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.
Three of the five books I want to talk about this week share a certain... maturity, shall we say? Not that there's a one of them old by any stretch - except perhaps the Pike - but in the book business you're either on the shelves or you're not. And I bet you'd have a tough time finding a few of these beauties in Waterstones.
But hold up a moment: does Waterstones even exist any more? Moreover, has the measure of new and ld changed forever, now that Amazon exists?
***
The Concrete Grove
by Gary McMahon
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 07/07/11
by Solaris
Review Priority
4 (Pretty Bloody Likely)
The Blurb: Imagine a place where all your nightmares become real. Think of dark urban streets where crime, debt and violence are not the only things to fear. Picture a housing project that is a gateway to somewhere else, a realm where ghosts and monsters stir hungrily in the shadows. Welcome to the Concrete Grove. It knows where you live...
Gary McMahon's chilling horror trilogy shows us a Britain many of us will recognise, while whispering of the terrible and arcane presences clawing against the boundaries of our reality!
A Scotsman's Thoughts: Mmm. So a bit Kraken, then, minus the actual Kraken?
Well, you know, that sounds just dandy by me. I'm totally in the mood for some solid urban fantasy - it's been too long! In addition to which, The Concrete Grove sounds embellished with elements of crime and horror, so wham, bam, thank you ma'am: this one can have an evening in the not-too-distant to win me over. Here's hoping it does.
The Departure
by Neal Asher
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 05/09/11
by Tor
Review Priority
3 (We'll See)
The Blurb: Visible in the night sky the Argus Station, its twin smelting plants like glowing eyes, looks down on nightmare Earth. From Argus the Committee keep an oppressive control: citizens are watched by cams systems and political officers, it's a world inhabited by shepherds, reader guns, razor birds and the brutal Inspectorate with its white tiled cells and pain inducers.
Soon the Committee will have the power to edit human minds, but not yet, twelve billion human being need to die before Earth can be stabilized, but by turning large portions of Earth into concentration camps this is achievable, especially when the Argus satellite laser network comes fully online.
This is the world Alan Saul wakes to in his crate on the conveyor to the Calais incinerator. How he got there he does not know, but he does remember the pain and the face of his interrogator. Informed by Janus, through the hardware implanted in his skull, about the world as it is now Saul is determined to destroy it, just as soon as he has found out who he was, and killed his interrogator...
A Scotsman's Thoughts: Neal Asher's political views are not Neal Asher's novels. Climate change is happening whether or not the man lives in denial of that fact. I need to remember that. But we've been over this before: I can't help but rebel at the idea of publicly supporting the work of a man who espouses such views, and by extension the man behind the work.
Nevertheless, The Departure sounds like a sterling jumping on point for all those who've wondered about The Polity novels in the past - as, I confess, I have. It's the beginning of a whole new sub-set of the series, you see, and I can't say I'm completely disinterested in it myself. Maybe I just need to get over myself, and get reading.
Maybe I just will...
Bitter Seeds
by Ian Tregillis
Vital Statistics
Published in the US
on 13/04/10
by Tor
Review Priority
5 (A Sure Thing)
The Blurb: It's 1939. The Nazis have supermen, the British have demons, and one perfectly normal man gets caught in between
Raybould Marsh is a British secret agent in the early days of the Second World War, haunted by something strange he saw on a mission during the Spanish Civil War: a German woman with wires going into her head who looked at him as if she knew him.
When the Nazis start running missions with people who have unnatural abilities—a woman who can turn invisible, a man who can walk through walls, and the woman Marsh saw in Spain who can use her knowledge of the future to twist the present—Marsh is the man who has to face them. He rallies the secret warlocks of Britain to hold the impending invasion at bay. But magic always exacts a price. Eventually, the sacrifice necessary to defeat the enemy will be as terrible as outright loss would be.
Alan Furst meets Alan Moore in the opening of an epic of supernatural alternate history, the tale of a twentieth century like ours and also profoundly different.
A Scotsman's Thoughts: Wait, what? Did someone say Alan Moore? Where?! Where is he?
Well there's a sure-fire way to sell me on a novel, right there.
Indeed, from the blurb, and not a few of the reviews I've read, Bitter Seeds does sound like it's got a couple of things in common with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Whether it ends up here on The Speculative Scotsman or elsewhere, I'll plum guarantee you a review of Ian Tregillis' novel sometime soon. And not just because the blurb mentioned the bearded one.
