Client website updates: Les Edwards & Edward Miller
Spent most of last week with my head down, working hard on the July update for the two sites I run on behalf of Les Edwards and his artistic alter-ego, Edward Miller.
Les is a truly terrific artist; I've been a fan of his work since I was a teenager and our house is decorated with prints of some of mine and Jo's favourite pieces: 'The Darkest Part of the Woods' and 'Atkinson Revenant' in the dining room, 'The Croglin Vampire' here in the office, 'Cities' and 'Blood Follows' in our living room (actually, 'Blood Follows' is the original artwork, but we don't like to show off...) and we've just acquired a print of 'This is Now' for the bedroom. We would have bought the original artwork of that one as well, but we were reliably informed that a certain author (whose mini story collection it graces) beat us to it...
Anyhow, there are about 50 new images across the various galleries on the two sites. Generally, the first few images in each gallery are the new ones (although I'm working on ideas for the best way to make that a bit more user-friendly and obvious). Here are some of my favourites from the new batch:
The afore-mentioned 'This is Now', which was used on a Subterranean Press chapbook of three Michael Marshall Smith short stories given to attendees of the 2007 World Horror Convention in Canada:
The quite lovely artwork for the Subterranean Press edition of Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora (note to Gollancz with regards to their original UK cover: this is how it should've been done, folks...)
And here's the artwork for the Gollancz UK (just to show they're back on the ball...) edition of Chris Wooding's forthcoming novel The Fade:
They're all 'Edward Miller' rather than 'Les Edwards' pieces, I know, but that's because there's just something in the use of colour, form and texture in the Miller work that really appeals to me.
I also sent Les a few questions for an interview piece, which I posted yesterday evening over on www.uksfbooknews.net. He has some interesting things to say about the use of fantasy art in book design, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
And I shouldn't leave without mentioning that Les is having a summer sale between now and the end of September. Buy any of the fine art prints available on either website (the vast majority of the images are available as prints, apart from the pencil sketch prelims and anything where the copyright of the work is no longer owned by Les) and you'll enjoy a 20% discount on the usual prices.
On fantasy and a preference for fantastical fiction
"If more writers didn't write 'fantasy' so self-consciously and follow imagined 'rules' of the genre then the whole thing might not be so hidebound and repetitive. It should be the most creative writing around but is frequently the most conservative."
From an interview with Steph Swainston that I've just posted over on UKSFBN. She also says:
"What I find jarring in fantasy is 'magic'. It's usually a way of systemising lazy plot devices."
It's always a question of subjective taste - horses for courses, each to their own etc. - but I do have to say that over the past few years, the sort of fiction I've most enjoyed reading recently has been exactly that: fantasy in name, but without all the trappings and paraphernalia of magic, or a magical 'system': no spells, rituals, wizards, glowing swords, enchanted artefacts, elves, dwarves, dragons, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
A few examples off the top of my head: China Miéville (Perdido Street Station etc.), K.J. Bishop (The Etched City), Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies), Alan Campbell (Scar Night; which I'm currently reading and thoroughly enjoying), Jeff Vandermeer (Veniss Underground), Jeffrey Ford (The Physiognomy), and indeed, Steph Swainston (The Year of Our War and No Present Like Time)... oh, and yes, I do realise I've just reeled off a list of mainly 'new weird'-type authors. I'm obviously a mainly 'new weird'-type reader.
The reason these books are labelled 'fantasy' is the incredibly rich sense of the fantastic that they're steeped in: exotic settings sometimes utterly unlike our own mundane world, populated by esoteric and idiosyncratic characters and fantastical creatures, or entities with powers and abilities beyond those of your average mortal man; an atmosphere that's strangely alien and weirdly compelling and that opens up huge vistas of imagination to your mind's eye. All the stuff you'd presumably expect to find in the pages of any fantasy novel - and do to varying degrees - but, well, without the sound of dice rolling in the background...
