• …
  • About
  • Vampire Month Alumni
  • World Book Night

Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Category Archives: Review

[Review] Raven Song by I.A Ashcroft

17 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cyberpunk, I.A Ashcroft, Inoki's Game, Raven song, Science Fiction, SFF, Shadowrun


Raven Song by I.A AshcroftThis is a surprising book. Not because it is well written (it is) and not just because it has an engaging plot that keeps you reading and wishing for more but rather because it is such an unusual concept.

Or, rather, it successfully mashes together two well worn concepts and makes out of them something new which is very close to originality.

From the title and a brief read of the blurb my brain instantly tagged this as ‘urban fantasy’ or ‘fantasy’. There is talk of an Order of Mages and similar and the idea of ravens being linked to magic and spirituality. I therefore had expectations for something similar to Ilona Andrew’s writing with maybe some riffs from the Harry Dresden books in there for good measure. Tropey but fun. So, to be thrown into a cyberpunk style near future world that also happened to have magic in it was a surprise and a pleasant one at that. Of course on a second read of the blurb it became more obvious so maybe I should have read that more clearly in the first place.

The story follows two characters. Jackson is a orphan in the 2200’s who has grown up to be the CEO of his adopted father’s delivery company (that also dabbles in some illegal smuggling) in a world that is ravaged by nuclear war and the populace living in cities that are shielded from the radiation. He has a mysterious past, is haunted by shadows and visions of ravens, and is being treated by the Order of Mages for these uncontrolled outbursts of magic.

Our other character, Anna, was a physicist working at a Las Vegas based US Military base in the 21st century. How she comes to be in suspended animation in a box that Jackson is tasked to recover by the Coalition government from the radioactive wastes and why she has the ability to emit radioactive energy when stressed is what kicks us off on our rollercoaster of a plotline.

This is an engaging read with many fascinating characters and ideas expressed in a very easy to read prose. The plot progresses at a fast pace, while giving sufficient time to take in the details of the world building – a balance that is sometimes difficult to achieve.

Overall, an excellent novel that is well worth reading if you want something different to the usual tropes.

Buy here – Raven Song by I.A Ashcroft

Website for I.A Ashcroft

 

[Review] A Change of Heart by Mark Benjamin

03 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Change of Heart, Mark Benjamin, Urban Fantasy, Vampires, YA


A change of heart by Mark BenjaminA Change of Heart is set in a standard Urban fantasy milieu where vampires rule in the shadows and humans are largely unaware of their existence apart from a few who are in the know – either because they serve the vampires or are actively trying to destroy them.

The central tale of this novel follows the story of Gabriel, a geeky university student who gets caught up in the hidden supernatural world when he is bitten by Lucas, a vampire Royal. You follow the changes that  occur to him as he transforms  – improved strength and speed, better night sight and all the other benefits of immortal blood, including a psychic link to a ‘dark beauty’ who is actually Lucas’s sister, also a powerful vampire. How he copes with this and how it affects his day to day life makes an interesting story, albeit one rather tropetastic with themes that have already been explored to death in other settings, including Peter Parker in Spider-Man (with the compulsory ‘weedy hero beats up the bullies’ scene in there for good measure). This thread is entertaining despite being heavy on the cliché – basic geek wish fulfilment stuff – and would make the basis of a strong novel by itself.

However, that strong story is  somewhat swamped in the rest of the novel which is overambitious in its attempt to encompass the entirety of the world building. There are chapters and chapters in which many PoV characters weigh in, most of them with very little to actually contribute. Each of the main vampire characters, many more minor vampires, some of the human servants of the vampires, each of Gabriel’s friends, several of the modernised Knightly order of Vampire hunters and many other characters all get a shot in the spotlight and most of them waste it without actually progressing any of the plot. Some of these sections are very short – a paragraph or two – and if those chapters had been removed I do not think anyone would have noticed. At most, this needed four characters in the spotlight (Gabriel, his mortal love interest, the ‘dark beauty’ and the leader of the vampires) and could have done very well with only Gabriel’s point of view – allowing the reader to explore the mystery of the new world he has fallen into. A whole novel could have covered the transformation of Gabriel, the effect this has on his life and relationships and ended with him and his friends meeting the Knights (something that occurs about half way through the book) and leading into a second book where more of the politics of vampire society and the nature of the knights is revealed. Pared down like that, cutting out the extraneous fluff and pumping up the scenes with Gabriel, this could have been a great YA urban fantasy novel with a lot of potential for sequels.

I guess the issue here is the author is trying to portray a complicated political situation with conspiracies and secrets and is making the mistake of thinking that the reader needs to see all that immediately. As a writer myself I know the temptation is there when faced with this and I think the solution is to strictly limit point of view – the reader sees what the character sees and therefore may well be oblivious to the plots in the background but will see evidence of it in other character actions. It is a hard trick to pull off well (and I am by no means an expert at it myself).

Overall, a good story that manages to entertain marred by an over ambitious plot that needed a subtler approach to manage well.

