by Rebekah Lunt

When I finished the last page of The City of Silk and Steel, and started to think about the review I would write, (which can be seen HERE) I quickly started to become distracted. I loved the book and it had been a very satisfying read, but once I was outside of it again, I began to wonder about its creation and the logistics of writing together with two other authors. As much as I was interested in the creation and foundations of the story, I became curious about the experience of creating it and working together to achieve such a seamless chorus of voices and tales.

So, it was with great pleasure that I was able to interview the writers of the book, Mike, Linda and Louise Carey, and I hope that the questions and answers therein will enable you to enjoy and engage with the book even more than previously.

N.B. Some of the information contained within the questions and answers might be considered by some to be spoilers, so if you haven’t already read the book then read on at your own risk…

I am aware that Mike and Louise have written together previously but what inspired you to write together as a unit of three?

Mike:  It just sort of came together that way, with nothing so grand or glorious as a plan.  I came up with an idea, which was the seed for what became Seraglio/City, and I pitched it – but I pitched it as a comic book series, and it was very different back then from what it would eventually turn into.  Prince Jamal was the main protagonist!  Anyway, I couldn’t get any interest in it as a comic book, and eventually I dropped it into the Basket of Dead Ideas.  Then one night the three of us had a conversation about the 1001 Nights, and what we loved and hated about it, and somehow in the course of that conversation Seraglio got resurrected and dusted off.  We decided to write it together, and to approach it from a very different perspective.  And the inspiration, if I can call it that, was to use the Arabian Nights Entertainment as a formal model – to borrow its radical shifts in style and content, its digressions, its nested stories.  But we would do it entirely (or almost entirely) from the perspective of the female characters.  Because what bugged us about the Arabian Nights, even allowing that Scheherazade is a somewhat empowered heroine, was the sexism.  There’s a lot of stuff in there about the unfaithfulness of women and there are a lot of bad women who get punished.  We wanted to write a homage that would also be a riposte.

What drew you to this particular sub-category of the fantasy genre?

Lou:  I don’t think we really approached it with the sub-genre in mind.  We’re all fascinated by stories, the ways in which they are told and how they interact with and fragment reality, and the Arabian Nights style structure of the book allowed us to explore this in some interesting ways.

Lin: Partly it was the huge scope of the Arabian Nights stories. In modern terms, they actually range over multiple genres: there’s romance, horror, adventure, even a whodunit, where two men confess to the same murder.  We loved the idea of having that whole range to draw on.  Then there was the chance to take on the djinni (or jinn as they’re called in some versions): terrifying, totally arbitrary creatures who could equally easily grant your dearest wish or reduce you to a smear on the ground. And just a bit, I suspect, it was the visuals.  Mike and I both grew up with Arabian Nights picture books: no group of stories have been so gorgeously drawn by so many great illustrators.  Vast desert sands, jewelled turbans, rocs and ifrits and the aforementioned jinn…  So when the idea came up, we could visualise it straightaway.

Did you each have specific characters or voices that were more ‘yours’ than the others?

Mike:  Oh yeah!  Very much so.  Once we had our three leads – Gursoon, Rem and Zuleika – it was immediately obvious that each of us had a favourite.  Lou created Rem, and always had a very clear idea of who she was and where she was coming from.  Lin liked Gursoon, the wily elder statewoman, and I wanted to write Zuleika.  Yeah, I know.  To hell with subtlety.  I was tickled by the idea of this concubine who’s also a death machine.  But also I had what I thought was a great idea for her backstory and I wanted to be the one who got to write her origin, as it were.  So for those three, it was sort of a case of one of the three of us taking the lead and defining the territory.  Other characters evolved in a more haphazard way.  Anwar Das wasn’t even a named character in the original outline.  He just happened, and once we had him we decided to make full use of him.

Lou: ‘My’ character was Rem.  Although dad wrote her narrative sequences, The Tale of the Librarian of Bessa (Rem’s backstory) was mine.  I think I related to her the most because, like her, I spend a lot of my time in very old libraries late at night (Oxford is great for that sort of thing).

What were the challenges of writing a multi-charactered, multi-layered, multi-storied text as a team of three? Did any of the struggles of the women to cohere as a group derive from any of the issues you faced together?

Mike:  No, I don’t think our art was imitating life in any significant way.  But it was a more exacting process than writing alone, certainly.  Writing always includes an element of triangulation, for me.  You have a clear sense of some things, a much vaguer sense of others – and for the vague ones, things will tend to get clearer as you approach them.  So you reach a certain point and you finally know how this or that beat will play out.  And then you go back and harmonise all the stuff that’s behind you, so it fits together smoothly.  But if you’re collaborating, it can never be that simple.  You can’t mess with your co-writers’ beats, so every new insight leads to a summit conference and a new version of the plan.

Speaking of the struggles of the women – the harem which grows into a city – I found this aspect to be a really satisfying examination of the possibilities of a feminist/womanist type of utopia. I really enjoyed the realism within the fantasy, and that nothing was simple and often required significant sacrifice – even to the point that whilst utopia was not necessarily maintained (or achieved in some instances) each story and character achieved its own appropriate completion and didn’t result in complete entropy or dystopia. Is the woman-centred aspect of the story something you intended?

Lin: Very definitely. The Arabian Nights inspired us both in terms of setting and in the structure: the multiple-stories approach worked well for us, allowing for a lot of self-defined tales within the larger narrative so that we didn’t have to meet up and harmonise every single chapter.  But the stories in the Arabian Nights are mostly male-centred, with women seen as rescue-fodder or rewards for the heroes. And (as Mike’s said), the ones that show women with a bit more agency are often downright misogynistic: the woman uses her power to cheat on her man or betray him. So a huge focus in this story was the question: what would all these women do if they were set free from the men completely?  What would they want for themselves?

There have been historical “City of Women” stories before: the oldest one I know of was by the medieval writer Christine de Pisan, and there was also a Country of Women created by the fabulous Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, in the 17^th century.  Both of those showed the women running a rational, peaceful society, each living very much by the values of their own age.  In our case we pretty much agreed on what our utopia would look like (eg it would still have men in it, just not running everything; and plumbing and nursery schools would be more important than palaces of justice).  But as soon as you start thinking about how you might really build a utopia, you come up against the real-life problems you’d face, and the fact that you have to keep on working endlessly to maintain what you’ve built. This was a fantasy, so we allowed our women to achieve their utopia and to enjoy it for a while.

Lou: From the very beginning, I was drawn to the story by its strong female characters and reversal of patriarchal conventions.  Initially, though, our cast of main characters was much smaller.  In the earlier stages of planning, the only characters we had really fleshed out among the women of the harem were Rem, Zuleika and Gursoon.  It was mum who first began developing the other women, like Farhat and Umayma, into characters, and we soon realised that this large cast was indispensable for conveying a sense of scale, of the growth of an entire city.  I think this was when the novel really started to take off, and one of my favourite parts of the writing process was coming up with the back-stories and characters of all the women, trying to imagine how they had joined the harem, and why each one would decide to join in with the attempt to retake the city.

Did you find it difficult to keep the voices authentic?

Mike:  I’m not sure what authentic means in this instance.  We were writing in a modern idiom, but with shout-outs to more archaic forms of language, in an attempt to pastiche nineteenth century English translations of a text that had been compiled over centuries from folktales amassed in Arabia, India, Persia and probably half a dozen other countries.  The 1001 Nights was already a palimpsest, and the time it referred to was a semi-mythical one, so it felt like it was enough to capture the flavour.

We did take voice very seriously, and we probably spent more time on that one thing than on anything else.  We tried out several different approaches, one of which was a much more faithful copying of the narrative voice from the Richard Burton translation.  But it really didn’t fly.  We needed something that would feel like that but would be a bit lighter on its feet.  And the fact that Rem stands out of her time and looks directly at the modern reader, speaking to us partly as a contemporary, enabled us to have our cake and eat it.

Were there any issues of cultural belonging or ‘appropriate’ respect for a culture to which none of you belong? Or did you find that the cultural inheritance of One Thousand and One Nights has allowed this literary context (ancient eastern cultures) to become a substitute cradle for this genre? I am thinking of the effect the Grimms and the Shakespeares of the western world have had on our literature and comparing that to the effect the One Thousand and One Nights had on not just the eastern world but on ours too so that the context of The City of Silk and Steel is as familiar as gingerbread houses in the woods and witches gathered round a cauldron awaiting a king-to-be.

Mike:  Well, indeed – and see previous answer.  We were writing within a cultural tradition, but it’s a tradition that, by the time it reaches us, is at least twice removed from its own roots.  The original core text, the Alf Layla, is eighth or ninth century.  It probably originated in Persia, and with a different title, but once it got going it ricocheted around the Middle East like a rubber bullet.  And everyone who got hold of it and translated it added in stories from their own culture, and changed the emphasis of some of the stories that were already there.  Then when it came to the West, the best part of a millennium later, the same thing happened again in a more extreme way.  The very first European translations, which I think were French, added vast amounts of material in – and the new stuff was some of the most popular!  Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, for example, is generally thought to have been a European addition.  So that was the source material, and it’s a glorious mish-mash of stuff.  We certainly weren’t aiming to strip away those layers of interpretation to get back to the truth of the original tales or the original historical era.  If anything we were adding our own layer on top of what was there.

Now a question just for Louise! Writing with a partner is becoming more common but I believe this is the first instance I have come across of a whole family, or three people, writing together. For you, as the daughter in this team of three, and working with your parents, did it pose any particular challenges to you which were different from writing with a peer?

