Andy Lewis
One of the most vivid and exciting chronicles of the Swing era I've yet read.
Timme Rosenkrantz was a Danish baron, who decided at a young age to travel to New York, and immerse himself in the jazz scene there. Which he duly did - to the absolute best of his abilities. Over the next few decades, he was to become a well-known and well-liked figure on the scene, befriend many of the jazz greats (he was a close friend of Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Fats Waller and many many others), blag his way into most of the New York venues, and collect a set of wonderful memoirs and anecdotes about his many adventures.
This book serves as a window onto a nearly-forgotten age, a treasured resource of jazz information (I found a lot of great music from reading this book) and is a seriously fun and easy read.
It's also ridiculously expensive. Great though it is, I'm very glad I bought it when it was cheaper.
I wanted to like this a lot more. Really liked the first book - and I loved the way Peter Hamilton managed to hide from us the main premise of the series until that final jaw-dropping book 1 revelation (and the way he used the whole “alien monsters after your BRAINZ” trope in such an original way.
A trilogy like this though - it lives or dies by the conclusion - and to me, this final volume ran of steam a little. It was still enjoyable - and it was epic on a scale that few authors can pull off, but which Peter Hamilton generally excels at - and it wasn't bad - just a little underwhelming, and, for me, a bit too long and drawn out. Things like the reveal of where the saints had been, and what they'd been up to all this time... felt a little anti-climactic, and there was a touch too much of the conveniently develop better tech to beat the previously unbeatable bad guys with trope - which first came in in Salvation Lost.
All in all, a decent series, but, IMO, not his best.
I'm in awe of Claire North. She seems to have a knack for thinking up a wonderfully simple, but original concept - and then thinking through a logical progression of that idea, taking it to places I'd never have dreamed of.
The idea in this case - William Abbey has been cursed, and his curse takes the form of a ghost - which will chase him down - at walking pace - wherever he goes. When it is close, he sees the truth in men's hearts. If it touches him, the person he loves the most will die - and the pursuit will begin again. So far so “It Follows” - but true to form, Claire North dwells moves quickly away from the horror of that pursuit, instead choosing a wider scope for the story.
Set in Victorian times, and taking us on a prolonged tour of the British Empire of the time, the book very deliberately shows us some of the worst and most heart-breaking aspects and consequences of British colonialism - while progressing that idea in a very cynical direction: when such a curse or gift comes to the attention of the powers that be (and William is far from the only person in the book with this affliction)... they'll work out how to weaponise it.
It's a great book - if not a very optimistic one - William is a deeply flawed protagonist, makes serious mistakes and is rarely brave or heroic - so he's hard to really care for (although, perhaps - if I'm honest - easy to identify with) - but I found the story captivating. If the picture it paints of the “golden age” of the British Empire is a tarnished one (to say the least) - that is no bad thing either.
In short - a thought provoking book, and a great read. Highly recommended.
Few people can do epic space opera like Peter Hamilton, and he's in his element here.
I won't bother describing the plot - if you've read Salvation, you know everything you need to, and if you haven't read Salvation, go and read that first.
Salvation Lost kicks off immediately after the final events and revelations of Salvation, and slowly escalates the events of the first book, ending on ... if not quite the nail-biting cliffhanger of the first book, some great twists and turns setting up what I hope will be an epic finale.
The bad first - while it ups the pace a little from the first book, Salvation Lost still moves at a slower pace than I'd expected - and while it's never less than engaging, it didn't hold me rapt the way some of his other books have. I think some of that is down to the characters - they're all decent, but no-one really stood out to me the way they have in some of his previous books.
On the other hand, the action is great, nd few people portray large-scale escalation the way Peter Hamilton does. The various plot twists manage to be both surprising and yet logical - and the final wonderful reveal was one that I didn't see coming... but in hindsight, it felt that I should have. If you liked Salvation, this is a must read.
Tade Thompson has firmly established himself in my list of must-read authors - basically, I'll automatically pick up anything new that comes from him.
