Graham
The list of contributors should give a clear indication on the quality of this collection. There are some big and important names in the fantasy genre here. The Unfettered collection also serves a noble cause as well! Shawn Speakman, the proprietor of Grim Oak Press, organised this collection as a way to raise money to help fight his cancer and the success of this has been such that he has been able to set up a fund to help other authors.
The stories here are all by authors at the top of their craft. Even the weaker ones are interesting enough - usually in a collection there are some which don't work with me and whilst some are weaker there are no stories in here that were not worth reading. A brilliant fantasy short story collection!
This is a very impressive debut. CJ Tudor generates a great atmosphere of intrigue, with a jumping timeline between childhood and the present and a slow unravelling of the truth behind events in the past. In The Chalk Man we follow the story of a group of friends, jumping between what happened in a summer break during their childhoods and their interactions today. During this summer these children happened to come across a body, and the impact of that had a profound impact on their relationship and the community they are in.
CJ Tudor effectively manages to blend these timelines to create an intriguing mystery that is slowly revealed. Her characters are sympathetic, varied and interesting. The community feels like a real living breathing community in the south of England, with the hypocrisy and pettiness that communities always hold. She has a nice easy reading prose
Overall a thoroughly enjoyable read!
Anna Stephens Godblind trilogy is one of the most blood soaked sets of grimdark fantasy out there. This the, the final outing, does not disappoint. The Red Gods that she has created are some of the most vicious and nasty I have read, gods of pain and pleasure that demand rivers of blood from their followers.
Being the final book the main focus is the buildup to and execution of the final battle between the dark gods, and the good ones. The final battle does not disappoint and takes up a portion of this novel. It is decidedly epic and well written.
This focus on the final conflict does move the story away from some of the character building seen so far, but that is really a fairly minor gripe.
Visceral, bloody and brutal, this is the closing book that this series needed
I do wonder if reading the uncut version may have hampered my enjoyment here. Many people seem to site the Stand as being one of King's best works. Undoubtedly, parts of this book are brilliant. The first part, Captain Trips, is a gorgeous study of a plague of apocalyptic proportions. This first third of the book was definitely the highlight and was a joy to read. The sense of loss and end of the world was amazingly captured, and with recent events worldwide felt very on the nose. The denialism of figures in power was remarkably prescient.
The book begins to lose its way after that unfortunately. The next large chunk is largely based on the politics of trying to build a new society. It works well enough but doesn't have the power or emotional impact of the first part. It also drags a bit - it is a long section of not a huge amount happening. When the book is as long as this one, that does feel a bit indulgent.
The final part dealing with a supernatural evil seems unnecessary and pointless. The big bad here is ultimately very underwhelming and the quasi religious nature of everything related to him was all a bit meh for me. Unfortunately this mean the book doesn't stick the landing with the ending.
It is a mighty tome and at places an interesting study in human response to disaster. The first third is brilliant, the second third is pretty good, the last third is a mess. A lot of promise, but the pay off is not quite good enough for its length.
This was super creepy. Nordic noir is somewhat dominant in the crime genre these days, and Iceland, despite being the smallest Nordic nation, is certainly giving some contributions to this. Yrsa is probably the foremost of the Icelandic noir authors and this, my first dabble into her work, did not disappoint.
Focusing on a small community in one of the more remote parts of Iceland, jumping between a murder enquiry in a small town and a group of ‘friends' trying to build a new B&B in an abandoned fishing settlement the other side of the fjord. The two stories intertwine in an intriguing way with a wonderfully open ending that keeps you questioning. The terrifying isolation of being stuck in an isolated community with people you dont necessary like really adds a layer of paranoia and creep to the novel. The twists and turns remain surprising leading to a very satisfying denouement.
The best crime novel I have read so far this year!
The conclusion to the Poppy War Trilogy does not disappoint. RF Kuang has used the modern history of China to inform a fascinating and powerful fantasy. Whilst the events in the novel bear links to real historical events, the depth of the world building is still impressive and the use of these parallels grants a good range of realism to a hugely fantastic world. Taking on Asian history, as opposed to the usual Euro-centric approach has opened up some really intriguing ideas as well.
