Maya Panika's Blog, page 8

Review: The Secret of Ji: Six Heirs

by Pierre Grimbert

3/4 stars

It’s the first of a series, so the end is not an end. That said, this is a thoroughly entertaining fantasy read with a nice central concept, good characters – a pleasant mix of well-wrought personalities that I cared about, I wanted to know what was going to become of them all. There’s plenty of myth and magic, but with with a light touch, none of the usual high-blown Fantasy nonsense.

It is rather slow to start and doesn’t pick up much pace along the way – which is fine if, like me, you enjoy a bit of world building and getting to know the characters. It keeps you reading, it keeps you thinking. My only true gripe is with the descriptions of time. The author has invented his own calendar and clock for his world. The calendar is rather fine, with Days of the Sun and Water and Owl and so on. Time in general is given in millidays, decidays, Dekades, and so on. There’s a glossary of terms that explains it all and… I appreciate this as part of Pierre Grimbert’s world building process, but I found it unnecessary and more than a bit irritating. It didn’t ruin the book for me, it’s not a `biggie’, but the thing would definitely have been better without it.

In short, The Secret of Ji is not the best fantasy novel I’ve ever read, but I enjoyed it, and would certainly read the next in this series.

Review: Sciron

by David Rashleigh

5 stars

The intriguing and beautiful cover draws you in, then the story engages and holds you from beginning to end. A ghost story, but an unusual one; there’s nothing Gothic about Sciron. This tale of a haunted flat on a dreary Preston housing estate has more in common with the gritty reality of the Enfield Poltergeist than anything by Edgar Allen Poe.

The characterisation is excellent – these are real people, recognisable, ordinary folk; the kind we all know. My only gripe and it’s but a small one, – would have liked to see more of Mike Simpson. He was my favourite character. I felt he had a lot more mileage.

In short, Sciron is like a finely stitched tapestry: disparate threads brought skilfully together, to make a finely crafted whole – from the start, to the bitter, unexpected, far from happy, thoroughly satisfying end. Highly recommended.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is coming to the BBC!

Well this is exciting – and old news, apparently. Den of Geek broke the story last November.  It will be ‘directed by Doctor Who & Sherlock alumni Toby Haynes.’ There’s no news on when it will go out, or casting. What think you, my lovelies? Matt Smith would make a brilliant Strange, as would Benedict Cumberbatch. And who will play Mr Norrell? Byron? Uskglass…?

Click on the pic to read the story.

The Bottom Line

Radio Four’s The Bottom Line this week, looked at the impact of the digital revolution on the book industry – a really absorbing discussion between Curtis Brown’s Jonny Geller, Victoria Barnsley, CEO at Harper Collins and Michael Tamblyn, Chief Content Officer at Kobo.

It’s still available to listen on iplayer, or you can download it and listen at your leisure. I really do recommend it to anyone with an interest in self or e-publishing.

Current reading…

And more arriving tomorrow. It’s a hard life.

Review: A Red Sun Also Rises

by Mark Hodder

5 stars

I love Mark Hodder and this might be my favourite of his to date. I was expecting another steampunk tale, but this is high Victorianesque, inter-planetary SF. It has more in common with HG Wells than Burton & Swinburn; a corking tale of derring do on an alien world.

A Red Sun Also Rises is a first-person narrative, told by Aiden Fleischer, a weak and hopeless sort; a failed vicar turned useless missionary, who becomes a true and selfless hero on an alien world – A world whose civilisation has been, accidentally and unwittingly, completely re-modelled by his companion and former servant, the terribly crippled Clarissa.

It’s a terrific story; unique and completely, wonderfully bonkers. The world-building is especially good, complete and well-imagined. The characterisation is superb, the aliens especially, with their caricature Bertie Wooster speech and absurd, Dickensian names – Colonel Momentous Spearjab, Mademoiselle Crockery Clattersmash, Lady Falldown Bruisebad – The good humour and likeability of all the characters is what sets this above others in this genre for me. There are deeper themes, too, a dose of subtle philosophy as Fleischer’s questions his faith, his quest for good in an evil world as he searches for God in the evil around him.

I loved the smooth, neat, completely surprising ending – leading into a sequel? I hope so.

Re-blog: Attention ‘artisan authors’…

Digital self-publishing is harder than it looks.

Showcasing your work on blogs, podcasts or social media is fine, just don’t see it as a shortcut to finding an audience.

From The Guardian. To read the rest, click on the pic.

Review: A Natural History of Ghosts

by Roger Clarke

5 stars

Roger Clarke has to be the most well-placed person to write a ‘natural history’ of ghosts. Haunted as a child, he became the youngest ever member of the Society for Psychical Research. The subject has been a matter of fascination for him ever since, and he has remained a keen investigator to this day. A Natural History of Ghosts gives detailed accounts of famous hauntings. They range from ancient ghost stories, through the Victorian passion for séances, to the modern ghost investigation – which is not new at all, but began with famous faker Harry Price, who pioneered the live ghost hunt on radio in the 1920s – coming bang up to date with TAPS, Most Haunted and Ghost Adventures. An attempted taxonomy details different kinds of ghosts: the ‘stone-tape’ type, doomed to go through the motions over and over and over again, who seem to be mere recordings in time. And the far more chilling kind, who speak and interact, intelligently, with the living and their fellow dead, like the – still unexplained – Enfield poltergeist.

