Review - Strange New World by Vivian Shaw

Strange New World

Vivian Shaw
Orbit, 20 May 2025

Available as: PB, 371pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9780356521077

I'm grateful to Orbit for sending me a copy of Strange New World  to consider for review.

I thought that the series of books about Greta Helsing, doctor to the monsters of London, was done, so I was VERY excited to see the e-book only novella Bitter Waters last year. Gloriously it was followed up by Strange New World.  Strange New World does though think mark a definite end.

It was wonderful to meet Greta again.  I have a weakness for characters who, like her, may be tossed around by events and even baffled by what's going, but nevertheless remain level-headed, focussed and competent throughout - rather than becoming so just in time for the third act. 

Of course, it helps a protagonist when their husband is a wealthy vampire, their best friend is a senior functionary in Hell and their circle of acquaintances included the Voivode, Count Dracula himself. Greta has all of those advantages and is nowhere near as hard-pressed as she was in the earlier books. Still,  even it does look as though previous events - the hunting down of harmless monsters by religious fanatics - are being repeated. Greta suffered enough trauma from that to give her pause (I also have a weakness for stories that respect and recognise trauma rather than just ignoring it). Even so, the dangers (to herself, her friends and indeed, the fabric of reality itself) that she has weathered have also left her conscious of just how vulnerable mortals (and monsters) can be and of the need to face them. In Strange New World, those dangers come from a new direction, and the means to overcome must as well.

Without being too spoilery, I'd like to say how much I enjoyed the resolution to this book. It would have been possible to make it a magnificently bloody piece of combat, with the Universe balanced on a knife edge - and indeed there are some nail biting set piece conflicts in here - but the book is concerned  rather with empathy and morality. The solution, if there is one, is therefore going to require compassion, flexibility - and friendship.

That leads us to a much richer, and necessarily messier, conclusion than if it all turned on a knock-down battle, but also to a much better one I think. Indeed, as the book ended I found myself thinking of a perhaps surprising precedent - CS Lewis's Screwtape Letters. Setting aside the question of whether those "letters from a senior to a junior demon" (a kind of infernal Yes, Minister) establish Lewis, the great Christian apologist, as a founder of urban fantasy (I would love that but perhaps... not quite)  I think there is a comparison to be drawn. I think one of Lewis's insights was to explore issues of personality, confusion and despair in the subjects that his industrious demons were trying to mislead, rather than brimstone and temptation. 

Shaw's demons (and her angels) inhabit a different moral universe, not the Christian one, and nobody is actively trying to save or damn anyone. Here, Heaven and Hell are more like rival idealogical systems, and of course, as she makes clear, other mythologies are also available. But, at the root of things I think there are the same issues that Lewis explored - the fatal flaws in human, demon or, indeed, angel, that can lead to dreadful consequences. We are all monsters. We can all be better. We all need love, acceptance and hope. And friendship. Which made the ending of this book, and the moral actions that lead to the resolution and point to a future of hope, so powerful for me.

Which is, perhaps, a good place to end a series. While I will miss Greta, I feel that in these five books have completed something significant, say something significant. 

I will be keen to see what Shaw writes next!

For more information about Strange New World, see the publisher's website here.

Review - The Library of the Unwritten by AJ Hackwith

The Library of the Unwritten: A Novel from Hell's Library
A J Hackwith
Titan Books, 11 February 2020
PB, 448pp

I'm grateful to Titan Books for an advance copy of The Library of the Unwritten to consider for review.

The Unwritten Wing, presided over by its Head Librarian, Claire, is where all the unfinished - and completely unwritten - books are stored.

It's also situated in a corner of Hell...