Having said that, there are a number of 'traditional' fantasy authors whose work I do still enjoy - or would undoubtedly still enjoy if I actually had the time to read them - George R.R. Martin, Steven Erikson, Greg R. Keyes, Glen Cook - as well as a few new fantasy authors who are writing in a more traditional style but whose work I nevertheless have found to be very rich and satisfying, such as Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, who has a wonderful habit of twisting classic fantasy tropes until they beg for mercy) and Brian Ruckley (Winterbirth, a debut that, to be truthful, could have been enriched by the inclusion of stronger fantastical elements, yes, but promises much for volumes to come).
It all comes down to the quality of the writing, obviously, which in itself is the result of a blend of natural talent and sheer, bloody-minded hard graft; the honing and polishing of prose far beyond the "it'll do" state that seems so commonly acceptable to some. So I think Steph Swainston's point about "lazy plot devices" is especially pertinent. There are a number of fantasy authors - whose names are well know and need not be reeled off here - for whom the grazing of the cash cow seems to be much more important than the exploration of new territories, the uncovering of rich troves of concept and idea, the sheer joy of expressing an unbounded imagination. "It'll do, it's set in the same world, the same characters are back again, it's got lots of magic in it, they'll love it."
But then, perhaps you actually need a fair-sized dollop of that sort of thing to keep the genre viable. If we didn't have the cash-cow-herders churning out their same-old, same-old (to return briefly to one of yesterday's themes) to sell in vast numbers to their legions of adoring fans, then genre sections in bookstores would rapidly shrink, and publishers would lose the little leeway they currently have to bring out the more interesting work alongside the mainstream mass-market stuff.
Or perhaps it's just the way the genre market is structured that naturally lends itself to a gradual, progressive filtering process. You start - as nearly everyone starts - with the obvious, in-yer-face stuff: Tolkien, Eddings, Brooks, Goodkind, Jordan et. al. but then - and this is the important bit - you have a choice:
You can, quite happily, wallow around in the shallows for the rest of your reading life, just grazing on what's put in front of you by the booksellers and bean-counters, then move on to nothing more challenging than whatever comes along from the next batch of imitators.
Or, you can evade the nets of advertising and '3 for 2' promotions and wade a little deeper, guided by the online word-of-mouth of the brave souls who have ventured forth before you, to see what's lurking out there, amongst the reefs and rocks...
Come on in, the deep water's lovely... :)
Very Highly Recommended Reading - Red Seas Under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch
I've been sitting here for about twenty minutes trying to work out how to tell you how much I thoroughly enjoyed - no, absolutely loved - Red Seas Under Red Skies, Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards follow-up, without committing an act of wanton spoilerage. And you know what? I'm sorry, but I don't think I can do it, so...
This Recommended Reading piece contains spoilers. If you haven't read the book yet and want to avoid them, look away NOW!
There. I hope you have been suitably warned.
I'll start by saying that Red Seas... is one of the very best second novels I've ever read. If anything it's an improvement on the first in the series; which wasn't necessarily guaranteed to be the case, what with the worry that the dreaded 'second novel syndrome' might have struck. By which, I'm alluding to that horrible condition whereby the pressure of deadline and expectation conspires to rob an author of their burgeoning powers at the most critical stage of their fledgling career; resulting in their turning out a far inferior piece of work to the one that they spent six years slaving over to get into print as their debut.
But rest assured that this is most definitely not the case with Red Seas.... Oh, no. Far, far from it.
If you loved The Lies of Locke Lamora and have been crying out for a second instalment that takes the essence of the first novel and builds on the same sword, sorcery and swashbuckling atmosphere - of high adventure in the lowest of low fantasy settings - to create a sequel of equal adrenaline-fuelled excitement and descriptive delight, then your wishes have been answered. Red Seas Under Red Skies is, once again, a caper saga of immense imaginative flair, with a plot that twists and turns at breakneck pace as our heroes hurtle from one sticky situation and death-defying act of derring-do to another.
