Review - Dragon's Green by Scarlett Thomas

Image from http://www.canongate.tv/

Dragon's Green (Worldquake Book One)
Scarlett Thomas
Canongate Books, 6 April 2017
HB, 352pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of this book via NetGalley.

This is, I think, Thomas's first book not for adults (It's described as YA but I'd have said perhaps YYA... I'm never really sure of the boundaries though). I should confess that I asked to read it because it's one of hers - having read and enjoyed her books for adults, I didn't really know what to expect, but was interested to see what she had written.

Which just shows the wonders of chance and coincidence because - apart from that perhaps rather dry sense of interest - this book was a real joy to read, reminding me a lot of the magical worlds of Diana Wynne Jones. Like them, the world of Dragon's Green is plainly, to a degree our world, though also (changed here, by the 'Worldquake') into one where magic might be real (even if not everyone believes in it). There's a similar sense that old secrets are all around, encrypted somehow, if only we could see them, or sleeping, just ready to be woken.

In this story it's Euphemia Truelove (Effie) who will uncover the secrets. She's a lonely girl: her mother Aurora... gone... in a way which has an air of mystery about (the Worldquake?) and her father, Orwell, distant, preoccupied by his new wife Cait (Cait is perhaps a bit of a wicked stepmother but not really strong enough a character to be really wicked). Effie attends the Tusitala School for the Gifted, Troubled and Strange) where she mingles with a wider group of other misfits and lonely kids (Carl, Maximilian, Lexy) - not all of them to be trusted.

When Griffin, Effie's beloved grandfather, is attacked in the street and taken to hospital, Effie begins a race against time to save his beloved library of rare and magical books - and the even stranger and more magical items he's entrusted to her care. Doing so involves Effie and her classmates sinking themselves into Stories, following Quests - and testing their friendship. All while under the thumb of the awful Mrs Beathag Hide, Effie's English teacher, of Orwell and of Cait (who's got the family on a diet of nutritionless shakes).

It's all great fun, never more so that when Effie actually gets to visit Dragon's Green, where princesses are trained to be fed to the dragon. In a welcome contrast to the typical fairy story treatment of a clanking , metal-clad knight saving a limp and grateful princess, Effie selects a cool outfit and sets out to match wits with him.

Then there's the awful Diberi, evil sorcerers whose worst crime is to use up and destroy books. A creepy book dealer. And a houseful of existential poets (dressed in black, naturally) who guard the secret of the Underworld...

This book is smart, packed with clever literary allusions (the passages spouted by the existentialists; a creepy encounter in the market with some goblin men selling their tempting fruits) as well as genuinely funny asides ('Could one arrive to save one's evil co-conspirator in a minicab? Perhaps not') and sharp observations ('the cruel courtship rituals of celebrities').

In places the tone is perhaps slightly uneven (a vital concept about a kind of otherworld magical life-force that governs what one can do is referred to as 'M-currency' which grates slightly in a book that's full of ingenious names and wordplay and which also shows a real sense of place).

Above all, though, Effie is a true hero (she really is - a True Hero; you'll need to read the book to find out what this means) and a rather magnificent one at that. This is a story of how she finds her mates and how they support her, but she's front and centre of the story and clearly destined for more adventures. They can't come soon enough.

Review - Geekerella by Ashley Poston

Image from http://www.quirkbooks.com

Geekerella
Ashley Poston
Quirk Books, 4 April 2017
PB, 319pp, e-book

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

Geekerella is, as the title suggests, something of a hymn to geekdom and the fan community, in the form of a retelling of Cinderella.

Elle Wittimer is an orphan, living with her stepmother (the 'stepmonster' as she describes her) and stepsisters, who, of course, treat her badly.

Spending the summer working in a vegan snack van, The Magic Pumpkin, and caring for Frank, the sad dachshund next door who's neglected by his banker owner, Elle lives for the classic SF show Starfield, which as you'll recall is up there alongside Star Trek and BSG in the canon. (I'm joking. Piston made Starfield up. But as she describes the adventures of Prince Carmindor and Princess Amara, complete with episode rundowns, analysis and criticism, you'll believe it's real. It should be real. Somebody, make this show!)