Ultimately it is the tragic characters that Rebecca has brought to life though which drive this story. This is richly realised, beautiful and poignant character studies in a world at war. The stories here capture the real brutality of such events, not the sanitized versions often seen. This is gritty, brutal and powerful.
A fitting conclusion to a brilliant trilogy!
Heinlein is one of those giants of Sci-Fi. If you are familiar with the genre you will have heard his name mentioned, and Stranger in Strange Land is considered to be one of his best works. It is an intriguing concept - a man raised by aliens is returned to Earth without knowing anything of Earths culture. How would someone without any cultural basis in Earth react to how we live our lives?
The concept is a good one and some of the ideas presented are fascinating - how would you react to the opposite gender if you had never met someone from it before? How would you understand concepts of wealth and economy without any basis in them? Unfortunately, I do not think this has aged well - a frequent problem with classic sci-fi. When you are trying to predict the future, what sounds futuristic in the early 60s may not be so 60 years later. The main challenge I have is in some of the social ideas presented. Heinlein writes women incredibly poorly. It feels like from a different time. This really detracts from the story for me. Other things such as the quasi-religious concepts are drawn out into somewhat bizarre but ultimately dull places, with some strange fetishization which is distracting.
This is not a bad book, but it definitely reads poorly in the modern society. The basic concepts and ideas are intriguing, but the social mores are decidedly dated.
There is something about small town USA that provides a wonderful claustrophobia. The secrets, gossip, pettiness and viciousness of people in small communities provide a perfect tinderbox. Add in the bigotry and hypocritical judgement of small town religion and you end up with a dark and powerful story which Anna Bailey captures in haunting style in Tall Bones.
The main story revolves around a missing 17 year old girl and her best friend. As her friend goes searching for the truth she digs down through the secrets buried within the family and the community.
This is dark and haunting stuff, exquisitely written to catch that underlying paranoia. A fantastic debut!
An alien artifact is discovered and this leads to a chase to get it all working again. Told through a series of interviews, the writing style brings to mind World War Z, although this time the media is all very similar rather than the extended cast used there. In this novel, the interviewer is a constant figure, although he is never quite named. The conversations recorded have a suitably official type feel and it allows the reader to parse together the outline of the story very effectively without telling it in a more descriptive manner.
The basic premise of god like aliens leaving tech behind on Earth has been done before, but the documentary style is effective at telling the story. The documentary style does lose some of the character development, but for this type of story that is less important
A solid start to what looks like an interesting trilogy
Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy ask that classic sci-fi question: what does it mean to be sentient. Ancillary Mercy, the 3rd book in this series probably does it in the most straight forward way. Breq, our main character, is the remnant of an AI that controlled a ship occupying a human body that was once one of her crew (an Ancillary in the universes parlance). She is caught in the crossfire between a fractured entity (Anaander Mianaai) who is the supreme ruler of Radchai, the human civilization that Breq was constructed by. Somehow Anaander has become so fractured that he is effectively at war with himself, as different parts of his entity pursue different aims and strategies. Added into this is an ancient deal that he made with an alien entity called the Presger, which led to the Presger recognizing humans as ‘Significant Beings' - essentially sentience - and so stopped attacking them. Different parts of Anaander have different interpretations of this deal. These basic premises were set up in the previous book. This all comes to head hear in Ancillary Mercy as part of Anaander Mianaai comes to the system were Breq is, at the same time as Presger negotiators are also there. Breq just wants to be free from Mianaai's influence so the question of significant being becomes key. Is Breq, an Artificial Intelligence, considered truly sentient?
These type of weighty idea based Sci-Fi's are always some of my favourites. This is a genre which really allows you to ask the ‘what if?' questions and Leckie does a very good job of it. Breq is a very likeable character - a warm and strangely human AI.
Octavia Butler is a much celebrated science fiction author and this short collection of 2 short stories is my first introduction to her work. First things first - I recognize that a pair of previously unpublished short stories may not be the best place to start with an author like this. However, I can definitely appreciate there is a lot of creativity on display in the two stories presented here.