Locke and Jean have a truly grand plan this time around - a plan that will surely march them headlong into their devoutly hoped-for life of unending ease and luxury - as they prepare to stage the heist of their careers to-date: stealing all they can get their mitts on from one of the most secure and reputedly thief-proof gambling establishments in the known world. Until, that is, their plans are rudely interrupted by a despot in desperate straits; one who requires our boys to head out to sea - unfamiliar ground indeed for our two city -born and -bred protagonists - and foment a buccaneer rebellion, in order to speed his own return to prominence. Oh yeah, and to secure their loyalty, he's tricked them both into swallowing a slow but surely deadly poison, and only his tame alchemist has the antidote... Plot-twists, y'say? Oh, aye, skipper. Plot-twists a-plenty, right up th' t'gallant.
On the other hand: if you thought that The Lies of Locke Lamora was a fantastic debut, but have been hoping that Lynch would take the opportunity of a second novel to build on that initial sound basis and deliver a genuine development of both his main characters and his milieu - in addition delivering another cracking yarn - then once again, you're in luck. Character-wise the onus is once again very firmly on Locke and Jean and their heartfelt efforts to remain extant in the face of ever-increasing odds. But there's a great deal more depth imparted to both characters this time around, and a lot of the character development concerns the changes in their relationship. Initially those changes are brought about by Locke's reaction to the events of the first installment, but later, as Jean discovers that's there's much more to life than being a bodyguard and sidekick to the Thorn of Camorr - regular and highly energetic fucking, for instance - the emphasis of their relationship is altered, and Lynch charts it in such a way that it enhances the development of the plot, rather than getting in the way of the ripping yarn in progress.
I think the subtlety of the development really has to be experienced to be fully appreciated. I will say, though, that I thoroughly enjoyed the way Lynch skilfully foreshadowed one of the key scenes on the book with that flash-forward in the prologue. It was skilfully done indeed, because that vignette became key to the way in which I, as reader, was encouraged to really focus in on the two men and their changing relationship. I ended up reading the text more closely than if I'd been along purely for the action sequences. I found myself measuring the changes that occurred against the apparent situation revealed at the start of the book, and from there speculating and attempting to draw my own conclusions (often erroneously) on the basis of the clues imparted. It's a great way of immersing the reader even further into the narrative and encouraging their full participation in the book. Great technique.
An essential element in this process - indeed in the whole narrative - was one element that managed to rise above and beyond even the fantastic plotting and superb characterisation. The dialogue in Red Seas... was, once again, absolutely magnificent. I said in a recent recommendation of Joe Abercrombie's Before They Are Hanged that effective and well-delivered dialogue is rapidly becoming one of the major keys to my enjoyment of a lot of the fiction I read and right now, I think it would be a very close call indeed between Lynch and Abercrombie as to who is the most proficient. Both authors demonstrate a quite wonderful ear for the patterns and rhythms of speech and conversation, and neither is afraid to show off a little: no dumbing-down or retreating into safe cliché for either of these authors; likewise there's a bare minimum of anachronistic modernisms to distract from the flow. Just dialogue that's rich, full, varied, consistent and above all, hugely characterful. Quite simply a joy to read.
Okay, I do have just the one (relatively minor) criticism of Red Seas..., which is that it felt a little too obviously cinematic in places: think Ocean's 11 meets The Curse of the Black Pearl, albeit without the undead pirate element. But then, perhaps this was, once again, a deliberate device intended to enhance the audience's immersion in the book: an apparently familiar plot-structure intended to lull the reader into thinking that they know the score; thereby helping the coming plot twists to achieve maximum impact?
In any case, it bloody well worked. Maximum impact indeed, from a writer who's still only on his second novel. I'm absolutely delighted that Lynch was able to rise to a repeat of his own previously high-set bar and deliver a truly terrific read, one that constantly had me grinning from ear to ear as I progressed - except for those scenes of very definite and quite poignant tragedy that conjured up tears rather than laughter - and one that I was truly sorry to finish.
And that, for me, is one of the clearest marks of a damn good book: when you get to the end and just wish there had still been a couple more chapters to go.
Red Seas Under Red Skies is a definite early contender for my Book of the Year, and I'm now on major tenterhooks for part three (especially after that ending...) and thoroughly intrigued to see what direction Lynch takes the Gentlemen Bastards in next. Bring on the third instalment!
