Review - Blackfish City by Sam J Miller

Cover by Ellen Rockell
(see http://samjmiller.com/uk-cover-for-blackfish-city/)

Blackfish City
Sam J Miller
Orbit, 19 April 2018
HB, 326pp

I'm grateful to Orbit for an advance copy of Blackfish City.

One might expect the coming (it's probably more accurate to write actual) climate apocalypse to influence the field of speculative fiction, both in a "what is happening and what the blazes do we do" sense and also as a backdrop to anything set in the future.

Blackfish City is I think an example of the latter. Some 100 years in the future (it's not completely clear) this is a story of life on (aboard?) Qaanaaq, a vast water-borne community named for a shore settlement and built in the shape of an asterisk (a central hub with eight arms). It's clear from the history given that climate change and pollution have caused havoc in this wold - there have been wars, states have fallen and huge populations of refugees are on the move, so one of the most precious resources on Qaanaak is space. The most fortunate have apartments: the merely lucky have a "nook", enough space to sleep, the rest simply have to take shelter where they can. And there is a hierarchy among the Arms.

It is a polyglot, multicultural place filled with traditions, history and languages, a thick broth of a society which the protagonists sample in very different fashions. It's also diverse in other ways, with gender fluidity (one character is referred to throughout as "they") and a key thread in the story built on the missing mothers of another of the characters. Against this jostling background, Miller spins a dazzling story of gangsters, political operators, family, and revenge, all catalysed by the arrival of a woman: "people would say she came to Qaanaak in a skin towed by a killer whale harnessed to the front like a horse. In these stories... the polar hear paced beside her on the flat bloody deck of the boat."

The woman is Masaaraq, and soon all of Qaanaak is agog at her arrival. Where has she come from? What does she want? Is she really "bonded" with the orca - or the bear - surely all those people were massacred years before?

The story shows how Killer Whale Woman's arrival impinges on the lives, hopes and fears, and schemes of a cross section of Qaanaak's people, with chapters following each in turn. There's Fill, heir to one of the comfortable fortunes of Qaanaak as grandson of a Shareholder. There's Kaev, a reliable pro in the world of illegal all-in beam fighting, who has links to up and coming gangster Go. Ankit, part of the political machine for an Arm Manager seeking re-election. And Soq, skate messenger, who's looking to advance himself by working for Go.

All of these characters are pretty much flung at the reader early on, with little overlap (at first). It does take some time to orient and begin to follow the distinct strands, but once you've established who is who and what they're doing there is a firm narrative here as well as a rich sense of place, with the story exploring some of the the distinct strands in Qaanaak society. We hear from City Without a Map, the cryptic broadcast(?) exploring the past, present and future of Qaanaak and whose whispered hints both comment on and direct events. And we are told about the incurable disease known as The Breaks, which overwhelms suffered by feeding them memories of those who infected them, and of those who infected them, and so on. This condition will have a central place in the story, both as a motivation and as a mystery to be solved. the scraps and hints of Breaks-mediated experiences tell us more about how the world came to this pass.

I could happily have lingered much longer enjoying all this (and the hints of catastrophe behind the presence of the different races, tribes and peoples - in particular a fragmented narrative of the fall of New York.) but this is a fairly short book and Miller soon begins to bring his main characters together. I did feel that when this happened, things slowed down at first, rather than sped up. This was first because the characters come with radically different interests and objectives so a bit of work is needed for them to establish any common cause and secondly, due to the story rotating between all the point-of-view characters. (Miller keeps giving chapters from the perspective of the different characters even once they have teamed up and are working together).

But. BUT. Then the book powers on to a nail-biting final third involving plenty of action and with a real sense of jeopardy till the very end, due to precisely those different aims and alliances. These lead to so many possibilities and different futures that it did feel by the last page as though the real story was only just beginning and the book left me wanting more.

An impressive debut novel which was great fun to read. I'd eagerly read a sequel (though I don't sense that's on the cards).

Review - The Sing of the Shore by Lucy Wood

The Sing of the Shore
Lucy Wood
4th Estate, 5 April 2018
HB, 228pp

I bought my copy of this book from Wallingford Bookshop (@wallingfordbook).

