An Interview with KENDRA LEIGHTON

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Kendra Leighton?

I’m a YA writer and chocolatier living in Cambridge. I run an organic chocolate company called Rawr Chocolate with my partner during the day, and the rest of the time I’m either reading or writing YA (usually whilst eating chocolate).

Your debut novel, Glimpse, is due to be published tomorrow by Much-In-Little. How would you introduce the novel to a new reader?

Glimpse is a YA paranormal novel inspired by Alfred Noyes’ classic poem “The Highwayman”. It isn’t a retelling, but relies on the events of the poem to tell a whole new story. The main character, Liz, is a seventeen year old girl with numerous problems, the biggest being the ability to see things that shouldn’t exist. When her grandfather dies, she inherits his home – the five-hundred year old Highwayman Inn – and moves there with her dad, hoping for a fresh start. Her problems only get worse…

Upcoming: COVENANT’S END by Ari Marmell (Pyr)

I’m a big fan of Ari Marmell’s writing. Covenant’s End is the fourth volume in the author’s YA fantasy series, Widdershins Adventures. I’ve only read the first two, but I really enjoyed them both (I haven’t managed to get around to Lost Covenant, yet). Here is the synopsis…

The thief Widdershins and her own “personal god,” Olgun, return to their home city of Davillon after almost a year away. While Shins expects only to face the difficulty of making up with her friends, what she actually finds is far, far worse. Her nemesis, Lisette, has returned, and she is not alone. Lisette has made a dark pact with supernatural powers that have granted her abilities far greater than anything Widdershins and Olgun can match.

Together, Widdershins and Olgun will face enemies on both sides of the law, for Lisette’s schemes have given her power in both Davillon’s government and its underworld. For even a slim chance, Shins must call on both old friends-some of whom haven’t yet forgiven her-and new allies.

Even with their help, Widdershins may be required to make the hardest sacrifice of her life, if she is to rid Davillon-and herself-of Lisette once and for all.

Covenant’s End is due to be published by Pyr Books in February 2015. So, that’s rather a long way away (damnit!), but it’s nice to be able to share the artwork.

Marmell’s latest novel is Hot Lead, Cold Iron – the first in his Mick Oberon urban fantasy series set in 1930s Chicago – published by Titan Books in the US (out now) and UK (out next week).

Also on CR: Interview with Ari Marmell, Guest Post (Triumph Over Tragedy), Reviews of The Thief’s Covenant, False Covenant, The Conqueror’s Shadow

An Interview with NICK LAKE

Vampires are all the rage in YA and genre fiction, but not many of the series has jumped out at me as particularly original. Then along came Nick Lake’s Blood Ninja series, which mixes vampires, feudal Japan and ninjas into an action-packed and entertaining melange. This week, therefore, and following in the wake of a guest post on Influences & Inspirations, Nick agreed to answer a few questions about writing, his series, juggling his writing with work as an editor, and also possible personal teleportation.

“Behemoth”, by Scott Westerfeld (Simon & Schuster)

Reviewed by Alyssa Mackenzie

Airships in Istanbul

The behemoth is the fiercest creature in the British navy. It can swallow enemy battleships with one bite. The Darwinists will need it, now that they are at war with the Clanker powers.

Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt. But when disaster strikes the Leviathan’s peacekeeping mission, they find themselves alone and hunted in enemy territory.

Alek and Deryn will need great skill, new allies, and brave hearts to face what’s ahead.

In the world of the Leviathan trilogy, the discoveries of Charles Darwin resulted in a technological as well as scientific revolution. By 1914, ‘Darwinist’ countries (Britain and its allies) have developed ‘fabricated’ creatures, which perform the functions usually fulfilled by machines: giant jellyfish are one-man aircrafts, tiny lizards relay messages in human voices, and bats that eat prunes embedded with metal spikes are used instead of guns. In the countries that reject Darwinist practices, or ‘Clankers’, purely mechanical technology has evolved very differently from our own, designed to compete with and (with the prospect of the First World War) to defeat, Darwinist creatures.

Westerfeld introduced this world in Leviathan (published in 2009), through the eyes of Deryn Sharp and Alek Hapsburg and the British airship (and self-sustaining ecosystem) ‘Leviathan’. Leviathan combines great characters and plotting with a truly masterful piece of world-building. Westerfeld creates his alternate history brilliantly, working within and against conflicts and concerns of our history to build his own. His world-building is thoughtful, detailed, and frequently playful (one of my favourite details from the novel is the image of 1914 London renowned for its air quality because of its use of fabricated creatures instead of fuel-burning machines). I thoroughly enjoyed Leviathan, and was very excited to read Behemoth, which continues Deryn and Alek’s story in fine form.

