Met the old BoSS? Well, let me introduce you to the new BoSS - same as the old BoSS, more or less... except less is more. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
All caught up? Good. Let's get on with it, then.
So I'm still catching up on books received over the Christmas period - a fools errand, it feels like, what with the proliferation of proofs the new year brings. But there was some good stuff came while our backs were turned, and I'd be a prize eejit to discount any of the following novels...
All caught up? Good. Let's get on with it, then.
So I'm still catching up on books received over the Christmas period - a fools errand, it feels like, what with the proliferation of proofs the new year brings. But there was some good stuff came while our backs were turned, and I'd be a prize eejit to discount any of the following novels...
***
Echo City
by Tim Lebbon
Vital Statistics
Published in the US
on 26/10/10
by Spectra
by Spectra
Review Priority
4 (Very High)
The Blurb: Surrounded by a vast, poisonous desert, Echo City is built upon the graveyard of its own past. Most inhabitants believe that their city and its subterranean Echoes are the whole of the world, but there are a few dissenters. Peer Nadawa is a political exile, forced to live with criminals in a ruinous slum. Gorham, once her lover, leads a ragtag band of rebels against the ruling theocracy. Nophel, a servant of that theocracy, dreams of revenge from his perch atop the city’s tallest spire. And beneath the city, a woman called Nadielle conducts macabre experiments in genetic manipulation using a science indistinguishable from sorcery. They believe there is something more beyond the endless desert... but what?
It is only when a stranger arrives from out of the wastes that things begin to change. Frail and amnesiac, he holds the key to a new beginning for Echo City—or perhaps to its end, for he is not the only new arrival. From the depths beneath Echo City, something ancient and deadly is rising. Now Peer, Gorham, Nophel, and Nadielle msut test the limits of love and loyalty, courage and compassion, as they struggle to save a city collapsing under the weight of its own history.
It is only when a stranger arrives from out of the wastes that things begin to change. Frail and amnesiac, he holds the key to a new beginning for Echo City—or perhaps to its end, for he is not the only new arrival. From the depths beneath Echo City, something ancient and deadly is rising. Now Peer, Gorham, Nophel, and Nadielle msut test the limits of love and loyalty, courage and compassion, as they struggle to save a city collapsing under the weight of its own history.
A Scotsman's Thoughts: Coming from Orbit in the UK in April, I do believe. But Graeme of the Fantasy Book Review's (ahem) review of Echo City - together with the exquisite cover art I'd been seeing about the place - got me all in a tizzy to read it sooner. Thus.
Am I wrong to be getting China Mieville vibes from that there blurb?
The Pain Merchants
by Janice Hardy
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 30/11/10
by HarperCollins Children's Books
on 30/11/10
by HarperCollins Children's Books
Review Priority
3 (Fair)
The Blurb: Fifteen-year-old Nya is one of Geveg’s many orphans; she survives on odd jobs and optimism in a city crippled by a failed war for independence.
Nya has a deadly secret. She is a Taker, someone who can extract pain and injury from others, but with unusual differences. Her sister Tali and other normal Takers become Healer’s League apprentices and put their extracted pain into enchanted metal, pynvium. But Nya can’t dump pain in this way. All she can do is shift it from person to person.
When Nya’s secret is revealed to the pain merchants and the Healer’s League she is flung into danger. Then a ferry accident floods the city with injured, Takers start disappearing from the Healer’s League and Nya’s strange abilities are suddenly in demand. Her principles and endurance are tested to the limit when Nya’s deadly powers become the only thing that can save her sister's life.
Nya has a deadly secret. She is a Taker, someone who can extract pain and injury from others, but with unusual differences. Her sister Tali and other normal Takers become Healer’s League apprentices and put their extracted pain into enchanted metal, pynvium. But Nya can’t dump pain in this way. All she can do is shift it from person to person.
When Nya’s secret is revealed to the pain merchants and the Healer’s League she is flung into danger. Then a ferry accident floods the city with injured, Takers start disappearing from the Healer’s League and Nya’s strange abilities are suddenly in demand. Her principles and endurance are tested to the limit when Nya’s deadly powers become the only thing that can save her sister's life.
