Yet more Alternate History fun...

Before I get you all my review of The Native Star I have add to the people announcing Catherynne M Valente's 12th century romp about the adventures of Prester John....

Really you should go check out the video that she made introducing readers to the "real" history of the story... its lots of fun and the coming trilogy is something I have been looking forward to since I read about it months ago....

Its available in my preferred  format - brick and mortar-y book in DRM free ebook from webscriptions, from online providers like Amazon for kindle and again a real book,   B&N  and....on Audible

Hell you should check out her web presence anyway here..http://www.catherynnemvalente.com/

She is one hell of a good writer and I think this book will be a great diversion from all the steampunky stuff I've been reading....

You can check out the good things John Scalzi has to say about her too on his great and dangerous The Big Idea column if I had the money I'd have spent a good bit on things he has featured there....

Alternate History of the World Part 1

      

     The first altered history that we visit  this month was created by Mark Hodder who maintains the website Balkiana that celebrates the most written about detective in the english language, Sexton Blake.  Mr. Hodder (go and check his website here) is one hell of a good writer;  he a deft hand at creating involving, empathetic characters and settings with palpable atmosphere, bizarre and pulpy though it may be.  The Strange Affair is a great adventure yarn, but it is also a great exploration into convictions and obsessions of people in the time of Empire. 

     Mark dives into Sir Richard Francis Birtons 's story in medias res; we meet him on the night of his schedualed debate with his one time friend now rival explorer John Speke. Burton, already at  the Royal Geographic Society event, gets news of the accidental shooting of Speke and we see the man called Ruffian Dick weep for his one time friend and college. Burton is crushed by the news but soldiers on being at the gathering and does his best to inform his peers of his travels but succumbs none the less to his feelings. The Burton that Hodder shows us is one that feels deeply and acts with passion; he was a man of conviction. He struggles with his decisions and their possible outcomes; makes hard choices and lives with the consequences. 

Of the Burton in the novel a Monty Penniworth, a hansom cabbie Burton employs thinks:

           ...Burton didn't seem to belong to the other half; he was one of a kind. He acted like a gentleman but he'd the face of a brute. he was of the uppercrust but spoke to the cabbie like they were equals. he was famous but had no airs or graces.

Burton both in reality and in this novel was a man of the Empire but having live so little in his "homeland" he is more worldly, speaking twenty some-odd languages and had a personal set or mores sometimes at odds with his fellows.  

     Burton's friend come assistant Algernon Swineburne, poet and libertine, is a man like Burton also driven. He is driven not so much be deep conviction as Burton but by the need for experience having been sheltered from it by his family.  The character says of himself;

          " I'm a poet ! I need danger ! I need go tread the thin line twixt Life and death, else I have no experience worth writing about." and "... The ennui of the pointless existence gnaws at my bones ...  a man can only truly live with death as his  permanent companion"

We see the story in parts from his perspective, he is the more swashbuckling of the pair of protagonists and as many of the action scenes of the story are his as much as Burtons. He accounts himself well having never been a soldier and is the source of many of the novels better quips and quotes as fiery as his bright red mane.

     We get viewpoints by several of the secondary characters in the novel including those of one of the antagonists but to say who feel to much like a spoiler to me to let on.  Mark weaves in character versions of real historical figures as larger then life in the novel as they are large in British and World History.  I found it fun to see what he did with these great figures and he has a very dry humor when it comes to some of them.  He includes lesser known real people like Constable William Trounce, such a cool name and an equally cool character,  who in the real world caught a man who attempted to assassinate Victoria.  Like many fantasy tomes now Mark included an afterward that describes the real world people and figures he uses and alludes to.  

      Mark Hodder's world is one still in  the mid 1800's when the sun did not set on the British Empire, the cities of the isle were smog socked and soot covered.  The coal driven steam technology of the Engineers set make the world dirtier and noisier; the creations of the Eugenicists alter the animals and people in ways we thank god still cant. This Burton's england is one caught up with the drive for progress into the future both scientifically and philosophically.  

