Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
As far as cultural icons go, Tarzan is right up there with other literary behemoths of roughly the same vintage such as Sherlock Holmes, Dracula and Superman. First swinging his way in the popular consciousness via a pulp-fiction magazine story in 1912, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan has gone on to be the focus of twenty-five books by Burroughs himself and several other novels [both authorised and otherwise] by various authors, not to mention the mass of films, series and other merchandise in which the King of the Apes has also featured. Tarzan is in fact one of those characters who everyone seems to know about even though very few people know that the actual, the original, material from which the legend grew. In an effort to address this issue, Oxford University Press have reissued this delightful hardback edition of Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes so that readers might enjoy the classic origin story of Tarzan as well as come to appreciate the complex backdrop of colonial appropriation, literary heritage and nostalgic yearning from which he emerged.
John and Alice Clayton, more formally known as Lord and Lady Greystoke, were an English couple who suffered great misadventure and were marooned in the western jungles of equatorial Africa. While there they produced a son, named him John Clayton, and then fairly promptly expired. The boy was adopted by a she-ape named Kala, was now known as Tarzan [which apparently means "white skin" in ape talk) and was raised in understandable ignorance of his human heritage. As he grows older, Tarzan feels increasingly isolated from his peers due to their obvious physical differences. One day he discovers the old cabin that his human parents had lived in during their jungle days and, through books that are left there, Tarzan [having taught himself to read] learns that there are others like him. As he is leaving the cabin, Tarzan is attacked by a huge gorilla but manages to kill him using his father’s knife. Tarzan’s growing hunting prowess begins to earn him the enmity of Kerchak, the ape leader.
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The Angel’s Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
In the second of his novels to be translated from the Spanish, Carlos Ruiz Zafon revisits his The Shadow of the Wind creation; The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is a treasure trove of prohibited and secret manuscripts which have been hidden until someone chooses one, takes it home- a book that in fact chooses them, is a part of them and says something about who they are. It is a cyclical action- one must deposit a book before taking another- they are passed from one anonymous owner to the next. For Zafon each book seems to possess the owner, and it is this binding relationship of readership that preoccupies the author throughout the novel.
The Angel’s Game draws upon this theme; the power of books to change people, to shape personality, and finally to corrupt. David Martin is a poor writer who wishes to be a successful literary author but makes his money writing pulp, sensation novels for a pair of corrupt publishers. Here Zafon draws upon his own tradition, that of the mystery thriller, slyly entrapping his protagonist within the confines of his own genre. When his literary debut is a failure, Martin turns to the sinister Andreas Corelli (an admirer of his work) who will pay Martin vast amounts to write a book for him, a book that will change the hearts and minds of the people who read it. Martin is consumed by this new task, writing what seems to be a new religious doctrine for the devil himself.
Three copies of The Folding Knife by K.J. Parker to be won [closed]
We have three copies of The Folding Knife by K.J. Parker to give away – the latest standalone novel from our of our favourite fantasy authors.
Basso the Magnificent. Basso the Great. Basso the Wise. Basso the Murderer. The First Citizen of the Vesani Republic is an extraordinary man.
He is ruthless, cunning and, above all, lucky. He brings wealth, power and prestige to his people. But with power comes unwanted attention, and Basso must defend his nation and himself from threats foreign and domestic. In a lifetime of crucial decisions, he’s only ever made one mistake.
One mistake, though, can be enough.
To be in with a chance, simply get this question right:
What was the title of K.J. Parker’s previous standalone novel?
Good luck…
No more submissions accepted at this time.Terms and conditions
- Closing date for entries: 13th June 2010.
- Open to residents of the United Kingdom only.
- Entry to the competition is by completion of the above form only. Anyone submitting multiple entries will be disqualified.
- The winners will be selected at random from those correct entries received before the closing date.
- Only the winning entrants will be contacted by Bookgeeks. Our decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
- The winner’s name(s) may be published on the Bookgeeks website after the closing date of the competition.
- The competition is not open to Bookgeeks and their families, or to employees of Little, Brown Book Group and their families.