Author info: www.scottlynch.us
Ordering info: Amazon.co.uk
Publication info: June 21st 2007, Gollancz Books (UK)
Genre Cover of the Month for February '07
We have a winner! With a very respectable 42% of the 98 votes cast in last month's poll, the GCotM accolade for Feb '07 goes to éditions Bragelonne's cover for their French-language translation of The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch: Les Mensonges de Locke Lamora.
I really liked this cover myself, for two reasons: firstly because I thought it might have been a Les Edwards / Edward Miller creation (although after a quick email to Les I discovered that this wasn't the case), and secondly because I'm a sucker for the architecture of imaginary places. I tend not to be all that good at visualising locations when I'm reading a book, so it's always fascinating to see how someone with some genuine artistic talent can interpret a scene or setting for a book I've enjoyed.
So yes, this cover would definitely have made me - personally - pick the book out from a table display. But then judging by the pattern of voting - an early lead for Ink, followed by a determined surge for both Les Menonges and Already Dead - perhaps the classic fantasy look doesn't have quite the same pull for everyone.
I'll see if I can get in touch with the editor, artist and author to get their individual take on the cover sometime this week. And I'll be posting the nominated covers for March later in the week as well; I want to look into a way of linking the poll to the original post with the cover images a bit better this month. I rather suspect that some folks might have been put off clicking on the poll because they didn't know what, exactly, they were voting for. And I likewise suspect that some folks ended up voting for the book, rather than what they considered, objectively and personally, to be the strongest cover.
Early days though, plenty of time to fine-tune as we go along, eh?
New Arrival: Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
It's here. A UK proof copy of Red Seas Under Red Skies, the follow-up to one of my very favourite books of 2006, Scott Lynch's quite wonderful debut, The Lies of Locke Lamora.
So, the pressure is on. This has to be one of the most eagerly awaited and highly anticipated fantasy sequels of recent years, wouldn't you say? Fans will be drooling at the prospect of a second instalment of the saga of the Gentlemen Bastards. Anti-Lynch critics will be gnashing their theoretical fangs, eager for a chance to rip in and find fault with every teensy perceived flaw and possible instance of less-than-perfection.
Me? I'm enjoying it immensely. I'm about 75 pages in (a slow reading weekend, alas) and there's already a grin plastered on my face every time I turn the page. Having read the first two books in Joe Abercrombie's The First Law series, I've realised that dialogue plays a very big part in my enjoyment of a story; bigger than I was perhaps aware of previously. And both Abercrombie and Lynch (sounds like an Ambergris law firm...) provide absolutely superb dialogue - laced with wit, repartee and absolute character consistency - in bucketfuls.
So, whilst only time will tell whether Red Seas... will continue to live up to its early promise, it's certainly showing a great deal of early promise. I'll be sure to let you know once I've found out how it goes over the remaining 570 pages...
[N.B. That's not the finished artwork by the way, just a scan of the proof cover. Click on it to get full details from Amazon.co.uk... and place a pre-order while you're there, why don't you?]
Genre Cover of the Month - Vote Feb '07, Noms open Mar '07
Okay then, here we go with the first selection of nominated covers for the inaugural Genre Files Genre Cover of the Month accolade...
A quick note before we start: Nominations are now open for the March '07 Genre Cover of the Month, so please do head on over to the GCoTM page of the site for details of how to nominate your favourite covers during the coming month.
The Nominees
This month I've selected six book covers for the shortlist, based on the nominations sent in by various people (many thanks to everyone who participated) plus one that I've included myself.
[Clicking on a cover will take you to the relevant Amazon info page, where you'll be able to see a slightly larger cover image...]
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The Voting
Please remember, I'm asking you to vote for the strongest book cover, not the best book itself.
It doesn't matter whether you've read the book or not, or whether you liked it or not if you have. What I'm interested in is, in your opinion, which of the six covers is the most effective. Not necessarily the most eye-catching or the most aesthetically pleasing, although both of these factors are important.