A Scotsman's Thoughts: A neat premise, no? The first volume of The Healing Wars, an "epic dystopian fantasy adventure trilogy," The Pain Merchants is this week's wildcard.
All-ages genre fiction from an unproven author... let's be honest here: it could be complete and utter guff. But I'm hopeful. Besides which, it's short, and I like 'em short. Hence the midget girlfriend. :P
The Sentinel Mage
by Emily Gee
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 03/02/11
by Solaris
by Solaris
Review Priority
3 (Fair)
The Blurb: Her magic may be the only thing that can save a prince—and the Seven Kingdoms. In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage’s blood in his veins. But Prince Harkeld has a bounty on his head—and assassins at his heels. Innis is a gifted shapeshifter. Now she must do the forbidden: become a man. She must stand at Prince Harkeld’s side as his armsman, protecting and deceiving him. But the deserts of Masse are more dangerous than the assassins hunting the prince. The curse has woken deadly creatures, and the magic Prince Harkeld loathes may be the only thing standing between him and death.
A Scotsman's Thoughts: I'm not at all sure why I'm keen to read The Sentinel Mage, except to say that over the past year, a new factor has gradually come to play a part in my decision-making process - I mean in terms of which of the books before me to read. And that's my opinion of publishers; my growing understanding of the sorts of books they tend to put out. Bearing that in mind, Solaris have done me no wrong. In fact through 2010 they were responsible for purveying the likes of Paul Kearney, Eric Brown, and some of speculative fiction's most vital anthologies.
So I'll be The Sentinel Mage a shot, yes sir, regardless of the samey synopsis.
Shades of Grey
by Jasper Fforde
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 06/01/11
by Hodder
by Hodder
Review Priority
4 (Very High)
The Blurb: Hundreds of years in the future, after the Something that Happened, the world is an alarmingly different place. Life is lived according to The Rulebook and social hierarchy is determined by your perception of colour.
Eddie Russett is an above average Red who dreams of moving up the ladder by marriage to Constance Oxblood. Until he is sent to the Outer Fringes where he meets Jane – a lowly Grey with an uncontrollable temper and a desire to see him killed. For Eddie, it’s love at first sight. But his infatuation will lead him to discover that all is not as it seems in a world where everything that looks black and white is really shades of grey.
If George Orwell had tripped over a paint pot or Douglas Adams favoured colour swatches instead of towels... neither of them would have come up with anything as eccentrically brilliant as Shades of Grey.
Eddie Russett is an above average Red who dreams of moving up the ladder by marriage to Constance Oxblood. Until he is sent to the Outer Fringes where he meets Jane – a lowly Grey with an uncontrollable temper and a desire to see him killed. For Eddie, it’s love at first sight. But his infatuation will lead him to discover that all is not as it seems in a world where everything that looks black and white is really shades of grey.
If George Orwell had tripped over a paint pot or Douglas Adams favoured colour swatches instead of towels... neither of them would have come up with anything as eccentrically brilliant as Shades of Grey.
A Scotsman's Thoughts: Oh, indeed. I had dearly hoped to read Shades of Grey before the year was out - I seem to recall a recommendation from Mark Charan Newton - even going so far as to start in on the audiobook...
But audiobooks and I have rarely gotten on - I get desperately fidgety - and this time, I'm afraid, was little different. So this paperback release of one of 2010's most acclaimed literary works with a genre bent makes for a second chance I'm tremendously pleased to have.
But audiobooks and I have rarely gotten on - I get desperately fidgety - and this time, I'm afraid, was little different. So this paperback release of one of 2010's most acclaimed literary works with a genre bent makes for a second chance I'm tremendously pleased to have.
The Razor Gate
by Sean Cregan
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 06/01/11
by Headline
by Headline
Review Priority
3 (Fair)
The Blurb: In Newport City men and women walk the streets, their lives literally ticking away.