Brian Lumley: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
“I’ve been a fan of Jack Vance for as long as I can remember. Bury me with one of his books, by all means! Why? Because he can make light of the direst of situations — and I can’t think of a more dire situation than reading in the ultimate darkness. The book I’m talking about would be Cugel’s Saga. Anyone who hasn’t read it doesn’t know what he’s missing. Some of the funniest, cleverest stuff in modern fantasy fiction, not to mention some of the most nightmarish!
I wouldn’t want anything by Poe – let’s face it, he’s already been prematurely buried!”
More information about Jack Vance’s Cugel’s Saga at Wikipedia.
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Quite a lot about Brian Lumley:
Born 2nd December, 1937, Brian Lumley came into the world just nine months after the most obvious of his forebears – meaning of course a “literary” forebear, namely, H. P. Lovecraft – had departed from it. By his pre-teens Lumley had read Dracula and some other horror classics, but having followed the adventures of Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future in the British Eagle comic, his first love was Science Fiction. Then, in his early teens – as a result of reading Robert Bloch’s Lovecraft pastiche Notebook Found in a Deserted House in a British SF magazine – he became more surely attracted to macabre fiction, an attraction that has lasted a lifetime.
Later still, in his early twenties while serving with the Corps of Royal Military Police in Germany, on finding a collection of stories by Lovecraft himself, Lumley began searching for every available item of the author’s work. This culminated in his contacting HPL’s publisher August Derleth in Sauk City, Wisconsin, in order to purchase the one or two volumes still missing from his collection. Then, after Derleth had read various “extracts” from the Necronomicon and other fictional “Black Books” of the so-called Cthulhu Mythos, which Lumley had included in his letters, he asked if the aspiring author had anything solid he could use in a book he was preparing for publication, to be entitled Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. Thus Lumley began writing in earnest. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Derleth included stories by Lumley in a number of Arkham House anthologies and went on to publish three of the author’s books. One was a short novel with the title Beneath the Moors; the others were collections of short stories and novellas: The Caller of The Black and The Horror at Oakdeene. These stories, set mainly in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos milieu, echoed HPL’s literary style: a somewhat archaic, adjectival mode of writing which, during the course of Lumley’s military career, he would gradually eschew in favour of his own very distinctive style.
Despite that Lumley completed a full term of 22 years with the RMP – during which time he rose to the rank of Warrant Officer and, in his final years, served as the WO Chief Instruction (the DI) at the RMP Depot and Training Establishment – still he managed to write and see published his three Arkham books plus the first of the six paperback novels in his Titus Crow series, and the stand-alone novel, Khai of Ancient Khem, while he was still a soldier. But by then: “it was time for the serious stuff!”
Having “retired” from the Army in December 1980, Lumley became “a professional author” (he had never really considered himself that way before) and of necessity began to write in earnest. he still had a projected series of four books in H. P. Lovecraft’s “Dreamlands milieu” to complete, during the writing of which he began the Psychomech trilogy, the very first of his works (with the exception of a handful of short stories) to be published in the United Kingdom.
Then came his breakthrough book. In March to September 1984 he wrote his dead-waking, ground-breaking horror novel Necroscope®, featuring Harry Keogh, the man who can talk to dead people. Not at first realizing, however, how successful this book would be (for it would eventually become a best-selling series), in late 1984 early 1985 he wrote the stand-alone novel Demogorgon. Also in ’85 to early 1986, he completed his “Dreamlands” series with a book of short stories and novellas called Iced on Aran; which will explain the gap between the writing of Necroscope and Necroscope II: Wamphyri! After Wamphyri!, however, Necroscope III: The Source, took only five months to complete in 1987, and with the first two volumes having seen initial paperback publication in the UK, finally the trilogy was picked up by TOR Books, USA. Except it wasn’t going to stop at being a trilogy!
Such was the appeal of the Necroscope books that TOR published the so-called trilogy in the space of just twelve months: September 1988 to September 1989 — by which time Lumley had written Necroscopes IV and V: Deadspeak and Deadspawn. And in just five years, 1984 to 1989, the financial problems which the author had experienced on leaving the Army were well and truly behind him. Bestsellers in the USA, his books had already passed one million sales and were heading for two million.