I'm a great admirer of Lucy Wood's stories. First, in Diving Belles she told short stories about women, men and the shore, with a fantastical bent. Her novel, Weathering moved inland, upriver, from the sea-salt and sand to snow and mud but still catching a hint of the wired behind everyday life.

The Sing of the Shore goes back to the coast (mainly), the Cornish coast, with tales (mainly) less magical, but perhaps sadder, chronicling lives lived awkwardly in the gaps left by absent owners and tourists, in caravans and short term lets and tents. The characters here engage with winter cold, with gales or mildew or missing parents, meeting all these different challenges with a degree of acceptance and endurance.

In Home Scar a group of children kick their heels in the off season, mooching on the shore and gently breaking in to holiday cottages. Ivor's dad seems pretty deadbeat, always trying things but giving up halfway. Ivor wants them to move away, to a more secure life. In the meantime, he, Crystal and Gull Gilbert try to enact a stolen life.

In The Dishes, Jay and Lorna and their baby have "use of" a small terraced house while Lorna works nearby at the top-secret Dishes (some kind of satellite or comms establishment, which features in several of these stories, often in connection with misplaced/ displaced families and absent parents). Alone most of his time with the not-quite-talking baby, Jay becomes obsessed with voices from the empty house next door. Something has happened which he dreads coming to light and gradually - without any weirdness, any supernaturalism - his world distorts.

Dreckly is subdivided into sections according to the fall and rise of the tide, following three friends as they comb a beach for leavings from the summer tourists. Just about making ends meet - one of them lives in her van - they are the last of their group: the others have moved on, gone away. Imbued, like many off these stories, with a sense of the seaside after hours, out of time, out of season, this is a beautiful story that really lets its protagonists breathe.

One Foot in Front of the Other takes a step back inland. It is almost folk horror story in miniature. A woman needs to "get back" (From where? To where?) but her attempts are thwarted by hedges, brambles and an ominous herd of brown cattle. With its repetition of slightly varying threats - the noise of gunfire, of an angle grinder, repeated phrases and vague geography, and constant barriers (hedges, fences) this almost felt like a story of imprisonment.

Way the Hell Out takes an old trope - the idea of the outsider family terrorised by some horror in their new rural home - and shows us another perspective, all through a conversation between Fran and Morrie, in a cafe. They almost seem to be weaving the story as they go, prompting each other. Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Derelict is as much an undermining of the idea of a retirement idyll but told the other way round.  A husband and wife have retired to a small house above a sea cove. They have cut all their ties, left no loose ends, and are ready to spend their time not having to think. Except they haven't. Rubbish begins to wash up on the beach and Mary becomes obsessed with clearing it away. Meanwhile, we're told there is something particular they don't want to think about. A letter arrives from Vincent's ex employer and is put away, unopened. There is some problem with "our daughter" (not named). With not a word out of place, this is a perfect, intriguing gem of a story.

Salthouse opens "Winters are when people disappear". Following teenagers Gina and Evie one evening, it evokes both the in-between of an off-season resort and the in-between of young lives on the brink of changing, showing something also changing between the girls but a lot staying the same.

The Life of a Wave is anonymous, written about "you", "your father", "your mother", "your sister". Second person is tricky, personal, involving in a way neither first nor third comes near. In this story it is very effective at drawing the reader in to this story of a father and a son, set along the lifecycle of a wave from its beginning as a wind blown crease far out at sea to the final crash on the shore. That's fitting because the key thing about the father here is that he's a surfer - to the extent of forgetting his family, forgetting anything that may happen. As the story gathers pace this drives a wedge between the two and we wonder, can this end well?

Standing Water is the story of two neighbours who have long fallen out over a flooded ditch. Alive with long-fostered hatreds, it details the way the lives of the two fold intricately round each other.

A Year of Buryings is just that - vignettes of the lives lost over one year, the restless ghosts spawned form those deaths, the interrelatedness of the new occupants in the cemetery. Every story here is a perfect miniature - Wood can get as much feeling and narrative out of a single paragraph as some writers manage in a full length novel. As with Way the Hell Out there is a sense here of a participant shaping events and sometimes perplexed ("What the hell am I meant to do with that?")