      

     There are well too many things good I can say about this steamopera as Michael Moorcock calls it in his blurb.  Mr. Moorcock a longtime favorite writer of mine says what came to my mine when reading the novel; 

"A great, increasingly complex plot, some fine characters, and invention that never flags."

go here to read the more of his comments and a summary of the book.  The physical book is a beautifully produced artifact of our times and is one of the reasons I hope that real print never goes away. Pyr did a great job on this novel and I for one can not wait to see its followup no matter which characters are in it.

    And the necessary legalese the copy that I read and reviewed was provided by Pry/Prometheus publishing....

    I will leave you with a quote I loved from late in the novel... it is from Richard Burton and says a lot about what he thinks of the concept of "empire" and I hope it is something the real Burton said:

     "it is in the British Empires interest to portray other cultures as barbarous and uncivilised; that way there's less outcry when we conquer them and steal their resources. Lies have to be propagated if we are to retain the high ground. "

     

Weird Histories.....

 

Over the last several months I have purchased or received a great number of novels that fall into a particular sweet spot for me.  Most of these would comfortably be called Steampunk which I happen to have liked for quite a while but I guess I really see them as Alternate Historical Fiction.  The First of these that I have read is Mark Hodder's presents Burton and Swineburne in the Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack  published by Pyr and soon to get a full and glowing review from me here. I will say that it is one of the best looking books on the shelves these days and renews my desire to support the continuance or print media.

The next book that I read in this particular area is one that snuck up on me and I am very happy to have noticed at Borderlands in San Francisco in early September. MK Hobson who is one of the editors and narrators at Podcastle is the writer of The Native Star, a weird western novel that I hope will get some notice.  The Weird West to me is a offshoot of the Steampunk movement that gets little attention and needs its due. I have loved the idea of mixing westerns with something a little different since the TV series Wild Wild West, the RPG Deadlands and Joe Landsdale's Jonah Hex.  I plan to get this review up on the heels of Spring Heeled Jack. Hobson has written a great Weird West Romance Adventure here.

     The third is the one I have been looking forward to for months and the one you will be seeing more then one post about; Mary Robinette Kowal's regency era novel Shades of Milk and Honey. The elevator pitch for the novel is ..."its the novel that Jane Austin would have written had magic existed". I think this is one of those novels that has deserved all the good blurbs and reviews that it has gotten. It is well researched and written and I cant wait to get further through it. Mary in addition read the version that is available as an audiobook and did her best to have era correct pronunciation.  Its a great thing to hear an author read their own work.

     I have also just started reading The Cardinal's Blades by Pierre Pevel.  This is a fantasy novel set in 17th century France from a well established award winning French author. I am a few chapters in and can tell I'm on for a good ride here. This novel has the feel of the Dumas Musketeers adventures with added scheming dragons and subtle magic.

     The last of this group is Mike Resnick's The Buntline Special.  Here we return again to the american west in 1881 with a mixture of native magic, weird technology, a great mixture of westen legendary figures some of which appear to be beyond dead. Seems we will be seeing Edison, the Clantons, the Earps, Geronimo  and the "thing" that once was Johnny Ringo. All this in the hands of Mike Resnick can't help but be a great romp. 








I had forgotten how much I enjoy historical fiction. I was a great fan of the Sharpe's novels of Bernard Cornwall, the naval books of CL Forrester and the alterante histories of Harry Turtledove and the "Soldier" books of Gene Wolfe.  There was also a trilogy of books about Josephine Bonaparte written by Sandra Gulland that was an excellent read.  You can look forward to reviews of the novels mentioned above and probably a combined post about the weird west since I have taken a like to that idea again.

Quote of the day....

"Its in the British Empires interest to portray other cultures as barbarous and uncivilized that way there is less of an outcry when we conquer them and steal their resources. Lies have to be propagated if we are to retain the moral high ground" - Sir Richard Francis Burton ....

The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack
Mark Hodder

If you see Death on the side of the Road....

Trent Jamieson’s first novel Death Most Definite came out last month from Orbit Books US/UK;. In a summer of many Urban Fantasy releases and doorstop sized fantasy volumes this unassuming book with the man in the suit and tie on the cover may have escaped your notice. Trent’s name may too not drwan you; he is not well known outside his native Australia where he is an award winning short fiction writer and editor in SF/fantasy and horror genres. I knew about his work from listening to his short stories read on Psuedopod over the last couple of years and when I saw he had his first novel coming out I was overjoyed. 