But still the story wasn’t finished; in fact it wasn’t half-way there yet! Such had been the success of the first five volumes, and such was the demand from readers, that Lumley went straight on from Deadspawn to commence writing the massive Vampire World Trilogy, which he considers his finest, most ambitious and important work. Begun in 1991, finished in 1993, Blood Brothers, The Last Aerie and Bloodwars between them contain some three-quarters of a million words of horror, fantasy … even a little of the author’s first love, Science Fiction.
In 1994, just short of six years since publishing the original Necroscope, TOR began reprinting the entire series in hardcovers: a rare event in the modern publishing world. And Blood Brothers was the first Necroscope – or more properly the first series spin-off – to be published in hardcovers from the outset. The rest of the volumes in this incredible series have all followed suit. Their titles are:
The Lost Years and Lost Years Two: Resurgence – the Invaders Trilogy: Invaders, Defilers and Avengers – and the novellas: Harry Keogh: Necroscope and Other Weird Heroes – and, in the Summer of 2006, Necroscope: The Touch. Harry and the Pirates – a volume of Necroscope novellas – appeared in 2009, and one final novella is promised.
Thirteen countries and counting have now published, or are in the process of publishing these and others of Lumley’s novels and short story collections, which in the USA alone have sold well over three million copies. In addition, Necroscope comic books, graphic novels, a role-playing game, quality figurines, and in Germany a series of audio books have been created from themes and characters in the Necroscope books, and Lumley has added his “real” voice to Dangerous Ground, a Downliners Sect rock-&-roll album released in the UK in 2004.
Lumley’s works other than Necroscope – such as his SF-ish novel The House of Doors and its sequel Maze of Worlds; also a dozen collections gathered from his more than 130 short stories and novellas, most notably Fruiting Bodies & Other Fungi, whose title story won a British Fantasy Award in 1989 – have seen or are seeing print in many European countries as well as the USA, and all the while his reputation is growing apace. As far back as 1990, the readers of Fear Magazine voted Lumley “Best Established Genre Author” for The Source, and his short story Necros (not a Necroscope spin-off!) was adapted for Ridley Scott’s The Hunger series on the USA’s Showtime Television series. But best of all, in 1998 as Guest of Honour at the World Horror Convention in Phoenix, AZ, he received the genre’s most coveted Grand Master Award in recognition of his work. Moreover, the original Necroscope has now been optioned (and four times re-optioned) for a major film, and the original trilogy will be included in the deal if there’s a follow through.
From 2000 through 2007 fans of Necroscope and Lumley’s other works convened at the annual KeoghCon, and there celebrated with the author and his wife Barbara Ann, who is known to one and all as “Silky;” where each successive year forged stronger bonds between the members of this much extended “family” of friends and fans. (As for the last word, “fans:” Lumley prefers to refer to these people — his friends — as “dedicated readers.”)
Widely travelled, Brian Lumley has visited or lived in the USA, France, Italy, Cyprus, Germany, Malta, Canada, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, not to mention a dozen or more Greek islands. He still makes regular visits to the Mediterranean, indulging a passion for moussaka, retsina, just a little ouzo … and Metaxa, naturally! In addition – as icing on the baklava – Necroscope and its sequels, along with others of his books, are now appearing in Greek translations.
UPDATE LATE 2009: Recently, both Subterranean Press in the USA and Solaris in the UK have published two companion volumes of Lumley’s previously uncollected Cthulhu Mythos tales: The Taint and Other Novellas and Haggopian and Other Mythos Tales. Other books from Subterranean include a very special edition of Necroscope®, Brian Lumley’s Freaks, Screaming Science Fiction, A Coven of Vampires, The Nonesuch and Others and Necroscope: The Plague-Bearer (forthcoming).
As for the future: “Well, the future is always uncertain.” But with several books from an extensive backlist awaiting reissue, it certainly isn’t over yet!
When they’re not travelling, the Lumleys keep house in Torquay, Devon, England…
- Visit Brian’s website.
The Millennium Trilogy, by Stieg Larsson
It’s a film, a franchise, a phenomenon. But I also think a great set of books that deserve a review: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2008), The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009), and The The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2010).
The great thing about the series is to learn how Larson has clearly thought the whole thing through from the start. The whole thriller is laced with references to the next book and the trilogy builds in complexity to reward only the most faithful of readers.