Lou:  I’ve never actually co-written anything with someone who isn’t my parent, so my experience of writing with mum and dad felt like the norm to me!  There were some challenges which I think were unique to the experience though.  Nagging, for example, was a bit of an issue.  When ‘have you finished that chapter yet?’ became as regular a refrain at home as ‘did you remember to tidy your room/ hoover the carpet/ do the dishes?’, it made it difficult at times to work at my own pace.  I suppose the gap in experience between me and my parents also made a difference.  Since they’re both writers, I often felt that I should defer to their creative opinions.  Luckily, they were always quick to remind me that the novel was a joint enterprise, and they never let me take a back seat in the planning process!

And finally, come on guys, are you a perfect family or what?! Having assumed no-one has ended up under the patio or disappeared in mysterious circumstances, how on earth have you managed to maintain the well being of your family dynamic at the same time as wrangling a book to completion?!

Lin: Well, just being in a family means you occasionally want to murder each other, right?  I mean just the daily hassles, like the assault course to get to the cupboard and the vanishing keys which were there last night and the jamjar that someone put away empty, I mean, not even a SCRAPE! And I just did the shop! What kind of IDIOT?… So we long ago developed coping mechanisms.  Mine is a time-out with a Terry Pratchett book and large quantities of chocolate: an hour of that and I’m quite civilised again.

[Mike unloads the tension by retro-gaming: he can slaughter Professor Robotnik in about six seconds, especially when I’ve just eaten the last biscuit in the pack. Louise is currently too overworked to unwind properly, so she has to make do with rolling her eyes and making a really cutting remark. It’s worked OK so far.]

The City of Silk and Steel is out now.

When promising young psychiatrist, James Richardson, is offered the job opportunity of a lifetime by the charismatic Dr. Hugh Maitland, he is thrilled. Setting off to take up his post at Wyldehope Hall in deepest Suffolk, Richardson doesn’t look back. One of his tasks is to manage Maitland’s most controversial project – a pioneering therapy in which extremely disturbed patients are kept asleep for months. If this radical and potentially dangerous procedure is successful, it could mean professional glory for both doctors.

As Richardson settles into his new life, he begins to sense something uncanny about the sleeping patients – six women, forsaken by society. Why is Maitland unwilling to discuss their past lives? Why is the trainee nurse so on edge when she spends nights alone with them? And what can it mean when all the sleepers start dreaming at the same time?

In this atmospheric re-invention of the ghost story, Richardson finds himself questioning everything he knows about the human mind, as he attempts to uncover the shocking secrets of The Sleep Room . . .

F.R.Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist. He has written self-help manuals, non-fiction for the general reader, academic text books, over thirty academic papers in international journals and several novels. Between 1999 and 2012 he has received or been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the New London Writers’ Award, the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Elle Prix de Letrice, and two Edgars. His critically acclaimed Liebermann series (written as Frank Tallis) has been translated into fourteen languages and optioned for TV adaptation. The Forbidden, his ninth novel, is a horror story set in nineteenth-century Paris and this, The Sleep Room, is his tenth. @franktallis

Contamination, a book written by author Dave Jeffery based on an original story by filmmaker Jason Wright marks a return to the horror that children of the 80’s grew up on.

Protagonist Dean Sharp wakes up from a drinking binge to find that overnight, the world has changed. People are dying in the streets as mobs wander aimlessly through town looking for the next fight. Men and women tear into one another on sight, and even children join in the fray.

“Contamination was a story I had been writing for a while, and wanted to make into a film, but there were so many other things going on, we didn’t have time,” Jason Wright explained. “It made sense then to make it into a book first, and then film it later so people would have time to read it and experience it before it was filmed.”

After being introduced to Jason at a festival by mutual friends, Dave Jeffery sat and talked with the filmmaker for hours about the project. Together they spoke of the outline for the book, and the direction it would take.

“When Jason first showed me the outline for Contamination, I couldn’t help but see it as a pulp project,” said Dave Jeffery. “The story had a gritty, brutal aspect and played with chronology which made it interesting to take on.”

Wright, with his company, Silent Studios, will begin filming of the movie version in 2014. But to release the book, the team needed a publishing house.

Jeffery, whose novel Necropolis Rising hit the #1 position in the UK last year, approached his publisher, David Youngquist at Dark Continents Publishing about getting the book into print. After Skype meetings with both Wright and Jeffery, Youngquist gave the green light for a May 2013 release of the book.

As a small press in the era of instant communication and technology that allows people to work together from opposite sides of the globe, Dark Continents is always looking for innovation and ways to reach more people and develop more markets. A partnership with a film studio provides just that, by getting Silent Studios further into the literary world and Dark Continents into the realm of film.

The birth of Contamination is unusual in the writing realm, with a novelist and filmmaker working together on the project. But as Youngquist said, “The writers in Hollywood are always complaining they don’t have enough fresh ideas, so why not have a novelist involved from the beginning?”

Contamination will be released in May 2013 in stores as paperback books, and as downloadable files for your e-readers. Get a copy and follow the fast paced story as Dean Sharp tries to sort out reality from his dreams and sanity from madness, while the fate of humankind hinges on him.

Reeltime Pictures

White Witch of Devil’s End is a spin-off from the highly regarded Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story The Daemons and will star Damaris Hayman reprising her role as Miss Hawthorne.

At the grand age of 84 (in June this year), you’d expect Damaris would be happy to be enjoying retirement quietly in her Cheltenham home … but no! When approached by producer Keith Barnfather about the idea she jumped at the chance. “I shall retire, I think, in my coffin!  Miss Hawthorne was my all-time favourite role and I was enchanted by the thought of being her again for a little while.”

“I was amazed and delighted that, as an octogenarian, Damaris was prepared to take this on,” says Keith. “We had recently recorded an interview with her for our Myth Makers series profiling actors who had appeared in Doctor Who and I already knew she still had a hunger to act. But I really didn’t expect her to be so keen.”

Although eager to take the project on, Damaris knew she had to pace herself, so in an innovative move, director Anastasia Stylianou decided to film the drama in a “talking head” style – adding dramatic cutaway material to bring Damaris’s words to life!

Says Anastasia; “I knew it would be a challenge. We needed to film a 50 minute drama at least, so I decided to make an asset out of a limitation.”

Primary filming has already taken place at a cottage near Damaris’s home. The crew collected and returned Damaris each day – allowing her to return home each evening to recover and study the next day’s script!

“We used autocue to help Damaris,” says Keith. “It was an impossible task for any actor to learn so much dialogue. Damaris was a true professional and took to it instantly.”

With a planned release date of 31^st October, which is appropriately also Halloween, Anastasia hopes to have the project completed for the 50^th anniversary celebrations. “It’s just getting all the dramatic cutaway material ‘in the can’ that is crucial. The drama is really an anthology – a set of connecting stories about Olive’s life told, as it were, in her own words.”

When considering who to approach to write these stories which would exist within an overall theme, Keith immediately thought to contact old friend David J Howe at Telos Publishing. “I thought it would be fantastic to ask individual writers knowledgeable in the occult and magic to write each story and David, through Telos, knew so many of the best young talent in the country.”

“I was delighted when Keith got in touch,” says David Howe, “and immediately started to think of who might be a good fit for the project. Along with my partner, the award-winning author Sam Stone, we contacted several authors who we felt would be sympathetic to the material and were pleased to get them all on board for the project.”

“I took on the task of outlining the whole story,” says Sam Stone, “and then asked the writers to come up with ideas which fitted that framework. We needed to tell stories at different points in Olive Hawthorne’s life, and the writers rose to the challenge and delivered scripts which exceeded all my expectations. I then worked with them to refine the scripts into the completed screenplay.”

The writers involved in the project are, as well as David J Howe and Sam Stone, Raven Dane, Debbie Bennett, Jan Edwards and Suzanne J Barbieri, with a final script-polish from Big Finish writer Matt Fitton. All have brought a unique perspective on Olive’s life, and the end result is an anthology of tales which will surprise, entertain and hopefully move the viewer.

Does Damaris have any regrets about throwing herself into such a big commitment? “Definitely not! I was enchanted to work with Anastasia and Keith again, who are great friends anyway. After a lot of working together consulting over the scripts, I’d subsequently never enjoyed filming more – and I can’t wait now to see the final result.”

The DVD can be pre-ordered from Galaxy 4 HERE

Strange Chemistry

The first of the three books is called Stolen Songbird and will be published by Strange Chemistry in early 2014.

Trolls are said to love gold. They are said to live underground and hate humans, perhaps even eat them. They are said to be evil.  When Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and sold to the trolls, she finds out that there is truth in the rumours, but there is also so much more to trolls than she could have imagined.

Cécile has only one thing on her mind after she is brought to Trollus, the city she hadn’t even known existed under Forsaken Mountain: escape. But the trolls are inhumanly strong. And fast. She will have to bide her time, wait for the perfect opportunity.

But something strange happens while she’s waiting – she begins to fall in love with the handsome, thoughtful troll prince that she has been bonded and married to. She begins to make friends. And she begins to see that she may be the only hope for the half-bloods – part troll/part human creatures who are slaves to the full-blooded trolls. There is a rebellion brewing. And her prince, Tristan, the future king, is its secret leader.

As Cécile becomes involved in the intricate political games of Trollus, she becomes more than a farmer’s daughter from Goshawk’s Hollow. She becomes a princess, the hope of a people, and a witch.

Danielle Jensen said: “I am beyond excited to begin work on the trilogy with Amanda and everyone else at Strange Chemistry. It is a dream come true to see my novels on their way to publication.”

