Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, by David Simon
Of all the genres of book that I am sniffy about, justifiably or otherwise, true crime has to be right at the top of the list – as someone who reads books to escape, either in to the past, the future or to alternate realities, I have a hard time thinking of anything that I would like less than hearing the sordid details of what real individuals really do to one another (and yes, I know reading history could be seen in that light, but to me there’s a difference). On the other hand…
I LOVE The Wire, a television show that I recently heard compared, with plenty of justification, to a Russian novel. It’s bleak, it’s depressing, it’s intricate, it’s every superlative under the sun – having watched the first four seasons in rapt amazement, sympathising with drug dealers and disliking politicians, rooting for drug addicts and police alike, I think it’s the best thing that’s ever been made for TV (with the possible exception of Deadwood). If you haven’t watched The Wire yet, stop reading this review, go and beg, borrow or steal the Season 1 box set, and then we can talk.
Good, you’re back. So what I was saying was, when the opportunity to read and review a new edition of Homicide came along, I put my prejudices against true crime to one side, and jumped at the chance – because David Simon is the producer and one of the writers of The Wire, a show that might never have existed without this book. Once this book was made in to a TV show, the opportunities that opened up for Simon led him to creation of The Wire, so this is where it all started – and no wonder, because it’s absolutely bloody brilliant.
Fusiliers, by Mark Urban
With the excellent Rifles Mark Urban provided us with a great insight in to the workings of the British Army during the Peninsular Wars, through the prism of one of Wellington’s elite regiments. With Fusiliers, he has turned his attention to an earlier time: the American Revolutionary War. In particular, he has used the story of one regiment, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, the 23rd Regiment of Foot, which remarkably managed to be present, in some form or other, for all of the key engagements of the war over the course of eight years. By understanding their experiences, and the way they evolved their organisation and tactics to cope with a foe that was fighting in an entirely new style – wherever possible, the Americans fought from behind cover, in loose formation, an approach that the ill-trained British infantrymen were not set up to cope with – Urban provides insights in to the army as a whole.
It’s a military truism that armies always prepare themselves to fight the last war, and at the beginning of their time in America, the Fusiliers were still trained, drilled and equipped for the clash of big batallions in Continental Europe, following British involvement in the Seven Years War. It quickly became apparent to their commanders that fighting the Americans was a different kind of conflict, and they began to gradually evolve assault tactics, uniforms and drill to cope. Many of these lessons were learned the hard way, during British defeats and British victories alike, and for the commanders, there was a dawning realisation that they were fighting an unwinnable war, both politically and logistically. The 23rd were part of General Cornwallis’ column that swept through the Carolinas and Virginia in the Southern Campaign of 1780-81, and were probably entitled to regard themselves as undefeated in battle even after the surrender of the British army following the siege of Yorktown in 1781.
The First Bookgeeks SF and Fantasy Author Panel – Maps and Visualisation
Welcome to the first Bookgeeks SF and Fantasy Author panel. We asked some of the leading lights of SF and Fantasy to give us their thoughts on a specific issue that affects them all as both writers and fans – and they said they would! Prompted by the plentiful interest in our recent post on Discworld illustrations, here’s what we asked them to ruminate on:
SF and Fantasy has a long tradition of supporting maps and visuals. Tell us…
- How did you (or would you) decide whether or not you wanted maps included with your work?
- How do you feel about cover art which explicitly portrays characters, vehicles or settings from your work? Do you think it enhances the reader’s experience?
- Would you ever like to see visualised versions of your work – graphic novels, illustrated editions, computer games, etc. – and if so what do you think would work best?
