Next up...

A mix of all the genres I find dear to my heart; Pulp, superhero, steampunk, HP Lovecraft and fine fiction.... what more could I ask other then a cameo by a certain albino swordsman....

no sorry no Elric or Eternal Champion here but the rest yes....

Treason, action and spies

“…treason begets spies and spies treason…” Will Swyfte The Silver Skull



I’ve been reading good things about Mark Chadbourn’s writing for some time and am glad that Pyr/Prometheus books sent me a copy of the highly entertaining Silver Skull for review. (When the novel comes out in the UK it will be called The Swords Of Albion). The Silver Skull is hard to classify in terms of what kind of novel it is; at times its medival urban fantasy at others military historical fiction. Most often it is a cracking spy yarn set in the era most associated with Shakespeare and the european Renaissance. What I do know is that it would made a great HBO or Showtime series with all the action, drama, sex, and bloody minded death that goes along with great cable TV originals like the Wire, Deadwood and the Tudors.
In The Silver Skull William Swyfte, Britain's greatest spy, fights enemies foreign, more foreign and domestic; he delves into the darker areas of Elizabethan England, ventures onto the lands of Phillip of Spain, and takes to the high seas during the battle of the Spanish Armada. Will publicly plays the part of the flamboyant heroic spy and man of loose morals to the hilt; his fellow spies may follow but don’t necessarily respect him or even trust him. He acts as the figurehead of the defense of Queen and Country and treachery abounds in the course of the novel.
Being the first novel in a series there are some bits of exposition to introduce the players. These vignettes come as bits of memory placed between chapters of action, like fights on the top of a speeding carriage lacking a driver, or intrigue, Will and his companions planning how to escape from a low class thieving mob. These past snippets build and change your opinion of the characters and flesh out the acts that lead up to this point.
The Mark Chadbourn created a vibrant historical setting blending the facts and figures of the day with his great knowledge of english folklore and the farie legends of the land. In found reading The Silver Skull I found myself thinking of historical fiction authors like Bernard Cornwall, C.S. Forester, Patrick O’brian, and Harry Turtledove . Mark’s england is beset by the Catholics of the age and the forces of the “Enemy” - the Unsilee Court - their spare defenses both mystical and martial seem meager and thin at times making for a thrilling suspenseful novel. In creating the setting Mark leaves out nothing in the details; Elizabethan England was a place that was full of unpleasant places, people and odors and though I was thrilled by the setting I would be in no hurry to visit it myself. Travel in the Renaissance took time and though he spends little time describing scenes of endless riding or sailing Mark does a great job building the feel for the setting.

I can see this novel appealing to a pretty wide audience; its elements pulling together the pace of thrillers, a realized fantasy setting and great living historical elements, the great cover by Chris McGrath does not hurt either.

While preparing this review to post Pyr previewed the cover for the next book in the series called The Scarecrow Men. The title seems particularly apt thinking back on the early action in The Silver Skull and makes me wonder how much Mark was setting up in the first novel beyond the pulpy things that hit me as foreshadowing on first reading. Can't wait to see what is up Marks and Will's sleeve next time around...



Readers unfamiliar with Mark’s writing should check out his website at http://www.markchadbourn.net/ and get a taste of the setting of this Elizabethan era spy romp look for the short story ‘Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast’ which saw print in The Solaris Book of New Fantasy and later in The Years Best Fantasy 8: the story is well worth a tracking down. Will Swyfte, the main character of that tale and the Swords of Albion series, also appears in Chadbourn’s Jack of Ravens that I hope to pick up before leaving the Netherlands this year.

Night Shade Books Launches Literary Imprint Pugilist Press

Night Shade Books Launches Literary Imprint Pugilist Press

Spotted this new tidbit about Nightshade Books spinning off a new imprint. With the wide range of speculative genres that Nightshade publishes its a great addition to their stable to add a "literary" side to their stable...

More Paris ....

Eiffel Tower seen from Avenue de la Bourdonnais on the night of March 23, 2010... the lighting of the tower seemed to take forever but its was pretty spectacular to be there in the "shadow" of the tower and watch as it was slowly lit up.... you can see the spotlight beam in the picture... though I have seen the tower in films I still was impressed by this man made wonder



This was taken on the afternoon of the 23rd of March and was a close up shot of the works of the lower elevators of the Eiffel Tower ... we were just about under the base of the monument when I took the shot that I croped to get this steampunky image...


This shot too was taken on the afternoon of the 23rd of March... this is the ceiling of Notre-Dame... no flash photos are allowed in the church (though that seemed to stop very few of the tourists we saw... I at least did not use my flash in the church.... it is pretty impressive but as a church I was more impressed by Sacre-Coeur in Montmartre (picts to come...)