Danielle was born and raised in Calgary, Canada. At the insistence of the left side of her brain, she graduated in 2003 from the University of Calgary with a bachelor’s degree in finance.

But the right side of her brain has ever been mutinous; and in 2010, it sent her back to school to complete an entirely impractical English literature degree at Mount Royal University and to pursue publication. Much to her satisfaction, the right side shows no sign of relinquishing its domination.

Danielle can be found on her website danielleljensen.com as well as on Twitter @dljensen_.

The list includes early UK firsts of Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert and Kurt Vonnegut as well as some superb paperbacks. Don’t miss out!

Titan Books, 501pp  p/b, £7.99

Reviewed by Alex Bardy (@mangozoid)

Originally published back in 1992 — long before Stephenie Meyer and Charlotte Harris made vampires trendy again — the majority of those featured in A Taste of Blood Wine are charming, sophisticated, and to quote the author, ‘devastatingly gorgeous’; and they all debunk the popular vampire myths about exposure to daylight, stakes through the heart, garlic, crosses, etc. This makes for a promising start in my book, and I’m pleased to say this delicious tale of love, lust and a passionate affair that stretches beyond the grave, is truly delightful. Step forward Charlotte and Karl, a magnificent pairing, and a timeless couple that deserve a place up there with the very best of genre lovers.

Set against the decadent backdrop of 1920s England, a post-WWI society enjoying a hedonistic boom in which champagne parties and illicit substances are all par for the course, we meet the Neville family, and the incredibly charismatic Karl von Wultendorf… Needless to say, Karl is the vampire in question, and despite his best efforts, falls for one of the Neville sisters.

For her part, Charlotte is the odd one out: while her two sisters, Fleur and Madeleine, spend their days enjoying the social aspects of society; she herself longs for the isolated comfort and familiarity of her father’s Cambridge laboratory, away from what she considers a circus parade of bourgeois grooming rituals. It takes a special kind of man, like Karl, to bring her out of her shell, but alas, not before he is already engaged to be married to her sister, Madeleine… Cue the beginnings of a great love story, and a gothic romance that tugs at the heart strings and leaves you all a-tingling, with hairs down the back of your neck, the works… It’s interesting to note that at no point does Karl ever deny being what he is, and he goes to great lengths to keep Charlotte firmly ‘in the loop’ in a vain effort to steer them off a path that could — and inevitably, will — lead to a life of ruin and damnation for them both…

I should say that prior to reading this, I never really cared for vampire tales: surely there’s nowt new to say about handsome Dracu-likes and beautiful preening teen tearaways? And even True Blood seems to have wandered so far off base in later seasons as to be nigh unrecognisable… But there’s the trick, y’see… Blood Wine isn’t just a gorgeous love story at heart, it’s about social suffocation, about a pair of individuals who are striving to break free from family ties, and it’s about a divided family who through no fault of their own have become embroiled in vampire politics. Moreover, the author’s clarity of vision and interesting take on vampire myth is both original and dare I say, breathtaking.

Among the vampires on Karl’s side, we’re introduced to Kristian, the closest thing to a lord of vampires in the book; one who believes wholeheartedly that vampires will inherit the Earth and are servants of God brought to this world to cleanse it of humans by sending their souls — their very essence — to the Lord himself for judgement. Karl is but one of his ‘flock’, but he is the unruly child, if you will, the one who resists all attempts to bring him to heel, and yet still Kristian loves him over and above all the others, eventually resorting to dastardly tactics to try and goad him into submission. It’s a battle of wills that crosses time and death itself, and makes Kristian a truly frightening and obsessive antagonist.

There’s so much here to love, not least of which is the concept behind The Crystal Ring, a whole other realm that vampires can use to escape the binds of the human world; also, there’s the  Weisskalt, a mysterious icy cold plane that Kristian uses to great effect to detain those who displease him. Then there’s the writing, the characters, the depiction of forbidden love, and betrayal, the setting… To be honest, there’s very little herein that I didn’t love.

To say more would be to reveal too much, and I want you to read it for yourself, but I would like to add that the writing is gorgeous, by turns haunting, lucid, and all-round beautiful, and I am hugely grateful to Titan Books for republishing such a great series — a series that many, like me, would have probably missed the first time round — and for giving them such a great set of new covers as well. This first instalment is eminently readable, absorbing, and all-round brilliant, a lovely piece of work, and definitely a must-have whether or not you’re a fan of vampires. It’s a book for fiction-lovers and anyone that claims to appreciate the written word, I think. And I for one am looking forward to reading the rest of the series: A Dance in Blood Velvet, The Dark Blood of Poppies, and The Dark Arts of Blood (the latter an all-new instalment due October next year).

From award-winning British fantasy author Freda Warrington,

To celebrate the return of the critically acclaimed Blood Books in collectable paperback and e-book edition, Titan Books and Freda Warrington are serialising two rare and risqué stories set within the universe of the Blood Books across a series of websites and blogs. 

We’re publishing the fourth part of a short story called Little Goose. Read the rest of the tale here: http://titanbooks.com/blog/freda-warringtons-blood-wine-tour/

—

Little Goose: Part 4

By Freda Warrington

Her designs grew wilder. Eggs of dark pink tourmaline cupped in storms of jet. Snow-white jade, cracked with veins of blood ruby.

One day her father came unannounced, and I must be stuffed like a corpse into a cupboard. Yet I have ways of watching unseen, and I saw.

He stalked the gallery, a forensic examiner. He frowned. His nostrils flared as if he could smell me. Rebecca watched in silent annoyance as he perused her workbench; the designs scattered everywhere, the new pieces taking shape in chaos. He picked up drawings, judged and set them down again, lips pursed.

‘You have done all this in so short a time?’ he said.

‘Why?’ Her voice was high and taut. ‘Is the work substandard?’

‘No. No.’ Then, harshly, ‘How long have you been taking drugs?’

She was indignant, outraged. ‘I’m not taking anything!’

‘Have you looked at yourself in the mirror?’

She clutched her dressing gown to hide her throat. For she had indeed the look of one who makes love to a vampire, then rises from bed to work the night through. Drained, pale skin. Eyes like feverish rubies deep in purple-brown pits. ‘I’ve been working hard, that’s all.’

‘You will burn yourself out! What is it that keeps you awake, speed, cocaine? For God’s sake, Rebecca, what’s happening to you?’

I chose my moment. Stepped out of the shadows, strolled up the gallery stairs in my robe, dishevelled, cool and ironic, as if in a movie. I said, ‘Rebecca, are you not going to introduce us?’

She looked mortified. There was a terrible silence. At last, in a small voice she said, ‘Father, I’d like you to meet Sebastian.’

It was worse than I had expected. When he looked at me – I say looked; really it was like being X-rayed – he saw what I was. Not literally, perhaps, but so keenly that he was half a whisker from the truth. His eyes burned me black.

‘I knew it would be something like this. Knew. I see it all. He’s the one forcing you to work too hard. He’s the one who procures the drugs, yes?’

‘No! He is my inspiration!’

A hissing sneer of contempt. ‘I know him, and dozens like him. They’re all the same. They want to feed off your glory, your money! “One more objet, dearest, for us. A few extra works, and we’ll be rich.” He’ll bleed you dry!’

‘Get out!’ she screamed. ‘You’ve never let me live my own life! You have to let me go!’

‘Make a choice,’ he said, droplets spitting from his lips. ‘Go on seeing him and you will never see me again.’

In answer, she drew close to me and slid her hand through my arm. ‘You make a choice, Daddy,’ she answered. ‘Let me grow up, or get out. They’re not all the same. Everyone I’ve ever loved, you’ve driven away! Well, not this time. Not this time.’

White-faced and vibrating with emotion, her father left.

And I would have been proud of her if only, sadly, he had not been so right.

Apart, they were paralysed.

For weeks they sulked and grew gaunt, while their workbenches lay idle, and their phones rang unanswered. I know, for I watched them both, even when they had no idea I was there. They wasted in every sense. Yet neither, straight-backed and stubborn, would give in.

I haunted the old man’s house. He was there at his workbench, playing a file, not on gold but on his own callused fingertips. Staring at the dark.

‘Go to her, Bartholomew,’ I whispered. ‘Take her in your arms and tell her you’re sorry.’

He started, but looked at me without surprise, didn’t even ask how the hell I got in. Hoarsely he said, ‘She sends you as a go-between?’

‘No. I came because I can’t bear to see her pining.’

‘She has her lover, what use has she for a father? I have only loved her all her life. I only taught her everything she knows.’

‘And this is how she thanks you,’ I added. ‘Have pity on her. She can’t work.’

‘Can’t she.’ A sneer of grim pleasure.

‘Nor can you.’

‘You only care for her work, for the wealth and glory you leech from it! I know you were forcing drugs on her. Nothing else could make her look so ill. I know your sort, predators on my daughter. Happy now, are you? You cut the goose open in your greed and look! No more golden eggs!’

‘I am irrelevant,’ I said softly. ‘It’s that your daughter dares to defy you, that’s what you can’t accept. It’s that she dares to step from under your wing and be an artist in her own right, to be better than you. And you know you’re in the wrong but you can’t admit it. You’d rather torture her for the rest of time with your hubris than admit you’re wrong.’

‘You devil!’