The Library of the Unwritten features an entertaining - and slightly scary - band of characters: Claire herself (who as a Librarian is of course pretty formidable), her apprentice, Brevity (an ex-Muse), the angel Ramiel ("The Thunder of God"), novice demon Leto and Hero, who has absconded from his book. (We soon learn that Claire is as much jailer as Librarian, responsible for preventing Characters from escaping their books and wandering the world). While in some ways an odd bunch, they're also reassuringly normal - Brevity suffers panic attacks, Hero is a bit of a poser, Claire has a dazzling sense of duty but is driven by something that I can't say any more about because spoilers, Leto is a vulnerable teenager on the cusp between humanity and demonhood, and Ramiel has spent earns repenting a mistake and trying, with little success, to earn forgiveness. Together they squabble, battle and and hunt their way through a succession of the Realms of the afterlife, hunting for a dangerous - and forbidden - book.

This gives Hackwith the opportunity to set up some intriguing - and exciting - encounters. What happens, for example, when an angel or a demon wanders out of its own context and ends up in Valhalla, or an an Ancient Greek underworld? You'd think it could be something off a mishmash - but in fact Hackwith deploys a forensic logic throughout, which, coupled with the strong characterisation here, makes even the most unlikely scenarios plausible.

As the hunt for that most threatening of books proceeds, Claire and her team are forced to confront parts of themselves they would rather not, or which they have managed to forget, and to reflect where their true loyalties and loves lie. Even Hero, who sprang fully formed form his book, proved to have regrets and unfinished business and also something to prove out in the real world. There are some shocking revelations. Our heroes (and Hero) are also pushed to their wits' end to protect the Library, which is also, it seems, in danger.

There has been a mini wave recently of fantasy featuring resourceful librarians and the importance of books, which is not surprising I think as librarians are important people as are books (yes, I do mean people, books, here, ARE people). It also reflects the delightfully fluid, ambiguous nature of books and reading as both reflecting and creating reality. The Library of the Unwritten is a worthy addition to these, bringing to the genre its own distinct strand of ethical and theological commentary which underlies everything the team here get up and means their actions have visible and serious consequences.

It's all great fun and I look forward to seeing how this series evolves in future books.

For more about The Library of the Unwritten, see the publisher's website here.

Review - Grave Importance by Vivian Shaw

Cover by Will Staehle and Lisa Marie Pompilio

Grave Importance (Dr Greta Helsing, 3)
Vivian Shaw
Orbit, 24 September 2019
PB, e, 395pp

I'm grateful to Orbit for a free advance copy of Grave Importance to consider for review.

And there was war in heaven...

This is the third and final (though I hope "final" doesn't mean "forever") outing for Dr Greta Helsing, physician to the monsters of London, following her previous adventures in Strange Practice and Dreadful Company. In a satisfying twist on urban fantasy, Shaw has her hero treat all manner of supernatural beings, from vampires to mummies to ghouls, at her practice in Harley Street. And in the course of this she is often required to save the world - as you are - whether this involves negotiating with demons or hunting through abandoned tunnels in Paris or London.

Throughout everything, Helsing remains outwardly cool, professional and level-headed, even if she's screaming inside. Her medical training may help, or the fact that she's found love with Sir Francis Varney, a notorious Vampyre (note the spelling) in his day who together with his vampire (note the spelling) friend (Lord) Edmund Ruthven and the demon, Fastitocalon, constitute a kind of ragged family for the orphaned Greta.

It certainly helps that in Grave Importance, Greta's been invited to stand in as Medical Director at Oasis Natrun, a luxury spa and clinic for mummies located on the French Riviera. Here the thousands of year old creatures can have their bandages rewound. Perished and powdered bones, tendons and muscles are replaced. There are even cures for ancient diseases that plague their preserved organs. The facilities are impressive (the place its own helicopter!), the accommodation even more so, and Greta can really enjoy herself applying cutting-edge procedures. All seems to be going well... until Ruthven suffers a mysterious illness, and Greta's mummy patients begin collapsing.

What can be wrong this time?

