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.
According to this week's selection of books and proofs received for review, zombies have been menacing a poor blogger after Anne Frank's heart, the Nazis have spread to Africa like a particularly racist plague, and the Prime Minister of Sweden has been assassinated - presumably by neither zombies nor Nazis, but who could truly say?
What an odd lot...
All caught up? Good. Let's get on with it, then.
According to this week's selection of books and proofs received for review, zombies have been menacing a poor blogger after Anne Frank's heart, the Nazis have spread to Africa like a particularly racist plague, and the Prime Minister of Sweden has been assassinated - presumably by neither zombies nor Nazis, but who could truly say?
What an odd lot...
***
Allison Hewitt is Trapped
by Madeleine Roux
by Madeleine Roux
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 20/01/11
by Headline
on 20/01/11
by Headline
Review Priority
4 (Pretty Bloody Likely)
The Blurb: Allison Hewitt is trapped. In the storeroom of Brookes & Peabody's. In a world swarming with the Undead, the Doomed, the Infected.
Locked away with an oddball collection of colleagues and under siege, Allison takes advantage of a surviving internet connection and blogs. She writes, as the food runs out and panic sets in, as relationships develop and friends die, and as zombies claw at the door, all in the hope of connecting with other survivors out there. But as she reads the replies to her posts, Allison begins to comprehend the horrifying scale of the damage. And when no one comes to the group's rescue, they are forced to leave the safety of their room and risk a journey across the city; streets that crawl with zombies, and worse - fellow humans competing for survival.
Locked away with an oddball collection of colleagues and under siege, Allison takes advantage of a surviving internet connection and blogs. She writes, as the food runs out and panic sets in, as relationships develop and friends die, and as zombies claw at the door, all in the hope of connecting with other survivors out there. But as she reads the replies to her posts, Allison begins to comprehend the horrifying scale of the damage. And when no one comes to the group's rescue, they are forced to leave the safety of their room and risk a journey across the city; streets that crawl with zombies, and worse - fellow humans competing for survival.
A Scotsman's Thoughts: A modern-day take on The Diary of Anne Frank, by the sounds of it, substituting Anne for Allison, the Nazis for zombies and the diary in question for a blog - like this one here.
Wait, did someone say blogging zombies? Like in last year's Feed?
Well, I guess that's that. I'm in. I'd give good odds Graeme is too. He and I, we'd be brothers in the undead army, we're so easy pleased when it comes to a good zombie.
Between Summer's Longing
and Winter's End
by Leif G. W. Persson
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 03/02/11
by Doubleday
Review Priority
5 (A Sure Thing)
The Blurb: The death of an unknown American in Stockholm, though tragic, should be an open-and-shut case, a simple suicide. But when Superintendent Lars Martin Johansson begins to delve beneath the layers of corruption, incompetence and violence currently strangling the Stockholm police department, he uncovers a complex web of treachery, politics and espionage.
Johansson quickly realises that there is nothing routine about this little death as it quickly catapults him from mere domestic drama straight to the rotten heart of Sweden’s government.
Johansson quickly realises that there is nothing routine about this little death as it quickly catapults him from mere domestic drama straight to the rotten heart of Sweden’s government.
A Scotsman's Thoughts: An unassuming enough blurb, decidedly lacking in the usual hyperbole accompanying new crime fiction from Sweden in the wake of Steig Larsson's posthumous success, and counter-intuitively, the lack of a big bass drum insisting Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End is the next Millennium trilogy makes me all the more hopeful it is just that. This could be a real big deal.
But the heck with all that nonsense, I'm going to be reading Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End because it bears the best title I've seen on a book in ages. A couple of good words can go a long-ass way!
Shadowheart
by Tad Williams
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 03/02/11
by Orbit
Review Priority
3 (We'll See)
The Blurb: Barrick Eddon, prince of Southmarch, is no longer entirely human. He has vowed to safeguard the legacy of the dark Qar race, and must now decide where his loyalties lie. His twin sister Briony has a difficult choice of her own. Her father, King Olin, is held captive by the Autarch, a mad god-king who plans to use Olin's blood to gain unlimited power. And the castle of Southmarch still remains in the possession of Hendon Tolly, Briony's murderous relative. As time runs out, will Briony decide to save her father's kingdom ...or her father? As the foretold Great Defeat draws near, history is stripped of its costume of lies. Poets and players, mortals and fairies, warriors and gods, all will have their roles to play as the fate of the known world hangs in the balance.
A Scotsman's Thoughts: Would that I were in a position to read this. Perhaps I'll talk about this in more depth some other time, but Otherland, suffice it to say, is among the most formative genre works I read as a younger Speculative Scotsman. I must have spent a whole year with my nose buried in those four tomes!
So how this series has gotten by me so long I could hardly explain. Shadowheart is book four of a trilogy, the last part of which was so long it was split into two volumes, of which this is the second. A bit of cash and a bookshop later, I'm thinking... how's about a read-along?