With a roar he leapt at me and I, taken by surprise, defended myself. The file jabbed into my eye. Searing pain jolted through my skull. My hand sprang out to grip his throat. What must he have seen? My white face, my eye socket a gelid mess with the file sticking grotesquely from it. And I, not screaming but enflamed, monstrous. For then he was unmanned. He turned purple, he screamed, he twitched and I – I swear I did not mean to harm him but the pain, turning from fire to ice as my unnatural body pushed out the foreign object – the pain took over and I had him to my lips, my mouth full of his neck, his neck a spouting hose of blood, delicious, hot…

 —

The first book in Freda Warrington’s Blood Books series, A Taste of Blood Wine, is out now from Titan Books, £7.99. Read the rest of the short story Little Goose here: http://titanbooks.com/blog/freda-warringtons-blood-wine-tour/

© Freda Warrington 

by Craig Knight

Thirty years ago it began with Magician and rather fittingly concludes with Magician’s End. Did you ever imagine the Riftwar Cycle would be so successful and span so many books?

Not until I got deep into the Serpent War saga.  Then it started to dawn on me we might end up doing all 5 Riftwars.  Didn’t know how many books that would take at the time.

How do you feel now that the Riftwar Cycle has come to an end and you reflect on the series and its conclusion?

It’s too soon for anything like perspective.  I’m pleased the series found an audience and that for the most part that audience stuck it out.  I find like any project I can look back and think of a couple of things I could have done better, but that’s always the case.  On the whole I’m pleased with how things turned out.

Looking back at the entire series, is there anything you would have done differently with the benefit of hindsight?

Appropriate follow-up to the previous question.  Nothing major.  There are a couple of places where I think I could have made a different choice.  And some stuff that got put in that never went anywhere.  In Shadow of a Dark Queen I introduce Miranda through the gimmick of her saving Erik and Roo while she’s disguised as an old crone, a whole spy disguise thing I basically dropped as soon as Miranda came on stage.  I could have cut that entire bit, for example.

There are quite a few plot strands to resolve from the previous books, not least being Pug’s prophesised demise. What can readers expect to encounter in Magician’s End?

Without getting into spoilers, I hope the reader finds the conclusion makes sense given what has occurred in the previous books.  There will be some triumphs among all the ashes, and a few happy endings for some characters.  What I hope the reader finds satisfying is the explanation of why things went the way they did.

Has writing Magician’s End been more difficult or challenging than previous books as you seek to bring things to a conclusion?

Not really.  The most challenging aspect was the wrapping up of loose ends, some of which go back to Magician.

Will you be bidding a fond farewell to Midkemia or do you think you’ll return at some point in the future?

Never say never.  Midkemia is a virtual world, and I’m writing basically a history of an imaginary place.  Lots of things went on after the Rifwar Cycle, though not on that comic scale, of course.  I certainly could do more stories in Midkemia.

Do you have any other projects planned that you can tell us about?

At this point I’m in discussion with my publisher about what’s next.  We’ve more or less agreed in principle to a new series, The War of the Five Crowns, which appears to be a trilogy.  The first book is entitled King of Ashes.

I’m sure all your readers will want to express their heartfelt thanks for giving us such a fascinating and enjoyable story over the years. Do you have any words for your fans before we get to grips with Magician’s End?

Yes, please.  Thank you for the support.  Without your affection and spending your hard earned money on my stories, I’d be doing something else.  So, again, thank you all very much.

Check out our review of Magician’s End HERE

HarperVoyager, h/b, £20.00

Reviewed by Craig Knight

The fate of the Black Magician and all of Midkemia is revealed in the last volume of the Riftwar Cycle. The Kingdom of Isles teeters on the brink of civil war as the throne lies empty and the most terrifying threat ever to face the Conclave of Shadows emerges in the mountains of the GreyTowers. All races, ally and enemy alike, must unite if Midkemia is to survive.

In 1983 a book named simply ‘Magician’ appeared on the shelves of bookstores and began the epic Riftwar Cycle that would span three decades and thirty books. Readers would journey to alien worlds, other dimensions, the depths of Hell and even to the Big Bang itself. Now, Raymond Feist brings this amazing saga to a conclusion with Magician’s End.

Pug, the eponymous Magician, has long been prophesised to see all that he loves die before he himself can finally rest and this story brings all the events of the previous novels to a head. Feist has set himself an enormous challenge with this final book and the expectations are high. The Riftwar Cycle itself has produced some incredible books over the years from the stunning heights of the original Magician to the outstanding spin-off Empire trilogy (written with Janny Wurts). It hasn’t all been good though and there were low points with some dubious stories crawling out of Midkemia (yes, Demonwar Saga, I’m looking at you) but Feist has always shown that he can deliver enthralling stories and maintaining the same story world for thirty years is an amazing achievement.

Magician’s End is a large book, bigger than usual for a Riftwar novel at a lofty 650 pages or so. This isn’t surprising really given the number of story lines that Feist has to wrap up here. The story jumps and darts between characters and worlds which risks losing the reader but Feist shows his skill and manages to hold it all together well. All of the characters, both new and old, are given story time and there are even a few cameo appearances from some unexpected characters. Their appearance does seem a little contrived in places but Feist can be given this indulgence as he brings his tale to an end and seeing them again brought a smile to this reviewer’s face.

The story does take its time to build up the action and the world-ending threat appearing in the GreyTowers is given little attention in the first half of the book, concentrating as it does on the civil war of the Kingdom. Pug himself is conspicuously absent for a long time and the story initially seems to focus a little too much on the characters of Hal and Ty. Readers wanting to see Pug and Tomas, his boyhood friend from Magician, appearing on every page may be disappointed, but fear not, there is plenty of time to tell their story and Feist does manage to pull this off on the whole. It’s quite easy to imagine that Feist could have written a 2,000 page novel here with all that is happening and sometimes the action does feel a little rushed, but the frantic pace actually serves this story well and the feeling of chaos and impending doom seeps out of every page.

Feist has always been one for epic fantasy and this novel takes epic to a new level. The very existence of reality itself is under threat in Magician’s End and the scope of the story is quite dizzying. This could almost have been a saga in itself and Feist packs a lot in so there’s no room to get bored here.

Magician’s End is an ambitious book and almost succeeds in living up to the high expectations of this final novel. The characters are the centre-point of this story, quite rightly, and even the usually flat character of Magnus is fleshed-out with more of his emotions and backstory revealed. Feist manages to close the annals of Midkemia on a high note and goes out not with a whimper but a giant, ear-shattering blast. I challenge anyone who has been with the saga over the years not to have a lump in the throat or a tear in the eye as they close the cover on this incredible book and incredible saga. Thank you, Ray, for this worthy conclusion and all the wonderful tales over the years, it’s been quite a ride.

Oh, and does Pug meet his Magician’s End? Well, you’ll just have to read the book and find out for yourself, won’t you?

Hodder & Stoughton, h/b, £17.99

Reviewed by Stewart Horn

There are lycans among us. Most of the time we don’t even notice them, because they don’t cause any trouble. Our friends, neighbours and colleagues may have the disease (In Percy’s world the affliction is caused by a prion) and be perfectly good citizens who live a full and normal life without ever eating anybody. But it gets interesting because there are radical lycans who commit acts we would recognise as terrorism.  And there are extremist right-wing anti-lycan groups who see them as sub-human and would exterminate them given a chance. The lycans have a homeland, their own nation state where they can do all the wolfy stuff they like, but there is always unrest and the US has an uneasy relationship with the Lupine Republic, part peace-keeper and part military occupier.

Percy has gone to a lot of effort to make the political aspects of this novel realistic, to the extent that, despite the werewolves, it reads more Tom Clancy than Stephen King. He has a lot to say on the subject of US foreign and domestic policy, and he is using his created world to talk about real-life situations in Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, as well as AIDS, prejudice in general, extremism in all its forms, and particularly the American right’s attitude to all of these.

However, he also tells a good story with several interweaving strands so we see the conflict from every angle. His characters are engaging and his writing solid enough to balance the occasionally over-heavy satire, so you can just read and enjoy the story if that’s the way you roll.

Mainly, it’s a big, meaty, satisfying thriller.  Enjoy it for the characters, the pace and the grandeur and ambition of the plot. Read it as a big adventure story and I promise you’ll have fun.

Jo Fletcher Books, p/b, £16.99

Reviewed by Martin Willoughby

Whenever I write a review I always look for something positive to say, for whatever I may think about a writer, director or anyone, they have put a lot of effort into their work. So here it is: the cover’s nice and conveys the general idea of the book, which is a Science Fiction story set in the present, using genetics as the background. Between the covers, however, it leaves a lot to be desired. It’s chock full of two-dimensional characters in one-dimensional scenes to the point where you know what’s going to happen and nothing is a surprise. As for the sex scenes…what a waste of ink and paper.

There are five main characters, Johnny Sandman, Da Mi, Damien, Sydney Travers and Mee Hee. Let’s start with Sydney, a girl so gullible (yes, also she’s blonde, slim and attractive) she believes everyone and ‘looks for the good in everything’. Naturally, she’s taken advantage of by everyone throughout the book, so much so that her final stand is unrealistic.

Johnny Sandman is a one-dimensional bastard. His proclivity towards domination and rage is obvious from the first and it doesn’t change from there, not that you’d expect it too. What does come as a surprise, and totally out of left field, is that he used to be a hitman. We learn even more about him in an information dump at the end which is right out of a bad B movie. Da Mi is a typical evil scientist who only wants the best for the world, as long as she’s in charge, while Mee Hee is North Korean peasant who wants nothing more than a peaceful life while worshipping Da Mi. That leaves Damien, the only character in the book with any soul. Not perfect by any means, but at least he is a well rounded character and worth reading about.

Then there’s the sex which, at a rough estimate, takes up about 150 pages of 450, all of which is a serious contender for the bad sex award. The first 100 pages are almost wholly about the sex lives of Sydney and Johnny with a dash of Damien thrown in. Mee Hee and Da Mi are thankfully allowed to live without being tortured by the un-erotic prose. Sex with a gun, sex with a corpse, some of which is recorded for later viewing by minor characters and Da Mi, and more detail about a woman’s vagina than a medical dictionary. If a lot of this sex was removed there would have been more room to improve the characters, the story and the book. Throughout, I got the distinct feeling that the writer, publisher and editor were trying to cash in on the 50 shades of grey phenomenon. All of which is a crying shame as there is a good story underneath it.

In any book there will be things you want to know more about but the writer leaves blank, which is made up for by the things they fill out. The only thing filled out in this book is Sydney’s vagina. Where did the nuclear bombing of Wembley come from? Why do we suddenly find out about Johnny Sandman’s life at the end in one big info dump? You could leave out Mee Hee’s story and the book would still be complete.

In short, this book is a mess that needs a serious rewrite and a red pen taken to vast tracts of the text. It has the germ of a good story about love, control, abuse and genetics, a pleasant cover and, in Damien, a good character. What it lacks is everything else.

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, p/b, £6.37

Reviewed by Martin Willoughby

This is a novel aimed at the young adult market, but shouldn’t be disregarded by adults.  Why?  It’s good fun.

Eric is a half-vampire.  His mum’s normal while his dad’s a vampire who skipped off when he’d impregnated Eric’s mother.  Since then, Eric and his mother have had to move several times after he’d bitten various kids, and spends part of his life every week taking a syringe to sheep and cows to get some blood.

Being a half-vampire means he has ‘gifts’, such as being able to calm people and animals by talking in a calm voice, sending them to sleep occasionally, and telekinesis.  The last of them comes as a great surprise to him.  He has a wheelchair-bound friend called Joseph and has the hots for a girl called Kacey.  Well not quite the hots, but they do get on well.

Yes, it’s full of teen-angst and drama (it’s aimed at them remember), such as how do you kiss a girl without sucking her blood at the same time (something he manages) and ‘am I gay’.  What lifts this out of the ordinary is Eric’s attitude.  Think Harry Dresden as a youngster, lose the bad language and the killing and you’re there.

Eric’s mum travels a lot for her job and leaves him alone for several days at a time, but as he’s a half-vampire, sensible and strong for his age she doesn’t worry too much.  One trip, she takes him to Edinburgh where he meets his dad…and wishes he hadn’t.  His dad turns out to be a drug-addict and the blood Eric sucks leaves him feeling sick for a day or two.  On the plus side, he gets to meet another vampire, one his mum fancies, and some acolytes who are happy to let him drink some of their blood. When he returns home, all hell breaks loose: well alright, I’ve exaggerated a little, but he does end up in a serious fight with someone who’s trying to kill him.

The one thing that kept me reading this book was Eric.  He doesn’t need much blood, nor does any vampire for that matter, and he explains his need to be indoors as a case of Porphyria.  Garlic?  Loves it.  Crosses?  Only when playing football, not that he does play football, but…well you get the idea.  In short he’s a normal kid that most adults and children would recognise.

I enjoyed the book and found it an entertaining read. I’ll leave the final few words to my 11 year old son: “Dad, can you keep reading that to me. It’s so funny.”

The group was established in June 2009 by M.E. Staton a writer of science fiction and fantasy.

Please visit colafactory.wordpress.com or email colafactoryuk@gmail.com if interested in attending.

The main jury
Esther Sherman
Matthew Hughes
Neil Williamson
Pauline Morgan
Ros Jackson

The non-fiction jury
Djibril al-Ayad
Jason Arnopp
Roz Kaveney

The artist jury
Daniele Serra
Jimmy Broxton
P.M. Buchan
Rachel Kendall
Rhian Bowley

The small press jury
Elaine Hillson
Elloise Hopkins
Dave Brzeski
Rachel Kendall
Rhian Bowley

The newcomer jury
Adele Wearing
Alison Littlewood
Jim Steel
Lizzie Barrett
Peter Tennant

Over the next month or so the juries will decide whether to add any “egregious omissions” to the shortlists produced by the voting of the British Fantasy Society and the attendees of FantasyCon 2012. The shortlists will then be announced, and the juries will go on to decide the winners, which will be announced at an awards ceremony held at the World Fantasy Convention 2013, which runs from October 31 to November 3 in Brighton.

The jury members were selected by the British Fantasy Awards Administrator, Stephen Theaker (bfsawards@britishfantasysociety.org), and approved by the committee of the British Fantasy Society.

We’re very sad to pass on the news that Deborah Miller, author and principal founder of the David Gemmell Awards For Fantasy, passed away on Monday. Deborah had been battling breast cancer for some years, and went into remission several times. The condition recently surfaced again, and she fought it with her usual resolve, but treatment proved ineffective. She passed peacefully, with her husband, Bill, at her side. Deborah faced her illness with courage and good humour.

Her fiction and the Gemmell Awards will stand as permanent memorials to an exceptional person, an indomitable spirit and a good friend.

Strange Chemistry. p/b. £7.99

Reviewed by Elloise Hopkins

Emilie’s aunt and uncle do not understand her. Just because her mother ran away to become an actress they automatically assumed that Emilie would ‘go bad’ too. Well, they were half right. Emilie is running away. Unfortunately it is not as easy as she first thought. For starters, you can’t get very far on an empty stomach, and second, you can’t fill a stomach if you have no money to buy food.

Emilie’s target is the Merry Bell, a steamer that she knows can take her away from her aunt and uncle’s assumptions and rules, away from repression, and away to her cousin’s home where there is hope of a job and a new life. But as Emilie is fast realising, her escape is not panning out as she planned. Hopes of the Merry Bell and an easy journey are whipped away and she has no option but to take her chances on a different ship.

Emilie’s plans go from bad to worse as her adventure takes her to a whole new world hidden deep inside the world she knows – the Hollow World. This is an adventure story that is easy to love, filled with strange sea creatures, aetheric currents, sorcery, locomotives, airships, mermen, betrayers, robbers, and enough excitement and grit-your-teeth moments to keep you hooked.

Emilie is a fantastic heroine given just the right blend of confidence and determination. She is practical and sensible, cunningly observant and gifted with a very quick tongue. She’s ever the optimist, always convinced deep down she is heading for something better despite the numerous difficulties and dangers along the way.  This is a take on the classic ‘girl in another world’ adventure story and Emilie’s quiet innocence adds to her appeal.

This character trait goes perfectly with the steampunk elements of the world, which are described in beautiful detail and are easy to visualise. The story is a little on the short side – good for the pace, not so good for those of us that like to wallow in other worlds for more considerable periods – but there is more than enough scope in the world and story for a sequel.

His hand-made models and frame-by-frame animation style have graced movies since 1949 and influenced many directors from Steven Spielberg to Tim Burton.

The Black Library, P/B, £8.99

Reviewed by Steve Dean

According to the blurb, the Ravenwing stand apart from the rest of the Dark Angels Chapter. I don’t know why, maybe they smell funny, or have disgusting personal habits. Whatever the reason, Annael joins their ranks and learns some secrets about his chapter, secrets the plebs in the lesser ranks haven’t been told about.

These particular space marines ride into battle on huge motorised and armoured bikes, fitted, of course, with big guns. The ultimate phallic symbol in a world of such images.

So, the biker marines tool up and head off to war, ostensibly to wipe out a cult and some green skins, but secretly to deal with the “Fallen”, Dark Angels that have “fallen” and turned into chaos marines, and thus expunging the chapter’s shame.

What follows is an ironically pedestrian stroll through a battle. The fact the space marines are riding huge bikes with massive guns on the front seems to have been forgotten. The bikes are mentioned but don’t really contribute to the fighting, apart from the odd throb of an engine and screech of tyres.

This book could have been so much more, with the bikes becoming characters in their own right, participating in original battles not usually associated with the macho but foot-bound marines. It could have been a fast-paced action thriller, with blood and engine oil spilled in equal amounts. Instead we have an unoriginal and very wordy story, slow paced and not at all what it needs to be. There are too many scenes of people just talking, mainly about nothing we care about. The action, when it comes, is boring and predictable. In other words, too much blah and not nearly enough vroom!

Unfortunately, this is only book one in the Legacy of Caliban trilogy. I for one am not looking forward to wading through the treacle of Mr Thorpe’s prose once again, never mind twice.

The Black Library, H/B, £17.99

Reviewed By Steve Dean

Tyrion and Teclis are elf twins, one a great warrior, the other a powerful…wizard…wait, haven’t we seen this before? The warrior looks after his brother the mage, who is usually ill?

But anyway, this story begins with the twins in their younger days, just before they come into their powers. They are taken to the Phoenix King’s court to be tested by priests to see if they carry the curse of Aenarion, as they have the titular blood of their ancestor.

Meanwhile, a daemon banished by Aenarion long ago has returned and has sworn to avenge himself by wiping out every one of his living descendants.

The book is divided into two main threads, the story of the boys’ journey and the emergence and growing power of the daemon. The first thread, as the boys meet and greet relatives and strangers, is a deadly dull wander through a landscape peopled by two dimensional, predictable and boring characters. There’s no spark at all, no life or spice. It’s so predictable it’s like you’ve already read the book a dozen times.

The daemon’s thread is little better. There is action here, but it’s mostly bloodthirsty descriptions of the vile acts perpetrated on his victims in unnecessary and quickly tiresome detail.

I must issue a spoiler alert here, as I am about to describe the ending.

When it comes, the ending, although written in the same monotone, has the twins killing a daemon that has just munched its way through hundreds of elite guards like they were the toast soldiers you have with a boiled egg. The warrior keeps it at bay, while the mage communes with a god and channels its power. Not the steady learning of skills for these boys, oh no. One day it’s practising with a tutor, the next god-like powers to kill an almost invulnerable daemon. As this is book one of a trilogy, I really can’t see how the author is going to top that.

Overall then, dull, clumsily written and unoriginal. How this got by the chief accountant, sorry, editor, I don’t know. And two more volumes to come, oh my!

The Black Library, p/b, £7.99

Reviewed by Steve Dean

Before men came onto the scene, dwarves and elves lived in peace and harmony, sent each other flowers and never forgot an anniversary. Then, along came an outside party, ambushed a few dwarven caravans and framed the elves, and suddenly it’s all-out war.

There are one or two attempts to prevent the war, a few dwarfs and elves who try for reconciliation, but no one listens, and that’s it, thousands of years of trade and prosperity flushed down the gardarobe.

And that, pretty much, is it. There are some characters in it, kings and sons of kings and common folk, some messing about with an airship and an, as yet, unexplained journey into a dungeon. The characters are barely two dimensional. There isn’t much more to the plot than I’ve explained, and there’s page after page, chapter after chapter, of blah. How the author has managed to make such a momentous event so dull I don’t know, but done it he has.

And talk about holes in the plot, some of them are large enough to fly a dragon through. For instance, elves are supposed to be smart, but not one of them can work out they are being set-up. The blurb actually says the two races have been ‘stalwart’ allies for thousands of years, yet they leap at each others throats at the slightest excuse.

If you went through the book and took out the words ‘elf’ and ‘dwarf’ and replaced it with ‘a person’ no one would notice. This might as well be two armies of blancmanges fighting for all the races are given any flavour.

This is the first book in a planned trilogy, if I was BL I wouldn’t bother with the other two. This is also one of those ‘Time Of Legends’ books, a series that has so far failed to deliver a single decent novel.

I don’t know what’s happening over at the BL offices at the moment, but quality has gone through the floor. It might be time to send the accountants back to their profit-and-loss spread sheets and get a proper editor into the novels department.

The Black Library, H/B, £12.00

Reviewed by Steve Dean 

Company Master Balthasar, it says here, leads his Dark Angels space marines to the planet of Bane’s Landing to stop the chaos marines of the Crimson Slaughter calling forth a demon from the Hellfire Stone. (Come on peeps, I know you can’t call them Daisypink Fluffynuggets, but all this macho naming surely isn’t necessary?)

Balthasar and his men are soon battling against Kranon the Relentless and his buddies, and in desperate need of reinforcements.

Overall, the book succeeds in what it sets out to do. Although fairly short, it works well, with good action scenes, a fast pace and some character development, although not a great deal of the latter. It’s no more or less than one elongated scene, one set piece told in detail. Ideal, I would say, for getting those strange creatures called today’s youth into reading, maybe.

Despite what it says on the back cover, this isn’t a novel, but a novella, less than 40,000 words by my estimation. The book also ties in with a game scenario of the same name.

The only thing stopping me fully recommending this book is the price. (Note to Black Library: there’s a recession on you know.) Yes it’s a hardback, but at 12 quid it’s definitely too much. You can get a full length paperback novel for £8, so in effect, you’re paying 4 quid for two pieces of cardboard.

Matador, p/b, £7.99/Kindle, £4.11, LINK

Reviewed by David Brzeski

I have very mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it’s very readable, not at all badly-written, with some engaging characters and interesting ideas. On the other hand it has some major lapses of logic and one glaring, silly error.

It’s set in Aberdeenshire in 2050. The world has been transformed by climate change. There’s a seemingly unstoppable plague killing one in ten of the population and women are occasionally giving birth to very strange children.

These children—the Lupans—have little in common with their parents. They don’t seem able to use language and they prefer the company of wolves to humans.

Scott Maguire, a lawyer on the run, infected by the plague, is rescued from a suicide attempt by air crash by the Lupans. They recognise him as “The Messenger”. Scott will eventually discover why the Lupans must not be destroyed—why they are essential to the survival of the human race.

Linella Sienkiewicz lives in a cottage near a community of refugees from countries made uninhabitable by global warming. The only thing standing between the Lupans, and the government that would like to destroy them is their village. Almost as unpopular with the general population as the Lupans themselves, they face forcible eviction from their homes and internment. She had once been in a relationship with Brigadier Brian Johnson, who had done what he could to protect both the village and the Lupans, but things are getting worse and he can no longer help her.

There’s quite a lot to like here. The Lupans, and the way their society differs from humans, are fascinating. There’s a lot of Native American and aboriginal culture in their oneness with nature, and their use of certain hallucinogenic herbs to achieve a closer connection to the living Earth.

It’s near-future science fiction, crossed with ecological drama and ancient mysticism. While reading I could see how the basic concept and characters would work well as a TV miniseries.

Unfortunately it’s flawed. It’s really difficult to describe these flaws without giving away major plot points. Scott undergoes a sort of past-life regression. In this past life, he rejects the ways of the forest people and chooses to defend his village of sheep farmers by a method that ends in disaster and permanently severs his people’s connection with nature. For some reason, it appears that taking up sheep farming in place of living wild and hunting with the wolves, was humanity’s first step on the rocky road to ruin. Everything changes after this event. Humans learn to kill each other—hang on, if they didn’t already do that, then why did they need to defend the village against an invading enemy?

I mentioned a silly error. Early on in the book, while Scott lies badly injured in a Lupan hut, Linella “rinsed her hands with boiling water, using the heather for a quick surgical scrub.” It’s hard to believe an author with Paul Kieniewicz’s scientific credentials (He holds advanced degrees in astronomy and geophysics, and has taught workshops and courses in astronomy, geology, philosophy and the Gaia Theory.) wrote that. Apparently none of his degrees covered the fact that boiling water tends to cause severe pain and damage to human skin.

By the end of the book, things look very bleak for the refugees and the Lupans. So much so that the sudden ceasing of hostilities in the last chapter simply fails to convince.

Matador is a vanity press, set up to help authors self-publish and this book is a classic example of the lack of an editorial eye to help clean up the inconsistencies.

It’s not an awful book, but I have to be honest and say that I have no great desire to read the planned sequel.

Spectral Press, p/b, £15.00, LINK

Reviewed by David Brzeski

I was familiar with Stephen Volk as the writer behind the TV series, ‘Afterlife’, which I’d been telling everyone who’d listen they absolutely must watch for a few years now. This is the first piece of prose fiction I’ve read by him.

I loved ‘Afterlife’ so much that there was a real danger that my expectations for the author’s subsequent work might be too high. I needn’t have worried. In fact, my only problem in reviewing this book is that I may gush to an embarrassing extent about how wonderful it is.

‘Whitstable’ is an interesting amalgam of fact and fiction. Much of the book is based solidly on real events in the life of Peter Cushing and it’s written with such palpable love and respect for the man and his work that I found it greatly moving to read.

It’s set during the darkest period in Cushing’s life, not long after the death of his beloved wife. Stephen Volk has a talent for portraying sadness and grief, without having it make the whole work so oppressively bleak that it’s hard to read. It’s so beautifully written that I had cause to wipe my eyes on more than one occasion.

Peter Cushing strolls along the beach in Whitstable, having been forced to go out to avoid the constant pain of sympathetic calls from well-wishers. He meets a boy, who recognises him as ‘Van Helsing’ and desperately needs his help to stop a monster.

There are no supernatural happenings in this book. The “monster” is all too human and real. The way in which Stephen Volk parallels the events regarding this monster, with the scenes from one of Cushing’s horror films is simply brilliant writing.

I’ve occasionally written a review, in which I’ve stated that the book in question ought to win an award, but this one is SO good that I am willing to go out on a limb and say that it will not only definitely get my vote, but it WILL win awards for the best in its category for 2013… even though there are still another 8 months to go as I write. I was given a .pdf copy for review purposes and as soon as I finished it, I ordered a copy of the book. I NEVER do that!

I almost pity Mr Volk, as he is now in the unenviable position of having to follow this truly inspired piece of work.

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

For more information please contact: 0843 290 8495

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

For more information please contact: 020 7420 3666

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

For more information please contact: 0843 290 8345

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

For more information please contact: 0843 290 8313

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

For more information please contact: 0843 290 8485

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

For more information please contact: 0843 290 8525

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

Tickets are available from http://www.phoenix.org.uk/index.php?cms_id=747

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

For more information please contact: 01225 428111

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

For more information please contact: 0843 290 8185

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

For more information please contact: 0843 290 8713

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

For more information please contact: 0843 290 8357

Raymond is visiting the UK as part of his 2013 tour.

For more information please contact: 0843 290 8563

More details regarding submissions will be coming soon but for now check out their Facebook page HERE

The words were gentle strokes, drawing her awake.
“Hello.  Hello there.”
She felt the light on her eyelids, and knew that if she opened her eyes they would sting, and she would have to shade them with her palm and let the light bleed through a crack.
“Feel like talking?”  A man’s soft voice.
And then her mind cleared enough to wonder: who was this man at her bedside?
She tried to sigh, but no breath came.  Her eyes flew open in alarm.

In the future, love is complicated.  Technology moves ever forward.  To be disconnected from the maze of social networking is to be an outcast.

Even death doesn’t have to be the end.  An impossible love story is about to unfold between a hit-and-run victim and her killer.