In an elegantly paced and absorbing adventure, Shaw reveals a new threat to the stability of the universe, one considerably more menacing than anything Greta and the gang have come up against yet. It is an utterly cosmic, appalling danger, a mine quietly laid decades before and which, it seems, it is beyond the capacity of mere humans - or vampires - to defuse. Which raises the question, what do you do at the end of all things, Sam? As readers of the previous books will know, Shaw is mischievously inventive with her quotes and references:

'"This is Hell?" Nadezhda asked, her eyes still too wide.
"Nor are we out of it," said another voice, and they turned to see a stocky man in a surgical gown... The woodcuts didn't really do him justice. "Johannes Faust. You're Helsing?"'

Indeed, there's a sense in which all the main characters here are references, to name only a few, you'll recognise the name Helsing of course and both Varney and Ruthven were chronicled - mischronicled, they'd say stiffly if asked - in classic Victorian horror literature.

Ranging from London to New York to the South of France to the very towers of Hell - and the Nacreous Gate of Heaven - this book is certainly conceived on a grand scale, allowing Greta and her allies full rein to be the characters they have grown to be over these books. That's especially true for  Greta, as she helps out in a very different sort of hospital than the one she's used to, but Varney faces up to his wicked past and both Cranswell and Grisaille play a roguish part. There's a touch of the caper about the book, a dash of romance and a real moral heart behind the wisetalking: at one level Grave Importance is showcasing the everyday virtue of just getting on with it, doing what you can, not giving up, at another it takes that message and transcends it completely, making the whole point one of never giving in to despair, never believing oneself irredeemable, never losing heart.

Oh, and - as mentioned above - Dr Faust is here too. Haven't you always wanted to meet him?

Overall, a fun and fitting end to this trilogy. It has a simpler, more pared down plot that the preceding books, focussing a bit more on character, which I rather enjoyed but best of all there's lots of Greta but at the same time the story is still told on an epic scale. Shaw crams a lot into this book, paradoxically though that still left me wanting more - for example I could have done with more plot around Van Dorne, perhaps: a fascinating character with a fascinating history who plays a significant role here but doesn't really get much airtime.

And finally: like the previous books this has a simply gorgeous cover, the woodcut style giving a very authentic feel of classic horror slightly subverted by the detail of the illustrations. I think Will Staehle and Lisa Marie Pompilio have worked wonders here).

For more about the book, including links to buy, see the publisher's website here.

Review - The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard

The House of Binding Thorns (Dominion of the Fallen, 2)
Aliette de Bodard
Gollancz, 2017
PB, audio, 351pp

I bought my paperback copy of this book from my local bookshop and received the audio version through my Audible subscription.

As I said in my review of The House of Shattered Wings, I've been catching up with de Bodard's Dominion of the Fallen trilogy in preparation for the third part, The House of Sundering Flames, which is just out (published 25 July). This book is the second part of the trilogy, so there are spoilers here for House of Shattered Wings and if you haven't read that, you might want to look away now.

I have listened to both on audio and I have to say they have been excellent in that medium; the characters have strong voices for the narrator to breathe life into and much of the story is in reported speech giving the narration immediacy and pace. Helpfully, the narrator of the Wings audiobook was the same as that of Thorns, so there was continuity of the voices in my head (and in my car).

So then. To the story. We are back in the Paris of the Fallen - angels cast down from Heaven who wield powerful magic and band together in "Houses" for their own protection, not to say glory and power.  Decades before, a magical war ruined Paris (and the wider world) leaving the Houses diminished, though still strong. The House of Binding Thorns picks up pretty much where The House of Shattered Wings left off, with Madeleine - Essence addict and former alchemist of House Silverspires - back unwillingly in House Hawthorn, under the sway of the dangerous Fallen, Asmodeus. Madeleine's life over the previous 20 years was devoted to her fear of Asmodeus, who murdered her friends and nearly killed her when he took power in Hawthorn, so as this book opens she really is at a nadir.

But life can be surprising, and Madeleine is about to be given a chance to improve her situation - if she'll undertake a dangerous mission for Asmodeus.

