Competition: going underground with The Dwarves
Whatever trends may sweep across the fantasy landscape, most fantasy fans cut their teeth on Lord of the Rings, perhaps with a game of Dungeons & Dragons on the side, and many of us would admit that we love to revisit these classic fantasy tropes. Now we can do that, focusing on the doughty and enigmatic Dwarf race in the first book of Marcus Heitz’s new series:
For countless millennia, no man or beast has ever succeeded in breaching the stone gateway into Girdlegard. Until now …Abandoned as a child, Tungdil the blacksmith is the only dwarf in a kingdom of men. But when he is sent out into the world to deliver a message and reacquaint himself with his people, the young foundling finds himself thrust into a battle for which he has not been trained. Not only his own safety, but the life of every man, woman and child in Girdlegard depends upon his ability to embrace his heritage. Although he has many unanswered questions, Tungdil is certain of one thing: no matter where he was raised, he is a true dwarf. And no one has ever questioned the courage of the Dwarves.
There’ll be a review here on Bookgeeks very soon, but in the meantime you can win one of three copies of the paperback so you can see what the fuss is about. All you have to do is answer one question and you’re in with a chance:
Tolkien’s Gimli must be fantasy’s most famous dwarf – but what was the name of his father?
a. Gloin
b. Gimlet
c. Gimcrack
Simon P’s Review: Coward At The Bridge, by James Delingpole
Coward at the Bridge is James Delingpole’s follow up to last year’s Coward On The Beach. Where Coward on The Beach was a comic book D-Day story, Coward At The Bridge is a comic book Arnhem story. No detective work required to spot a nascent series under development.
Coward On The Beach was a novelist’s adaptation of a story from the 70s comic, Commando, that Delingpole turned into a breakneck, Flashman-esque romp. With its mixture of derring-do, cynicism and potted history, it was enjoyable, in a guilty pleasure type way. Coward At The Bridge has no equivalent comic book source to draw upon, instead relying on the altogether more grown up standard reference points for everything anyone knows about Operation Market Garden. It’s still a romp though and and ultimately Coward At The Bridge resembles nothing more than a Boy’s Own version of A Bridge Too Far.
Mathew’s Review: The Lovers, by John Connolly
My world stops for a John Connolly book.
Everything else is put aside as the latest developments in the dark world of Charlie Parker unfold in beautifully plotted suspense. The Lovers is the seventh Charlie Parker book in what can be called a series to date, and the ninth to feature him; so that’s about sixteen waking days of my life given over to this man, and he’s worth every damned minute of my time.
Charlie Parker is a Maine-based private investigator who seems to attract evil. That evil may be a curse that Parker is destined to combat throughout his life, possibly in retribution for things he has done in the past – for Parker is a man who thrives on his own guilt. His veiled background influences everything that occurs in this tight, sad story, and it’s almost impossible to review The Lovers without paying courtesy to preceeding events.
Parker’s a man haunted. Haunted by his wife and child who were brutally murdered by a serial killer known as The Travelling Man. (I am in awe of the serial killers Connolly consistently creates). Haunted by those he’s crossed and those he’s killed, deserving and undeserving. In The Lovers, he’s haunted by his father’s apparent suicide after killing two seemingly innocent teenagers, and the absence of his girlfriend, Rachel and her young daughter, Sam, who have relocated to Vermont, unable to put up with his unsavoury lifestyle and the characters it brings with it. Read more
Ben’s Review: Spent, by Geoffrey Miller
Sex, Darwin, capitalism. Geoffrey Miller’s second book certainly ticks off some major search terms. His first, The Mating Mind, put forward the case for sexual choice as a major driving force in our evolution, and demonstrated the huge influence this had on human nature. Spent picks up where that book left off, applying evolutionary psychology to consumerism.
At the heart of the book is a simple idea: we have evolved extremely efficient methods for signalling our fitness to potential mates. Intelligence, health, fertility, beauty, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to novelty, to name a few, can all be assessed remarkably quickly through conversation and observation. However, instead of trusting that we already have everything we need to impress our fellow humans, we have become convinced that something beyond our naked bodies and minds is required to be socially acceptable and sexually attractive.
Meirion’s Review: Ox-Tales: Earth, by Kate Atkinson, Rose Tremain and others
As the name suggests, this collection of short stories is part of a quartet named for the four Classical elements, all of them featuring work by famous writers who have effectively donated their work for Oxfam to publish. The contributions are fairly wide-ranging too, with Ian Rankin splashed on the cover next to Kate Atkinson, Rose Tremain jostling for space with Marti Leimbach, and so on. It’s a pleasantly worthwhile venture, and, on the cover at least, it seems to be well conceived.
Within, the emphasis definitely seems to be on variety, with a broad range of subjects covered: from the death of Tolstoy to The Death of Marat via an autistic child and memories of a Ukrainian mother, the stories all enjoy their own very individual link to the book’s overarching theme. But how do those stories measure up to one another? Well, despite a generally high standard, it would seem to be that variety is the order of the day here too. The opening poem by Vikram Seth does nothing for me, and people who enjoy modern poetry will probably wonder whether it was really worth putting his name on the cover for such an inconsequential piece. But then the first story from Rose Tremain, for all its literary incestuousness – writers writing about writers, again – is actually an excellent read, balancing a rather dry humour with a genuinely interesting and emotional recreation of historical events.