The longer of the two, ‘A Necessary Being', present an intriguing glimpse of an alien culture, with rigid caste structures determined by colouration. It presents an intriguing analogue to some of the racial attributes of human society, albeit presented in a cleaner and less systematically oppressed way. The desire to possess a being of a certain colour to show dominance of a particular tribe is intriguing and disturbing in some ways. As intriguing as the ideas were I did struggle a bit with engaging with the characters.
The second story is considerably shorter and presents a dystopian vision of society where certain psychic sensitives have emerged. The titular ‘Childfinder' is someone searching out these psychics to protect them from some nefarious government organisation. This one puts me in the mind of PKD, and as such I found it enjoyable. I just wished there was a bit more to it (was a very short story)
Vampires in suburban Sweden. As novel concepts go it is quite low key for a vampire story. This ultimately works hugely in its favour. Let the right one in is at times intimate and at times brutal, always seeded with a grim a mundanity, a gritty realness that makes it all the more hard hitting. Living in a Scandinavian country myself also gives it a more personal feel, rather than the typical grand castle setting or the big city urban fantasy setting more typically used in such a genre. The vampires here are not attention seeking or ostentatious. They are not the glamorous beasts of the post Dracula vampire mythos - these are in many ways closer to the eastern European folk myth. They survive and try to hide.
Ultimately it is the intimacy of this novel that gives it the power it has. The genuine relationship built between Eli and Oskar. The seedy and disturbing nature of Eli's other thrall. The alcoholic underbelly of a socially lauded country. The brutal loneliness of childhood. Everything here is intimate, disturbing and haunting.
Josiah Bancroft's Books of Babel series is difficult to categorize. It takes its titular inspiration from the ancient world of Ur and the Tower of Babel, but then applies a whimsical steampunk fantasy overlay across the top. This combination of biblical myth and steampunk is certainly unique to my mind! The second book here see the further evolution of our protagonist. The careful naivete of the school teacher Thomas Senlin has been replaced by a much more pragmatic, if a little less stable outlook on life. We learn a bit more about the background behind the tower and get to meet the Sphinx - a character much alluded to previously. The whimsy and creativity is very much still in evidence.
The story does suffer a little from middle book syndrome - the first book set up our character, introduced the gang that we spend most of the time with in this book. Arm of the Sphinx loses a little bit of the drive of the first book - the overriding objective of Senlin to find his wife seems a little bit lost and buried here. The whimsy and creativity mean that this is still an excellent book. Senlin's companions are an interesting bunch and we get to learn more about them and their motivations in tis book.
I remain intrigued to see where the next book takes us!
A fun little jailbreak title. Matthew Hughes has created an interesting universe for this scifi novella. He uses the idea of wormholes in a clever way - these are the ‘whimsies' of the title. The whimsies provide a portal to other dimensions, but also allow the bending of time and space to allow interstellar travel. Noubles refer to a strange gemstone that hold extreme value in this universe.
The novella is following the story of an art forger, after a big score. He is trying to scam his way to get some noubles from an unscrupulous governor of a planet that appears to be the only source of these noubles. He is double crossed an sent to a prison colony where he learns more about the true nature of whimsies and noubles.
This is a clever novella - it has a lot of story in a short length. The world building is fantastic and the characters are well rounded. A good read!
One thing I cannot deny is the breadth of Ian Watson's imagination. These short stories run a gamut of ideas, and even flip a bit between genres. Watson is first and foremost recognised for his science fiction work, and that does provide the backbone of this collection, but he does dip into some other speculative fiction genres such as horror with some success. The wildness and variety of his ideas are what really stand out here, and even the older stories have aged relatively well because of this.
However, whilst I can respect the sheer variety of ideas I do struggle with a lot of the stories for a few reasons. He does have a habit of setting up a story with one expectation, before flipping it completely on its head in the last few paragraphs and going off on a wild tangent. Used sparingly, this technique could have been an interesting twist, but here it is just exhausting. The way his prose flows also tends to be a little bit distant. The characters in the stories all feel a little flat to me.