Meet the Panel
| Alastair Reynolds | Jeff Somers |
 Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. He studied at Newcastle and St Andrews Universities and has a Ph.D. in astronomy. He gave up working as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency to become a full-time writer. Revelation Space and Pushing Ice were shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award; Revelation Space, Absolution Gap and Century Rain were shortlisted for the British Science Fiction Award, and Chasm City won the BSFA, and Diamond Dogs was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award. His latest novel is House of Suns. |
 Jeff Somers was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. As a child he imagined he would be a brain surgeon, until a spirit-crushing experience convinced him that in order to be a brain surgeon he would have to actually attend school, work hard, and master basic mathematics. After a severe head trauma, he chose instead to write stories and learn the high art of cocktail mixing, and spent the next twenty years in a pleasant haze of fiction and booze. His latest book is The Digital Plague, which is a sequel to his SF debut The Electric Church. |
| Brian Ruckley | Jaine Fenn |
 Brian Ruckley lives in Edinburgh. After having a couple of short stories published in the 1990s, he took the start of the 21st century as a sign that the time had come to get serious about building up a bigger page count. His latest novel is Bloodheir, the sequel to Winterbirth. You can find out more about him and his work at www.brianruckley.com. |
 Jaine Fenn studied Linguistics and Astronomy at university. She has had a number of short stories published, and has an active blog at www.jainefenn.com. Principles of Angels is her first novel, and she has just completed a second set in the same universe.
Photo credit: James Cooke |
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Harry, Revised, by Mark Sarvas
I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for literary losers, underdogs and everymen – from Tom Sharpe’s Wilt to David Nobbe’s Reggie Perrin, from Nigel Williams’ Henry Farr (aka The Wimbledon Poisoner), to Adrian Mole, I have always enjoyed a good tale of a downtrodden and woebegone man. While the above named are quintessentially English characters, Mark Sarvas‘s Californian radiologist Harry Rent, the star of Harry, Revised, nevertheless seems worthy and well qualified to take his place amongst the ranks of these other great creations. In his debut novel, Mark Sarvas has managed to pull off the trick of writing a book that is funny without being glib, packs a surprisingly powerful emotional punch, and avoids a cliched happily-every-after ending but still leaves us with some hope for its characters’ future.
Harry Rent is at a turning point – on the morning of his wife’s funeral, when he should be in mourning, he’s in Cafe Retro, trying to work out how to get the waitress Molly to notice him. His ability to communicate with her does not match up to his highflying ideas – he can’t just say what he feels, or be honest about his personal circumstances – and this drives him to increasingly ambitious schemes to impress Molly and get rid of her waster boyfriend. The principle medium for this attempt at seduction is Molly’s colleague Lucille, and there are shades of Pygmalion in Harry’s sometimes ham-fisted and patronising attempts to improve her lot. Harry’s Walter Mittyesque inner life revolves increasingly around a comparision between himself and Edmond Dantes, the wronged hero of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo, who takes a meticulously planned revenge on his tormentors. Asking himself “what would Dantes do?”, Harry attempts to take control of his life, but his assertiveness and invention do not always pay dividends.
The Digital Plague, by Jeff Somers
In The Electric Church (Bookgeeks review), Jeff Somers introduced us to his dark, messy, near-future dystopia (complete with Electric Monks), and to the anti-hero Avery Cates, a hired gun who seems to be pursued by trouble whever he goes. The Digital Plague is the follow-up, and picks up after a hiatus of several years. At the end of the first book, Cates was firmly ensconced as an underworld kingpin in what’s left of old New York, respected and feared – but it would be too boring if he was able to retain that power and status for very long! The sequel starts pretty badly for our Avery – he has been kidnapped and beaten, but for reasons he can’t initially grasp, not killed.
When his helpers and protectors start to die horribly around him, Cates sets off in search of answers, and it quickly transpires he has been infected with the plague of the title – everyone who he comes in to contact with will expire within 48 hours. When he blunders across some System Security Force cops as part of his attempts to work out just what the hell is going on, their fates become inextricably tied up with his – because it turns out they won’t manifest symptoms until after they move out of his immediate vicinity. As Cates has always hated the System Pigs, he finds it fairly taxing having to make common cause with them to track down who has decided to use him as the vector for an infection that could wipe out the human race, and they aren’t exactly madly keen on having to follow a cop killer around just to stay alive.
Magazine Review: Black Static 5
I’m busy losing myself in David Moody‘s Autumn apocalypse, so expect a review of that series soon. In the meantime, and interspersed between my regrettably irregular reviews, I’m planning on popping up some comments and links to genre magazines I subscribe to, and refer to regularly, as well as a few web places that may or may not be of interest to you.
Black Static is edited by Andy Cox and published by TTA Press. After a few months’ hiatus, (wherein the publication formerly known as The Third Alternative – a mixture of sf, fantasy and horror – refocused on the darkside, redesigned with David Gentry‘s ambiguously appropriate artwork, and renamed), Black Static is now at a fifth issue, (although my timing will undoubtedly ensure that number six drops through my letterbox the day this review goes up).