There's excitement in the fan community as a new Starfield film is to be made, but trepidation that it'll not respect the source material - turnbing into horror that Carmindor is to be played by Darien Freeman, teen heartthrob of TV series Sea Cove who can't be a true geek, even if he does have incredible abs...

Reeling from this news, and crushed by her awful stepfamily, Elle finds escape in texting with a random stranger as a result of which she forms plan to run away, attend the annual  ExcelsiCon and enter the cosplay contest. But she can't sew a costume, she's under constant scrutiny and she has no way to get to Atlanta. What is she to do?

At the same time, Darien struggles to prove himself as a "real" actor on the set of the new film. he, too, has a bullying figure in his life - in his case his father/ manager - and secrets that make it awkward for him to be playing this new role.

Told through chapters focussing on Elle or Darien, this is a smart, funny and tender story, giving a good sense of the warmth and solidarity of fan culture - I'm thinking of one particular scene that almost had me in tears, you'll know it when you reach it - as well as its darker moments (with Elle accused at one point of being a 'fake geek girl'). It's also a moving portrayal of a very lonely girl and of how she sustains herself through some dark times. The picture  of stepmother Catherine isn't wholly negative either - she emerges as quite a rounded character, not a boo! hiss! villain - and the book also has quite a bit to say about celebrity culture.

I have to be honest and say you'll probably get most out of this if you know at least a bit about fandom, but I don't think you have to actually be a cosplaying con-goer or writer of fic to follow Posten's story. It is, at its heart, a very universal, very tender and very human story to which anyone should be able to relate.

Strongly recommended - so:

Look to the stars.

Aim.

Ignite!

Blogtour - The Man Who Loved Islands by David F Ross

The Man Who Loved Islands (Disco Days No 3)
David F Ross
Brenda Books, 30 April 2017
PB, 302pp

I'm grateful to Orenda Books for an advance copy of this book - and proud to be starting off the blogtour.

First, full disclosure: I've read and reviewed the two preceding books in this series, The Last Days of Disco and The Rise and Fall of the Miraculous Vespas, and indeed am quoted at the front of the book. I can't pretend to be disinterested: I loved the earlier books and Islands is one of my eagerly awaited books of 2017.  Ross's trilogy is one of the most interesting and original recent publishing debuts and as someone growing up in the late 70s and early 80s, I find it nostalgic - but also tender, realistic and hopeful.

The third volume is just as good as the first two, bringing the series to a close (perhaps) but also back full circle. In The Last Days of Disco we saw Bobbie Cassidy and Joey Miller launch Heatwave Disco at the weddings, private functions and, indeed, discos of early 80s Ayrshire, and their subsequent entanglements with local hard men and police, alongside the tragedy of Bobby's brother, Gary's, involvement in the Falklands War.

Then, in Miraculous Vespas, Ross told the story of the eponymous band, a parallel tale dominated by the awful - and Mesmeric - impresario Max Mojo. The Vespas were apparently deeply influential on the music scene of the 80s and 90s, despite fading from view, and were due a revival. But it didn't exactly go as planned...

Now, everything is brought together, brought home.

The Heatwave boys, once the closest of friends, have scattered, seen success, seen heartbreak - and are now on the slide. Bobby made a successful career as a DJ on Ibiza but is now fading, haunted by guilt and being edged out of the classier venues. Joey is a successful architect but seems doomed just to wander the world's airports and corporate hotels, always jet lagged. He, too, is being pushed towards the door by the younger partners in a firm he helped to found.

So when Joey, drifting in China, gets a message from Bobby's - and his - old friend Hammy May, warning that Bobby is very ill, he sets out for a last goodbye. Thus begins a fresh roller-coaster ride of misunderstandings, bonkers plans, double crossing, embezzlement and, of course, music, music and more music, culminating in one of the most remarkable concerts Ayrshire will ever have seen.

I enjoyed the way that Ross took the two friends - or ex-friends - and showed what had become of them in later life. While there are some flashbacks, especially to explain Bobby's career ('the following decade passed by in a drugs-fuelled, hedonistic, self-indulgent blur') we don't see that much of the Disco period, nor, as the Vespas' story parallels that,  much of that book either book. Yet everything still dovetails with the earlier stories, picking up characters and plot strands one might not even have realised had been left unresolved and taking them to a conclusion (mostly).