In essence though, I'd like to know which of the six covers above would be most likely to persuade you to pick up the book in a bookstore, or to click on a link online, and either buy the book there and then, or at least want to find out more.
In short: which book cover does the job of selling that book the best?
Please use the Feb '07 Poll to register your vote, or send me an email instead and I'll register the vote on your behalf.
If you'd like to discuss the covers, or add a comment as to why you registered your vote for a particular title, then please do feel free to use the comments for this post.
The Winner...
Will be announced when voting closes on March 31st. I'll email the author, publisher, artist / designer to let them know, and ask for any comment they might have on the design of the cover, then post whatever responses I'm able to elicit.
Unnecessary Footnote
Please, don't bother voting dozens of times for your favourite cover. Ballot-stuffing isn't big, or clever, and it's not like we're deciding the fate of the world here or anything, y'know..?
Steve Wilson's Elves: definitely Different…
Check out My Elves Are Different, a "highly irregular web comic" by Steve Wilson, starring regular protagonists 'Sideburns' (a would-be fantasy author) and 'The Bowler-Hatted Gentleman' (his chum, one assumes).
Very droll indeed.
My personal favourite to-date is this one:
I got the heads-up from Simon Spanton of Gollancz books, and his personal favourite, for some reason, is this one:
Both cartoons are copyright Steve Wilson, and have been pinched without his express permission (sorry Steve! I did try get in touch to ask first, but I checked all four of your websites and couldn't find an email address...)
Edit 09.02: Immortalised in a webcomic! I've arrived..! :D
Best books of 2006 - a personal selection
Every January, I open a brand new spreadsheet and start making a list - one that I faithfully promise myself I will update both regularly and diligently - of all the books I've read over the course of that year. Every March or so I start forgetting to keep track. And then every December I sit down to have a think about writing some sort of 'review of the year' piece, and end up wishing I'd bloody remembered to keep the damn list up-to-date for a change...
2006 was no exception, but I'm going to gamely have a stab at remembering my personal 'best of' without the benefit of an electronic aide-memoire. I'm working on the theory that if a book made a strong enough impression on me that I still remember it by now, then it must have been a good 'un.
So here, in no particular order, are the seven titles that made the biggest impression on me over the course of '06. Bear in mind, these are books I read in '06, not necessarily books published in '06. And as usual, you can click the cover images to obtain ordering information etc. from Amazon.co.uk, should you feel so inclined.
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
I read some damn good fantasy fiction last year - including Brian Ruckley's Winterbirth, K.J. Parker's Devices and Desires, Sarah Ash's Children of the Serpent Gate, Paul Kearney's This Forsaken Earth and Scott Lynch's quite fabulous The Lies of Locke Lamora (see below) - and Joe Abercormbie's The Blade Itself was right up there with the very best of them, definitely.
Abercrombie's plotting is tight and fast-paced, his settings are vivid without being fussy or over-detailed, his characterisation is excellent (Logen Ninefingers and Glokta the Inquisitor, in particular, are both a joy to read) and he really has hit the dialogue-nail right on the head. He's a freelance film editor by trade, so maybe it's the skills he uses on a daily basis that have helped him to craft this good a story; one that reads as well as something that you might reasonably expect an author to take at least four or five outings to achieve. Or maybe he's just a natural-born story-teller. Or maybe he's been to the crossroads at midnight, with a laptop in his hand instead of a six-string...
Whatever the reason, he's bloody good. Give him those four or five book's worth of development, and I reckon he'll be frequently spoken of in the same glowing terms that most folks use when discussing (those perennial personal favourites of mine) George R.R. Martin and Steven Erikson. Seriously, if you're a fan of those two - and / or the likes of Paul Kearney, K.J. Parker, James Barclay, Fritz Leiber, Greg Keyes, Robin Hobb, David Gemmell, and so forth - then you should add this to your 'must read' list. Oh, yes.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Quite, quite wonderful stuff here from debut author Scott Lynch. The Lies of Locke Lamora received huge amounts of attention, both before and after publication. The majority has been in the form of extremely well-earned praise; a few nay-sayers have mistaken the praise of others for the fall-out from publisher-generated hype (believe me, most publishers can only dream of being anywhere near that effective). On balance though, the genuine plaudits have won out, and with good reason: this is a cracking read, and one that I'd take no hesitation in recommending to anyone with more than a modicum of taste for the finer things in fantasy literature.
