The BoSS for 05/12/10

If I was half the fantasy fanboy I profess to be, by all rights I'd spend this intro ranting and raving about NEW WHEEL OF TIME OMFG!!!

But no, thank you. My only reaction to Towers of Midnight's release has been a feeling of mild-to-moderate - and in any case aimless - guilt that I don't have much love for these books... that I can't share in the rampant excitement that tends to meet any and all news of this (for my money) interminably dull and oftentimes-amateurish series.

Nevertheless. The Wheel of Time aside, it's been a good, solid week of book goodies. See for yourself.

***

Towers of Midnight
by Brandon Sanderson

Release Details:

Published in the UK on
02/10/10 by Orbit

Review Priority:

2 (Fair)

Plot Synopsis: "The Last Battle has started. The seals on the Dark One's prison are crumbling. The Pattern itself is unraveling, and the armies of the Shadow have begun to boil out of the Blight. Perrin Aybara is haunted by spectres from his past. To prevail, he must find a way to master the wolf within him or lose himself to it for ever. Meanwhile, Matrim Cauthon prepares for the most difficult challenge of his life. The Tower of Ghenjei awaits, and its secrets will reveal the fate of a friend long lost. The end draws near. It's time to roll the dice."

Commentary: You know, I'm all for catching up on a series with a book or two, but twelve is taking the piss a bit, and much as I'd like to be versed in The Wheel of Time - whatever its merits, it is one of the genre's most prominent standard-bearers - what I read of the first book, years upon years ago, left me cold even then. And that was before I'd oiled up the old critical elbow.

Yeah. This just isn't going to happen, if I'm to be blunt. :/

In the Shadow of Gotham

by Stefanie Pintoff

Release Details:

Published in the UK on
02/12/10 by Penguin

Review Priority:

4 (Very High)

Plot Synopsis: "At the dawn of the twentieth century, a deranged killer is on the prowl. New York, 1905. After losing his fiancee in the General Slocum ferry disaster, Detective Simon Ziele transferred to a country town north of Manhattan in the hope of escaping his grief. But only months later he's faced with the shocking murder of a young girl - battered to death in her bedroom on a cold winter's afternoon. And when Alistair Sinclair, one of Columbia University's most noted criminologists learns about the case, he realises it bears an uncanny resemblance to the deranged mutterings of one his research subjects. Ziele must work with Sinclair to determine whether his patient - with a terrifying history of violent behaviour and brutal fantasies - did indeed seek out this innocent young victim... before the vicious murderer strikes again."

Commentary: Am I really so transparent?

Alright, yes. I confess: I'm mostly interested in this one because it says Gotham. What? It does - right there on the cover! In the title! I appreciate it's probably got nothing at all to do with everyone's favourite Caped Crusader, but the worst case scenario here is I end up reading an acclaimed historical crime novel under false pretences, and honestly, if that turns out to be the case, I'll survive. Who knows, I might even enjoy myself...

War

by Sebastian Junger

Release Details:

Published in the UK on
27/05/11 by Fourth Estate

Review Priority:

4 (Very High)

Plot Synopsis: "They were known as 'The Rock.' For one year, in 2007-2008, Sebastian Junger accompanied a single platoon of thirty men from the storied 2nd battalion of the U.S. Army, as they fought their way through a remote valley in Eastern Afghanistan. Over the course of five trips, Junger was in more firefights than he can count, men he knew were killed or wounded, and he himself was almost killed. His relationship with these soldiers grew so close that they considered him part of the platoon, and he enjoyed an access and a candidness that few, if any, journalists ever attain.


"War is a narrative about combat: the fear of dying, the trauma of killing and the love between platoon-mates who would rather die than let each other down.


"Gripping, honest, intense, War explores the neurological, psychological and social elements of combat, and the incredible bonds that form between these small groups of men. This is not a book about Afghanistan or the 'War on Terror'; it is a book about the universal truth of all men, in all wars. Junger set out to answer what he thought of as the 'hand grenade question': why would a man throw himself on a hand grenade to save other men he has probably known for only a few months? The answer proves elusive yet profound, and goes to the heart of what it means not just to be a soldier, but to be human."

Commentary: From the author of A Perfect Storm, one of the all-time greatest non-fiction novels, an account of the nearly-fatal year Junger spent with a platoon of soldiers in Afghanistan.

What more do you really need to know?