Larson’s gift is to actually on many levels write in a slow, rolling, at times almost boring style. For example we learn pretty much what everybody is wearing, how many cups of coffee has been drunk per day (the Swedish clearly drink a lot of coffee), exactly what type and make of phone, PC or gadget each character uses. We also learn many back stories about everything from how to manufacture toilets, to how corporate mining in Scandinavia works. That said it is always strangely interesting. And then BOOM! we are hit with possibly the most gripping prose and adventures since Dan Brown or, dare I say it, Jack Higgins. At times of breathless adventure all three books are un-put-down-able.
The Top 100 Cricketers of All Time, by Christopher Martin-Jenkins
Sports fans love lists, and I suspect cricket fans love them most of all – in a sport where batting and bowling averages serve as benchmarks of greatness, and where there are endless permutations for new records and new firsts (highest test match partnership shared by two brothers, highest scores on debut, longest break between Test Match appearances, and so many more), nevertheless selection of a playing XI has always required a measure of emotional response to the qualities of a cricketer, as well as a cold-eyed look at their stats, and thus the selection of all-time XIs is something that gives most cricket fans endless pleasure, with loads of scope for a good old argument.
As Christoper Martin-Jenkins acknowledges, he has had to make some painful omissions from this book, which is intended to represent his personal choice of the all-time best 100 cricketers who ever played Test cricket. For those, like me, raised on the poor English fare of the 90s, the lack of Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart, both capable of heroic defiance in the face of superior firepower, seems harsh, and undoubtedly every cricket fan of every stripe will find something to argue with. CMJ’s task is a thankless one, to be sure, and he acknowledges the agonies he went through omitting so many wonderful players. Given that he has to cover the whole of cricket’s recorded history, from the days of uncovered pitches and eight-ball overs, up to the Twenty20 dominated present-day, he has done an excellent job.
Wilson, by Daniel Clowes
A new graphic novel from Daniel Clowes, author of the excellent Ghost World and David Boring among others, is always a big deal. As one of the most obviously “literary” writers working in the comics medium, Clowes always delivers sympathetic characters and bizarrely believable storylines with his trademark mix of superficial kitsch and everyday grotesque. Clowes’ latest offering, Wilson, promised to be a particular treat for fans, being as it is his first all-new graphic novel (all of Clowes’ previous graphic novels have been collected editions of serialised narratives that most often originated from his anthology comic Eightball). Written in a single page gag format and drawn in a variety of styles, Wilson is perhaps the funniest and most deeply affecting tale that Clowes has written so far.
Wilson is an opinionated, middle-aged loser who, despite being a self-declared “people person”, cares about his dog and seemingly no one else in the world. Compelled to undertake a never-ending and stupendously unsuccessful quest to find human connection, Wilson badgers acquaintance and stranger alike into a series of one-sided conversations, punctuating his own lofty discursions with cutting comments as well as a brutally honest, self-depreciating sense of humour. After his father dies, a father he had admittedly frequently thought to have already passed, Wilson realises that he is now irrevocably alone and so returns to his hometown in the hope of rekindling his relationship with his ex-wife. Despite his utterly charmless ramblings, Pippi, the beaten down ex, does agree, at least temporarily, to cease hostilities and try to cultivate some romantic feelings towards Wilson. Pippi ultimately informs Wilson that she was pregnant at the time their marriage ended and that the baby, a daughter, was given up for adoption. Insistent on their tracking the girl down, Wilson eventually forces all three to try and reconnect as a family – a doomed mission that will surely, inevitably backfire.
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
Anytime I come across a novel that is a ‘re-telling’ of some other work, I become a little nervous. So this author was either too unoriginal to come up with his own themes and feels the need to re-hash someone else’s, or so arrogant to think that we didn’t get it the first time, or that the original author didn’t expound thoroughly enough. Steinbeck is obviously not unoriginal, which leaves me wondering – what is it about the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel does he think was lacking?
East of Eden is a retelling of Genesis, specifically of the Cain and Abel story, a short tragedy about the first murder. Steinbeck’s version is the saga of the Trask family, beginning with the Civil War and crossing the century boundary. The action centers around Adam Trask and his possibly satanic wife, and their twin boys, who struggle with free will, sin, and determinism. In the Bible, God warns the more violent brother to chose his path wisely because the consequences of his rage will be harsh. And this is basically the theme of the Biblical story- that humanity craves love, will do unwise things in the face of rejection, and all the while has the choice to make better choices.
Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey, by Colin Grant
Potential readers may be justifiably put off by the flippant title of this book about one of the most enigmatic, yet least well-known, black icons of the last 100 years. Born in Jamaica in the late 1800s, it was clear that Garvey was destined to achieve greatness, or at least give the appearance of achieving greatness, while leading the fight for black emancipation.
His early black nationalist ideas fell flat in his homeland, but gained more traction when he moved to New York in 1910. From there, Garvey was unstoppable – the only limit to his reported achievements seemingly his own ability to reinvent himself as a global figurehead for black nationalism. At his peak, Garvey was regularly drawing audiences in excess of 25,000 to hear his powerful rhetoric
The Ambassador’s Mission, by Trudi Canavan
The Ambassador’s Mission is the first volume in the Traitor Spy Trilogy, the sequel to Trudi Canavan’s phenomenally popular Black Magician Trilogy. That being said, some background information on the fantastical world created by Canavan in her earlier novels would probably be useful for those who have not read the proceeding trilogy. The Black Magician Trilogy is comprised of The Magician’s Guild, The Novice and The High Lord (there is in fact also a prequel volume available now entitled The Magician’s Apprentice) and is set predominantly in Imardin, the capital city of Kyralia. The books follow a young girl named Sonea who, despite being raised in the slums of Imardin, discovers that she has magical abilities which are normally only found in members of the upper classes. Over the course of the trilogy, Sonea first attempts to avoid capture by the powerful Magician’s Guild as she tries to gain control over her powers. After being grudgingly given admittance to the Guild University Sonea struggles to fit in with her fellow novices and learn the formal rules of magic. Ultimately, it is up to Sonea to try and save Kyralia from an invasion by the Ichani, magicians who regularly use black magic. As even such a brief summary probably indicated, The Black Magician Trilogy was an incredibly rich and detailed fantasy saga and so, although of course not absolutely necessary, it would probably be best to read that first before moving on to the Traitor Spy Trilogy.
Now on to The Ambassador’s Mission itself. Twenty years on from the events of The Black Magician Trilogy, former street urchin Sonea is now a Black Magician of Kyralia as well as the somewhat proud mother of Lorkin. As the son of the late High Lord Akkarin and Sonea, triumphant saviours of the city, Lorkin feels that he has a legacy of heroism and adventure to live up to. Much to Sonea’s dismay, when Lord Dannyl takes the position of Guild Ambassador to Sachaka, a land still ruled by cruel black magicians, Lorkin volunteers to accompany Dannyl as his assistant in the hopes of making his mark on the world.
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Nick Lake
Nick Lake is an editorial director at HarperCollins Children’s Books. He received his degree in English from Oxford University.
His first novel, Blood Ninja, was inspired by his interest in the Far East, and by the fact that he is secretly a vampire ninja himself. Nick lives with his wife in Oxfordshire. We asked him about the genesis of the novel, his writing tips and his Ninja skills.
The Siege Of Krishnapur, by J.G. Farrell
Move over EM Forster, move over Paul Scott and move over George MacDonald Fraser. Sterling as your efforts undoubtedly were, JG Farrell’s magnificent book, The Siege Of Krishanapur must surely be the best book ever written about the British in India.
A Booker prize winner in 1972, The Siege Of Krishnapur, courtesy of a reissue by the good people at Phoenix, is today a contender for the overall best of the Booker prize. The Booker di tutti Bookers, as it isn’t called. If it doesn’t win I cannot imagine how jaw-droppingly brilliant a book must be to be better than this one.
Reggie Oliver: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
The sixth Bury Me With… features the impeccable taste of Thespian and dark-scribe, Reggie Oliver:
“The book I would like to be buried with is A Dance to the Music of Time.
Recently I went to a talk by the revolutionary intellectual and radical 60’s icon Tariq Ali at my local Literary Festival. In the course of an interview he revealed, to my amazement, that, like me, he was a devotee of A Dance to the Music of Time, the twelve novel sequence by Anthony Powell. This is a work which divides opinion considerably. Some see it a dull and snobbish series of novels, mainly about Old Etonians and their spouses written in a slightly circuitous mandarin prose. Others, like Tariq Ali, Ian Rankin (and I) see it as a unique vision of 20th century English society which charts the course through life of some memorable characters.