The Clocks are victims of a new serial crime, their existence kept secret by the authorities for fear of a wave of panic spreading through the US East coast city. Kidnapped by the mysterious Curator and subjected to the Curse - a medical procedure which ensures a fatal drug will be released into their nervous system one year after implantation – they are headed for certain death.
But now they are fighting back. A suicidal Clock, determined to bring their plight to the public’s attention, has detonated a bomb, killing dozens. Journalist Maya Cassinelli, whose ex-boyfriend is one of the dead, and cop Charlie Garrett, whose Clock girlfriend is about to die, are on a desperate search for answers, closely shadowed by members of the elite Foundation, who want control of the Curse’s revolutionary and lucrative bio-technology.
With everyone hunting the Cure, who will find it first? The Clocks are ticking...
A Scotsman's Thoughts: So soon? :/
I confess it hasn't been a huge priority for me, but I'd always intended to read through my review copy of The Levels. Yet here we are, a scant six months later - at a guess - and there's new Sean Cregan on the block. And would you credit it? It sounds just as pulse-pounding as The Levels did. I'm reminded of Charlie Huston, whose Sleepless I adored in the early part of 2010.
Needless to say, I'll be making a space on the impossible peak of the TBR tower for The Razor Gate. It only remains to hope I remember to get to it this time.
That's it for this week. But never fear: the nearly-new and probably only moderately improved BoSS will be back at the same bat-time next week, in the same bat-place. See you then!
In the meantime, Echo City, I hear you and I have a date with a steaming silver pot of English Breakfast tea. I'll bring the biscuits...
The Clocks are victims of a new serial crime, their existence kept secret by the authorities for fear of a wave of panic spreading through the US East coast city. Kidnapped by the mysterious Curator and subjected to the Curse - a medical procedure which ensures a fatal drug will be released into their nervous system one year after implantation – they are headed for certain death.
But now they are fighting back. A suicidal Clock, determined to bring their plight to the public’s attention, has detonated a bomb, killing dozens. Journalist Maya Cassinelli, whose ex-boyfriend is one of the dead, and cop Charlie Garrett, whose Clock girlfriend is about to die, are on a desperate search for answers, closely shadowed by members of the elite Foundation, who want control of the Curse’s revolutionary and lucrative bio-technology.
With everyone hunting the Cure, who will find it first? The Clocks are ticking...
A Scotsman's Thoughts: So soon? :/
I confess it hasn't been a huge priority for me, but I'd always intended to read through my review copy of The Levels. Yet here we are, a scant six months later - at a guess - and there's new Sean Cregan on the block. And would you credit it? It sounds just as pulse-pounding as The Levels did. I'm reminded of Charlie Huston, whose Sleepless I adored in the early part of 2010.
Needless to say, I'll be making a space on the impossible peak of the TBR tower for The Razor Gate. It only remains to hope I remember to get to it this time.
***
That's it for this week. But never fear: the nearly-new and probably only moderately improved BoSS will be back at the same bat-time next week, in the same bat-place. See you then!
In the meantime, Echo City, I hear you and I have a date with a steaming silver pot of English Breakfast tea. I'll bring the biscuits...
"Shades of Grey" was excellent. I had just read all of Fforde's Thursday Next and Nursery Crime books, but this was so good. One of the few books I kept thinking about after I finished it.
ReplyDeletePain Merchants sounds like it could be really interesting - certainly a book that's right up my alley, anyway. I'm looking forward to your review of that. (And if you can't get around to it, send it to me and I'll review it for you! Kidding, kidding...)
ReplyDeleteThis blog is so much better than Wert's dry and dull effort.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteNot to backhand what I'm sure was meant as a compliment of sorts, but Adam's a good guy, a great writer, and we're not exactly competing in any event - surely there's room enough on the internets for us both!
Besides which, I'm of a mind his reviews are among the very best; if I could muster half of his succinctness, well...
Why kidding, Ria? Give me a couple of weeks and if I haven't gotten around to The Pain Merchants by then, I probably won't - give me a prod and I'll send it along. Better someone enjoys it than it gets musty on my Ikea bookcases! :)
ReplyDelete