The Ayrshire dialect is as thick as ever, and the characters as foul mouthed; I realised how much I'd missed Bobby especially, indeed, from the very star, while the action may be set in Ibiza or China we're home, as it were, even if the international angle gives Ross chance to skewer a much wider range of human folly and absurdity that the setting of the earlier books allowed or to indulge in comic sub plots (such as Hammy's encounters with the secret society of middle aged women on Ibiza...)

And there's the tender way Ross brings the two boys together again, older, flabbier, less fit and suffering from broken relationships and stupid misunderstandings but - inside - the same starry eyed chancers they always were. And then we also meet other old friends, until in the end it's almost like the best sort of school reunion (I imagine that s school reunion in Ross's retelling would be a wild affair to say the least).

There is nostalgia - Bobby's obsession, in his Ibizan villa, with that old black and white version of Robinson Crusoe that used be shown by the BBC every year in the summer holidays; a sharp dissection of the glory days of club music; recollections of school dancing lessons - 'a brutal and hideous experiment in child cruelty by way of state-promoted embarrassment'. Simply marvellous evocations of times and places gone, for better or worse.

There is also a strand of hope and redemption, with some scores settled, new relationships, and some bad business from the past sorted at last. All in all a satisfying (yet spectacular - you'd expect that) conclusion to the trilogy, and all immensely readable (Ross has some great turns of phrase - 'It was a goodbye kiss from a Goodbye Girl'; 'they also indulged like it was the last days of Caligula'; 'It is beginning to sound like the worts blues song ever').

It was, in the end, sad to part again from the Heatwave boys - but great to see them at their best again.

A book I'd strongly recommend, great summer reading or just great reading, if you don't want to wait.
(And if you haven't read the earlier books - why not? - start with those, you've got a treat in store).

Review: The End of the Day

Image from http://www.orbitbooks.net/

The End of the Day
Claire North
Orbit, 16th April 2017
HB, 403pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

This is a beautiful, haunting and rewarding book. It is also in some ways a provoking book (which to me is a good thing!) - and I think it may divide North's readers.

In concept, The End of the Day continues her recent series each of which takes a particular (fantastical) attribute and runs it for all it is worth - so Harry August is endlessly reborn as the same person, Hope Arden is forgotten as soon as you look away from her, the nameless narrator of Touch can occupy others' bodies. Each of those is a very smart, well written exploration of what those abilities - or curses - might mean.

This book superficially takes the same approach but is really rather different in two ways.

First, in The End of the Day, Charlie has no special talent, but he has a very special job. The Harbinger of Death,  he goes before the Pale Rider (if that's how you perceive Death: other Deaths are available) as either a warning (to those who might, for a time, evade their fate) or a courtesy (to those who can't).

Death comes for ideas as well as people, and Charlie always brings a gift.

The Death Charlie serves is a rather shifty character (even Death's gender varies with the observer). But Charlie himself is a real, breathing, human being, with a pension plan, health insurance and a back office ('Milton Keynes') who look after his schedule and pay his expenses (they're a bit on the stingy side). He was interviewed for the role, and his predecessor is still around to answer the odd question or give advice. So the central character here is unlike those earlier, gifted/ cursed protagonists - although you might think that his most unusual job could be seen as either a gift or a curse.

The second difference is that the earlier books had a considerable amount of thrillery plot, as Harry, Hope and... whoever... struggled with malign organisations, or with other, similarly gifted individuals and sought to propser or simply survive, making use of their talents or overcoming their limitations.

The End of the Day has much less of this, indeed almost nothing - while there are some attempts to manipulate Charlie and through him, his boss (what couldn't the modern state do were it to get Death on side?) these are much more things that happen to him that events in which he takes part. Beyond doing his job Charlie doesn't plan much or drive the story, rather his role is essentially as witness: to disasters such as the melting of the icecaps (one mission takes him to Greenland, 'out on the ice') or war in Syria and Iraq as well as to more intimately human tragedies or triumphs (an episode in Nigeria). So we get many, many little stories - a young woman and her grandfather evicted from their London flat to make way for property developers; a warlord in Belarus who's not ready to die; two women in Africa who love each other so much despite persecution; and so on. Charlie visits all these and many, many more and North winds the story back and forth, sometimes telling us what happened afterwards (or before), sometimes not.

There's a fairytale aspect to much of it, heightened by the way she introduces many chapters or episodes:

On the shores of the sea...
...in a land where all things grow...

or

In the land of sun...
...in a land of oil...
...on the edge of a lagoon where the city grows...

And also by the way the central conceit is taken seriously by all. From black-ops technicians in secret locations to border guards and police, nobody questions that Charlie is the Harbinger of Death, though many wonder that that means.

It may be like a fairytale, but that's not to say that the writing isn't pin-sharp, realistic and - in many places - unremitting as it faces some of the truly horrible ways people die: the description of bodies flung into a pit after a massacre will haunt me for a long time. This is not escapist writing, it reflects some truly grim events and feels very contemporary. As such it's fitting that we also get glimpses of the other Harbingers - of War, Pestilence and Famine - and their principals as they go about their work whether in refugee camps, Pentagon boardrooms, Whitehall clubs, UN forums or secure laboratories. We don't always know what they're about: possibly it's better that way.

We also hear snatches of conversation gathered from the air, as it were. It seems that Charlie somehow listens in on these wherever he goes: if he has a special talent, that's it. But they don't enable him to take any particular action, nor does he appear to want to - he just wants to do his job, and sometimes, the voices soothe (through the book Charlie's role takes more and more of a toll on him - witnesses are not always disinterested observers). So they're like a running commentary, sometimes germane to the story, sometimes apparently not. There's a theme of a ticking clock - perhaps time is running out, somehow? - and an alternating chatter: rat rat rat human human rat rat as the innocent are maimed and killed and treated as things. Only Charlie, it seems, wants to hold onto the idea that people - however degraded and wicked - remain people, as he maintains when visiting a seemingly gracious but deeply racist KKK leader.

It is in many ways a dark picture of humanity and a dark picture of our world, often showing people at their worst. And all these vignettes, while they build into a powerful impression of  terror, of seething destruction and accelerating loss and change, aren't redeemed by being made incidental to a hopeful plot, to Charlie's success in getting one over the forces of disintegration.

It is, then, a challenging book, one with a great deal of incident but not too bothered by plot and marked by a great deal of darkness.

There is some hope. The most positive thing in Charlie's life, as he witnesses loss, torture and disintegration is his relationship with Emmi, conducted when he's briefly at home between trips. This is described tenderly and North shows how it becomes increasingly important to him as other certainties flee and even Death - who he thought he could rely on - lets him down.

I enjoyed this book IMMENSELY. North manages both to build on her recent successes and to create something really new and different. While it might not be quite what everyone was expecting, I'm so glad this isn't only a book about someone with special abilities, but so much more.

Review - Deadly Game by Matt Johnson

Deadly Game (Robert Finlay No 2)
Matt Johnson
Orenda Books, 15 March 2017
PB, 352pp, e-book

I'm grateful to Orenda books for a review copy.

First, full disclosure. I reviewed Johnson's first book, Wicked Game, on a blogtour last year and my review is quoted inside this one (Yay! Fame! Fortune! Prizes...) I also attended the launch of that book at which the author spoke very movingly of his experiences in the Met Police and the PTSD which was part of his reason for writing these books.

I'm also reviewing this on 22 Match 2017, the day of a terrorist attack in Westminster close to where I work, and I spent this afternoon watching the incredibly brave and professional police managing the situation.

So I may seem a teensy bit biased about this book, which I enjoyed greatly, but I'll try not to be.

In fact, it's actually quite a hard book to write about. Johnson's writing isn't perfect but it has something, a distinctive voice, a blend of the matter of fact and the down right incredible, which makes it compulsively readable.

I'll say a little bit more about both these aspects in a moment. First, in case you haven't read Wicked Game, the setup.

Inspector Robert Finlay is a bit of a misfit. Ex SAS, then Royal Protection, he had just moved into uniformed policing - with a lot to learn - when he got caught up in a terrorist campaign that seemed to target him and a group of his ex-Regiment comrades. Johnson pursued this thrillery concept with zest, having Finlay dust off a cache of weapons and mix it with the bad guys, including, at one stage, taking pot shots at SO19, the Met's armed response specialists. (Bit awkward in the canteen afterwards, obviously).

Things got straightened out and blame for the killings laid at the door of Monoghan, an MI5 maverick. In Deadly Game, the Met are trying to find a role for an Inspector who's now shunned by his uniform colleagues as a bullet magnet but isn't qualified to be a detective. In the end he's attached to a human trafficking taskforce. (Johnson refers throughout to the trafficked women as 'slaves' which is either a bit quaintly old-fashioned or plain non-PC: take your pick. See also references to a WPC, a top firearms officer, as a 'girl').

At the same time, he has business remaining with MI5 over the Monaghan debacle, and his liaison there also tries to use him to get a line on an ex SAS man who's just published his memoirs. Involvement in that inevitably leads Finlay into deep trouble, in a fast paced adventure blending conspiracy theories, a 'state of the world' sub-plot reminiscent of a Richard Hannay story, and an expose of the human trafficking racket.

It's all unbearably tense, with what I'm coming to see as Johnson's characteristic blend of deeply credible detail (weapons, procedures, tactics, inter-Service relationships, personalities) with some frankly fantastic twists of fate, actions, and events. If one wanted to criticise, the latter might be a sufficient excuse, although I think that would be unfair as they don't in any way hamper enjoyment of the story. I'll only give one example - because I don't want to spoil the story - which is when a key fact becomes known because, at just the right moment, one of the trafficked women escapes and is picked up by the police.

If you want every last detail of your books believable, things like this - and there are more - may be a problem for you. Yet I find myself not particularly bothered about these things. Why? Is it because I'm biased (see above)?

I don't think so. I think the reason is rather different and goes to the heart of the appeal of Johnson's writing.

First, I've learned to be wary of saying 'X is just not believable'. It seems to be a fact in today's world that the unbelievable happens more often than you would think, and that a writer striving simply for believability might actually have to tone down the real world rather to write something convincing - and where's the fun in that?

Secondly, Johnson is, simply, a born storyteller. He does it all with such verve, switching between Finlay's first person narration and as much third-person following other points of view as is needed to paint the background -  but without ever getting bogged down. In so doing we are introduced to facts Finlay doesn't know (and never learns), characters he hardly meets (but who populate the pages of the book like figures in a soap opera, suggesting there's a whole world out there beyond what we're told) and events that took place long before. It all creates such a convincing impression of depths, of a teeming community of spies, police and crooks, that you can - well I could - forgive the odd apparently far fetched plot feature.

Finally - Johnson has been there. He won't, obviously, talk about stuff he shouldn't, but perhaps we can take on trust that, yes, the unlikely does happen, cases are moved on by strokes of luck, and both criminals and spooks do indulge in baroque extremes of behaviour from time to time (I'm looking at you, MI6 man Howard Green...)

So, to sum up: this isn't a slick book, it has a raw quality such that the unlikely events described actually seem to make the story more credible. Again I go back to John Buchan and his 'shockers'. They weren't elevated literary writing perhaps but they were - and are - cracking good stories, still readable after a hundred years or more. For sheer readability and entertainment I'd see Johnson in that tradition. But unlike Buchan, at the same time, he's exploring Finlay's slow recovery from PTSD - not at all a quick or easy theme, but a journey I'm looking forward to him continuing in future books.

To sum up even more: READ THIS BOOK!

Review - Warren the 13th and the Whispering Woods

Image from http://warrenthe13th.com/

Warren the 13th and the Whispering Woods
Written by Tania del Rio
Illustrated by Will Staehle
Quirk Books, 21 March 2017
PB, 233pp

I'm really grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

I don't often get to review children's books here at the Balloon (although I have one or two others coming up) which is kind of a pity because they are often the best written, sharpest and most readable books around. (I know this because I have two (now adult) children and we've had fun with books over the years - all for THEIR benefit of course.)