The most memorable of these is, of course, Widmerpool whose rise and hideous downfall is marked by a series of comic and sometimes horrific vignettes. For the moralist Widmerpool is a masterly study in the destructiveness of egoism; to a political thinker like Tariq Ali he is the quintessence of the ruthless establishment man who walks the British corridors of power, to a fellow writer he is a superb lesson in how to build and develop a credible but memorable fictional character over a period of time.
And why should a horror writer in particular admire this work? Well, Powell is a writer who has no dogma or ideology to speak of but who is fascinated by the sheer strangeness of life and human nature. There is a fascinating occult and supernatural thread running through the books: there is Mrs Erdleigh, the fortune teller; Dr Trelawney the mage, based partly on Aleister Crowley whom Powell had met; there is the New Age occultist Scorpio Murtlock who proves to be Widmerpool’s nemesis. A ghost features unapologetically in the fifth novel, The Kindly Ones. And there are scenes of true dark horror: for example the deaths of X. Trapnel and Widmerpool whose last episode reflects as in a distorting mirror the first time we see this character in the very first of the novel sequence, A Question of Upbringing.
Powell is a writer who sees life as a strange dance, full of mysteries and coincidences, whose pattern only half emerges as you approach its end. I think you will find that vision shared and expressed by many of the best writers in our genre.”
More information on A Dance to the Music of Time is at Wikipedia.
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About Reggie Oliver:
Reggie Oliver has been a professional playwright, actor, and theatre director since 1975. His biography of Stella Gibbons, Out of the Woodshed, was published by Bloomsbury in 1998. Besides plays, his publications include four volumes of stories: The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini (Haunted River 2003), The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler (Haunted River 2005), Masques of Satan (Ash Tree 2007), and Madder Mysteries (Ex Occidente 2009), and a novel Virtue in Danger (Ex Occidente 2010). An omnibus edition of his stories entitled Dramas from the Depths is published by Centipede, as part of its Masters of the Weird Tale series. His stories have been published in Zencore, Shades of Darkness, Tails of Wonder and Imagination (an anthology of cat stories) and many other anthologies including successive editions of such series as Exotic Gothic, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Black Book of Horror and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror.
- Visit Reggie’s website, The Black Cathedral
All My Friends Are Superheroes, by Andrew Kaufman
A charming novella from Canadian filmmaker Andrew Kaufman, All My Friends are Superheroes tells the story of Tom – all of Tom’s friends are indeed superheroes, but not in the DC / Marvel sense. Most of them are people defined by regular and recognisable traits – the Stress Bunny, the Couch Surfer, the Dancer, the Sloth, the Chip – while some of them, notably Tom’s friend the Amphibian and his nemesis, Hypno, have powers of a sort. Tom’s fiancee is a superhero too – the Perfectionist – and that’s where Tom’s problems lie.
At Tom’s wedding to the Perfectionist, her ex, Hypno, used his powers to hypnotise her to not see Tom – so now Tom does have a superpower, and a very unwelcome one at that: he’s invisible to the woman he loves. None of the other superheroes can help him with his dilemma, as he tries to find a way to become visible again. Every time he touches the Perfectionist it hurts her, and she apparently can’t hear or see him. When she decides to move cities, bereft at the inexplicable disappearance of her new husband, Tom is on the seat next to her on the plane, but can he find the perfect thing to say or do that will snap her out of Hypno’s spell?
The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
Sarah Waters, famed for her historical novels with a lesbian lilt, probably needs no introduction. During her relatively short, five book career, Water’s has been nominated for (and won) a host of awards, and The Little Stranger saw her nominated for a third time for the Man Booker Prize. Her latest novel, set in a crumbling post-Second World War gentry estate, omits her usual lesbian subject matter and follows the story of an old upper class family as they struggle to keep their estate in a world that seems to have long forgotten them. The Ayres family plight becomes entwined with that of a country doctor – Faraday – who in his bid to help the family, becomes a friend, a lover and a possible perpetrator in this tale of ghosts, phantasms and spectres – the family’s ‘little stranger’ itself.
