reading your catalog, you can see a lot of that in the Dave Hooper series. I have to ask about your first horror novel. What was the premise, and is your first horror book still located at the State Library of New South Wales?

Hahahaha. I can’t remember the exact premise of the book, but I do know it was a terrible and embarrassing homage to Stephen King’s The Stand. An end of the world novel with demons. I guess, given how the Dave Hooper series turned out, the rotten apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. But God, that handwritten first high school novel was hot, shameful garbage. Anybody who’s in Sydney can feel free to drop into the state library and read it in it’s original hand written form. Especially young writers. They would see then that there is nothing magical about being a published novelist.

[GdM] Tell me a bit about your site Cheeseburger Gothic. I would love to know how it got its name and the story of how it started.

The origins of the name are lost to time, I’m afraid. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they had something to do with that old TV series, American Gothic. I quite liked it. And I really like cheeseburgers. So, you know…

It started as a diary on an old blog site called journalspace, and I do remember I started writing there because a guy called Steve Murphy had written a review of Weapons of Choice on his journalspace blog. He picked me up on a couple of egregious technical errors, which was fair enough. But otherwise the review was really nice. I guess it drew me into that community.

[GdM] I have a friend from Sydney who introduced me to Falafel, the play, and the movie. Could you talk a bit about He Died with a Felafel in His Hand and how that came about?

I was working at a magazine called The Independent Monthly, and we were quickly going out of business. The deputy editor took me aside one day and said he had this plan to spin up a publishing company. He wondered if I could write him a funny book as a stocking stuffer for the Christmas market. I shrugged and told him that I had a few flatmate stories, and we were off to the races. It was weird, really. I took it on like a magazine commission, rather than a book. And it totally died in the arse when it came out. Nobody bought that fucking thing for about six months, but there was this one guy an independent book distributor, who really liked it and who kept a box in the back of his car, forcing it onto bookstores everywhere he went. After six months it took off. I reckon that guy was the reason.

[GdM] How has your writing changed from the days of Falafel to now? Is it the same process?

My process has been, er … refined. It had to be. I had no process when I started. I wrote Felafel in five weeks, mostly after midnight,  on cheap red wine, hot chips and amphetamines. It sounds cool, but it wasn’t. It was stupid and unsustainable. I’m all about the time management now. Pomodoro technique, Cal Newport’s  deep focus, all of that shit. I try to write, and I mean write, not ditz about on Twitter, for at least four hours a day, every day. I track my time. I block my access to social media. I try to know what I’m going to write before I write it, and I execute on that plan like a motherfucker.

[GdM] Reading Falafel and Stranger Thingies, you seem like a man who can find the funny in every situation—even dark ones. How do you approach comedic writing? How do you take something dark and see the humor in it?

To be honest, I don’t know. I don’t know why I see the humour in things, or maybe that I can simply extract the humour in things and put it on the page or the screen, when others can’t. When I realised that I could do something that would earn a bit of money I even tried studying it, buying how-to books by comedians and comic authors. I can tell you mechanically why something is funny, but not why some people are able to engineer those lulz on the screen or onstage and others aren’t.

[GdM] Is it true that you wrote your David Hooper series because the Movie Reign of Fire pissed you off so much?

Yes. Yes it is. I was promised helicopter gunships versus dragons, and I was really looking forward to seeing some dragons get their asses kicked. I was gravely disappointed.

[GdM] How many years have you practiced Jujitsu? Has that helped you create and choreograph your fight scenes?

I first started training in my early 20s, for a very sad reason. A friend of mine was murdered. I felt bad I hadn’t been there for her, but I also knew that if I had, I probably would have been killed too. I’ve been training on and off, ever since, whenever I can find a good Dojo. I went about 12 years in Sydney without training at all because the nearest Dojo was four hours away. I got back into it when my kids were old enough to train, about 4 and 6 respectively.

And yes, it really does help with writing fight scenes. A lot of the training we do in our school is scenario based. Fights in stairwells. Attacks in train carriages. That sort of thing. It’s nice being able to understand how the angles work. Although, to be honest, most fights in real life are over within two seconds. And they’re not particularly pretty to look at. But that’s not the sort of thing which sells books or movies.

[GdM] You have many strong female characters in the Cruel Stars. Women who kick-ass, have swagger, and lead teams of warriors. I also read you have a daughter you are training to be “an unstoppable killing machine of death when she leaves home.” In science fiction, women used to be portrayed as insipid and weak. They would rather scream than beat the monster. Are there any female characters you thought were watershed moments for science fiction? For me, it was Ripley’s “get away from her, you Bitch.”

Yeah, Ripley is acknowledged as occupying an inflection point in popular culture. She is hugely significant. But there were female characters before her, and obviously there have been plenty since. It’s almost a whole genre now. I think the Doctor Who companion Leela was really important in her own way. And obviously Buffy the Vampire Slayer wrote a whole new rulebook. Pity about Joss Whedon, though, innit.

[GdM] The second book in the Cruel Stars series drops this month called Shattered Skies. Can you explain a bit about the series for the uninitiated and some things we get to look forward to in Shattered Skies?

Hmm, lets see. There are space Nazis, space zombies, which the space Nazis created, to overthrow the ruthless corporate space empires. There’s space lesbians, space marines, angry robots, a Princess, a 700 year old foulmouthed Scotsman, and a young woman called Lucinda who’s in over her head. Until she starts shooting people, and then she’s way more chill. The space Nazis turned up in The Cruel Stars, and they broke a lot of things and hurt a lot of people, but the lesbians, the Princess, the Scotsman, the angry robot and Lucinda opened a whole can of whoopass on them. There’s more whoopass in book two. And consequences. So many consequences.

[GdM] Was it a unique challenge to write The Cruel Stars with characters who lived such long lives due to recorded consciousness? A character now might not have been the same person 400 years ago.

That was less the challenge than a provocation. This particular trope has been worked over a couple of times now by authors as good as Peter F Hamilton. So I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel, I just wanted to gaffer tape some really wicked blades to it.

[GdM] You do highly detailed research in your books. What are some technology rabbit holes you went down in researching Cruel Skies?

Machine intelligence and neural nets. Like, actual wiring in the brain. Elon Musk is deep into that shit, and with good reason. He’s worried about the machine singularity. At one point I found myself reading, re-reading and taking notes on this insane 45,000 word essay deep diving into Musk’s Neuralink project. And then I would remind myself, dude, just write the book.

[GdM] What are you writing or have going on at the moment?

The third and final book in the series, natch. The Forever Dead. And some screenwriting, which I can’t talk about, because screen guys are really uptight. But for my own amusement, I have been playing with a TV adaptation of The Cruel Stars. I’ve also been working on a new Axis Of Time series, over on my Patreon page. That should start coming out on Audible sometime in the next six months. And I have an idea for some crime novels. It’s enough to be getting on with.

Read The Shattered Skies by John Birmingham

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