What’s in it? An intriguing blend of consistently high quality dark fiction, and some fascinating non-fiction columns. On opening a magazine I inevitably find myself gravitating towards the latter, be it comment or reviews, before getting stuck into the fiction; so it’s these I’ll concentrate on first.
Self’s Deception, by Bernhard Schlink
Self’s Deception is an efficient but otherwise fairly prosaic crime novel from Bernhard Schlink, the German novelist who found worldwide success in 1998 with The Reader. Self’s Deception, like Self’s Punishment before it and Self’s Murder due in 2009, are translations of pre-The Reader books and their early genesis shows, as neither really fit with the glorious chaos that is modern crime fiction.
Schlink’s schtick is a Chandler-esque hero and a Chandler-esque plot transposed to a provincial Germany city. His hero, 65 year old PI Gerhard Self, is a former Nazi prosecutor who since the War has chosen to opt out of the system and pursue a low-level sleuthing career in Heidelberg. By the time we encounter Self, he is a battered, bruised and world-weary detective. However like any other Chandler-esque hero, that veneer of world-weariness barely covers a fierce moral streak and a romantic desire to set the world to rights.
Le Carré loveliness – A Most Wanted Man trailer
Simon A is in his happy place thanks to the master of the spy novel…
STOP PRESS: I have now read and reviewed the book…
I am very excited – yesterday, which happened to be my birthday, the lovely people at Hodder & Stoughton gave me a hardbound proof of John Le Carré’s forthcoming novel, A Most Wanted Man. I shall be reading it soon so look out for a review at the beginning of September, prior to its publication on the 23rd of September 2008.
If you want to be notified when the review goes up, why not sign up to receive Bookgeeks updates via e-mail? In the meantime, to tantalise your tastebuds, here’s Hodder’s promo trailer, with the man himself talking about the characters and themes of the book.
I am on record describing Le Carré as a literary god, and I firmly believe he’s one of this country’s greatest living novelists, so I am genuinely looking forward to this 
The Spanish Game, by Charles Cumming
While I wait with bated breath for the new John Le Carre to emerge from the the hallowed halls of Hodder & Stoughton, I picked up The Spanish Game by Charles Cumming, an author who has been hyped as a worthy successor to Le Carre (not that he needs one at the moment!). This is Cummings’ third book, the first of his I have read and the second to feature the British spy Alec Milius.
Six years after the events of Cummings’ debut, Milius is living in Madrid; no longer in the employ of MI6, he is unwilling or unable to let go of his life in secret intelligence. Milius is convinced that his former employers would still like to locate him, not to mention the CIA, following the collapse of an operation that was run against the Americans. He has numerous bank accounts and mobile phones, false passports, a substantial cash reserve; he indulges in regular counter-surveillance and generally what he thinks of as a healthy doses of suspicion towards anything and anyone. His deep-seated suspicions are even turned on his oldest friend, Saul, when he comes out to visit, and it’s clear that he will consider the possibility that anyone in his life could betray him – except, perhaps, his boss’s wife, with whom he is having an affair. In short, Alec Milius still things of himself as a spy.
A People’s History of American Empire, by Howard Zinn, Paul Buhle & Mike Konopacki
When I was a child, I was given an illustrated history of Britain – not a cartoon exactly (there were no speech bubbles), it depicted each episode of history with a series of strip drawings. I loved that book to death, and read it countless times – I was mesmerised by the story of England’s kings and queens, Joan of Arc and more. Little did I realise how out of date the book was – for years I harboured a dread of the National Service that the book told me was coming! Reading A People’s History of American Empire is the first time since then that I have read a full blown illustrated history, this time in all-out cartoon form, and it’s wonderful. Taking a very similar approach to Icon Books excellent For Beginners series (later renamed to Introducing) it blends a cartoon narrator based on Howard Zinn with cartoon narrative, documents, photographs and quotations to bring the subject matter to life in a way that prose can’t match.