Like its predecessor, The House of Binding Thorns focusses on one house - here, Hawthorn - and the threats to it, but for me it had much more of a feeling of movement and freedom than Wings did. While The House of Binding Thorns seemed to take place mostly within the mouldering corridors of Silverspires, apart from an excursion to the dragon kingdom under the Seine and a couple of visits to other Houses, in Thorns we have a much more extended story. There is a longer visit to the Dragon Kingdom, exploring its politics, history, and plight, and there are other events across Paris, in particular in the home of two new characters, the Houseless Fallen Berith and her human lover Françoise. Their relation to Hawthorn and the Dragon Kingdom isn't clear at the start and I don't want to spoil the story, but they are well-drawn, distinct characters who bring a great deal to this story, representing the perspective of those who are not "House bound".

They are also friends of Phillipe, the young Annamite man we met in the last book, who is still seeking a way to resurrect Isabelle, who died in the earlier book. Despite Berith being Houseless, Phillipe does not wholly trust her - she is Fallen, after all, and he has reason to fear Fallen and to hate them for what they've done to him and his people. Trust and distrust feature strongly in this book: trust between rulers and ruled, even where there is hatred and fear in the relationship, trust based on understanding and alignment of motives, on power, and trust - or the lack of - within and between cultural groups (the dragon Kingdom, the Houses).

Despite his distrust, Phillipe is, it turns out, Houseless in a similar sort of way to Berith. She has rejected the House that might have sheltered her. Phillipe, as we know, rejected the Dragon Kingdom. Both must find a way to exist in a dangerous Paris with little help from others. The story develops this parallel to show how the Kingdom wields power in the same kinds of ways as the Houses, providing no real alternative to the Fallen and their magic.

And de Bodard continues to explore, using her Paris and her dragon kingdom, aspects of colonial history (such as the British opium trade) that are often passed quickly over and certainly, are rarely made the foundation of fantasy fiction. Again, the wider scope of this second novel and perhaps its faster pace gives much more room to do that. It is in many ways simply a "bigger" story. Rather than a central mystery, there are half a dozen subplots where characters get themselves caught up in the thorny branches and drawn into the main growth. There are unlikely alliances born of despair, and some unexpected betrayals too.

The star of this book is, though, Asmodeus. He appeared in The House of Shattered Wings as a convenient antagonist but here he is at the centre. Asmodeus - a bully and a sadist - is far from likeable, but he is still a bewitching character who simply comes over as more complex, more enthralling than Selene, the Head of House Silverspires on whole the first book was centred. Maybe the Devil really does have all the best tunes, or, Miltonically, evil is more interesting than good but I really felt this book crackle whenever Asmodeus appeared. Perhaps de Bodard let herself go a bit more with Asmodeus? Whatever, she has produced a compelling and even beguiling portrait of this damned angel, a figure who comes alive on the page (or in the audio) and commands every scene where he appears.

I think I actually enjoyed this book more than Shattered Wings, it's a stinking read in itself and carries the trilogy forward brilliantly, setting the stage, I hope, for a terrific ending in the third book.

Review - The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard

The House of Shattered Wings (Dominion of the Fallen, 1)
Aliette de Bodard
Gollancz, 2015
PB, 402pp

I bought my (paper) copy of this book from my local independent bookshop. I also listened to it via Audible.

The House of Shattered Wings - for first in de Board's Domain of the Fallen series - was only published four years ago, but is already, I think, one of those SFF books you really should have read, an instant classic.  And I hadn't.

So, to catch up, in advance of the third book being published later this year, I have been listening to Wings as an audiobook while driving to and from the station. That gives me 50 or so minutes a day, enough time for a decent length book over several weeks. I'm therefore specifically reviewing the audiobook, though I must admit, as I came towards the end, I picked up my paper copy and finished it that way, I couldn't wait for my next drive.

