Danie Ware’s debut novel, Ecko Rising was very well-received by the SFF community, when it hit shelves last year. The sequel, Ecko Burning, is dropping imminently, and it seemed like a perfect time to grill the author about her series, writing, and more…
Author Graham Joyce’s latest novel, Some Kind of Fairy Tale won the British Fantasy Award for best novel this past weekend (announced during the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton). This is the sixth time Joyce has won the Best Fantasy Novel Award. Here is the synopsis:
Some Kind of Fairy Tale is a very English story. A story of woods and clearings, a story of folk tales and family histories. It is as if Neil Gaiman and Joanne Harris had written a Fairy Tale together.
It is Christmas afternoon and Peter Martin gets an unexpected phone-call from his parents, asking him to come round. It pulls him away from his wife and children and into a bewildering mystery.
He arrives at his parents house and discovers that they have a visitor. His sister Tara. Not so unusual you might think, this is Christmas after all, a time when families get together. But twenty years ago Tara took a walk into the woods and never came back and as the years have gone by with no word from her the family have, unspoken, assumed that she was dead. Now she’s back, tired, dirty, disheveled, but happy and full of stories about twenty years spent travelling the world, an epic odyssey taken on a whim.
But her stories don’t quite hang together and once she has cleaned herself up and got some sleep it becomes apparent that the intervening years have been very kind to Tara. She really does look no different from the young women who walked out the door twenty years ago. Peter’s parents are just delighted to have their little girl back, but Peter and his best friend Richie, Tara’s one time boyfriend, are not so sure. Tara seems happy enough but there is something about her. A haunted, otherworldly quality. Some would say it’s as if she’s off with the fairies. And as the months go by Peter begins to suspect that the woods around their homes are not finished with Tara and his family...
Joyce’s other winning novels were: Dark Sister (1993), Requiem (1996), The Tooth Fairy (1997), Indigo (2000), Memoirs of a Master Forger (2009). In addition to these six wins, perhaps more impressive is the fact that he’s been nominated a total fourteen times.
Earlier this year, Joyce was diagnosed with aggressive lymphoma cancer. The awards ceremony was his first public appearance since his diagnosis – indeed, six months ago, his condition was extremely precarious. Accepting the award, the author stated, “Just being able to stand here today is a wonderful award, thanks to the doctors and nurses of the NHS.”
Graham Joyce’s novels have always somehow managed to escape my attention. True, in this case, the synopsis doesn’t appear to be entirely to my taste. However, given just how many people rave about his work (and irrespective of the number of awards he’s won), I am intrigued. Especially as I start forcing myself to read more outside my ‘comfort zone’, and as my general Reader’s Block continues (‘standard’ fantasy novels have started to blur into one…).
I thought I’d also pick up on something from the biography I received today from his publicist:
“In 1989 Joyce quit his job as a youth worker and went to live and write in a beachside shack on the Greek island of Lesbos. He sold his first novel after a year in Greece. Since then he has written twenty novels and numerous short stories. His novels have attracted admirers including Isabel Allende, Iain Banks, A.S. Byatt and Stephen King.”
I wish I had the courage (not to mention the talent) to do this… Too often, I feel like my life has been dictated by “safe” choices. True, I’d like to retire to a cabin in North America, but there are rather strict visa concerns to take into account…
… is apparently a thing. Which I am experiencing at the moment. I haven’t liked about 3/4 of the books I’ve tried to read over the past two weeks. I’m still reading, and have managed to get through a couple (reviews pending), but I’m finding I have zero patience for a lot of things. I’ve even tried to go with safe bets, comfort reads (Star Wars, something published by Black Library, or by authors I know I’ve really enjoyed in the past). But… nothing is hitting the mark.
This may be a case of genre-overload (I have to read this stuff for work, now, too), which could explain why I’ve been reading more real-world novels (thrillers, literary fiction, etc.). For this reason, I think we’ll be seeing a temporary shift, and I’ll be focusing more on non-SFF novels for just a little while, as I clear my brain. Then, after that, we’ll be seeing far more genre breadth on the blog – in terms or reviews, news, and hopefully interviews. I haven’t stopped liking SFF or anything of the sort. I think I just need a bit of a break. They’re starting to blur into one mass, right now…
A University Professor’s Crippling Writer’s Block and Drug-Fuelled Self-Destruction
Grady Tripp is a pot-smoking middle aged novelist who has stalled on a 2611-page opus titled Wonder Boys. His student James Leer is a troubled young writer obsessed by Hollywood suicides and at work on his own first novel. Grady’s bizarre editor Terry Crabtree and another student, Hannah Green, come together in his wildly comic, moving, and finally profound search for an ending to his book and a purpose to his life.