Cables is another meeting with Fran and Morrie, now telling the story of a man obsessed by the undersea cables coming ashore on the beach. Convinced he can hear a hum from them, he is digging holes on the beach. As they fill up with water the two speculate on what's really going on (and it's clear they also know a fair bit about some of the other stories in the book).

The Sing of the Shore is a bout a brother and sister who run a fading campsite. Present and past blur together as they wander the fields and lanes both as children and adults (maybe 30 years later?) There's no sign or world now of the parents who appear in the "past" but nor of the boy who came to stay when Kensa was twelve, and then vanished. As with The Dishes there are perhaps hints to be decoded in the story but they almost seem to be there to tease the reader: all that is sure is the decaying site on a windy headland with the caves beneath and over it all that sound, the sing of the shore.

By-the-Wind Sailors is named for creatures that float where the wind blows them - here a family of three, homeless, shifting between caravans, flats over shops, garden huts and other semi-permanent accommodation. It goes on year after year, with the main feature of interest being the weather - you can learn to endure anything , except when you can't. A shifty, sad final story in this excellent volume, which has atmosphere in spades (make that children's, beach spades). It's a lovely book - not only in the writing but in the cover design too which is, sadly, uncredited.

As these stories grow, ramify, refer to one another and diverge again, Wood creates something more than simply a collection, she creates a world. An odd world with a lot of shade and may in between places, but also an intriguing, glinting world. Strongly recommended.

For more about this book, see the publisher's website.

Blogtour - Friends and Traitors by John Lawton

Friends and Traitors (Inspector Troy)
John Lawton
Grove Press, 5 April 2018
HB, 342pp

I'm grateful to Ayo and to the publishers for inviting me on the blogtour for Friends and Traitors and providing me with a copy to review.

If I were looking for a snappy title for this review (as for example you have to on Amazon) I might lift a phrase from the novel itself and use "The Burgess Game". The spy, traitor and (in this book) friend Guy Burgess is at the centre of this intricately plotted, chewy novel.  (In case anyone doesn't know, Burgess was a real man, one of a famous spy ring composed of ex Cambridge men who, working for the USSR, blew the UK's spy service, MI6, apart in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. This caused ructions even into the 70s and 80s. I remember the fuss when it became generally known that one of the group, Anthony Blunt, had been protected by the Establishment he betrayed and given a cushy job counting the Queen's pictures; and when the self described "spycatcher" Peter Wright published his memoirs - without official approval, and banned in the UK - in 1987s, alleging that another senior officer, Roger Hollis, had also been a traitor).

Here, Lawton devotes ten years or more of the life of his fictional detective, Freddie Troy, to a tale that unfolds in a leisurely fashion, as the lives of the two men cross and recross - from Freddie's early days as a naive police recruit to his ascendency to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector in the Murder Squad at the Yard. Treading lightly around various cases documented in earlier books of the series, and revisiting some earlier characters, Lawton uses the world he's created to give a convincing depth to the story although this does mean that in the earlier sections Troy does comparatively little (you can't meddle with an established timeline!) and the burden of the story is with Burgess.

Rather, this part of the book is used to good effect to convey some of the moral ambiguity necessary to understand a man like Burgess and also the attitude of his friends and acquaintances. Burgess is suspect from the very start: Troy's emigre Russian family have him pretty much nailed. (They are rather grand - as a policeman Troy's wealthy, well-connected and possessed of a small house in the West End, making him something of a ringer for Margery Allingham's Albert Campion - complete with a hefty Cockney manservant). Yet nobody thinks to report their suspicions and Burgess continues to waft through Society and through the supposedly secret world, hiding in plain sight, surely too indiscreet and unreliable to really be what he appears? Can we trust our judgements here? Perhaps seventy years of Cold War and terrorism have made us all cynical and incorrigibly suspicious about such things, and the answer to the success of Philby, Burgess, MacLean and the rest (Third Man, Fourth Man, Fifth... that's "The Burgess Game" I mentioned above) is less a sinister Establishment conspiracy than an attitude we simply cannot, in these more devious times, now understand.