The Hundreds Hall dates back further than the novel’s scope, giving the house a story of its own in which it literally seems to come to life. The haunting at Hundreds commences with little black marks appearing on the walls, a fire started from nowhere, tapping in the walls and bells sounding of their own accord, which leads the novels’ tragic heroine Caroline to feel that it is something about the house that is doing the haunting and not something within it. Admittedly even for the sceptic Doctor the house holds some kind of spell over him; the dated glamour reminding him of his childhood and his mother’s time as a nursery maid within it. The haunting acts as a warning that the house will outlive its inhabitants as we are reminded by the death of Mrs. Ayres’ first daughter Susan – again this happened outside the time period of the novel but within the house. Indeed for each member of the household the haunting offers a different fright, for Roderick, the fear of losing the estate, for Mrs Ayres, the death of her daughter and for Caroline, perhaps the strongest of the lot, the death of her dog and companion ‘Gyp.’
First Lord’s Fury, by Jim Butcher
Jim Butcher is more famous for his Dresden Files series–urban fantasy with a mysterious twist. Codex Alera, his second series, is also well worth a read, and shows the same deft touch with character and humour that makes Harry Dresden so much fun to follow. In the Codex Alera series, we follow Tavi, a common worker on a steadholt, concerned with the normal order of life, and sheep, and girls–and despairing because he has so little access to the fury-influenced power that allows Alerans to perform their form of magic. First Lord’s Fury is the final instalment, and we find Tavi, now Gauis Octavian, a young man grown into power and influence and prepared to defend his home against the greatest threat they have ever faced, the inhuman Vord.
Tavi begins the story with, as is typical for him, an impossible situation. How is he to get the last of the Canim, refugees from a continent overun by the Vord, to safety in Alera? How is he to get the army he has gathered across the continent to where it is needed most? How will he learn to control the furies he has well enough to be able to defeat the Vord queen?
DC Versus Marvel, by Peter David et al
The competition between DC and Marvel Comics, the two behemoths of the comic book industry, is legendary. While DC and Marvel Comics are different both stylistically and in the approach that they take to continuity in their respective universes, both companies are famous and much-loved due to the enduring popularity of their superheroes and their impact on popular culture as well as comics. Of course, all superheroes have strengths and weaknesses and readers have often pondered on whose stable of heroes is the best and, perhaps more importantly, which heroes would win if DC and Marvel were ever to go to war. The comic book crossover miniseries collected together here as DC versus Marvel Comics attempts to provide a final, definitive answer to both of these questions.
Two eons old cosmic brothers who personify the DC and Marvel universes become aware of each other’s existence and challenge each other to a series of duels involving each universe’s respective superheroes. The universe whose heroes suffer the greatest number of defeats will cease to exist. As the battles rage, the boundaries between the two universes begin to break down and so the brothers attempt to remedy the situation by creating the Amalgam universe which is occupied by merged versions of many of the most famous heroes. With the superheroes preoccupied fighting each other, an inter-dimensional character known as Access is left to try and restore both universes to their normal state.
The Harm, by Gary MacMahon
The best species of horror story-writing is that which preys on primal fears, especially if it’s something which could happen only too easily in real-life. Gary McMahon’s novelette, the first entry in a projected series of ‘longer’ short stories issued in a mini-book format by TTA Press (the publishers of Black Static and Interzone magazines), does just that: it touches on one of THE darkest and most appalling of horrors, a true blight that appears to form an increasingly grim narrative of daily life – child abuse. However, before anyone thinks it inappropriate to fictionalise such grim events (especially for ‘entertainment’), McMahon gets around that objection cleverly: the focus isn’t on the event itself, which is only referred to in passing, but on what comes after – its effects on, and the consequences for, the victims in later life.
Tyler, Roarke and Potter were the best of friends, and only eight years old when they were brutally sundered from their childhoods, by a group of shadowy perpetrators who are only hazily alluded to and never specifically outlined (and beyond them, there are hints of something darker, something inhuman). The three of them were held captive in a derelict warehouse, where they were subjected to repeated beatings, torture and rape over a period of twelve hours. The novelette is divided into four shorter stories, outlining the subsequent lives of each of the victims (now aged 34) and Audrey, the sister of Potter: each of these tales delineates the hand the event has had in shaping them, and their individual responses to it. The men (and those around them) have been swathed in an inexpressible darkness, felt but not fully realised, certainly never come to terms with, and filling them with a chilling, psychic emptiness. If you want happy endings, then look elsewhere.