This is the second of Michael Chabon’s novels that I’ve read – and in a very short time, too. I still have no idea how to review The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which may rank as one of my all-time favourite novels. (Needless to say, it’s not difficult for me to see why it won the Pulitzer Prize.) Wonder Boys, the novel Chabon wrote before Kavalier & Clay, is a rather different novel. It’s nowhere near as long, for one thing – and yet, strangely, it feels far more rambling and unfocused. I enjoyed it a great deal, and zipped through it in just a couple of days. Chabon has a wonderful way with words that can make even the mundane a pleasure to read about.
Sandman Slim is back on Earth, Averting Apocalypse & causing mischief…
James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, has managed to get out of Hell, renounce his title as the new Lucifer, and settle back into life in LA. But he’s not out of trouble yet. Somewhere along the way he misplaced the Qomrama Om Ya, a weapon from the banished older gods who are also searching for their lost power.
The hunt leads Stark to an abandoned shopping mall – a multi-story copy of LA – infested with Lurkers and wretched bottom-feeding Sub Rosa families, squatters who have formed tight tribes to guard their tiny patches of this fake LA. Somewhere in the kill zone of the former mall is a dead man with the answers Stark needs. All Stark has to do is find the dead man, get back out alive, and outrun some angry old gods-and a few killers-on his tail.
In the fifth Sandman Slim novel, we get more of the same. In both a good and less-good way. Kadrey serves up another dose of gritty, sometimes gnarly, often amusing supernatural urban fantasy. All the hallmarks of the Sandman Slim series are on display – the interesting and inspired twists on classic urban fantasy and horror denizens and creatures. His characters are quippy and interesting, not to mention developing rather nicely. The action is well-written, and doesn’t take over from the plot (of the novel or series’ meta-plot). I still love Kadrey’s version of Hell, God, Lucifer and Samael (former Lucifer). All the characters feel very real, now, even if they are outlandish (Kasabian, for example).
At the same time, Kill City Blues felt somehow… less substantial and satisfying than the previous four novels (and novella – which was actually superb). Certainly, it’s tricky to sustain such high quality over five novels and a novella in a relatively short period of time, and this is not exactly a “dud”. It’s perhaps not surprising that Kadrey’s latest novel, Dead Set, is not a Sandman Slim novel. I get the feeling he needed to clear his head and take a break.
Reading this never quite felt like the author may have been going through the motions. It is probably just a case of this being a transition novel. We get some important character and plot developments, and (not wanting to spoil anything) it felt like pieces were being moved into place for what should shape up to be quite a sixth novel.
I would say this is still a must-read novel, but I would caution readers that this should be approached as part of a larger whole, rather than a possible stand-alone. It’s dark, it’s wonderfully dark and irreverent. It’s snarky and twisted fun. But it didn’t quite light all the same fires are the previous novels.
The Series: Sandman Slim, Kill the Dead, Aloha From Hell, Devil in the Dollhouse (novella), Devil Said Bang, Kill City Blues
I was spending some time on Goodreads, recently (as you do), and I noticed that Jeff Somers wrote in a number of genres. On the face of things, that is not at all a groundbreaking discovery. But, given the publishing industry’s preference for author branding, I thought it was interesting that Somers wrote under the same pen-name for all of the genres. Again, not exactly an earth-shattering discovery, but it gives me the opportunity to feature his work on the blog, before I get around to reading any of it. So, without further ado…
Author Bio: “Born in Jersey City, N.J., Jeff Somers has managed to migrate just five minutes away to nearby Hoboken, land of overpriced condominiums and a tavern on every corner. Between weekly drunks, Jeff manages to scrawl enough prose onto cocktail napkins and toilet paper to keep up a respectable fiction career.”