This is still an interesting read, and it shows well how his craft has developed over time. As a cheap punt from the PS2 sale section I am not unhappy with this - it was entertaining and a worthy read. His imagination is a fascinating thing
An intriguingly creepy novella. The book club follows the story of someone searching for his wife, who failed to return from their book club meeting. As we learn more we realise the book club may not be all that it seems and we are thrown into a world of occult and parallel dimensions.
Alan Baxter does an impressive build up, starting with the normalcy of a day, the gradual increasing panic that sets in when someone does not come home as expect. This story increasingly dissolves into the weird as the paranormal elements are introduced. A good slow burn with a fascinating reward.
An interesting little novella this taking on the theme of how absolute power can corrupt absolutely. The basis for the story revolves around dragons hidden in modern society - there immense wealth and power hidden through clever means. Their society ensures that they behave in a responsible and emotionless way. However, what happens when a dragon is raised by humans? An interesting question of how power and humanity interact is asked.
The prose is a little bit stilted in this for me. The ideas are grand and the questions asked are interesting, but I the writing didn't necessarily grab me as much as I might have wished.
An interesting concept and theme.
This is one of those books that I kept on hearing about in hushed tones as something of a hidden gem. I was not disappointed by it - it is one of those rare books that truly lives up to it's hype and then exceeds it!
It is hard to really describe what Senlin Ascends is. It is fantasy, but with a reference to ancient myths (the Tower of Babel for example) and reads like a twisted fantasy take on Heart of Darkness or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It is a descent (ascent?) into madness and strangeness, defined by this central tower and its different levels. Each level has its own distinct theme, dangers and weirdness. The imagination on display is mind boggling - this is easily one of the most unique takes on the genre I have seen.
The central story follows the quest of one Tom Senlin to find his wife, who goes missing right at the start of the madness that is the Tower of Babel. As we travel and ascend the tower, we follow Tom as he grows as a character through the madcap experiences and dangers in the tower. It is the growth of this character that forms the beating heart of this book.
I also need to give a shout out to the Subterranean Press edition of this. The artwork in this edition is honestly the most beautiful I have seen in a book.
This books was a mad rush of psychedelic craziness, grounded by the quest of its central character. This book is truly unique. If you haven't read it you really should!
Post-apocalyptic dystopian robots. This was a great parable for the hubris of man, but also the an interesting thought experiment into whether any other form of intelligence would actually be better. There is a bleakness to this book (which to be fair is common to most post-apocalyptic books) and the absence of humans is keenly felt. We are already extinct in this setting and robots have inherited the world. That inheritance of AI doesn't mean an end to conflict however. Different AI's see different desires, and as soon as something has self awareness it should have self preservation - an idea that will inevitably lead to fighting for resources and things that it needs. The parallels with modern society are only loosely hidden - environmental decimation and the dangers of more powerful countries bullying weaker ones within a world society are clear messages within the story.
AI gone crazy is not necessarily a new concept, but the setting in a purely AI led environment is a novel one and what gives Sea of Rust its unique feel. The writing is engaging and the robots themselves have distinctly non-robotic personalities. But that is the whole point of AI is it not? Despite having an entire cast of robots, the motivations, rivalries and engagement between characters has a human quality, including the semi-messianic mainframe computers taking on a god-like role.
I have always been a fan of dystopian novels and this one is a top quality example of the genre. The characterization and world building are exemplary and the ending suitably ambiguous. Recommended
This was a strange novella. I admire the bravery and invention, but I am not sure I particularly enjoyed it in the end. It is the story of a summer holiday, told by a young child with an overactive imagination. We end up with a surreal, very trippy tale of fish and aquatic grandmothers.
This is essentially three stories linked together by the cast of characters, but I am not sure there is much development between them. The use of malapropisms and made up words makes the text somewhat difficult to read and whilst it adds character I am not sure it aids readability.