Win a copy of John Connolly’s The Whisperers plus soundtrack [closed]
Charlie Parker returns in John Connolly’s latest thriller The Whisperers…
The border between Maine and Canada is porous. Anything can be smuggled across it: drugs, cash, weapons, people.
Now a group of disenchanted former soldiers has begun its own smuggling operation, and what is being moved is infinitely stranger and more terrifying than anyone can imagine. Anyone, that is, except private detective Charlie Parker, who has his own intimate knowledge of the darkness in men’s hearts.
But the soldiers’ actions have attracted the attention of the reclusive Herod, a man with a taste for the strange. And where Herod goes, so too does the shadowy figure that he calls the Captain. To defeat them, Parker must form an uneasy alliance with a man he fears more than any other, the killer known as the Collector…
5 lucky winners will receive a copy of The Whisperers, as well as a copy of the accompanying limited compilation CD Love & Whispers – the third soundtrack to the novels of John Connolly and only available at UK book store events or signings – featuring tracks by Piano Magic, Richmond Fontaine, Gastr Del Sol and Spiritualized, among others.
The question is: What’s the name of the shadowy figure who accompanies Herod on his sinister mission?
No more submissions accepted at this time.Terms and conditions
- Closing date for entries: 29th May 2010.
- Open to residents of the United Kingdom only.
- Entry to the competition is by completion of the above form only. Anyone submitting multiple entries will be disqualified.
- The winners will be selected at random from those correct entries received before the closing date.
- Only the winning entrants will be contacted by Bookgeeks. Our decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
- The winner’s name(s) may be published on Bookgeeks website after the closing date of the competition.
- The competition is not open to Bookgeeks and their families, or to employees of Hodder & Stoughton and their families.
Michael Marshall Smith: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With..
The fifth Bury Me With…, and I’m thankful to Michael Marshall Smith for providing an insight into the book that has influenced him more than any, the book he’d like to take with him to his grave…
“It’s tempting to say the book I’d like to be buried with is an iPad, of course – as that way I could not only take a ton of books but be able to chase deadlines beyond the grave, too. But assuming that’s not within the spirit of the thing, then I’d have to say Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis. I first read it when I was about thirteen, and it made a huge impression on me. I read it and re-read it, countless times, and it probably informed my sense of humour more than anything else I’ve ever read. Amis’ ability to find comedy in life’s slings and arrows, to use words as precise little hammers to attack the countless impotent little furies and frustrations of existence, has been an inspiration ever since. It was also the very first book that gave me an inkling that I might like to try writing for a career. Though if I’m allowed to entertain the idea that I might still be able to read in the grave, I might substitute a really big entymological dictionary instead. I love words, and especially enjoy reading about their journeys through time, shifts in their meanings reflecting changes in society an attitude, and how each of them – as Butler said – tries to enclose the wilderness of an idea. In effect every word is a little story in itself. With an eternity to get through, a couple of hundred thousand of those might help pass the time…”
More information on Kingsley Amis can be found at Wikipedia.
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About Michael Marshall Smith:
Michael Marshall (Smith) is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. His first novel, Only Forward, won the August Derleth and Philip K. Dick awards. Spares and One of Us were optioned for film by DreamWorks and Warner Brothers, and the Straw Men trilogy – The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead and Blood of Angels – were international bestsellers. He is a three-time winner of the BFS Award for short fiction, and his stories are collected in two volumes – What You Make It and More Tomorrow and Other Stories (which won the International Horror Guild Award). His Steel Dagger-nominated previous novel – The Intruders – is currently in series development with the BBC.
His new novel Bad Things is now in paperback in the UK, and will appear from William Morrow in the US in 2010.
February 2009 also saw the UK paperback publication of The Servants, a short novel under the new name M. M. Smith.
He lives in North London with his wife Paula, a son and two cats.
- Visit Michael’s website
- Read a recent interview with Michael at The Literary Project
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