#Review - The Witches of World War II by Paul Cornell et al

The Witches of World War II

Paul Cornell (words), Valeria Burzo (pencils), Jordie Bellaire (colours)
TKO Studios, 25 July 2023
Available as: PB, 160pp, e
Source: Purchased
ISBN(PB): 9781952203183

The Witches of World War II tugs at one of the many loose threads of that conflict - persistent rumours that alongside the familiar heroism, sacrifice and application of industry and science to winning the war, alongside the more shadowy departments of unorthodox warfare and military deception, the Allies used even stranger means - notably witchcraft.

You don't have to accept the supernatural or the power of magic to see that this is something that could really happen. Deep in the layers of psyops, it would surely have registered that at least some high-ranking Nazis fervently believed this stuff, and that very belief could be used against them. 

That paradox is at the heart of The Witches of World War II. Cornell has assembled here a crack team of practitioners and theorists from the occult world of the first half of the 20th century, and posed a "what if...?" about their potential use in warfare, and beyond that, about the nature of their own beliefs and the power of belief itself. Cornell acknowledges, as does the Afterword by Prof Ronald Hutton, that this group never actually met (unless the records of that meeting have been even more than carefully weeded) but we might imagine similar characters carrying out the actions described here, some of which are based on those persistent rumours...

So the premise is intriguing. That wouldn't though be enough, without Cornell's excellent story and its interpretation by the brilliant comic artists here, to produce the immersive and fun narrative that The Witches of World War II is. I felt it captured the spirit of that dangerous time, all done in muted khaki, green, brown and grey, as it introduces us not just to the would-be witches themselves but also to their world. That world includes the would-be upper class Quislings and fellow-travellers who would have sold their country out at the drop of a hat, if they could. Against these fifth-columnists, our hero, Doreen Valiente, shows steely nerve as she negotiates a maze of mirrors, never sure who is going to back her and who will betray her. 

A sceptic herself, Doreen encounters dangers including a curse that can only affect those who don't believe, and slippery customers like Aleister Crowley, the self-proclaimed Wickedest Man in the World. (Who, exactly, believes that they are themselves wicked? I was reminded of the "are we the baddies" sketch...) The double crosses, hints of things below the surface build tension, with the poignancy of Doreen's lost sweetheart giving the story real bite by reminding us that this isn't all some fantasy, that regardless of the occult and its reality or otherwise, real people suffered and died in those years.

With a complex plot, many twists and turns and layers of deception, it all makes for a rewarding read, with just that hint of mystery as to what really went on...

For more information about The Witches of World War II, see the author's website here.

#Blogtour #Review - The Reunion by M. J. Arlidge and Steph Broadribb

The Reunion

M. J. Arlidge and Steph Broadribb

Orion, 5 September 2024

Available as: PB, 304pp audio, e   

Source: Advance e-copy

ISBN(PB): 9781398716575

I'm grateful to the publisher for sgiving me access to an advance e-copy of The Reunion to consider for review, and to Tracy and Compulsive Readers for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

Oh this one is very good. 

It's set in the town of Whitecross, somewhere in the English Chiltern Hills. I think I know where the real Whitecross is - that isn't of course its actual name - and the authors bring to life the character of this district, protected for its natural beauty and riddled with twee little villages, but also full of new housing estates and also surpsingly deprived town centres where depressed youth find an escape in the time honoured ways: drink, drugs and sex. 

This is Jennie Whitmore's world. Jennie never left Whitecross: her dreams of doing so shattered when her beloved friend Hannah vanished as they were on the cusp of escape. Instead, Jennie has hung around, and decades later she is a DI in the same town. Interesting - did she simply lose heart and never leave? Or, unconsciously, did she hang around, choosing a career that might one day give her an opportunity to find out what happened to Hannah? If so, she is still shocked when that possibility crystallises. This occurs suspiciously soon after her unwise experiment of joining in a school reunion. (Personally, I stay away from such things). Has the reunion jolted something among the little group of "friends"? Or was the clock already ticking?

The resulting investigation will see Jeannie throwing away beliefs she's held for three decades, taking uncharacteristic risks, and running into danger. I found it absolutely gripping how she justified, and undertook, an investigation she absolutely shouldn't be part of (her closest friend!) and the effect that doing so has on her relationships with her colleagues (she hardly has any friends). The impact of what is discovered, and Hannah's way of opening it up, will shatter the little group who see themselves as Hannah's mates from all those years ago, bring secrets into the open, and change Whitecross for ever.

It will also change Hannah's life. This is not a story - at least I don't think it is - that can kick off a series of small-town mysteries. I can't see Hannah returning to this dark Midsommer any time soon. Too mush will have changed. I did though find myself desperately hoping that things would turn out well for her in the end, I don't recall a recent main character I've so wished would come through unscathed - though this seems increasingly unlikely as the story proceeds...

Arlidge and Broadribb are at the top of their game (their games?) in this collaboration, a book that demands to be read in a single sitting if you can possibly manage that.

For more information about The Reunion, see the publisher's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

You can buy The Reunion from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith, or Waterstones.