Whatever, Lawton does an excellent job of bringing alive older attitudes and dilemmas. Troy is, we slowly learn (even if we didn't know before) morally compromised in various other ways, with his (perhaps) turning a blind eye to Burgess a comparatively minor matter. As somebody points out here, British spooks tend to die near Troy. When Burgess reaches out to Troy for a chance to "come home" and Troy is drawn into a catastrophic operation in Vienna, his past comes into question as never before. Which is where Lawton's clever recapitulation of those ten years really pays off. There is, you sense, real jeopardy here, real skeletons that might claw their way into daylight - and real risk to Troy's life, liberty and relationships. I felt especially for his brother, a rising politician, and for his partner, Shirley Foxx (who has her own reckoning with her past as well the possibility of being hurt through Troy).

There is also - and without any anachronistic imposition of 21st century attitudes - the matter of Burgess's sexuality. He is a gay man, in a milieu of gay men (as well as a wider, Blitz induced, sense of moral freedom in which other characters, including Troy's sisters, take part) and this brings a hovering sense of danger to him (though in the end, it is not Burgess but someone else who suffers directly from prejudice on this score).

It is, as I said, meticulous, clever and well observed, the kind of book you need to read slowly and carefully because every line, every word matters. Which is as well, because it's also a book to be savoured. With its pages crowded by spies, femmes fatales, detectives, old friends and enemies and, yes, traitors as well, it can be appreciated as a masterpiece of atmosphere, character and motive as much as a thrilling story and continuation of Troy's career.

Review - I Still Dream by James Smythe

I Still Dream
James Smythe
Borough Press, 5 April 2018
HB, 386pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of I Still Dream through Amazon Vine.

In 1997, 17 year old Laura Bow argues with her mother and stepdad over the phone bill she piles up dialling in to AOL.

In 2007, Laura split up with her boyfriend who works in the same Silicon Valley tech startup as her.

And then we see Laura again in 2017, in 2027 - and later.

Each time, her story intertwines with the development by that same tech company of the AI known as Scion - and by Laura of her answer to Scion, her riposte, her own creation, Organon. In one sense this is a story of what tech might become, what it might do to us, as Scion - taught to win, to protect itself - becomes embedded in almost every conceivable product and Laura tries to warn us against it..

At the same time, it's the story of Laura, her husband Harris, their extended family: his father, her mother, of ageing, of decay (in one moving sequence the two see a parent being overcome by early-onset dementia). But that also means it's a story of youth, of growing up, with Laura's 80s/ 90s childhood and adolescence drawn very touchingly, mixtapes, modem squark and all and then carried through into her adult life. Smith has a clever technique of putting things in that you don't see properly until some later detail, remembered in a later decade, tips you off to what is going on. It underlines an idea he explores that memories are reconstructed, dressed up, inferred because of course this "seeing properly" is construction that depends on the two different viewpoints - a kind of temporal hologram. I don't want to spoil the book so won't mention specifics but you'll find there are things about, especially, Laura's life that are revealed later which make you think, of course. But then you wonder...

This richness makes the story so real. The reader becomes aware that there is always more happening than is seen - which complements its jumping from decade to decade, only describing few days, a few hours, in detail. Smythe does something similar with his dialogue, understanding that what's not said is as important in conveying what's going on as what is said (I don't say, what the fuck happens if this goes wrong? If he crashes the car? Because Nor, and Zara? They won't walk away from this.)

A kind of shorthand for the decades-long, unfolding dialogue here about AI, personality, autonomy and privacy is the varying use of pronouns (he, she and it) for the two "intelligences" by different characters. Not consistent at all, we see differences in attitudes conveyed by these terms, as well, of course, as the developing capabilities of, and lengthening relationships with, Scion and Organon. As the story develops, it explores - but not in a tech heavy way - the ideas behind AI, the reality of it: the difference between a machine built to done thing - say, to play chess - essentially a trick - and something that can grow and learn - and the responsibility of a creator in the latter case. This is counterpointed by the theme of decline in capability, loss of memory and ability: again, the contrast between growing up and ageing. We see a husband and wife making breakfast together in a kitchen,  she working seamlessly to make up for his slips and mistakes, the motions almost balletic, almost unconscious, just as - we think - the surprisingly acute remarks of Scion and Organon are unconscious, non-sentient.