Mathew’s Review: The Forest of Hands & Teeth, by Carrie Ryan
What makes the zombie apocalypse so alluring to both readers and writers is not necessarily the zombies themselves, but the freedom such a scenario allows for the portrayal of human relationships. Against a gruesome backdrop of flesh eating automatons nothing else matters but the fight for survival. The lengths to which those ‘unfortunate’ enough to survive the initial breakdown of society will go to to ensure that survival, firstly of themselves, and then of the human race, form the structure and events of most of the zombie genre’s novels to date. Sometimes there is a place for hope in these books. And sometimes, albeit very, very rarely, there is time for love. Such an emotion dominates Carrie Ryan’s wonderful debut novel The Forest of Hands & Teeth.
By setting the events about 15 to 20 years after the outbreak, Ryan is able to introduce an established belief system, a quasi-religion, to the lore of the zombie. Mary lives in an isolated village, surrounded by fences that keep out the hungry undead that wander the landscape. The village is in the middle of a huge forest that seemingly goes on forever. Or at least that is what the children and teenagers are told, for this village is governed by the Sisterhood, a group of elder women who maintain the status-quo through strict tutelage of the Scripture, a regime of hard work and constant vigilance, and a societal set-up that ensures the best possible chance for the continuance of the family line. Read more
Jennie’s Review: Skin Trade, by Laurell K. Hamilton
Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake has left St. Louis for a short trip to Vegas. But Blake is not heading to Sin City for the bright lights, she’s chasing a vampire serial killer, one who has already escaped her once. He’s responsible for a trail of destruction and death that stretches across the country, and he is getting more vicious and more powerful as he travels. Skin Trade follows Anita as she struggles to contain both her growing powers and the deadly killer.
Vittorio draws Anita from the safety of St. Louis with a horrific prize from his latest set of murders. When she contacts the Las Vegas Police Department, it quickly becomes clear that catching this killer will be impossible for the police, or Anita, alone. She will need the help of the Vegas PD, a SWAT back-up, and three other US Marshals to bring Vittorio to justice. All of these teams are not instant allies, though, and the politics and in-fighting that goes on is nearly as dangerous to Anita as Vittorio. Of course, she has not left her own problems behind in St. Louis; she still needs to feed the ardeur she inherited from the vampire Jean-Claude, and, as her powers continue to grow, Anita begins to fear that they will consume her from within. Read more
Simon A’s Review: Fall of Thanes, by Brian Ruckley
Brian Ruckley’s unremittingly bleak Godless World trilogy finds its conclusion with Fall of Thanes, and it’s increasingly obvious that this trilogy was well-named indeed. The descent of a recognisable if basic human civilisation in to barbarity and madness, when higher functions are stripped away by the increasing power of Aeglyss, the half-human, half-kyrinin hybrid, is shown in brutal clarity by Ruckley. Having co-opted the armies of the Black Road and given them a victory over the True Bloods, the power flowing through Aeglyss is corrupting both him and all those around him – random acts of senseless violence abound, and base instincts seem to be overtaking all of the people’s of Ruckley’s wintery world. His taking the rotted city of Kan Avor, reclaimed from the floodwaters, as his base, is a clear symbol of his relationship with decay.
Orisian, the Thane of what is left of the Lannis Blood, continues his mission to defeat Aeglyss by delivering the woman Krina to him – he alone has the vision that she is the key to the half-breed’s defeat. Although there is a touch of Frodo about Orisian, in that he is central to the defeat of the darkness, yet is somehow not as sympathetic as he ought to be, his mission in this volume feels more purposeful and central than it did in the last, and you feel for his ever dwindling retinue as they are gradually picked off by enemies or driven insane by the madness sweeping across the land.
Jennie’s Review: A Deadly Trade, by Michael Stanley
Detective “Kubu” Bengu returns in A Deadly Trade to solve a complex and compelling mystery. This book is the Botswanan detective’s second outing, and he, and the rest of the characters that populate the novel, are well established and engaging. The authors (Michael Stanley is a combination of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip) treat Africa and its history as a separate and powerful character, and the impact of history on the story is what transforms this book from a standard crime procedural to something with more power and impact.
The book begins with the violent death of Goodluck Timbu. He is found, throat slit, in a tent at the Jackalberry Camp. Created for bird-watchers and tourists, the camp is surrounded by hippo and crocodile infested waters and, underneath the genial eye of Morne “Dupie” Du Pisanie and the slightly tenser management of Salome McGlashan, Jackalberry hides more than just a murderer. The original detective on scene, Detective “Tatwa” Mooka (nicknamed “giraffe” for his height) needs to call in Detective “Kubu” (nicknamed “hippo” for his girth) for help with a case that quickly becomes as complicated as the region’s history. Read more
Simon P’s Review: Stone’s Fall by Iain Pears
A decade ago Iain Pears wrote An Instance Of The Fingerpost, a dazzling, intricately plotted story of murder, Restoration politics, religious dissent, maths, espionage and the discovery of the circulation of the blood by William Harvey in 1663. Its ambitious structure saw the same story told from four different perspectives, each adding and subtracting to an overall picture that only came together at the very end of the novel. It was a thrilling book, as broad in scope as Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle and as well executed as The Name of The Rose and so much did I enjoy its twists, turns and diversions, I must have given a dozen copies away to family and friends.
However although anyone who read An Instance Of The Fingerpost will easily recall its brilliance, if they went on to read Pears’ other books they will just as easily recall the huge disappointment that nothing else in his canon came close to matching it. Now at last with Stone’s Fall Iain Pears has written the book that lovers of An Instance Of The Fingerpost have been waiting ten years for – and it is an absolute joy. Read more