The Wolf Age

by James Enge

Release Details:

Published in the US on

09/11/10 by Pyr

Review Priority:

3 (Moderate)

Plot Synopsis: "Wuruyaaria: city of werewolves, whose raiders range over the dying northlands, capturing human beings for slaves or meat. Wuruyaaria: where a lone immortal maker wages a secret war against the Strange Gods of the Coranians. Wuruyaaria: a democracy where some are more equal than others, and a faction of outcast werewolves is determined to change the balance of power in a long, bloody election year.

"Their plans are laid; the challenges known; the risks accepted. But all schemes will shatter in the clash between two threats few had foreseen and none had fully understood: a monster from the north on a mission to poison the world, and a stranger from the south named Morlock Ambrosius."

Commentary: Sounds damn fine! But sadly, I must say bah and humbug to The Wolf Age for the moment, because it's book three of a thing; of a thing I haven't read (or truth be told even heard of) either book one or two of.

That is unless it's reasonably stand-alone. Anyone know?

Why oh why must everything come in threes these days? Honest to God, I'm good with one...

/end MOANING

Pariah

by Bob Fingerman

Release Details:

Published in the US on
03/08/10 by Tor / Forge

Review Priority:

4 (Very High)

Plot Synopsis: "The world is in chaos. A zombie plague has devoured every nation on the planet. New York City is no exception. Imagine eight million zombies. Shoulder to shoulder. Walking the streets, looking for their next meal. The residents of one apartment building have bonded to keep themselves safe from the onslaught, but their inevitable demise lurks right outside their window, a constant reminder of the doom that awaits them. Forced to remain in the safety of the building, the tenants find themselves at each others' throats. When they spy a lone teenage girl who walks among the hordes, unattacked by the undead, their world opens up."

Commentary: Zombies again? I know, I know... nevertheless, I find myself rather insensibly excited to get started on Pariah. I know Graeme absolutely adored it - then again the dear fellow does (as he himself acknowledges) tend to get a touch moist over anything with a whiff of the undead about it. And there's more than a whiff of the undead to comic-book dude Bob Fingerman's first novel. In that regard, it's positively stinking.

I'm really hoping to sneak this one in sometime before Christmas. If it's even a patch on The Reapers are the Angels, as Graeme asserts, then it's going to be must-read material.

The Forge of God
by Greg Bear

Release Details:

Published in the UK on

11/11/10 by Gollancz

Review Priority:

4 (Very High)

Plot Synopsis: "The disappearance of one of Jupiter's moons, the appearance of 'little green men' in Australia and the American Southwest, and the sudden presence of unidentifiable objects on a collision course inside the Earth's core add up to the inescapable conclusion that the Earth has been invaded by an enemy it cannot fight."

Commentary: Well if it isn't a classic alien invasion story! You don't see many such narrative these days. Nor, indeed, do you see this one - or you don't see it in these days, I should say. The Forge of God goes all the way back to 1987; Gollancz are simply reissuing it alongside a couple of Greg Bear's other classics.

For myself, surprise surprise, I've never read Greg Bear, and there are a couple of his novels on the horizon I just know I'm going to want to give the old once-over... so: the plan is to read and review a time-tested masterwork of his - this, nominated as it was for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards upon its release way back when - before Hull Zero Three and the Halo novel hit, that I have myself something of a yardstick by which to measure them.

Here's to filling in another of the brick-holes in the wall of my general genre knowledge!

The Fall

by Guillermo del Toro & Chuck Hogan

Release Details:

Published in the UK on

16/09/10 by HarperCollins

Review Priority:

3 (Moderate)

Plot Synopsis: "Humans have been displaced at the top of the food chain, and now understand – to their outright horror – what it is to be not the consumer, but the consumed.

"Ephraim Goodweather, director of the New York office of the Centers for Disease control, is one of the few humans who understands what is really happening. Vampires have arrived in New York City, and their condition is contagious. If they cannot be contained, the entire world is at risk of infection. Eph becomes consumed with the battle against the total corruption of humanity, while his ex-wife, Kelly, now a vampire herself, is ever-more determined to claim their son, Zack.

Commentary: Hmm. Still not at all sure what to think of these books. You might recall I found a copy of The Strain in a charity shop not so long ago, and promised myself that I wouldn't simply shelve it for that far-distant rainy day and entirely forget it existed. But guess what?

"As the Biblical origins of the Ancient ones are gradually revealed, Eph learns that there is a greater, more terrible plan in store for the human race – worse even than annihilation..."

Really there's only one way for me to figure out whether The Fall is the dodgy cash-in on Guillermo del Toro's name I fear it is, or else a decent vampire apocalypse trilogy a la The Passage in its own right. And for whatever it's worth, that's exactly what I mean to do - which is to say, get reading already! :)