Genres: Avery Cates (Cyberpunk), Ustari Cycle (Urban Fantasy), Lifers, and Chum (fiction)
Four mini-reviews of graphic novels I have read over the last couple of weeks: Captain America: Road to Reborn and Reborn, Indestructible Hulk, Superman: Secret Identity, Wonder Woman (New 52).
In the post-apocalyptic TV show “Revolution,” one of the characters, a former Google executive, says, “80 million dollars in the bank and I would trade it all right now for a roll of Charmin.” Of all the things that society has lost, at that moment, he misses commercially-produced toilet paper. It’s the little things that count.
I write the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, a post-apocalyptic medieval epic fantasy series, for Orbit Books. In Ice Forged, the first book in the series, my characters have to come to terms with what they’ve lost, both big and small. Oddly enough, sometimes it’s the small things that matter the most.
Epic fantasy usually deals with the sweeping repercussions of events and decisions — the wars, assassinations, dynastic conflicts and economic collapses that change the balance of power. Certainly anything worthy of being called an apocalypse affects the superstructure of society: government, commerce, economics, and technology. Add in plague and natural disaster and a nation, continent or kingdom loses a significant portion of its workforce, its intellectual capital, its history and its physical infrastructure. Those losses are guaranteed to change what daily life is like for the survivors, and to make just getting by much more difficult.
A brilliant zombie love-story…
Movie Synopsis: Life for Julie (Teresa Palmer) and R (Nicholas Hoult) couldn’t be more different. R is a zombie; with a great record collection; limited vocab and an overpowering love of brain food. Julie is a human; beautiful; strong; open minded and all heart. When R makes an unexpected decision and rescues Julie from a zombie attack, his lifeless existence begins to have a purpose. As the unlikely relationship develops, R’s choice to protect her sets in motion a sequence of events that might just change both of their worlds forever. Directed by Jonathan Levine (50/50) and based on the debut novel by Isaac Marion, the heart-warming Warm Bodies is 2013’s zom-rom-com with a twist.
Director: Jonathan Levine | Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Corddry, John Malkovitch
I stumbled across Isaac Marion’s novel when I was in New York. I read the synopsis in the Union Square Barnes & Noble (one of my favourite places in the world…). Despite being intrigued, I wasn’t in a zombie-mood at the time, so I passed over it – rather unfairly, as it turned out. After the movie was released on DVD, though, I decided to watch the movie first – not something I usually do, but given the vast array of books I have to read, I wanted to squeeze this in. And I’m very glad I did.
All of the actors do a great job, and Nicholas Hoult does a wonderful job of making “R” an engaging and even sympathetic character. He’s funny, he’s awkward, and his internal monologue is wonderfully relatable to anyone who has ever felt stuck, awkward, or like their lives need a change. It’s brilliantly done, all-round, and as we see R’s evolution (“re-evolution”?) we realise just how brilliant Hoult is as an actor. It’s a peculiarly sweet love story, and I loved how it was both true to zombie lore and also unexpected and original, as well as paying tribute to some of the greatest love-stories (Romeo & Juliet, for example). It also has a superb soundtrack…
Very highly recommended. I will have to move the novel up the tottering TBR mountain.
Book Synopsis: “R” is a zombie. He has no name, no memories, and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.
Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows – warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons he can’t understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins.
This has never happened before. It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave. He wants to breathe again, he wants to live, and Julie wants to help him. But their grim, rotting world won't be changed without a fight...
I finally get around to reading the mega-hit novel of a mysterious group of college friends
Richard Papen arrived at Hampden College in New England and was quickly seduced by an elite group of five students, all Greek scholars, all worldly, self-assured, and, at first glance, all highly unapproachable. As Richard is drawn into their inner circle, he learns a terrifying secret that binds them to one another...a secret about an incident in the woods in the dead of night where an ancient rite was brought to brutal life...and led to a gruesome death. And that was just the beginning....
Another quick review, this (I’m still trying to figure out how best to review literary fiction). The Secret History has been an international mega-hit, and is frequently listed on Must Read books of the decade, your life, and so forth. As a result, it has been on my radar for years. But, because I am never lacking in reading material, I just never got around to buying it. After a particularly acute bout of book-restlessness, I decided it was time for a change from the SFF genres, and picked this up. I read it over a few very satisfying days, evenings and one night (I ended up finishing it at around 3am). It’s not perfect, but it is certainly engrossing and well-written.