Death Most Definite brings the personification of Death into the modern corporate world. Trent has been inspired from stories that gave death a face and voice like Piers Anthony’s classic On A Pale Horse, Terry Pratchet’s Diskworld novels,  Fritz Leiber’s Sword and Sorcery novels and Neil Gaimen’s Sandman series along with multiple mythological and a movie interpretations to come up with his own twisted setting. Spirits of the dead need a person a Psychopomp or pomp for short to be their gateway to the land of the dead. Mortmax is a conpany who’s real purpose is to employ people to be one part gateway to the otherside one part councilor of the confused departed and one part exorcist. The company tends to be nepotistic insular hiring from the families that already know the score. L  

The story starts with an assassination attempt on Steven de Selby’s life in a food court in broad daylight; he is warned by the spirit of a very pretty dead woman who was not scheduled to be there and who also thwarts his attempts to “pomp” her into the afterworld after his escape. Once the second attenpt on him happens its is a cat and mouse game, a noirish Jason Bourne suspense thriller running from Brisbane to the country and back.  Steven tells the tale, first person and has a tendency towards interior monologue much like the original cut of Blade Runner; sometimes it brakes the flow of the story but the information was necessary to understand the setting. Steven has no flashy fancy magical powers at his command other then those of his trade and they take blood and occasional preparation. He was not the only one on the hit list of these assassins, the ghost who saved him was another Mortmax pomp as are lots of people that die in the course of the novel. Steven has to go on the run from his safe if morbid and lonely life  never really sure who he can trust.

He thinks he can trust the spirit of Lissa  the girl who saved him. He turns also the his “black sheep”cousin Tim, who turned his back on the “family” profession, and gets help from another black sheep Alex (a really handy friend to have in the police force). He has to hide out with other Psychopomps also on the run and pray he can trust them and the contacts he has with the remains of the company.  Someone wants to replace Mr D, the local regional manager, and gain all the powers that come with the job; and they were willing to kill a whole lot of coworkers and friends to do it too. 

I found it really easy to like  and identify with Steven. He is a self confessed genre geek going as far to name is dog…. Oh but that would be telling. He is an outcast among his peers even in the company. He is really just coasting in life and no that is not what I liked about him but it made him easier to be place myself in his shoes. He goes through a lot in this novel that sets up Trents series; hell he even take a trip or two to the spiritworld and wait till you get a load of that.

The urban fantasy elements of this book are pretty subtle and the Stirrers (recall the exorcist comment) and their nature create an even more paranoia inducing setting. They can inhabit the bodies of the recently departed and could be anyone. I suspect . Trent is doing something different here and morbid the setting may be he had a good deal of humor in this story, oh and there is some romance too along with all the running suspicion and Death.  He’s an entertaining writer and has a great grasp of the things that are existentially frightening and that is one of the things that I liked about his short fiction. Death Most Definite is not the big summer blockbuster event its kind of a sleeper with  something a little different, darkly humorous with heart. I hope it catches on; I want to see the characters he hinted at in the climax of the story and there is a much larger darkness on the horizon.

I received my copy from Orbit Books for review. 

Find Trent Here

Look for Orbit Publishing here

And Trents two Pseudopod stories here and here

The Novel is available in paperback  and on iBooks, Kindle, Nook 

Angry Robot ....

Beginning in September the first company to send me ARC/review copies, Angry Robot, will begin publishing for the US and Canadian speculative fiction readers.... I thought because of this I would post links to the earlier reviews in the blog for people who might have missed them or might want to check back now that the books will be more affordable in North America...

In September among the half dozen books I have read and written about three of them. Sixty-One Nails by Mike Shevdon is a particularly good urban fantasy that renewed my interest in that genre. The other fantasy book, Kell’s Legend by Andy Remic, is a great fun sword and sorcery buddy novel that has all the vampires that Sixty one Nails lacks along with some very twisted takes on the vampire. The last, Winter Song by Colin Harvey, was hard science fiction survival story that has particularly good characterization and social themes; my favorite of these three.

In October The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar comes out. It is a great weird addition to the Steampunk genre.

The full list follows and here is a link to Angry Robot Books.....