Love Minus Eighty is a disquieting vision of our romantic future, as hopeful as it is horrifying, by Hugo Award-winning author, Will McIntosh.  Imagining love and loss one hundred years into our future, it is both chilling and touching, and fits neatly into a canon of intelligent, mind-expanding science fiction such as Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, Hunnu Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief and Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City.

Will McIntosh is admired for his inventive and subtle approach to science fiction, writing books as conceptually cool as they are deeply human.  Love Minus Eighty is the expansion of a short story, for which he won the 2010 Hugo Award and was shortlisted for the Nebula.  He is also the author of the novels Soft Apocalypse and Hitchers, out now in ebook.

Love Minus Eighty will be published by Orbit on June 11th 2013.

The novella, entitled The Darkness Within, is an exciting and pervasive story set on a spaceship in the far-distant future, and what happens when an alien infection takes hold …

Arlango says about the project: ‘How exciting! I am very pleased to be working with Sam Stone again. Last year AudioGO published her collection of short stories, Zombies In New York And Other Bloody Jottings, and since I came across her work I’ve been a great fan. Not only does she come up with deliciously sinister tales, but the worlds she creates are atmospheric and her characters memorable. They are perfect for audio.

‘I was thrilled to meet Sam earlier this year, and we started talking about other ideas and things that we could work on together. The result? The Darkness Within, an exclusive new novella commissioned by AudioGO. It might well be set in space. And it might well feature new, malevolent life-forms … You’ll have to find out more for yourself. What I can tell you is that I had to stop reading, and look away from the page several times because it was so creepy. This Halloween, things will definitely go bump in the dark!’

AudioGO is the home of BBC Audiobooks and manages all the Doctor Who audio releases among their 10,000 catalogue items. Their clients include books by P D James, J K Rowling, Ruth Rendell and Bernard Cornwall. Their horror catalogue includes work by Bram Stoker, Rachel Caine, M R James, Stephanie Meyer, James Herbert and Fangoria’s Dreadtime Stories. For more information, visit www.audiogo.com/uk/.

Sam Stone’s first novel, Killing Kiss, won the silver award for Best Horror Novel in ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year competition, and her subsequent novels and short stories have gained her much acclaim, including winning the British Fantasy Award. Recent works include the novella Zombies at Tiffany’s and the vampire novel Silent Sand, and Killing Kiss was recently sold to Germany. She holds an MA in Creative Writing and is a noted public speaker and lecturer. Sam’s website is at www.sam-stone.com.

Anatomy of Death (in five sleazy pieces)

It collects together five stories that all have their roots in the gloriously lurid horror heyday of the 1970s, with contributions from Stephen Volk, Johnny Mains, John Llewellyn Probert, Stephen Bacon and Mark West.

The book is available in paperback from Amazon for £4.50 and as an ebook for £2.02.

More details can be found at the Hersham Horror website - http://silenthater.wix.com/hersham-horror-books - and there is a dedicated Facebook page for the anthology at http://www.facebook.com/pentanth3

Strange Chemistry

The first of these two books - The Fifty-Seven Lives of Alex Wayfare - will be published in March 2014, with a second to follow early in 2015.

For as long as 17-year-old Alex Wayfare can remember, she has had visions of the past. Visions that make her feel like she’s really on a ship bound for America, living in Jamestown during the Starving Time, or riding the original Ferris wheel at the World’s Fair.

But these brushes with history pull her from her daily life without warning, sometimes leaving her with strange lasting effects and wounds she can’t explain. Trying to excuse away the after effects has booked her more time in the principal’s office than in any of her classes and a permanent place at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Alex is desperate to find out what her visions mean and get rid of them.

It isn’t until she meets Porter, a stranger who knows more than should be possible about her, that she learns the truth: Her visions aren’t really visions. Alex is a Descender – capable of travelling back in time by accessing Limbo, the space between Life and Afterlife. Alex is one soul with fifty-six past lives, fifty-six histories.

Fifty-six lifetimes to explore: the prospect is irresistible to Alex, especially when the same mysterious boy keeps showing up in each of them. But the more she descends, the more it becomes apparent that someone doesn’t want Alex to travel again. Ever.

And will stop at nothing to make this life her last.

M. G. Buehrlen said: “First off, I want to say thankyouthankyouthankyou to Strange Chemistry and Angry Robot for taking a chance on my risky, twisty book. This team doesn’t shy away from the unknown and unproven, and because of that, they’re breaking molds and boundaries in the YA industry. I’m stoked to take part in some of that rule breaking, because I’ve never been too good at colouring inside the lines. Each Strange Chemistry book I’ve read stretches the limits of speculative fiction in bold ways, and I’m proud to join such a formidable group of authors.”

When she’s not writing about teens who save the world, M. G. moonlights as a web designer and social media marketing buff, and she’s the current mastermind lurking behind the hugely popular website YABooksCentral.com, a social network for YA (and kids!) book lovers.

Places you might find M. G. hiding: in her creaky old house nestled in Michigan pines, sipping coffee on her porch, playing in leaf piles, cooking over camp-fires, and dipping her toes in creek beds.

Feel free to say hello on Twitter and Tumblr.

Stories include:

Foreword – Johnny Mains

Introduction – Ramsey Campbell

Doll Hands – Adam Nevill

Death Walks En Pointe – Thana Niveau

The Burning Circus – Angela Slatter

Where is Uncle Phillip? – Alex Hamilton

The Queen in the Yellow Wallpaper – Lynda E. Rucker

The Peter Lorre Fan Club – Stephen Volk

The Garscube Creative Writing Group – Muriel Gray

The Sixteenth Step – Robert Shearman

Not a member? Sign up now to secure your copy! The Burning Circus will be sent out alongside the next edition of the BFS Journal.

As one of the most important writers of his genre and generation the BFS has been privileged to have him as president.

Sadly, all good things end, and Ramsey has indicated that for various reasons he feels that now is the right time for him to step down from this position, and it is with great sadness that we are announcing his retirement as president.

The committee hopes you will all join us in wishing Ramsey well for the future, and in thanking him for his tireless work in promoting and representing the British Fantasy Society.

We will be contacting all members again soon, with regard to the appointment of a new president, who will need to be proposed and voted for at the next AGM.

Regards,
The BFS Committee

Gollancz, h/b, £20

Reviewed by Alex Bardy (@mangozoid)

Wolfhound Century has already received a barrage of publicity and attention, yet still remains difficult to classify under any cosy subset of genre fiction today. Is it science-fantasy, alternate-world history, a noir detective-thriller, or a steampunk myth in the making…? We have tree spirits, a totalitarian Soviet-style cold war society, a hard-nosed detective, nasty villains, a sundered moon, and a world ‘beyond’, as well as angels falling from heaven, and giants and golems wandering the streets, too; the latter being mechanical-style automatons usually ‘implanted’ with the brain of a dog (no kidding).

So where to start? Well, it’s much easier to tell you what it’s not… finished. Yes, this book tips 300+ pages of large type and doesn’t reach an end, nor even any form of satisfactory conclusion — indeed, it feels like the story has been arbitrarily cut in half by the powers that be, leaving the reader hanging, twiddling thumbs, and vexed. Of course, we are promised the second part next year (called Truth and Fear, I believe), but that doesn’t stop me as a reader feeling cheated at only having half the story.

Wolfhound Century introduces us to Vissarion Lom, a hard-boiled detective who has failed to progress up the ranks due to rubbing a few too many of his bosses up the wrong way. Fair enough, you say, yet another good detective with a bad attitude and probably a troublesome past: so far, so perfunctory… But then Lom is instructed to report directly to the head of secret police, and sent to Mirgorod, and from that point on nothing is as it seems, and all bets are off as they say.

Mirgorod is the capital city of Vlast: a totalitarian state and home to warring factions, home-grown terrorists, and a police force that’s anything but lawful. Ruled with an iron fist (sorry), mired in corruption, and skirted by dangerous revolutionaries and free-thinking ‘artists’, Mirgorod is not a happy place — indeed it’s wet and it’s miserable, and home to a hidden ancient landscape, called Lezarye. There are only fleeting glimpses of the latter, but the author evokes a real sense of a world-beneath-our-world as he utilises Raku Vishnik (one of Lom’s few ‘friends’) as a kind of archivist, taking photos of things that no longer exist or maybe never did…

It’s beautifully done, and the story deftly switches tone and pace as we follow Lom through the Vlast underworld on the hunt for Josef Kantor, a terrorist with a penchant for poetic destruction and a lot more besides. He’s not the only one with an appetite for violence, and I’d put Artyom Safran well up there with many a badass villain, not to mention his ingenuity in the face of adversity throughout.

If things were that easy we’d have no story, so the deeper we dig, the more threatening and violent the action becomes, and soon we are entirely buried in a fantastical city that draws heavily from Russian history and its fairytales — very heavily from what I gather, but that’s another story. We are also introduced to Maroussia, Kantor’s step-daughter, and —it must be said— one of the few female protagonists in the entire book. Initially she struggles to come to terms with her father’s actions, or even to trust Lom at all, but as things spiral out of control and her life brutally wrecked, he literally becomes the only person she can depend on, forcing the narrative down a path that feels precarious yet utterly enthralling. And all the while, like a sickening disease, a fallen angel is creeping towards Mirgorod in search of something called the Pollandore, key to the promise of a better world and alternative future, but one that many are seeking to destroy, including the fallen angel, the head of the secret police, and Kantor himself, but all for reasons of their own.