As well as being pictorial, this book is both very personal and very polemical. Based on Zinn’s bestselling book A People’s History of America, with additional material from his autobiography, the wonderfully titled You Can’t Be Neutral On a Moving Train, the book takes the form of a lecture from Zinn, and later parts draw on his personal experiences of childhood, of serving in the Air Force during WWII and of America during the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War protests. The central argument of this book, which is timely and relevant in the context of continuing US involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, is this: despite the emphases on democracy and freedom that are an integral part of the USA’s founding myth, its foreign policy and its attitude to other peoples (and many of its own people) has consistently failed to embrace these values. Numerous detailed examples are given, from the many US interventions in the Caribbean and South America, to taking over the Philippines from Spain, the support of the Contras in Nicaragua and death squads in El Salvador, to the interference in Iran that ultimately led to the fall of the Shah.
The lost art of Discworld
Simon A explains his involvement in the creation of some obscure Discworld art, and showcases the resulting drawings for your delectation and delight.
In 1993, after finishing my GCSEs, I spent part of the summer working for my stepfather Robin Drury’s graphic design firm, and I was lucky enough to be involved in the creation and commissioning of official illustrations of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld which have probably not been seen by anyone (outside my house, where a set of prints graces the walls) for many many years. I thought it would be interesting to shine a light on the drawings and the work that went in to them.
One of my stepfather’s clients was Clarecraft, responsible for producing official Discworld figurines. Bernard Pearson, who has gone on to enjoy a long association with Pratchett under the sobriquet of The Cunning Artificer, was the creative force behind these models, and he worked closely with Pratchett to get them right. Our main job was to create a catalogue of the models, and Robin decided we should commission an artist called Dan Pearce to create a set of illustrations in support of the main product photography. My job was to work out which scenes or settings matched up with the main groups of characters, and then to brief Dan on what to show in the drawings. Mainly, this meant I was being paid to read Discworld books all day and write bits down for Dan! I was in Discworld heaven…
The Somnambulist, by Jonathan Barnes
Jonathan Barnes’ debut novel, The Somnambulist, fails to qualify as Victoriana by the skin of its teeth – set in 1901, a few weeks after the death of Her Britannic Majesty, the book is nevertheless infused with the spirit of the nineteenth century. Set in the London of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Jekyll, it follows the experiences of Edward Moon, a stage illusionist who has enjoyed a career as an investigator of rather more unusual criminal cases in the city. Now apparently in the twilight of both careers, his stage show playing to ever decreasing houses, and his investigative career under a cloud following an unexplained failure in Clapham, Moon cuts a sorry figure at the beginning of the book.
Moon’s companion is the Somnambulist – a seven-foot tall mute, and a deeply mysterious figure, he communicates only by means of a blackboard and chalk (complete with shocking spelling), drinks only milk and rather usefully for both the stageshow and the sideline in criminal investigations, is apparently invulnerable to physical harm.
Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones
It would be fair to say, despite the awful pun it involves, that I had great expectations for Mister Pip. It tells the story of Matilda, living with her mother in their village on a Pacific island (which a bit of Googling reveals to be Bougainville Island, part of Papua New Guinea). Matilda’s father has gone to work in Northern Australia following the closure of the island’s copper mine; that closure is because of the war for independence that is taking place between the authorities (‘redskins’) and the rebels, and Matilda’s people are caught in the middle; at home, the solid presence of her mother vies with the ideal of her absent father for her loyalty and affection.
Matilda’s relationship with her mother deteriorates when Mr Watts re-opens the village school. Mr Watts is a curiousity – the only white man in the village, he is married to Grace, a local woman who he met while she was training abroad. Before reopening the school, he was mainly noted for donning his white suit and a red clown’s nose and towing his wife around the vilage on a hand cart, which doesn’t give much idea of what to expect from his teaching. As it turns out, he has two main strategies: getting adults from the village to share whatever practical wisdom and folklore occurs to them; and reading from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
The Prefect, by Alastair Reynolds
I have long been a fan of Alastair Reynolds, especially his Revelation Space universe. With The Prefect, we return to that universe and step back to a time before the events of the original trilogy of novels, in to a story set in the Glitter Band. Reyolds fans will have encountered this before – or rather, they will have encountered The Rust Belt, which by the time of later volumes is all that is left of the 10,000 diverse and fantastic habitats orbiting the planet of Yellowstone that make up the Glitter Band. Echoing the approach Reynolds first explored in Century Rain, The Prefect is a cross between hard SF and police procedural, and it’s a combination that works much better this time around, perhaps thanks to the familiar trappings of the Revelation Space framework – Conjoiners, Ultras, Demarchists, Shrouders and the rest.