Clarke tries his hardest to maintain a dry and sceptical look at hauntings, ancient and modern, but cannot help observing that ghosts are certainly real; ghosts have been and continue to be experienced and documented across time and space, and the only debate is, what are they, really? Are they all figments of the imagination or out and out fakes? The actual spirits of the dead? Or a phenomenon that is, as yet, unexplained? Sadly, Roger Clarke has no answers, and provides no conclusions, either, he simply delivers pure information with which we must make up our own minds. As the sceptical George Bernard Shaw told Henry James that, “No man who doesn’t believe in a ghost ever sees one.” Maybe the truth is the other way around? That those who believe in ghosts, do so precisely because they have seen one.

Roger Clarke keeps his account objective, distancing himself personally, from what he is documenting. Personally, I would have enjoyed a wee bit more personal input and opinion from a man who, above almost all other authors, is best placed to give an informed opinion. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this book is that it is never in the least bit dry. Roger Clarke is a natural writer and story teller. This is a smooth, easy, fascinating read to anyone with the slightest interest in the subject, and very highly recommended indeed.

Review: The Kingdom of Bones: A Novel

by Stephen Gallagher

4 stars

A fast paced thriller with a touch of the supernatural. The Kingdom of Bones starts out a regular Victorian crime story with a dash of limelight and greasepaint, but quickly develops into something more deeply nuanced; a supernatural tale, peopled with strange and shady characters; a tale of obsessive, unrequited love.

The story opens in the world of Victorian British provincial theatre, where Tom Sayers, a once-successful professional boxer, is now stage manager with a touring company. Set up for a murder he didn’t commit, Tom is forced to flee to America where he scrapes a mean living as a fairground prize-fighter – And here the story takes a supernatural twist: Tom hasn’t come to America simply to escape a murder charge, he is tracking Louise – the young singer with his company – convinced she has become possessed by The Wanderer, a demon that bestows youth and near-immortality in exchange for a regular diet of murder and blood. Tom’s only purpose in life has become to find Louise and save her from her fate. Quite why Tom dedicates his life to this quest I never could quite figure out. Louise seems a vain and silly, self-obsessed creature who has no interest whatsoever in Tom and demonstrates her disinterest by pushing him under a train. You’d think that would be enough to kill most men’s ardour, but that, I suppose, is the nature of obsession.

The pace never flags as the story moves smoothly from Britain in 1888, to America, fifteen years later. The characterisation is especially good. Poor, stolid, obsessive Tom Sayers being the best. The protagonist detective Sebastian Becker is a less interesting creation, a more conventional figure, but very well-drawn and entirely believable. Bram Stoker was a wonderfully dour addition to the cast; I loved the idea that Tom Sayers’s monster might have inspired ‘Dracula’

My only real quibbles are with the effusive blurb, which claims this book is in ‘the spirit of Sherlock Holmes’ (it is not) and claims Stephen Gallagher as ‘the finest British writer of popular fiction since le Carre’. This is rather over-egging the pudding, in my opinion. Kingdom of Bones is not a masterpiece – it doesn’t need to be. It is what it is, a highly enjoyable, page-turny bit of foggy, gas-lit, steam powered nonsense, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Highly recommended.

Our Winter of Relative Content

This weather is so strange. Last night, we had thunder and lightning with snow – very operatic. Today the snow is back as deep as ever, like it never went away at all. It’s still hammering down. Everything is frosted and beautiful under ice blue skies, great billowing clouds lit gold and grey grow on the horizon, sweeping over the blue in a soft-focus streak of dove grey, lemon and pink, until the sky is grey and the snow blows down again. The birds are using the temporary lull to gather on the feeders: chaffinches, Goldfinches, ring necked doves and Bullfinches.

And as I write, the snow is falling hard again. There’s a hardy jogger out, a long haired gent of 60 plus…

I’d love to be out in it myself. I adore this weather but I’m laid up with a painful chest infection, forced to stay inside, sitting on my amber velvet chair, drinking green lemon tea with honey, writing this. Our friendly local pheasant has just arrived.

One benefit of being sick and housebound is that I’m making very good progress on Chaos, the sequel to Entanglement – still only sketching out the plot and characters, no actual writing done yet, but the bones of the story are almost complete, and that’s always the hardest part for me.

I’m rather behind on my reviews, but that’s nothing new – 11 down and eight new books on the pile. I am finally ahead enough to be reading books I’ve promised to read and wanted to read for an age – David Rashleigh’s Sciron and Jon Sayer’s BATDIG - and what terrific books they are. Reviews to follow.

And Richard III! How exciting is that?! And the battle is on, where will his bones finally lie? And wasn’t Channel Four’s documentary last night absolutely riveting? The facial reconstruction especially; so like, and yet, so much more human than the Tudor spin-doctor’s portrait.

How’s your weather? How’s your life? Speak to me, my babies! Let me live vicariously through your words, I need news from the outside world.

ETA: The weather is really cutting up rough now. It’s Scott of the Antarctic out there. A chap could lose his bearings in weather like this.