It doesn’t get any easier to understand the nuances of the plot, but this is a lightning read, with short sharp chapters, relentless pacing, and a sparkling patchwork of destruction and misery — it’s like a crazy painting in which the brightest colour is dark grey, and the inkwell a murky shade of black and blacker, but nonetheless, for all that, it’s still a thrilling masterpiece.

I remain sore at the fact that there’s only half a book here, but what a half it is… brilliant world-building, great writing, and a pace that challenges you to put it down and then slaps you in the face with a constant niggling itch to return — a truly excellent debut, and Higgins’ writing style ensures it just keeps flowing: in merely describing something as simple as a dash through rain-soaked streets, the author leaves you reaching for a towel and shivering from the clinging damp that lingers long after you’ve moved further down the page. Very highly recommended, and another book that may find its way onto many 2013 shortlists, but don’t ask me to name which ones.

Atom, p/b, £6.99

Reviewed by Martin Willoughby

There are two things to say about this book before launching into the review proper, the first of which is that it’s been translated from German, a language which I speak albeit at a basic level. As those of you who speak a second language will know, direct translation can be hard. Translating one word is relatively easy, but when you get to sentences with a cultural meaning it can be nigh on impossible. The German word schadenfreude has no direct comparison in English, which is why we use the original. Whereas English has only one word for love, Greek has three, agape, philia and eros. Subtleties and nuances in meaning can also be lost. The direct translation of the phrase ‘I am hot’ from English to German is ‘ich bin heisse’. However, if you say that to someone in Germany they’ll think you have the hots for them and want to have sex. We have a number of words and phrases we can use to describe rain, which have no bearing on their everyday, normal use: stair rods, cats and dogs, chucking it down and many more. A direct translation of these phrases will cause problems. It’s why the experience and ability of the translator is vital when transcribing from one language to another.

The second thing to take into account is that this is a young adult novel.

Now that’s out of the way, here’s the review: It’s awful, terrible, frustrating and has sucked several hours out of my life I wish I could have back. It’s almost as bad as Twilight.

It’s set in an elite college on the edge of the Canadian Rockies and the main characters are 18-20 years old, the children of rich and powerful parents. There is nothing likeable about any of them and I could happily push the lot of them into a crevasse and leave them to die slow deaths while they argue about whose nail polish has the best colour. The girls are just as bad. They’re the kind of people who think a disaster is turning up to class in the wrong clothes and whose world would fall apart if a designer shoe got scuffed.

The blurb on the back talks of the character Julia and her desire to discover more about the valley, but the book itself focuses on the character of Katie West with brief point of view changes to Julia.

The story itself only really gets going after 200 pages and is not a fantasy. It is, at best, a ghost story, at worst a teenage angst story.

The main plot concerns Katie West and her desire to climb a mountain called The Ghost. Julia is her best friend who’s obsessed with a boy called Chris, who treats her like dirt but she loves him anyway. In short, the group of friends avoid a visit from the Governor-General by going to climb the mountain, have trials and hardships and learn about each other. The subplot is about a group of missing children who got lost 30 years ago, hence the ghost story aspect.

If you really do feel the need to read this, start at page 200 then read through to the end and you might just enjoy it; but for me the biggest problem with this book is not the story, it’s the translation.

Krystyna Kuhn has over 20 novels to her name and has been a freelance writer since 1998, writing in German for a German audience, and this book is the second in a series set around GraceCollege. The German editions of these books are highly regarded by the readers, getting a large number of 4 and 5 star reviews on Goodreads. The English version has only managed two reviews, both of which were 2 star ones. Why the dichotomy?

I believe it’s down to the translation. I find it hard to believe that a writer with 20 novels to her name is that bad, whether you like her work or not, or the Young Adult genre. An interesting point to note is that Kuhn’s book has also been translated into other languages, French and Polish were two others I found, and all use the same word as the title: The Catastrophe. For some reason, the English title has been changed to The Crash when there is no crash anywhere in the book, unless you include an avalanche or think that a clash of personalities amounts to a crash.

The person who’s done this translation does a lot of work in the industry, so isn’t a fly-by-night operator, but I feel she’s totally missed the boat with this book, both with the title and the content. I would be interested in reading it again if it were translated by a different person, but as things stand I can’t recommend this book to anyone.

Krystyna Kuhn is probably a good writer in her genre, but this translation does her no favours at all.

Strange Chemistry, p/b, £7.99

Reviewed by Pauline Morgan

A very large number of youngsters, especially girls, dream of working with animals. Most of them never do. Many adults, especially from the older generations had the idea that SF for youngsters was mainly aimed at boys. To a certain extent it was. Times have changed but the combination of animals and SF is a rare combination. There may be the odd pet, or the enhanced lab animal, or aliens but not a focus on off-world, non-sentient creatures other than those that want to eat the explorers. That is what makes this book a joy.

The setting is a far future Mars. To make it liveable, the deeper valleys have been equipped with generators that produce a sort of force-field that keeps a breathable atmosphere in. The precarious life of the colonists has worsened by a rift with Earth. The government there blames aliens for the virus that very severely reduced the population. Mars deals with aliens. Much of the technology that keeps the Mars situation going comes from earth and it is beginning to break down with little hope for replacements.

The main character is Zenn, a seventeen year-old girl whose only ambition is to be an exovet – not entirely surprising as that is her family’s trade. The clinic is in a Ciscan Cloister, originally set up by a religious order but now only lip-service is paid to regime. It used to be a thriving exovet school but Zenn is now the only student, her uncle the only tutor (her father is off-world and her mother missing presumed dead). The patients are exotic, alien pets or zoo specimens. Many of them are large. Local people perceive them as dangerous. Some are.

Naturally, there are factors that complicate the situation. The lease for the land that the Cloister is on and the clinic uses, is up for renewal and there is a growing opposition by the town council to its continued presence, possibly linked to the rift with Earth. Zenn is concerned that her father hasn’t been heard from for a while and is worried that something has happened to him. Her end of year tests are immanent and if she fails them, her future as an exovet will be non-existent. The problem here is things have started to go wrong. When she is working with the animals she sometimes gets a fleeting communication with them that breaks her concentration. She tries to explain this to her uncle but as it is outside his experience, he puts it down to imagination and stress. The thing that worries her most is the accumulation of small incidents that could be put down to her negligence. Taken with all the other things, she is convinced that someone is trying to sabotage the clinic. On top of this, the towner boy, Liam, who helps out around the place is beginning to have an effect on her hormones. An added problem, likely to feature more heavily in future volumes is the disappearance of starships that are guided by creatures called Indra.

This appears to be the first of a series and has all the right ingredients to capture the imagination of a mid-teen reader and many will be able to relate to Zenn’s problems. They are unlikely to notice the issues about the plot that an adult reader might spot, the main one being why would an alien species bring a pet, however exotic, all the way to Mars for veterinary treatment? The same adult may also be able to spot the likely plot progression and identify the root of some of the menaces before Zenn does. This aside, the characters are engaging, the dangers real and setting believable. I look forward to seeing how the series progresses.

Titan Books, h/b, £12.99

Reviewed by Brin Lunt

Allow me to begin by stating that this tome is probably not for the uncommitted Star Wars fan. The only thing it can be genuinely compared to is the Light Side version, released a couple of years back, called The Jedi Path. More a research manual than a get-engrossed novel, Book of Sith contains references to Lord Kaan, Wayland, Mara Jade, Iella Wessiri and Beskar, amongst many others. Only a person who knows the significance of those names would fully appreciate Book of Sith; for others, it will probably mark their first step into the vast, almost unending galaxy that is the Star Wars Expanded Universe. For the purposes of this review, I’ll assume that you, the reader, know a little something about the characters already.

Book of Sith, like The Jedi Path, is split into numerous chapters. Sith contains seven – two from the hand of Sidious, one each from Plagueis, Malgus, Bane, Sorzus Syn and Mother Talzin. Each extols the virtues and necessities of the Dark Side and how to attain its power. The book in total covers 10,000 years of in-universe history, making it possibly the most complete text book the Expanded Universe has come up with.

Each chapter is denoted by a different sort of fraying at the page edges, as well as differing textures, which adds to the novelty of the book. It really does feel like a compilation of chapters torn from the pages of others. The different chapters are likewise written with differing styles and fonts, as befits the various authors.

Similar to The Jedi Path, most of the pages are annotated by the former owners and readers of the book – Sidious appears again, as does Vader, Asajj Ventress, Luke Skywalker, Quinlan Vos, Mace Windu and Yoda. It can be quite interesting to read these additions, especially when one addition replies directly to another. The annotations likewise span the course of in-universe history, with the latest additions (similar again to The Jedi Path) coming from the hand of Luke Skywalker, a decade after the Battle of Yavin depicted in Star Wars: A New Hope.

I do have to question the inclusion of a section by Mother Talzin on the Nightsisters of Dathomir – you wouldn’t usually expect to find a chapter devoted to a Dark Side Sect in a book compiled by the Dark Lords of the Sith. But then, I suppose the editors needed to include something to entice the fans of that newest generation, the fans who see The Clone Wars cartoon as the highest echelon of Star Wars-based entertainment.

I found the book fascinating and informative. However, I’m a fully-fledged Star Wars fanatic, who loves nothing better than to research the huge history contained within the galaxy far, far away. There will be others who’ll think it’s an entertaining collection. Whatever your view, whether you’re an avid reader, watcher or collector, Book of Sith makes a fantastic addition to your bookshelf. Just don’t get lost in it. If once you start down the Dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny…

“Victoria Library is a beautiful building on Buckingham Palace Road, within walking distance of Victoria train station and underground.”

“Please come along and celebrate with me! I’d love to see you there.”