This is a very short book, which I blitzed through in a couple of hours - in fact, I really consider the Molly Southbourne books to be two halves of the same novel. Warning - this book picks up immediately after the ending of The Murders of Molly Southbourne - and makes very little sense without the first volume, so pick that one up first.
I loved this volume. It continues the story in Tade Thompson's highly imaginative fashion - he takes things in some unexpected directions, expands the world a little, gives just enough answers without overdoing the explanations - and some of those answers are heart-breaking.
Anyway - a highly satisfying continuation (conclusion?) to Molly's story. Recommended.
Foiled in her attempt to escape the house she absolutely detests, Gideon is coerced instead to accompany her bitterest enemy Harrowhark to the First house, where Harrow may study, and become one of eight new Lyctors for the Emperor. And, of course, it's not going to go very well at all.
What on earth does any of this mean? Half the joy of the book is the way the world-building is slowly gently teased out through conversations, events and some careful narration. Some mysteries are hidden in plain sight, some are gently teased or hinted at early on, before being brought back with devastating effect later in the book - I found it an amazing roller-coaster ride, and it was nearly impossible to put the book down.
Gideon and Harrow are wonderful protagonists, and if their conflict seems inexplicable to begin with, the reasons are yet another piece of the we're presented with.
I don't think it's for everyone - it is an amazing book, wildly imaginative, with wonderfully drawn characters, a fair smattering of suspense and horror, and it pulls absolutely no punches as things ramp up...
It also leaves a lot of questions to be answered in the next book, and I can't wait to start that one. Probably my favourite book of 2020 - and there's been some stiff competition this year.
Thoroughly enjoyed this one - a smart piece of story telling. Some nice little twists and turns along the way, some of which I saw coming, some I did not. I'm to be extremely vague in this review, because it would be very hard to be otherwise without giving away important spoilers.
I felt the key characters were perhaps a little under-explored - Eolo in particular, despite being front-and-center for much of the story - while having an intriguing background still didn't feel as fleshed out as I would have liked - there was a lot hinted at which just didn't go anywhere.
I can see why - because this isn't really Eolo's story - but despite that, from a reader's point of view, I would have liked to see a little bit more about Eolo and a couple of the other more interesting characters.
Despite that - I loved the concept of the gods, their power and the effect they had on the world, and the overall arc.
This is one of the very few truly original time travel stories that I've read - at this moment, in fact, the only other one that comes to mind is Neal Asher's wonderful Cowl.
The Gone World is ... an utterly engrossing read. After a slightly brain-twisting opening, it moves into the familiar-seeming territory of a murder mystery / hunt for an apparent kidnapping victim, and if that had been the whole book, the setup and main character of Shannon Moss would have been plenty to hold my interest and for me to enjoy the book.
Instead, it veers into a wonderful blend of detective fiction and time-travel tale with the threat of an ever-encroaching inexplicable apocalypse... and going in, it's better not to know any more than that. Suffice to say, this is a good solid piece of crime fiction, populated by some well-written and memorable characters, blended with an outstanding scifi novel. If any of that sounds good to you, this is a must-read.
I adore this story. It's the weird and wonderful blood-soaked love-child of The Wind in the Willows and the Dirty Dozen. It's short and sweet, with not a single wasted word.
The plot - the Captain - a monosyllabic mouse - is re-assembling his old team for one last job - to finish what they started all that time ago.
Don't expect everything to be spelled out - or, in fact for anything to be spelled out - long and complex backstories are implied but rarely explained - but for all that, this book is an absolute gem, brimming with dark humour - and I loved every single moment of it.
I wanted to like this book a lot more. It's well written, I loved the characters, and the historical aspects and exploration of racial issues were fascinating.
For me, where it falls down is the supernatural side of things - it's more of a personal taste thing, I suppose, but the magical side of it felt too clean - too neat - too much explained - too easy - that part of the book, which forms the main narrative, just didn't work for me.
Ultimately it boiled down to liked it, but couldn't love it, no matter how much I wanted to.