September
Kell’s Legend by Andy Remic
Moxyland by Lauren Beukes
Sixty-One Nails by Mike Shevdon
Slights by Kaaron Warren
Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero by Dan Abnett
Winter Song by Colin Harvey

October
Angel of Death by J Robert King
The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar
The Crown of the Blood by Gav Thorpe
Edge by Thomas Blackthorne (John Meaney)
King Maker by Maurice Broaddus
Nekropolis by Tim Waggoner

Do you have an e-reader.....?

Tobias Buckell is one of those writers that is able to write in multiple genres. His collection Tides from the New Worlds contains 19 stories that span the spectrum of speculative fiction; science fiction, magical realism, alternate history and a strait up fantasy/sword and sorcery tale. I love it when I get a chance to re-encounter a author that I already like and am follow by getting my hands on a collection like this of short stories that had passed my by. In addition to the stories Tobias has added an intro to each, I like getting that kind of personal chit chat from an author (this probably comes from listening to podcasts); it creates a more intimate reading experience for me.
How did I get my copy - Graciously suppled by Tobias Buckell prior to ibooks version release some weeks ago.

I find it hard to choose a story that I would say is my favorite. I could say that its the first story The Fish Merchant since it guests his reoccurring rastafarian merc Pepper and shows how the everyman is largely unaffected by big events in the face of everyday concerns and worries, sadly he gets caught up in Peppers life. If I said that I would be overlooking the emotionally packed story All Her Children Fought in which a child soldier gets a parent for a short time to have important formative human contact. I could go on and on and have in other drafts of this review trying to find a way to describe the quality of Tobias’ stories without giving anything away.

It is not that he is an author that relies on a twist endings or shocks to get the reader, many of the stories I can see where the plot was going and it was the empathy I felt for the characters that made want to take the journey with them. His viewpoint characters are not paragons or great heroes of their time they are the regular people; they have problems, desires, goals and feelings even when they are robots, aliens or dwarves; I felt for them and despite the things I may not have liked about them; I wanted them to succeed. Though all the stories have a definite conclusion to the crisis that they pose Tobias left me thinking about what comes next and wanting a little more time with someone in that setting. Maybe this is why when I hear that there is a new Pepper story out there I’m so happy; he is a friend that I don’t always trust but its a happy surprise to find this friend in a story even if he is not the white hat wearing hero.

The other aspect of his writing that I like is the slight feeling of the alien that invades his stories. Tobias grew up in Grenada, the British and American Virgin Islands in circumstances that differ from most anglo american and british backgrounds I read. I can not say quantifiably what that really brings to his fiction but he does not read like any other white writer I have read and I appreciate that difference of vision. He may have grown up reading the same science fiction and fantasy that I did but he has come out producing something that has a unique slant that appeals to me.

This collection is a relatively inexpensive way to check out his vision if you have not read his fiction before; its 2.99 on both Kindle and iBooks and any one of the stories are worth that at least. Looking at it this way the 40.00 dollar pricetag on the limited edition hardcover is not a high price - I just wish I had the cash to spare at this time.

Thanks to Tobias for the copy - I really did love reading these and will read them again.

Check out his website here
You can sample a some of his work for free in various formats
go to Clarkesword Magazine here and here , and an interview here
and as of this writing at lightspeed magazine issue 2 has a new Pepper Tale here

Here is a list of the titles Tales includes in case tou have read Tobias before:
(Science Fiction) The Fish Merchant, In the Heart of Kalikuata, Io, Robot, Anakoinosis,Aerophilia,The Shackles of Freedom, Her, The Duel, Necahual, Toy Planes, All Her Children Fought

(Magical Reality)Four Eyes, Spurn Babylon, Trinket, Death's Dreadlock, Smooth Talking

(Alternate History)In Orbit Medieval

(Fantasy)Something in the Rock

Tides as touted above is now in e format from iBooks and Kindle for the meager sum of 2.99
Tides from the New Worlds is also available in print form from Clarkesworld’s through Wyrm publishing and runs 40USD.

Tobias Buckell is the author of four novels to date including Crystal Rain, Raggamuffin, Sly Mongoose, a Halo novel and many short stories. He is a writer that has written a wide range of genres and is still young yet... I for one can't wait to see where his career goes.