The first thing to say about House of Shattered Wings it that it's a triumph of worldbuilding. De Bodard creates a haunting, ruined Paris, gutted in a magical war some decades before, with a 1920s vibe, although I think that chronologically it's set more or less "now". The history of France - Europe - has had grafted into it the presence of "Fallen", literally angels cast out of Heaven in what's alluded to as a Miltonic rebellion. They arrive in Paris (and elsewhere? That's not clear) actually falling - the opening of the first chapter gives a snippet of the background to this - and liable not only to be damaged by that fall but immediately at the mercy of rival "Houses", and of gangs who will gut them for their magical "essence".

Angel magic is all in this Paris. It's both a curse - having ruined and polluted the City - and a source of power to the magicians of the Houses, which are presided over by those Fallen. And it's also a drug, sought after by addicts to whom it provides comfort, warmth, an illusion of safety. That's something needed in this dangerous world, needed for example by Madeleine, alchemist of House Silverspires, where she took refuge twenty years before after House Hawthorn was the scene of slaughter, an event that has traumatised and haunted her ever since. Madeleine is therefore an addict, hooked on the dangerous Essence, flouting the rules of her adopted House.

If the book was only notable for worldbuilding, that would be great, but not make for a satisfying read. But there is much more here. Another brilliant feature of this book is that while nobody here is very likeable, or at least few of the main characters, they are fascinating and complex as characters. While one may feel sympathy for Madeleine, she's not - or wasn't to me - a very pleasant person.  Selene, Head of Silverspires, is grouchy and frequently interrupts people from whom she might otherwise get useful information. Isabelle, a new Fallen who arrives early on, quickly becomes enigmatic and moody. Asmodeus - Head of House Hawthorn - is a vicious bully, only partially disguised by his being charming and mannered. Yet they all compel attention.

Possibly the only exception, in that he is more pleasant, but still complex,is Philippe, a (seemingly) young man from the Far East, trafficked to Paris by the colonial power to serve as cannon fodder in the War. I'll say more about Philippe in a moment, but first I just want to say how much I enjoyed this bunch of grumpy, spiky characters. Through them de Bodard weaves a compelling story without ever allowing it to turn into a mere struggle between Good and Evil. They are all fascinating, flawed creatures, plausible even while annoying (or perhaps because of it). Everyone here is capable of doing - has done - monstrous things. The system of Houses ensnares them all, and they are knowingly complicit in it, all except Philippe who, as an outsider especially sees its rottenness.

Even Philippe, though, perhaps mainly sees the effect on him personally and his country. In a neat encapsulation of colonialism, the Fallen's power has enabled France - presumably Europe at large - to overturn indigenous belief systems (by which I mean, actually existing systems of divinity and divine power) and in particular that of the Jade Emperor, who Philippe previously served. And none of the Fallen who we meet here recognise or rate Philippe's, rather different, grasp of magic because it's "foreign" or "primitive" compared to their own. The power of the Fallen is therefore both the cause of, and in the service of, a colonial attitude. They are strong, but also ignorant.

And in keeping with that, throughout this story Fallen mistrust each other, misjudge the situation, decline to share information, and leap to conclusions (often wrong) about what is going on. There is a threat in play here, a curse whose effects unfold, at first in minor ways then more and more strongly. And there is someone behind that threat. But, as I've said above, it's not a traditional evil, there isn't some Dark Lord here seeking power, there is no band of good magicians getting together to save the day. Motives are characterised by muddle, partial understanding, and personal prejudices.

All of that, perhaps surprisingly, makes for a brilliant story, gripping, convincing, often sad, sometimes wryly funny. One may not like these characters but it's hard not to sympathise with them, to wish that, somehow, they could break the wheel, could escape from the circles they have to keep going round - no less confined for believing they are in control.

So - a blisteringly good story, great fun to listen to though I will admit there were many moments when (as I was alone I the car) I was shouting out for Philippe or Madeleine to share some key bit of info, to be a bit less rigid, for Selene to shut up and listen instead of pontificating. You know they won't do it, and that's what gives the story such a tragic direction, but you wish they would.

Deservedly, then, one of those books you just HAVE to read. On to The House of Binding Thorns for my next listen!