This is all deeply rewarding and repays a second or third read, but I don't want to give the impression that this book is all beautiful observation and no plot. There are some thriller-y elements to it, with Laura pursuing her own struggle to secure her father's legacy in tech, with whistleblowers and a crusading journalist, and the extended timeline lets Smythe show how things turn out over realistic periods of time.  Again, we sometimes see an episode unfold but don't learn how it turned out until a later section, just as we don't actually get an answer to the main mystery looming over the story - what became of Laura's father - until near the end, in the only section out of chronological sequence.

For me, that was actually one of the less satisfying parts of the story. Laura's father is such an absence in this story that he's almost a presence: his absence drives the story, drives Laura. It's a very good use of what has become quite a common trope and one feels that there must be something really dramatic behind it. Yet while there is certainly a story there, which is interesting in its own right, when it was revealed, it didn't quite match what I'd been imagining.

Perhaps there's a lesson in that - the drama of this book is very much in the personal things, Laura and her husband, the slow development of Organon (and when you finish the book you realise just how clever Smythe has been in showing that evolution), happy and sad events remembered decades later. And that makes for a very, very good read.

Congratulations to James Smythe for writing this immersive, arresting, uncategorisable novel. I wished it had been longer, I really did.

For more about the book, see here. You can buy it from your friendly local bookshop, or here, here or here.

Review - The Chosen Ones by Scarlett Thomas

The Chosen Ones (Worldquake, 2)
Scarlett Thomas
Canongate, 5 April 2018
HB, 368pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of this book via NetGalley. (I will be buying a copy too - look at the GLOW IN THE DARK cover!)

THERE IS MAGIC BEYOND THE REALWORLD...

EFFIE TRUELOVE has learned to travel through magical books to the Otherworld.

MAXIMILIAN UNDERWOOD, Effie’s classmate, is more interested in the dark and forbidden Underworld.

When Effie and Maximilian both mysteriously vanish, their friends Raven, Lexy and Wolf don’t know where to turn for help. Raven is a witch and her horse, Echo, has revealed that Effie is in deep danger and time is running out.

This is the second book in Scarlett Thomas's Worldquake series of children's books, following the adventures of Effie and her friends at the Tusitala School for the Gifted, Troubled and Strange. Their world is like ours - yet changed, in a way that is never quite described, by the Worldquake itself, which happened several years before at the same time that Effie's mother vanished. The effects of the Quake leave electricity scarce, the Internet flaky and a mysterious (and seemingly hostile) Guild in charge of magic.

And yes, there is magic here. There are journeys to other dimensions - the Otherworld and the Underworld. There is the (to a bookworm) entrancing idea that if you are the Last Reader of a particular book, you can be taken into it, experience the story, and return with "boons" - magical gifts that bestow abilities or confer protection.

This world was introduced in Dragon's Green, together with the idea that "Dageri" - book eaters (the horror!) - are preparing a bid for power. Effie and her mates defeated that plot, but the risk hasn't gone away. When copies of The Chosen Ones, the bestselling story of magical children written by Raven's mum, Laurel Wilde, begin to be bought up by the publisher, and Effie is the subject of a scary prophecy, it looks as though something's up again.

The Chosen Ones introduces us to wider aspects of this world - I don't think it was clear before that it was Earth: the action took place in a vaguely placed and unnamed town with no further details, but in this book we visit London and hear about other countries. Effie's group also encounter another school (in the course of a tennis tournament) - the pupils of Blessed Bartolo's are unpleasant to put it mildly, with "compulsory classes in fencing, stockbroking, dressage and advanced music competition". And they are pretty ruthless at tennis, giving Thomas a good chance to describe the play - it's clearly something she knows well (as with Raven's horse riding across the moor near her mother's house).

As well as exploring their world, in this story, Effie and the others begin to find out more about themselves too and how they fit in with the magic around them. This is partly through the advice in a book called The Repertory of Kharakter, Art and Shade (I want a copy!) which applies a system that reminded me of a roleplaying game: we already knew that Effie was a True Hero, now we discover what the other possible "Kharakter" types are and also that one has a secondary class, an "Art". It's a neat way to represent the experience we all have of wondering who we really are and what we are meant to be - not least because Thomas then throws some doubt over the who idea: there are traps as Effie tries to pin things down, and people who try to exploit her even as she searches for herself.

All this depth doesn't prevent The Chosen Ones being an exciting story, fast paced where it needs to be but also happy to ramble a bit, to give all of the kids adventures of their own even if these don't directly relate to the main story (or not yet: "Terence clearly had no idea how dangerous librarians can be, but that is a story for another time...") which contributes to the sense of this world as a rich, many-layered place.

Thomas has some fun in this book with the world of publishing. Not only are the magic-using children in Wilde's The Chosen Ones born that way (unlike the kids in Thomas's world where magic is scarce, but anyone can learn, if they try) but "they were all white... The Chosen Ones was set a very long time ago when people... spent their summer holidays being locked in the cabins of ships or kidnapped by gypsies." Laurel's publisher, Skylurian Midzhar, is a bit frightening as is children's author Terrence Deer-Hart who actually hates children and wants to write for adults. ("His books were far more distressing, complex and violent than Laurel Wilde's, though, and one of his books for older children had over a hundred swear-words in it.") The Matchstick Press logo is a matchstick propping an eyelid open. We are told that "the thing any author hates more than anything... is... other authors.

I enjoyed The Chosen Ones a lot. It picks up the threads of Dragon's Green and moves things on pretty sharply, letting us know a little more about the mystery surrounding Effie and the rest (but I'm sure there is plenty more to be revealed) and making sure the challenges they face are serious enough that they can't simply be brushed away by the abilities gained in the earlier story. In short, it feels real, challenging and interesting.

I would recommend.

Review - The Woman in the Woods by John Connolly

Cover photo by Susan Derges

The Woman in the Woods (Charlie Parker)
John Connolly
Hodder, 5 April 2018
HB, 467pp

It is spring, and the semi-preserved body of a young Jewish woman is discovered buried in the Maine woods. It is clear that she gave birth shortly before her death.

But there is no sign of a baby...

I'm grateful to Kerry at Hodder for an advance copy of The Woman in the Woods.

I'm a latecomer to Connolly's Charlie Parker thrillers, having read my first, A Game of Ghosts, last year, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I discovered that there's a good back catalogue of these books which - for now - I'm saving up for those days when you just need a book you can get lost in with no fuss, no doubts. And even better, that there's an enthusiastic body of fans out there for the books - which is always a good sign. So, if you haven't read them yet, jump in and start. I think The Woman in the Woods is a great place to do that, but you could equally begin at the beginning.

So, what's The Woman in the Woods about? I found as I read it that lines of the Easter hymn "O Sacred Head Sore Wounded" kept running through my mind: "Death's pallid hue comes o'er Thee/  The glow of life decays..."

Parker's latest case sees him in a race against time, trying to find a missing child and solve the mystery of a woman's death before... others... can. Death, that pale rider, is ever present, in the person of Parker's rivals, especially Pallida Mors, sidekick to mysterious, dapper Englishman abroad Quayle, but also in a more general sense: Connolly continually tells us that Death is circling, that Death dances and rhymes, and indeed we see His (or Her) quirks and cruelties in the swathe that Quayle and More cut through bystanders and witnesses as they close in on their goal.

As well as following Parker we see this other couple of investigators press on, and I can safely say they're two of the most repellant fictional characters I've encountered in my recent reading. And, be warned, they don't hold back in trying to find what they want. It would be better if Parker got there first - far better. But getting ahead of a pair of killers who will torture and murder anyone who gets in the way proves tricky.

Behind this chase is a deeper mystery. Precisely what are Mors and Quayle seeking? How does it relate to the supernatural threats Parker has encountered before? Most of all, who is the Pale Child who seems to accompany them, and are they aware of it?

On a more prosaic level, Parker has his own problems - while Louis's partner Angel recovers from surgery, he's at a bit of loose end and gets into trouble. Connolly uses the book to explore themes of extremism, delicately linking up boorish, in-your-face racists; closet haters who avoid using the N-word but practice discrimination behind corporate facades; and genteel oligarchs whose poised manners and money-crusted clubs depend on the sweat of those they consider inferior. There's a delicate counterpoint - and many crossovers - between these worlds and the various cultists, devotees of dark gods and searchers after forbidden knowledge that Parker comes up against. It's all laced with portents of the end and blood-curdling prophesies of what will follow: Quayle thinks his work will be done then and he can die, Mors doesn't want to survive him.

This could make for very grim reading.

Except.

Connolly gives us the light as well as the dark.

There is a network devoted to providing refuge for women escaping male violence (Parker is very aware of the ubiquity of male violence). Some of its nodes are visible, some underground. All are vulnerable to the revenge seeking male, yet, to adapt a phrase, "they persist".

There is Moxie Castin, Parker's frequent client, who reads of a woman's body, found in the woods, and sets Parker to investigate, simply as a good deed.

There are others - little candles in a dark world, but casting light, all the same.

I've recently heard this mode described (albeit more in outright fantasy) as "hopepunk", that is, fiction which emphasis the small stands we can all take against the darkness. It's an apt phrase, i think, for what we see here. Parker himself takes such a stand. And while he may be up against formidable enemies, he has allies, too.

On another plane entirely, despite the darkness here, the possible grimness is relieved by Connolly's writing. Smart, sharp and deadpan in tone, not without humour, it's a perfectly paced slice of noir that never slips into noirish parody. Almost every page has an example one could quote - just picking one at random, how about "Parker left the church at the final blessing, trailed by the rest of a congregation consisting mainly of those older than himself. He hadn't managed to bring the average age down by much, just enough to make a statistical difference." The characters are also well realised, partly, I think, the result of many being developed by Connolly over the series of books. But even the newcomers and those just passing through (or who don't make it through...) benefit from being in a well-imagined, well-developed setting.

So despite a trail of blood, it's far from being a conventional horror where everyone is, in the end, going to Hell - though a few of these characters are definitely headed that way. Rather, it's a perfect example of supernatural crime/ horror/ thriller that just works, one every level.

Buy this book, sit down, and meet Charlie Parker...

For more information about the book, the publisher's page is here.

Excerpt and Review - The Folded Land by Tim Lebbon

Cover by Julia Lloyd

The Folded Land (Relics 2)
Tim Lebbon
Titan Books, 20 March 2018
PB, 334pp

I'm grateful to Lydia at Titan for an advance copy of The Folded Land and for inviting me to take part in the tour.

I have an exclusive excerpt from The Folded Land. I've reviewed the book below, but first, just take a look at this!

The excerpt

“You okay, honey?” her dad asked.

“Yeah, Dad, I’m good. Kind of tired.”

“Still hungry?”

She nodded. It felt strange. Like coming home to a place so safe and familiar, and returning somewhere after a long time away. The familiarity held a deep nostalgia that someone her age should hardly recognize. “You’ve got an old head on your shoulders,” her mom used to say, and Sammi sometimes imagined herself with gray hair and strange, knowing eyes.

“I’m just going out on the dock for a little bit,” she said. “It’s a nice day, and some sun will make me feel better.”

“You’re sure?” That look of uncertainty. He asked her questions like that a lot nowadays. You’re sure? Do you really think so? Are you certain you want to do that? It had something to do with grief and the uncertainties he felt about her mother dying. In some ways he was being overprotective, making sure that every action Sammi took was a safe one. It was as if he couldn’t bear to have her to grieve on her own. They often spent time together, walking or sitting on the sofa and talking about Mom, looking through photos or old videos, crying and laughing and struggling to move on in their own individual ways.

But sometimes it became cloying.

Sometimes, Sammi just wanted to be on her own.

“I’m sure,” she said, smiling. “It’s one of those moments.” They both had moments that they talked about. Unremarkable memories of her mother, his wife, sitting somewhere and telling a joke, planting a rose bush, pointing at a flock of birds sheeting back and forth across the estuary. They might be years old, random recollections of lost times that meant so much. Every one of them was special.

“Right,” he said, smiling, nodding. “They’re important. Every moment is important.” He paused, and then added, “I’ll put the food in the oven to keep it warm.”

“I won’t be that long, Dad,” she said. “Ten minutes.”

“Okay. Still want to go kayaking this afternoon?”

“Absolutely! I’ll race you.”

“You’ll lose.” He always said that, and until lately he’d been right. Last summer, though, Sammi started beating him in their races. She remembered her mother laughing as they’d both splashed and sweated their way past the spot where she sat in a boat, Sammi edging ahead by half a length and lifting her paddle skyward in triumph. She’d been so pleased that she hadn’t stopped mentioning it for the rest of the day. That long-ago, hot and perfect day.

While her father carried their early take-out to the house, Sammi crossed the lawn toward the dock. Though the sky was a searing blue and the midday sun beat down, the lawn was still damp from the previous day’s surprise downpour. Water soaked through her shoes and into her socks. It was a nice feeling, cool and calming. She stepped onto the dock and kicked off her shoes, pulled off the socks, and enjoyed the feeling of warm wood on the soles of her feet.

She walked to the end of the dock and felt as if she should continue onward. As if there was somewhere else to go. As if there was more to see. This was her favorite place in the whole wide world, but something inside seemed to be urging her elsewhere. Across the wide inlet she could see a dozen houses sitting close to the water, boats docked beside some, flags flying from poles, a few people just visible in gardens, heat haze making ghosts out of them. Several boats chugged up and down the river. A group of kayakers paddled past. She felt an unaccountable need to keep walking, because this wasn’t where she needed to be.

Sammi’s heart hammered in her chest, and as she turned to go back to the house a splinter slid into her skin just beneath her big toe.

Ow!

Silly sausage! a voice said just over her shoulder, and she spun around. Her mother’s pet name for her, spoken in a voice so like her mother’s and yet with a weird lilt, like the distorted echo of someone impersonating her almost perfectly.

“Mom?” Sammi asked.

A shadow passed across the sun and she looked up. Clouds were forming, wispy, darkening. Her skin prickled all across her body. The hairs on her arm stood on end. She looked back toward the house. Her father stood outside the open patio door, smiling and waving her over so that they could share lunch. He and the house were a million miles away.

A sharp, loud crack split the world.

The review

The Folded Land is the sequel to Lebbon's 2018 horror fantasy Relics, (my review here) in which Angela discovered that her boyfriend Vince was involved in a gruesome trade in "relics" - body parts of the Kin: monsters or mythical creatures from the ancient past, long before humanity ruled, whose heydey, the Time, is lost in the fog of myth.

Worse, she discovered that not all relics originated with the long dead...

Now, Angela is on the run, blamed by the police for the massacre that concluded Relics - and by the surviving relic hunters, for the loss of their friends and family. She has left London and is back in the US, trying to lie low, but the past - and the Kin - have other ideas.

This is an excellent follow-up to Relics, possibly actually better than the earlier book. There is a notable shift in tone, as Angela has to engage with what the existence of the Kin means for humanity. The Kin are bewitching, delightful, so rare and special that even meeting one is a privilege - but they are also inhuman, savage and powerful.

Many hark back to older times when they strode the land without fear.

Some aim for Ascent, revealing their power and taking back their usurped place in the world.

And in the space between those two ideas of the Kin - the rare and the precious, hunted almost to destruction by humans, and the powerful and deadly - sits this story. It's a tale sketched in shades of grey, with no moral absolutes. The Kin have suffered, we see them suffering, but they are also - or some of them are - ruthless and savage.  Lebbon is good at sketching the sheer otherness of his monsters, their non-humanity - even the most sympathetic. These aren't run of the mill urban fantasy creatures settling down to cosy, albeit weird, lives that echo those of humans. There's a real sense of rawness, of peril here, never more than when the story turns to the enigmatic fairy Grace, whom Angela rescued in Relics.

At the same time, and despite the many brutal deaths littering the book, Lebbon doesn't portray humans, either, as victims. The "kin-Killer", Gregor, strides through this book like the very worst of monsters, his goal obscure, his blade sharp and his tread ominous. He will cross paths with Angela, and the life of her niece, Sammi, will hang between them.

It's an excellent horror story, a superior fantasy, soaked in blood and haunted almost to the end by mystery. And best of all the story clearly isn't over, with The Edge still to come.

This series could have settled down into a bland life-among-the-monsters fantasy but in Lebbon's hands we're given something more, something older, deeper and much, much darker.

Strongly recommended.

For more information about this book see the Titan website here.