No, I mean the original bearded one. Not that nouveau fellow.
The Deserter
by Celia Friedman
Vital Statistics
Published in the UK
on 07/02/08
by Orbit
Review Priority
4 (Pretty Bloody Likely)
The Blurb: In the High Kingdom of Danton Aurelius, magisters from across the known world are gathering for an unusual meeting. The High King's son is dying of an apparently incurable wasting disease, and he has charged them with providing an explanation and a cure. There is a mystery here, but not the one the High King thinks: the magisters know the cause of the prince's illness but they dare not reveal it for fear that it will expose the secret at the heart of their order. No, the mystery is not what is responsible, but who...
Now the magisters must embark upon a manhunt, racing against time, before the High King learns the truth. But they have not counted on the young prince's determination to control his own fate, nor on the existence of Kamala, a young woman schooled in their own arts, who will soon shake the world to its very roots.
A Scotsman's Thoughts: Well what do you know, it's another oldie!
It's an embarrassing story, actually - how I came into possession of Feast of Souls. It took me more than a year before the penny finally dropped, but when I realised the C. S. Friedman Pat goes on about from time to time on the dreaded Hotlist was one and the same as the Celia Friedman Orbit publishes here in the UK, I didn't hesitate a second. I've have my differences with Pat - and rest assured, I'll continue to have them - but he really does adore these otherwise unknown novels... and the Canuck's not always wrong.
Right? ;)
Sati
by Christopher Pike
Vital Statistics
Published in the US
on 29/03/11
by Tor
Review Priority
3 (We'll See)
The Blurb: I once knew this girl who thought she was God. She didn’t give sight to the blind or raise the dead. She didn’t even teach anything, not really, and she never told me anything I probably didn’t already know.
I don’t know, maybe she was God. Her name was Sati and she had blonde hair and blue eyes...
A Scotsman's Thoughts: Once upon a time, I read a whole lot of Christopher Pike...
In all honestly I don't remember much about those days, and those early, perhaps even formative reading experiences. But I was totally into Chain Letter, suffice it to say. Weren't we all? Oh, say it ain't so, internet!
Anyway, it was with a confusion of nostalgia and trepidation that I received review copies of Tor's recent reissues of both Sati and The Season of Passage, neither of which I recall reading back in my own personal medieval era - though that isn't to say I haven't read them. Sati, at least, sounds somewhat familiar. And while Graeme's opinion of it doesn't exactly fill me full of hope, reading some Christopher Pike as a Mister rather than the Master I once was (oh the days!) should make for an... an interesting exercise, one way or the other.
***
So what will I be reading this week?
You know, for once... I haven't the foggiest. I could start in on the C. S. Friedman, or the Christopher Pike - or else there's Bitter Seeds and The Concrete Grove. Christ, I could even give The Departure a shot, just to see. There's no clear winner this week.
Here, why don't you guys chime in? From amongst the books run-down in this week's edition of The BoSS, let me know which you'd like to see reviewed first. Go on: help make my decisions for me! :D
The Neal Asher book is NOT a Polity book, despite the cover: http://theskinner.blogspot.com/2011/01/departure-cover.html (see Asher's comments to that post)
ReplyDeleteWell, all the better! Day by day I've been coming around to the idea of reading The Departure, and that particular update could very well seal the deal.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by to set me straight, David. :)
Niall, I'm a big fan of Asher and would very much like to see your thoughts on The Departure. I've not started it yet, but it's my most anticipated read of the year and can hopefully live up to the expectations I have of it based on his Owner short stories. Fingers crossed....
ReplyDeleteConfirmed and double-confirmed then, Mark - that The Departure has nothing, nothing at all, to do with the Polity?
ReplyDeleteHere I was kinda waiting to see what you had to say about it before I made the final decision, too! :) Well, if a spot opens up soon, I've every intention of giving Asher a fair shake, so, I'll let you know, mate.
Definitely not a Polity novel Niall, completely new series so a perfect starting point if you've not read Neal before. I'm going to get to this one pretty soon, just want to wait until closer to release to read & review it, but I'll let you know my thoughts as soon as I'm done!
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