So it was a lovely surprise when Jamie at Quirk Books sent me an advance copy Warren the 13th. This is actually his second adventure, after Warren the 13th and the All-Seeing Eye. It's definitely something different, perfectly matching del Rio's measured text to Staehle's beautifully moody line illustrations -  you get some flavour of them from the cover image but the book itself is gorgeous, a real visual treat.

Warren himself is a 12 year old boy... perhaps... this is a world where nobody is what they seem and whether Warren is actually human or not isn't worth worrying too much about. More importantly, he is possessed of a hotel - his family's ancient and renowned hotel - which has lately taken to walking around the countryside of Fauntleroy on its four mechanical legs. Along with his friends Sketchy - a strange but lovable creature with many limbs - and Petula - a trainee perfumier (or witch catcher) and a delightfully batty staff, the hotel attracts guests from far and wide on its trips.

Which always, of course, avoid the Malwoods, home to all of Fauntleroy's most evil witches...

You may guess what's going to happen here but I won't reveal it. It's enough to say that Warren's courage, ingenuity and kindness will, again, be tested to the limit on a breakneck adventure filled with whispering trees, slippery snake-oil salesmen and, of course, WITCHES. On the way we have a try at code breaking, see why hotel management should never be left to a lazy uncle, and learn some lessons about how trustworthy the Press can be. It's very educational! - as well as being delightful fun.

I'd have read this to my kids at bedtime if it had been out ten years ago and I'm sure they'd have loved it. There's nothing too frightening, just a few moments of "peril" and, of course, the baddies get their come-uppance in the end - after which the hotel sets forth in a new direction...

Strongly recommended.

Review - Relics by Tim Lebbon

Relics
Tim Lebbon
Titan Books, 21 March 2017
PB, 384pp

I'm grateful to Titan Books for an advance copy of this.

Beneath the surface of our world, mythological creatures and their artifacts still exist—corrupt people pay fortunes for a sliver of dragon bone, a basilisk's scale, or an angel's wing. Angela Gough is an American criminology student in London whose fiancé Vince disappears, and her investigation leads her into a black market specializing in arcane relics. She meets Mary Rock, a criminal of mythic status who also wants to find Vince… to kill him. Angela and a growing team of adventurers must stop this horrific trade, yet they face a growing menace as the hunted creatures begin to fight back.

I found this a refreshingly different take on urban fantasy. Yes, we're in the heart of the city, and, yes, there are mythological creatures around, but there's no magic - that died years ago - and it's largely, the "monsters" who are the victims here, subjects of a merciless trade in body parts... and worse. So the book's suffused, almost, with a conservationist sensibility: the nymphs, angels, pixies and so on are the last of their kind, hunted almost to extinction and clinging on in dark corners and secret hideaways. That gives the whole book a distinct focus and a shape, as well as reversing the usual assumptions that something nasty's out there, waiting to eat us.

It's an intriguing premise, and Angela is an intriguing - an appealing - hero, drawn into a strange world with rules she can't understand when her boyfriend doesn't come home one night. Looking beyond the obvious explanation, Angela sets out to find him, rapidly getting into a world she never knew existed - a world of little known underground tunnels, of shadows in alleyways, of crime dens in Soho backstreets, strange, shrivelled creatures packaged up for delivery and most of all, of supremely creepy villains. Angela's resourceful and she puts her knowledge of crime to good use, but will it be enough to bring success in her search - or even allow survival in the world of Fat Frederick (NEVER shorten his name!) let alone that of Mary Rock?

Lebbon tells a violent, tension-filled story, the action pretty much continuous - but he also finds time to bring in some nice portrayals of London - the summer London that's almost like an outdoor room, crowds moving comfortably through the parks and streets, oblivious to the seedy yards, abandoned buildings and shadowy watchers... It's all very real and also very readable. And that relaxed, comfortable London is only a mask, a mask that slips in the most gore spattered finale that I've read in ages.

Of course there is a little more to the book than cruel humans hunting down Kin, and I sensed that Lebbon was setting up some tensions among the latter for future books - which I devoutly hope will follow soon - but on the whole it's straightforward, though a couple of characters play an ambiguous role - and even Vince turns out to be less innocent than you'd think.

A good, gripping read. I'd strongly recommend you get in on this series at the beginning.