Anyhow in the next few days I will be posting my revew for.....

The Silver Skull by Mark Chadourn...

In a time of Myths....

“This is a time of myths. They are woven into the present like silk strands from the past, like a wire mesh from the future… a grand design a repeating motif. Don’t dismiss myth. And never, ever dismiss the Bookman ” Gilgamesh from the Bookman



Lavie Tidhar,a short story writer and confessed book addict blogs at http://lavietidhar.wordpress.com/ released his first novel, The Bookman, some months back through the fine folks at Angry Robot Books who were kind enough to provide me with a review copy.
It may be the fact that I read it in the same circumstance, being travel, as I did Perdido Street Station but in looking back on the experience of reading The Bookman I feel the books have a great similarity to one another and I would encourage people who like one to read the other. The China Mieville book has been called steampunk in some circles and in sheer density of ideas he has a leg up on Mr. Tidhar but with the amount of creative love that I think went into the Bookman's setting I feel the two novels would do well next to one another on a bookshelf wether they belonged together or not; both are novels that I think I will revisit from time to time.
In The Bookman we get a setting that would be very familiar to readers of steampunk since you do get the ubiquitous airship filled skies, steam powered vehicles but he conveys the feeling that these things have been around a wile somehow in a way that they become just part of the scenery. Part of the scenery too are the presence of armoured police robots, the anthropomorphic Les Lizard rules of Britain, numerous automatons, some of them relegated to carnival like side shows as is the aforementioned chess playing turk, and Tesla powered communications devices not to mention a planned Mars probe shot. In all this strangeness and potential to make the book a show and tell the main character Orphan and his desire to regain his love and fiance, Lucy, really drive the novel.
The way that the story is told, following Orphan on his journey, I found myself not questioning the circumstances of the tale. He is not your standard hero of modern tales, he has no really special power that separates him from the reader on a human level; I never got the feeling that in the same situation I would have been more out of my depth then Orphan was. I felt a real empathy for him when he lost his Lucy and no matter how unlikely him getting her back sounded I wanted to take the journey with him to see if it was possible. I liked the people he met along the way and hope to revisit the world that Mr. Tidhar created again in the future.
The Bookman is a novel that left me feeling that there was a lot going on in the world it was set in. I compared it to the creation of China Mieville and I stand by that in that they are worlds that I can clearly see in my imagination when reading and thinking about them; again maybe its the traveling to europe thing but I'd like to think that it was the love that seemed to have gone into their creation.

One more pict from Paris before review

This is our current laptop desktop image... It was taken from the pont on Boulevard Henri VI looking towards Notre-Dame from close to Ile-St.-Louis.. one of the first images I took while in Paris...

Hello again...

The image is the grave marker of Oscar Wilde... it was taken after a rainy morning walk in Montmartre and a Metro ride out to Cimetiere Pere Lachaise; the resting place of Jim Morrison, Eugene Delacroix, Sarah Bernhardt, Edith Piaf to name a meager few. Its a great place to visit if you are in Paris and want to see some thing a little outside the center of the city.

Two of the reviews coming up will be Steampunk books; I have been thinking a good deal about the now popular sub-genre. a couple of people I have spoken with think there are too many new entries in this area lately. I will admit in the last few years there do seem to have been quite a few; Bonshaker by Cherie Priest, Soulless by Gail Carriager, The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar, The Affinity Bridge and its sequels by George Mann along with Ghosts of Manhattan, Mainspring and its sequels by Jay Lake to name just the ones that come to mind without much effort. As with any trend its easy to fall into decrying it and missing lots of good fiction.

In the 80's I got onto the cyberpunk wagon and on the whole read a good portion of the flood of books that came out. I seem to be doing the same with following the new wavefronts - Urban Fantasy (of which I have read novels I felt ranged from good to bad to ugly), the gritty fantasy thing (thankfully no one has really named this trend), and the new wave of Steampunk offerings. In terms of overall enjoyment and quality I find that the crop of Steampunk authors write highly readable, varied and enjoyable fare. I would attribute this to the range of other sub-genres that creep into the mix that they are influenced by. There are those that stick to the victorian era with the empires of the time affected by the introduction of to us strange and unreal technology (just look at the book Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld); there are authors that diverge from earth entirely and throw the mems at a fantasy world (I think Tim Akers does this in Heart of Veridon) and some of the upcoming covers (check recent posts on Mad Hatters Bookshelf) show a western influenced one (any one recall Deadlands from the 90's).

With all the attention the Steampunk genre is getting I can see why people my be shunning it as just the "next big thing" that will fade but they may also miss out on something really good....

tomorrow a review of The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar