Simon A’s Review: Bauchelain and Korbal Broach 1, by Steven Erikson
Originally published in the UK as limited edition novellas, Steven Erikson’s tales of the necromancers Bauchelain and Korbal Broach are now finally available to the masses of Steven Erikson fans courtesy of this collected volume from Erikson’s American publishers. Readers of the doorstop-sized volumes that constitute the Malazan Book of the Fallen have long been aware of Erikson’s talent for dark, dry humour and snappy dialogue amidst all the nihilism and introspection, and this is a wonderful opportunity to see those talents brought to the fore. Of the many notable comic relief characters, Bauchelain and Broach, and their substance-addled manservant Emancipor Reese, have long stood out, making this volume even more welcome.
That’s not to say that the novellas eschew Erikson’s fascination for the darker side: as necromancers, adherents to dark arts, the anti-heroes of these books are involved in some pretty nasty stuff, with the eunuch Korbal Broach being undoubtedly the more evil of the two, though as he spends much of his time in the guise of a crow his presence is often brooding and sketchy. Bauchelain is the brains behind the outfit, and Broach’s enabler, and the city of Lamentable Moll is where it all kicks off. Broach has brought the city to its knees in fear, killing every night in pursuit of his own sick objectives, and Sergeant Guld is on the case – a copper that Pratchett’s Sam Vimes would truly be able to admire. As Guld closes in on the truth of the matter, Bauchelain is recruiting the luckless Reece as their new helper. Their exit from the city, as so often will be the case, is made in rather a hurry.
Jennie’s Review: Lex Trent versus The Gods, by Alex Bell
Lex Trent versus The Gods contains one of fiction’s most entrancing character types: the scoundrel. This scoundrel, the Lex Trent of the title, lives the quiet, and seemingly blameless, life of a law clerk by day, only to spend his nights as “The Shadowman”, a cat burglar who has eluded capture for long enough to become a local legend.
Before deciding to study the law, and after fleeing a crime that went slightly less than smoothly, Lex made himself the subject of the Goddess of Fortune and, flighty and distractable as she may be, her help and the good luck that goes with it make Lex’s career as a thief, trickster, and rogue quite a success. He is clever enough to make sure his skills are up to the task; it wouldn’t do to depend completely on luck, and his careful and thorough planning serve him well. Until, that is, he gets caught up in the Game.
The Game is for the entertainment of the Gods. Lex lives in a world the Gods have left. Well, a world the Gods have divided, and one that is now connected only by a series of ladders–ladders that are guarded by fierce creatures and tradition that leaves mankind trapped in the World Above and the Gods the rulers of the World Below. The Gods’ interest in mankind is now limited to collecting followers and winning the Game–a competition where the God who wins gets bragging rights, and the humans who lose face injury or worse. But, the player who wins, well, that player gets fame and fortune, something Lex feels is worth a little risk–after all, doesn’t he have Fortune herself on his side?
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Simon A’s Review: The Suicide Run, by William Styron
The Suicide Run collects together a number of short stories from the late William Styron, probably most famous for the novel Sophie’s Choice. They are all based on Styron’s experiences in the Marine Corps during and after the Second World War, and although the covers front and back may be suggestive of the bombs and bullets of combat, the recurring theme of these tales is actually the effect of war on those who do not see real action, for while they may share some of the risks of combat simply by being in a uniform, the psychology of war is very different indeed.
‘Blankenship’ is based on Styron’s experience as a prison guard during the latter stages of the war, guarding not the enemy but men from his own service, on a foggy island prison. Styron evokes the freezing conditions of the prison island, and the stultifying boredom of the duty, as well as the peverse reality of guarding brawlers and deserters while his countrymen fight and die half a world away – not that the narrator is hungry to see action (none of the narrators of these tales are gung-ho glory-hounds). The boredom and frustration are relieved by the escape of a group of prisoners from the island, and Blankenship has a chance to demonstrate his calm efficiency, but one of the convicts pushes him beyond his limits, and he shows the frustration that lies beneath.
Simon P’s Review: Stettin Station, by David Downing
Across three books David Downing has, with Zoo, Silesian and now Stettin Station, created a series of Europe-on-the-brink spy novels that are as claustrophobic and tense as anything this side of a great Alan Furst. Books set in the run up to the Second World War may be a ten a penny publisher’s staple these days but not many of them are actually either particularly convincing or particularly thrilling. Downing’s are.
His wrinkle is to set the Station books right inside the belly of the beast, in Berlin. Stettin Station takes the series into the early 1940s, with an evocation of Nazi Germany at the height of its powers almost without parallel. This Berlin is outwardly civilised, normal even, but with appalling bestiality never far from the surface. It is already a nightmarish place for many, it is fast becoming so for everybody else.
Simon A’s Review: The Eternal Prison, by Jeff Somers
The third book, and clearly not the last, in Jeff Somer’s series of Avery Cates novels, is a serious return to form after the relative disappointment that was The Digital Plague. In that book, Cates was manipulated in to being the vector for a deadly virus, and he has survived the experience only to eventually return to New York and witness a devastated city, three quarters of the population dead from the plague. As The Eternal Prison opens, he is being rounded up by the System Security Force and dragged off to a prison in the middle of Death Valley, apparently considered to be a Person of Interest. and the fight seems to have gone out of him.
The prison holds mysteries aplenty: prison guards who appear almost from thin air, inmates who mysteriously vanish, and several enigmatic old lags who want a piece of Avery, including one who claims to have known Avery’s father, in the days before everything changed. Avery becomes enmeshed in violence, of course – he’s a professional killer, so that’s no surprise – and an escape attempt. He even comes as close as he ever has to falling in love.
Ben’s Review: How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, by Robin Dunbar
The answer to the question posed by the title, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, is, according to Robin Dunbar, 150. Or, rather, no more than 150. This figure has become known as ‘Dunbar’s Number’ and is based on extensive studies conducted in a wide range of societies. If nothing else it should provide comfort for those who cast a jealous eye on the absurdly high friend-count some people manage on social networking sites: the chances are, most of these people are not ‘true’ friends.
This is, of course, something most of us will have long suspected, and herein lies the appeal of Dunbar’s new book. Using his extensive knowledge of anthropology and evolutionary psychology Dunbar looks at the everyday habits of homo sapiens and provides neat theories and explanations as to why they should be as they are. His discussion of Dunbar’s Number takes in such diverse subjects as the African savannah, the success of the Gore-Tex brand, Christmas cards and the Domesday Book. Areas of human experience which may have previously seemed like unexplainable peculiarities, or off-limits to rigorous science, are opened up by the author’s wide-ranging study.
Mario’s Review: Strange Tales, Volume III, edited by Rosalie Parker
The World Fantasy Award winning anthology Strange Tales is back with a third volume of seventeen weird or unusual tales, encompassing a variety of subjects and writing styles, but sharing a distinct character: good quality. Predictably, not every story pleases this reviewer to the same extent, but that’s just a matter of personal taste.
I will mention first the three stories which struck me as really outstanding. Nina Allan’s The Lammas Worm is an extraordinary piece told in an exceptionally captivating narrative style, revolving around old unwholesome myths and featuring a weird girl who joins a circus company, bringing about trouble and tragedy. Sanctuary Run by Daniel Mills, where a young man seeking refuge from a snow blizzard becomes the guest of a strange community, is dedicated to Robert Aickman and does have an Aickmanesque tone, disquieting in a puzzling way and totally fascinating, especially for the things left either unsaid or unexplained. I was also bewitched by Angela Slatter’s Sister, Sister, a vivid, powerful fantasy where a former princess is abandoned by her husband for her wicked, inhuman sister. Read more
Simon P’s Review: The Minutes Of The Lazarus Club, by Tony Pollard
Enjoyable if slight historical thriller treading the well worn paths of Victorian London to create an atmospheric story of murder and espionage.
The Lazarus Club is a secret talking shop for some of the brightest minds of the age. Surgeon George Phillips is invited to join by none other than Isambard Kingdom Brunel, currently obsessed with building the biggest ship of the age, The Great Eastern. Phillips becomes fascinated by the secretive Club, by its thrilling discussions of revolutionary ideas and by some of its more enigmatic members, Brunel in particular. However when a string of grisly murders becomes connected to the Club, it is Phillips who becomes involved up to his neck. Read more
Simon A’s Review: Bequest, by A.K. Shevchenko
In A.K. Shevchenko’s debut novel, the fate of Europe could be drastically altered by the contents of one document – no, it’s not Stalin’s shopping list or Hitler’s letter to Santa Claus, it’s the will of a Cossack general whose audacious theft of treasure from the Tsar could have repercussions for Russia, Ukraine and the UK well over a century later if it comes to light. This book is reminiscent of Robert Harris (though not perhaps at his best), and takes in settings as far apart as Argentina and the Ukraine, as our heroine, young London solicitor Kate, and our ambitious young Russian Security Service agent Tara Petrenko, criss-cross the globe pursuing their own agendas with regard to the will, with a number of historical flashbacks thrown in for good measure.
Opening with the revelation of the death of key character is a brave way to start the book, and Shevchenko’s occasional repetition of the opening paragaphs of chapters is a clever device that gives a nice echoing effect. The characters are pleasingly three-dimensional too: Kate is an average young woman living a slightly chaotic and unsatisfactory life, only involved because she happens to have Ukrainian ancestry; Petrenko starts out as a simple baddy, but is eventually revealed to be quite morally conflicted, more John Le Carre than Robert Ludlum.
Erin’s Review: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective, by David Stuart Davies
David Stuart Davies is certainly a very brave man, for with The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective he has produced a radical re-imagining of the Sherlockian world of Arthur Conan Doyle that is sure to polarize fans of the world’s greatest consulting detective. Sherlock Holmes, as created by Conan Doyle, has inspired a loyalty and devotion among readers that is quite unrivalled. It is hard to imagine any other fictional character who still receives fan mail and requests for assistance at his fictional home address more than a hundred years after his fictional self would have died. However, the Holmes canon is not completely sacred as there are a great number of novels and short stories written that seek to plug the gaps in Holmes’ life as chronicled by Conan Doyle. Indeed, over the years, Sherlock Holmes has found himself thrust into all manner of scrapes, with his adventures ranging from fighting Dracula to playing a role in The Prisoner of Zenda to preventing a Martian invasion. But the bravery from David Stuart Davies lies in the fact that with The Veiled Detective he has gone far beyond the accepted grounds of pastiche by offering a story wherein the characters involved are so radically different from those of Conan Doyle that their exploits cast doubt onto and subvert all of the canonical Sherlock Holmes works.
The Veiled Detective opens in Afghanistan in 1880 as army medic John H. Walker is treating wounded soldiers. Realising that there is nothing he can do for the remaining wounded men save for making them comfortable until death comes, Walker despairs of the conflict and abandons his field hospital to slope off quietly and get drunk. Walker ends up drinking even more than he intended and is discovered in a stupor the next morning by his commanding officer. Having been found to have abandoned his post and allowed fellow soldiers to die, Walker is first imprisoned in a hellish military prison and then given a dishonourable discharge from the army and sent back to England in disgrace. On the voyage home Walker is snubbed by his fellow passengers as word of his disgrace has got out and he comes to realise that there is no decent, respectable future awaiting him in England. Walker eventually finds an ally in Captain Reed, a self-confessed thief who was also dishonourably discharged from the army. Reed proposes that Walker could serve some nebulous role in his business organisation and, glad to have any prospects at all, Walker quickly agrees. It is when Walker is back in England that the radical alterations made by David Stuart Davies to the world of Sherlock Holmes are confirmed. It emerges that Captain Reed is a trusted lieutenant of Professor Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime, and that Moriarty has a very special role in mind for Walker.
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