The Carhullan Army
by Sarah Hall
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 16/08/07
by Faber & Faber
on 16/08/07
by Faber & Faber
Review Priority
4 (Pretty Bloody Likely)
The Blurb: The world has changed. War rages in South America and China, and Britain – now entirely dependent on the US for food and energy – is run by an omnipresent dictatorship known simply as The Authority. Assets and weapons have been seized, and women are compulsorily fitted with contraceptive devices. This is Sister’s story of her attempt to escape the repressive regime. From the confines of her Lancaster prison cell she tells of her search for The Carhullan Army, a quasi-mythical commune of ‘unofficial’ women rumoured to be living in a remote part of Cumbria...
A Scotsman's Thoughts: It feels like I've been hearing great things about The Carhullan Army all year, and always from people and places I've the utmost respect for. From the Other Niall, for one thing - though I can't for the life of me find the right link - whose recommendation led me to this old review on Strange Horizons, which contrasts Sarah Hall's little-known novel with The Pesthouse, my very favourite Jim Crace.
All of which put me in mind no end of In Great Waters, another criminally under-appreciated gem of literary British speculative fiction. A pittance on Amazon Marketplace later and I have a gorgeous shrink-wrapped first edition giving me evils from the bookcase.
Plus I'd kinda like to chip in on the great debate going on here and there, about women writing SF. This meets the criteria, right?
A Scotsman's Thoughts: It feels like I've been hearing great things about The Carhullan Army all year, and always from people and places I've the utmost respect for. From the Other Niall, for one thing - though I can't for the life of me find the right link - whose recommendation led me to this old review on Strange Horizons, which contrasts Sarah Hall's little-known novel with The Pesthouse, my very favourite Jim Crace.
All of which put me in mind no end of In Great Waters, another criminally under-appreciated gem of literary British speculative fiction. A pittance on Amazon Marketplace later and I have a gorgeous shrink-wrapped first edition giving me evils from the bookcase.
Plus I'd kinda like to chip in on the great debate going on here and there, about women writing SF. This meets the criteria, right?
The Africa Reich
by Guy Saville
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 17/02/11
by Hodder & Stoughton
on 17/02/11
by Hodder & Stoughton
Review Priority
3 (We'll See)
The Blurb: 1952. It is more than a decade since the Dunkirk fiasco marked the end of Britain’s war and an uneasy peace with Hitler.
In Africa, the swastika flies from the Sahara to the Indian Ocean. Gleaming autobahns bisect the jungle and jet fighters patrol the skies. Britain and the Nazis have divided the continent but now the demonic plans of Walter Hochburg – architect of Nazi Africa – threaten Britain’s ailing colonies.
In England, ex-mercenary Burton Cole is offered one last contract. Burton grabs the chance to settle an old score with Hochburg, despite his own misgivings and the protests of the woman he loves. If Burton fails, unimaginable horrors will be unleashed in Africa. No one – black or white – will be spared.
But when his mission turns to disaster, Burton is forced to flee for his life. His flight takes him from the unholy killing ground of Kongo to SS slave camps and on to war-torn Angola, finally reaching its thrilling climax in a conspiracy that leads to the dark heart of the Reich itself.
In Africa, the swastika flies from the Sahara to the Indian Ocean. Gleaming autobahns bisect the jungle and jet fighters patrol the skies. Britain and the Nazis have divided the continent but now the demonic plans of Walter Hochburg – architect of Nazi Africa – threaten Britain’s ailing colonies.
In England, ex-mercenary Burton Cole is offered one last contract. Burton grabs the chance to settle an old score with Hochburg, despite his own misgivings and the protests of the woman he loves. If Burton fails, unimaginable horrors will be unleashed in Africa. No one – black or white – will be spared.
But when his mission turns to disaster, Burton is forced to flee for his life. His flight takes him from the unholy killing ground of Kongo to SS slave camps and on to war-torn Angola, finally reaching its thrilling climax in a conspiracy that leads to the dark heart of the Reich itself.
A Scotsman's Thoughts: So Dunkirk went tits up, and Hitler - odd that he's come up twice this week when I so rarely spare the monster a thought - Hitler, the ass, is still wreaking havoc on the world at large. Now including Africa.
The Africa Reich sounds a little crass, sure. Heart of Darkness as written by Tom Clancy or some such - and though I've never been a Clancy fan, this, I'll admit, kind of appeals. Presumably I've just fallen victim to the big pimping The Africa Reich is getting from its marketers at Hodder & Stoughton. But sometimes, hookers are hot.
Huh. Hookers, tits and ass... this particular commentary sure has brought out the best in me!
The Africa Reich sounds a little crass, sure. Heart of Darkness as written by Tom Clancy or some such - and though I've never been a Clancy fan, this, I'll admit, kind of appeals. Presumably I've just fallen victim to the big pimping The Africa Reich is getting from its marketers at Hodder & Stoughton. But sometimes, hookers are hot.
Huh. Hookers, tits and ass... this particular commentary sure has brought out the best in me!
***
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.
Now, to get a start on Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End. I'll tell you this: the first page is just as pretty as that title. A sign of things to come, I can only hope.
This is one of those weird moments where something you've just learned about is popping up EVERYWHERE all of a sudden. I actually just met the author of Allison Hewitt at Beloit College and was meaning to get the book. Really looking forward to your review of that one.
ReplyDeleteYou MUST move 'The Carhullan Army' up to priority 5!! It's brilliant :)
ReplyDelete