Behemoth picks up where Leviathan left off, with Deryn and Alek together on the Leviathan. Very quickly, however, both leave the safety of the airship, and follow separate paths into the exotic and politically unstable city of Istanbul. In addition to steampunk alternate history and adventure tale, the Leviathan trilogy is a coming-of-age story, for both Alek and Deryn. In Behemoth, both characters are forced to act and think independently, and as each is separated from the adults who have hitherto protected and guided them, we see both characters mature while they face tests to their judgement, strength, and ingenuity. Repeatedly, both Deryn and Alek must decide whom to trust, attempting to accomplish their goals without compromising their safety; as the story progresses, what becomes apparent is that the most important of these decisions will be to trust each other.

As in Leviathan, Westerfeld does a great job of using real-world events and conflicts to construct his narrative. In this case, Winston Churchill’s refusal to hand over a warship purchased by the Ottoman Empire (to which Westerfeld adds an accompanying fabricated creature, the titular behemoth), becomes a diplomatic crisis not only for Britain, but for the allied Darwinists who want to sway Turkey away from its Clanker sympathies. Westerfeld is very skilled at balancing the various elements of his plot, raising the stakes individually for Deryn and Alek, and the broader political situation at hand without any element of his story overpowering another; moreover, he does so in a narrative that is fast-paced, engaging, and above all, fun.

I really enjoyed seeing the world of Leviathan extended beyond the specifically Clanker or Darwinist worlds of Austria and Britain. In addition to showing a different, slightly more organic version of Clanker technology in Istanbul, Westerfeld introduces his first North American to the story: Eddie Malone, an American reporter. Americans seem to take a much more relaxed attitude than any other characters, comfortable with both machines and fabricated creatures. Eddie was one of my favourite new characters. The perspicacious, monkey-like loris named Bovril was also an amusing addition to the cast, showing an ability to pick out the most important (and, frequently, the most awkward or embarrassing) words and phrases from conversation and repeat them. The loris will clearly play an important role in the final book of the trilogy, but how is as yet unclear. Manipulated into Alek’s care by Dr. Barlow, all it seems to do at present is threaten to make trouble.

Behemoth is an excellent read, featuring a fun and suspenseful plot within brilliantly-realised alternate history. Keith Thompson’s illustrations are a great addition to the book – they do a good job of capturing the spirit of Westerfeld’s story and characters. I am definitely looking forward to Goliath.

Highly recommended.

The Leviathan trilogy: Leviathan (winner of the 2010 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Fiction), Behemoth, Goliath (October 2011)

“Nation”, by Terry Pratchett (Corgi)

Terry Pratchett takes a break from his Discworld series to bring us something a little different

On the way back from his coming-of-age ritual, islander Mau’s Nation is wiped out by a tsunami. Brought with it, the schooner Sweet Judy is dragged through and over the island’s rainforest. Only one person is left alive.

Mau, who doesn’t wear a whole lot, comes across a woman who wears far too much and talks incessantly. The result is lots of misunderstandings. But, with the Nation gone, the two of them have to forge a whole new Nation, from scratch.

Nation is not your typical Pratchett novel. Like the Discworld, it is set in an alternate universe, only this one is still largely based on our own.

We still have Pratchett’s trademark wit and humour, his quick style, and good plotting. His wonderful inventiveness remains intact, also – even small things like the octopus arbori (tree octopus) are brilliant, especially given their inability to differentiate between coconuts and a person’s head.

My one criticism of Nation is that it takes just a little while to really get going – after the excellent introduction, and even though there are plenty of jokes and asides that will at least raise a smile, I found that it took some time for me to care much about the characters.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, given the unassailable position Pratchett usually has in my opinion, but I would only give this a cautionary recommendation. I laughed often, and was amused frequently, but for some reason this book didn’t hook me as his others do. Usually, I get through a Pratchett novel in about a day, maybe two if I have a lot of other things going on, but this one took me a long time to get through (hence the considerable gap between reviews on the site). Maybe, having read and reviewed quite a few thrillers in a row, I had difficulty making the transition back to fantasy.

It's also marketed as a children's book, which is quite surprising, given its very dark subject matter. Pratchett's children's books do often deal with very adult subjects, but compared to other “children’s” material out there, this is closer to Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book than anything else. Perhaps the subject matter is why I struggled to get into it: it has to be lighter on laughs. Also, I think that Pratchett is so at home in his Discworld that his occasional forays further afield can lack some of the obvious pleasure he takes in his creation, and perhaps that is why Nation failed to sparkle for me.

Still, even a slightly-below-par Pratchett is worth ten lesser writers, so don't be put off: Nation is worth a read.