#Review - The Undermining of Twyla and Frank by Megan Banner

The Undermining of Twyla and Frank

Megan Bannen
Orbit, 4 July 2024
Available as: PB, 380pp audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9780356521923

I'm grateful to the publisher for sending me an advance copy of The Undermining of Twyla and Frank to consider for review.

The Undermining of Twyla and Frank is set in the same world as The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, which wowed me last year, and is a fantasy romance in the same vein.  

And, yes, we do bump into Mercy Birdsall and Hart Ralston and their circle again here, although they're not the main characters in this book. That would be Twyla Banneker and Frank Ellis. They are partners, Tanrian Marshals employed to police that strange space, once a prison for gods, that opens from the island of Bushong, part of the Federated Islands of Cadmus. Now, after the events of The Undertaking of Hope and Mercy, the drudges (zombies) that threatened Bushong from Tanria are gone, and some are even questioning the need for the Marshals. But there are other threats in Tanria, and assets there to be guarded, as Twyla and Frank are about to find out.

I loved this book. The comfortable relationship between middle-aged Twyla and Frank - work, but not life, partners - is realistic and well portrayed, their lives to this point sensitively sketched with all their pluses and minuses. A failed marriage. A dead spouse. New lives rebuilt, the best made of things. Children to nurture and see over the threshold of adulthood. The backgrounding of hopes and dreams in the face of practical concerns - money, health, family. As a result we have two beautifully drawn and largely content characters...

...who are about to have their cosy world turned upside down in a blaze of conspiracy, murder - and dragons.

It was both moving, and hilarious, to see how Twyla and Frank cope with the various eruptions into their lives that follow from what's brewing in Tanria. These are both large and small. There's the fact of a totally unexpected and previously mythological species of creature. There's crime. There are new colleagues - in this case a dangerously sexy scientist who upsets what turns out to have been a carefully balanced relationship that only survived by not asking certain questions, not thinking certain things. But, it seems that relationship rested on certain assumptions, and once these are challenged it's clear that for Twyla and Frank, nothing will ever be the same again.

Oh, and just who's trying to blow the pair up?

In some ways, Twyla and Frank have very ordinary lives. In some ways, they are very extraordinary people. But once the balance of the ordinary is upset, will they ever find it again? Will they even want to?

STRONGLY recommended. More like this, please.

For more information about The Undermining of Twyla and Frank, see the publisher's website here.

#Blogtour #Review - Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze by Tom Mandrake, DJ Ben Ha Meen and Mellow Brown

Purple Haze

DJ Ben Ha Meen and Mellow Brown (writers), Tom Mandrake (artist)
Titan Comics, 27 August 2024
Available as: HB, 128pp, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781787731899

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze to consider for review, and for inviting me to join the graphic novel's blogtour.

From the publisher

This is a pure rock and roll space opera featuring the legendary Jimi Hendrix as you’ve never seen him before. 

Fully sanctioned by Experience Hendrix L.L.C.; Authentic Hendrix, LLC - this is the first ever full-length graphic novel inspired by the music of the legendary Jimi Hendrix – arguably the world’s greatest guitarist. 

This 21st Century psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll odyssey sees Jimi Hendrix embark on a quest to the very centre of the universe in search of a magical talisman powerful enough to unlock the incredible latent power of his music so that he can share it with a universe starved of the rock ‘n’ roll by a tyrannical intergalactic force hellbent on silencing all music from the universe and enslaving all life. 

What I thought

Space opera. Rock opera. Seemingly unrelated genres which the collaborators behind this graphic novel nevertheless pull together with aplomb. The result is great as an example of each, but put together, something much more.

Yes, we get zoomy spaceships, vivid alien worlds, combat and awesome vistas, that genuine sense of wonder that space opera must deliver. But we also get what is actually - so far as such a thing is possible - a pretty vivid visualisation of a musical high (is that a thing? I think it's a thing) as the central character here, Hendrix, takes to the stage on a galaxy-crossing tour. Lyrics stream by in a kind of diagetic cloud. The music ignites in the intense shades of a fiery sun, blazing across the page. At once, deeply SFnal, deeply musical.

But, as I said, there is more here too. The story finds Hendrix, mysteriously, playing on an endless tour in this far-future dystopia. The how and why of that's never explained, but that doesn't actually loom large in the story and it doesn't really matter. Rather we have this guitar hero pushing his message of peace and brotherhood in a galaxy embroiled in brutal war. He's doing all he can, he thinks.

But of course he's not (I had vibes here of Springsteen's No Surrender "There's a war outside still raging/ You say it ain't ours anymore to win" and there's a moment of realisation with attempts to coop the tour  for sinister purposes, a moment of truth and decision which leads to a fascinating quest. The ultimate test here is then very much one of those "surely there must be another way?" setups where, behind the spaceships and the zooming, the point is that the hero must, will, reject the constraints imposed on them and do the different thing. The Kobayashi Maru moment, in Star Trek language.

And who better, in such a moment, to use their humanity, their sympathy, their courage, than Jimi Hendrix?

A fine graphic novel with a powerful, beating heart. Recommended.

For more information about Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze, see the publisher's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

You can buy Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith, or Waterstones.