Quite frankly, what's not to like? The eponymous Locke Lamora is the ringleader of a gang of intelligent, witty, charming and imaginative con-men who dub themselves 'the Gentlemen Bastards'. They dwell in the city of Camorr; a blend of medieval Venice, Leiber's Lankhmar and Miéville's New Crobuzon. Said burg is dominated by the shadowy bulk of Capa Barsavi; an old-school gangster with an iron grip on Camorr's criminal underworld, including that segment occupied by Lamora and the other Bastards. Lamora is intimately acquainted with Barsavi's daughter, or has been in the past, and when a challenger to Barsavi's crown arises, he finds himself caught slap-bang in the middle of the ensuing turf-war.
Action, adventure, betrayal and retribution all run riot throughout this extremely well-written, gleefully unpretentious saga; The Lies of Locke Lamora aspired to be a piece of highly entertaining fiction first and foremost, and in that it succeeds more than admirably. Given such a high standard of debut, I predict this author will be going on to even bigger and better things in volumes to come.
What can I say? Heed the praise. Or, if you prefer, believe the hype...
Black Juice by Margo Lanagan
My first exposure to Margo Lanagan's fiction came in the form of a publisher's promotional blad containing the story 'Singing My Sister Down'. I thought I'd give it a go - why not? - and I'm very glad I did, because it turned out to be one of the most memorable pieces of short fiction I've ever read. I'll say no more here. Just pick up a copy of Black Juice in your local bookstore and give this one story a go while you wander around and pretend to browse. You'll see what I mean.
The other highlights, for me, of a very strong collection overall were 'My Lord's Man' (which I think might just be is a prose version of the Irish ballad 'The Raggle-Taggle Gypsy') and 'Red Nose Day', (guaranteed catharsis for anyone who ever suffered a modicum of Coulrophobia; maybe after reading Stephen King's It?) The rest of the collection is highly readable, intelligent and thought-provoking as well, but these two were my particular stand-out picks.
Lanagan's subject matter covers a wide range of themes and tropes and she is not only a superb story-teller but also an incredibly skillful prose crafter. She has a wonderfully economical way with words - hardly a syllable is wasted - and seems to have pretty much perfected the principle of 'show, don't tell'. If you watch carefully, you'll barely detect more than a hint of narrator-delivered exposition; her characters reveal their back-story through dialogue and interaction; there's a bare minimum of unnecessary background detail to get in the way of the focus of the tale. It's perhaps not a technique that will appeal to every reader, but it is one that I particularly like.
In any case, if there are any would-be short fiction writers out there, my advice to you would be: read Black Juice, and learn.
Use Once, Then Destroy by Conrad Williams
Another very strong collection indeed, from one of my favourite British short fiction writers. Conrad Williams might not be quite as big a name as some of his contemporaries, but that's nothing short of a grave injustice if you ask me. I think Williams' prose is just as lyrical, just as compact and spare and emotive as work by the likes of Michael Marshall Smith, Graham Joyce, Nicholas Royle or Geoff Ryman, and it's well worth sampling.
Only, don't do it if you're feeling particularly miserable, because Williams really doesn't do cheerful all that often. In fact, 'bleak' would be a good way of describing the atmosphere that suffuses the majority of his work - dark, disturbed psychology and broken relationships of all sorts seem to be pretty much par for the course.
My favourites (if that isn't too jolly a sentiment in this case) from Use Once, Then Destroy are the sort-of Lovecraftian tale 'The Windmill', along with 'Nest of Salt', which echoes London Revenant; Williams' eerie novel of the lost and dispossessed. This volume also contains his PS Publishing novella, Nearly People, another one well worth taking the time to track down, and is only £12.43 on Amazon at the moment for the Night Shade Books trade hardcover edition: bargain!
Three Days to Never by Tim Powers
A new Tim Powers novel is always a treat to look forward to. The thing is, you never know quite what you're going to get when you dive between the covers; it could be anything from baroque time travel fantasies to voudoun pirate magic, secret agents and desert-dwelling djinn, to far-flung dystopian futures. In this case it's a tale of father and daughter Frank and Daphne Marrity, and the bizarre treasure that his mother - her grandmother - has kept in her garden shed for the past forty years or so.
Of course, very little that you find in a Tim Powers novel is ever as simple or as straightforward as it first seems and Three Days to Never is no exception. Before too many chapters have elapsed, Frank and Daphne find themselves being visited by long-lost relatives, pursued by Israeli secret agents and haunted by spectral creatures and occultists bent on extracting - or retrieving - secret knowledge from them... at all costs.
But as you do rather expect from Powers, it's superbly written throughout and in places is frankly quite astonishing. Never one for playing a straight trope, Powers seems to delight in subverting the reader's expectations and opening up strange new avenues of idea and concept. Add this one to your list as well, and then if you haven't already read them, go buy copies of On Stranger Tides, Dinner at Deviants Palace, The Anubis Gates and Declare as well. Seriously, you've got some catching up to do...
Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge
I've already given this one a mention in my first potted bookshelf entry, but I'll just reiterate a bit here: great storytelling, lively characters, setting, well worth a read whatever your age or literary inclination. A young orphan girl escapes from her dull, boring village after (accidentally!) burning down her uncle and aunt's mill. Armed with nothing but a homicidal goose and a rare ability to read, she is swept up in a bewildering whirlwind of intrigue, revolution, murder and espionage.
Yes, it's a 'young adult' book, but one with plenty of sly word-play nudges in directions that adult readers will appreciate. Yes, it's a fantasy, but it's far from your average, mundane, kiddie-quest, dragon-taming, coming-of-age shtick. It's interesting, it's entertaining, it's well written. It's the best young adult book I read last year (no, I didn't read all that many, but that's beside the point...) and I'll be keeping an eye out for the sequel, definitely.
Every Dead Thing by John Connolly
I'm including this one on the grounds that, yes it might be an oldie-but-goodie, but it's always great to discover a new author, particularly one with a decent amount of back-list to work through.
Connolly's fiction blends elements of crime with slivers of the supernatural; in this, his debut novel, ex-cop turned p.i. and gun-for-hire Charlie Parker re-lives the brutal slaying of his wife and child when similar atrocities raise the spectre of a serial killer on the loose. Parker becomes drawn into a web of sinister mind-games as he desperately tries to bring the loose strands together and somehow double-guess the intentions of a sick and twisted killer. It's a dark and gritty narrative; emotionally brutal in places, somewhat gory but not unnecessarily gratuitous. Just my sort of crime / horror cross-over tale.
And stylistically, Connolly's first novel has a very similar feel to Michael Marshall (Smith)'s Straw Men series, which is no bad thing at all in my book. It's dynamically written, with great pace, action sequences that will have you on the edge of your seat, and a cast of colourful characters that wouldn't be out of place in a well-filmed Hollywood blockbuster. Great stuff, and I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the series.
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So, there you go. My personal picks for '06, and I've already got a fave for '07 lined up in the shape of Joe Abercrombie's follow-up, Before They Are Hanged.
Now, where did I save that spreadsheet..?
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- RT @Sceptrebooks ( via @SamAnnSmith) Title for the new David Mitchell: THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET 2009-10-02
- RT @Salavaria (Conrad Williams) via @timlebbon I'm reading tonight at 8 at the Didsbury pub. Free copies of LONDON REVENANT for attendees. 2009-10-01
- RT @disrepdog + @TheBookseller: 'New' Solaris acquires two titles by Paul Kearney - http://bit.ly/A2kyC - Great news for a great author! 2009-09-29
- More updates...
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