This all ended up a bit too weird for me. I am a big fan of Steven Erikson's Malazan books, but this was extremely different to that. I admire his bravery in this work, but I do not think the style is for me.
Jemisin's first short story anthology provides an interesting insight into her development as a writer. There is definitely an empowerment theme running through a lot of the stories - I imagine it is a topic close to her heart. More interestingly, several of the stories provide first glimpses of ideas that were later developed into full novel series - you can see early elements of the Fifth Season and The City That We Became in two of the stories.
I am a big fan of Jemisin's writing style. It is personal and engaging whilst at the same time evoking a wonderful epicness. Her ideas are varied and unique. The amount of creativity on display here is impressive. This also track how her style has evolved in an interesting way.
I am a fan of short stories. They are a good way of getting a taste of a story in a short sitting. Good short stories are well worth reading, and the overall quality of this collection is high.
Space Necromancers! I do love the overriding concept of Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb trilogy. This time we are reading from Harrowhark's point of view and things are confusing. There is quite a dramatic stylistic switch in this story compared to the first. This time we are in second person, which can be a bit jarring, but adds some interesting conceptual twists. Are we in fact viewing things as Gideon still, just through the mind of Harrow? Then there is the fact that Harrow doesn't seem to be all there. Apparently something went different with her ascent to Lictorhood?
The first two thirds of the book are very strange and jarring. They mostly seem to ignore the events of Gideon the Ninth. This uncomfortable revision of history is decidedly deliberate though. What we are getting is an extreme version of an unreliable narrator. As it is in second person this gives the odd sensation of you lying to yourself through the reading - a strangely uncomfortable and unsettling experience (and where I see quite a few reviewers take umbrage to the book). To me this fits the aesthetics perfectly though. Whilst I do miss Gideon's fantastic snark this does seem a logical and very Harrowhark place to end up.
We also get to sense a bit more of the wider universe this time. We get the impression that the necromantic overlords are not viewed altogether positively, and they have unleashed some other monstrosities on the universe through their magic.
Ultimately this is a strange, unsettling and frequently confusing read. However, somehow it all works perfectly. This book demands patience, but the payoff is spectacular.
A horror takeover issue of GDM, this is wildly successful. The stories are on the shorter scale, but they are extremely well done. Whilst there is a strong horror theme, the stories are all also firmly in the the grimdark zone as well. The quality of the stories was extremely high and never really dropped, despite the bumper set of 6 stories. Most of them play with tropes in a delightful way. Probably the best issue I have read yet!
Omnibus are always a bit of a mammoth undertaking to read, and this one is not an exception. Fortunately it is helped by Brent Weeks' easy prose which allows the novel to flow in a nice way. This trilogy tells the story of the Night Angel, an assassin who has gained a supernatural power that makes him almost invincible (even when he dies he is brought back to life, although with a certain cost associated with it). The story follows his apprenticeship and then how he influences the course of major events taking place.
There is a lot of mythology built within these stories. Brent Weeks has produced an impressive amount of world building. Whilst there is nothing spectacularly new about any of the creatures and mythologies developed, the work he has done is effective and gives his world an impressively real feel.
This is an impressive debut, and it makes me excited to try his second series.
An interestingly dark take on YA. In this world there are two main types of magic, blood magic and death magic. Both obviously focused on the grim and the macabre. It helps give a gritty veneer of darkness to this YA tale. Add in to that an oppressive city state, a tyrannical ruler and a mysterious secret and you get an entertaining tale - I do appreciate YA when the darkness is upped.
In this city, spirits (‘Guardians') are used to control the users of Blood Magic. Our heroine, Rovan, has managed to hide her magic and avoided being bonded with one of these spirits, but when she is eventually captured and forced to bond, she begins to uncover the secrets of these spirits and the regime which uses them to control the city.
The basic story with its underlying darker themes I can definitely fully appreciate. This being YA though the author has levered in some awkward teenage love story. It kind of works ok, but is my least favourite part of the story. This is definitely some of the better YA I have read though, and if you appreciate a touch of the macabre to your fantasy this is definitely worth a read.