The Prefect of the title is Tom Dreyfus, an experienced field officer for Panoply, the small police force that is responsible for ensuring the continued fairness of democracy in the habitats of the Glitter Band – up here, votes are going on constantly, and Panoply’s main job is to ensure they are free of interference, and that everyone has a chance to vote. Panoply may not interfere with the internal affairs of the habitats – which range from artistic communes, to manufactories, to Voluntary Tyrannies, to shelves full of decapitated heads who spend their lives hooked up to the giant data network of the Glitter Band like a bizarre cross between The Matrix and Futurama. In the diversity of the lifestyle choices available to the citizens of the habitats, Reyolds echoes Iain M. Banks’ Culture Universe to some extent, though as usual, Reynolds’ version is bleaker, and positive progress is far from inevitable.
The Flea Palace, by Elif Shahak
The Flea Palace is a marvelously rich novel that conveys the intensity, splendour and diversity of the great city of Istanbul through the microcosm of one apartment building, Bonbon Palace, and the lives of its inhabitants. Wonderfully translated from the Turkish by Müge Göçek, it manages to give a sense of the ways in which Turkey is so alien to Western European sensibilities, while also making that teeming chaos sound not unattractive.
Recounted to us by a nameless narrator, a university lecturer who resides in Bonbon Palace, we are introduced to: Cemal and Celal, identical twins with nothing in common; Hadji Hadji (so pious they named him twice), his daughter-in-law and grandchildren; ‘Hygiene’ Tijen, obsessed with cleanliness to the point of madness, and her daughter Su, ironically afflicted with lice; the aging Madam Auntie; death-obsessed Sidar and his badly behaved St Bernard, Gaba, who reside in the old storage room in the basement; the Blue Mistress, the kept woman of an olive oil merchant; and several others.
Hitler’s Peace, by Philip Kerr
When a favourite author puts out a bad novel it’s relatively easy to cut some slack and simply look forward to the next one. But what to think when having enjoyed a particular series, you don’t rate any of the writer’s other books? I suspect this is where I’m getting to with Philip Kerr.
Eighteen years from his debut and it seems PK is bookending his career with the rather excellent Berlin Noir series. The first of these, March Violets, Pale Criminal and German Requiem were published between 1990 and 1993 and trace the crime solving career of Berlin detective, Bernie Gunther. The first two take place in 1936 and 1938 and the last in 1947, i.e. none are set during the War itself. In 2006 Bernie Gunther returned in The One From the Other and again this year in A Quiet Flame. This time the action takes place during the ignominious defeat and on the run in South America years. These too are terrific and the series as a whole is several leagues above other similar ones, and I recommend it without hesitation. It’s Kerr’s in between years output that bothers me.
Having tasted minor success with Berlin Noir, he went after the big time. One attempt at producing a huge airport thriller followed another, each doing pretty well but each subject to the law of diminishing returns. Worse, each tried to cash in on a popular trend of the day, so we get yet another Kennedy conspiracy thriller and a couple of lame cyber thrillers. I suppose we should be thankful Dan Brown wasn’t around at the time.
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The Bookgeeks Interview
Kat Falls
Kat Falls grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland and now teaches at NU, where she is continually inspired by her students’ creativity. She started writing Dark Life as a writing exercise. Knowing that her 12-year-old son loved reading about the ocean, Wild West pioneers and, of course, the X-Men, she combined his interests and created the premise for a story that kept her up nights plotting and world-building.
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The Book That...
Robert Lloyd Parry: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
This special twentieth Bury Me… features grand panjandrum and actor Robert Lloyd Parry, the man behind the Nunkie Theatre Company, responsible for many an uneasy evening with the master of English supernatural stories…
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The Bookgeeks Competition
The Richard T. Kelly Column
Richard T. Kelly
Richard T. Kelly’s exclusive monthly column, in which he addresses various matters literary, writers and their books, the publishing business and his own experiences as a writer. Richard is a novelist, screenwriter, biographer and journalist, and you can read his column exclusively on our sister site, Bookhugger.co.uk.Connect with Bookgeeks
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