[Review] Blood Secrets by Elizabeth Morgan

02 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Blood Secrets, Cranberry Blood, Elizabeth Morgan, GRR Martin, Loup, Vampire, Werewolf


Followers of this blog will be familiar with Elizabeth’s work already as she was interviewed for Vampire month and has been in attendance with me on a number of signing events, most recently the Manchester Author Signing in August. At that event she was launching her latest book – Blood Secrets, the long awaited sequel to Cranberry Blood and the next in the Blood series of Vampire novels.Blood secrets by Elizabeth Morgan

Blood Secrets takes up the story more or less straight after the end of Cranberry Blood. Heather Ryan, our vampire slayer infected with vampire blood, is on the outskirts of Venice in Italy, on the trail of the ancient vampire her family has been trying to kill for centuries. But first she has to deal with local supernatural politics as she attempts to convince the local werewolf pack to allow her and the members of the UK pack she has an alliance with to enter Venice in search of both the vampires who live there and the kidnapped pack members who were snatched at the end of Cranberry Blood.

There follows an intense thrill ride of a plot where Heather and her love interest Werewolf, Brendan, explore Venice looking for vampires and the captured members of the pack.

This is a far heftier tome than Cranberry Blood, verging on 100,000 words and covering a lot more scope. It also brings in two new Point of View characters in addition to Heather and Brendan.  One is Eve, the daughter of the UK Pack leader, who is a Loup – a woman born to a werewolf but who does not have the shapechanging abilities. The other is Galen, the immortalised teenager, who is the Bloodling (or childe) of the Vampire Heather is chasing. In less skilled hands, this approach may have come across as clumsy or amateurish (and it does seem to be a popular style following GRR Martin’s use of it in A Song of Ice and Fire) but Morgan manages to make each voice different and every scene is relevant as seen through the eyes of the PoV character. The Brendan/Heather scenes are pretty much as written in Cranberry Blood – entertainingly alternating their views on each other and their relationship while the action happens around them. The Eve scenes allow us to see her fate in the Vampire run research facility she ends up in and the Galen scenes offer a fascinating insight into the mind of the enemy and the complicated stratagems in play from their side.

The story also pulls no punches. As the title suggests, there are a lot of secrets revealed in this instalment and Heather has her worldview shattered on a number of occasions. Her faith in her family is sorely tested and her relationship with the werewolves changes massively through the events in this book.

If there is a flaw it is that the end goes on a little too long. Stuff happens which to me feels it may have been better suited to the opening chapters of the third and final instalment. Closing the curtain a few scenes earlier may have been more effective in inciting interest in book three. However, this is only a minor issue and the events of the final few scenes are still relevant and interesting. The big reveals in this book do lead me to wonder if there is anything left secret at all in this series. Are there more reveals in book three? If so, what on earth could be left to find out that hasn’t already been spilled here?

In all, a very solid and entertaining second book in a trilogy that expands on the world building, develops the characters and leads us nicely into what promises to be an epic finale in book three.

Review: Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge

03 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2014, amazon link, books, Centenary, Cuckoo Song, Downton Abbey, First World War, Flappers, Frances Hardinge, Jazz, Neil Gaiman, Oxfordshire, Self Publishing, The Great War, writing


You may recall way back in April that I went to the Fashionably Late World Book Night party with author Frances Hardinge in tow? Well, there was talk of there being copies of her latest book, Cuckoo Song, available for buying and signing but due to a post office snafu those books never appeared.

Of course every author wants Eddie to pose with their book now...

Of course every author wants Eddie to pose with their book now…

Well, not long after this I was contacted by her publisher and asked if I wanted a copy for review. Of course I said yes…

Unfortunately, being a very busy person, I have lately been very slow to get reviews out so here we are in September and I am only just getting round to putting my thoughts on this book down in a readable form.

Cuckoo Song is set in the fictitious English town of Ellchester, somewhere in Oxfordshire during the early 1920s. The post Great war vibe portrayed here is perfect for release in a year that sees the centenary of that war and the setting is vividly portrayed. Triss is a young girl who lives with her father (a famous architect credited with designing much of the town they live in), mother and younger sister (Penny). Her brother, Sebastian, died in the Great War leaving a fiancée and a grieving family behind.

The story begins with Triss having been rescued from almost drowning in a lake while the family are away on holiday. Following this incident, strange things begin to happen to her. She has gaps in her memory and a bizarre hunger that can only be satisfied by devouring her own toys and clothes. As time goes on, this strangeness tests her relationship with her parents and sister and her investigations into what has happened to her lead her to discover that there is more to her brother’s death than she had been told. She also delves into a hidden underbelly of the town ruled by a sinister being known as ‘The Architect’ and encounters the strangeness of that world, learning its secrets and dangers.

Hardinge deftly presents both the setting and the plot in a skilful manner, peeling back layers of world building and mystery in a way which has the reader slowly become aware of what is going on. This approach maintains the mystery as subtle clues you did not consider relevant slot into place and trigger small ‘ah ha’ moments at intervals. The setting starts out with a Downton Abby feel, all stiff gentlemen and upper middle class pomposity overlaid with a quaint olde worlde children’s book vibe, but soon develops hints of a world beneath that which is related more to Neil Gaiman’s Coraline – a dark, fey world of hidden evil and whimsy. The characters are also mostly well drawn and some, particularly Sebastian’s fiancée Violet and the Tailor Mr. Grace, are striking in their presence – the bold and adventurous, jazz loving  Flapper with the hidden sorrow and the quirky, friendly tailor with a sinister undertone. You come to care for Triss and the other characters, though Triss in her early appearances seems selfish and whiny she soon gains a backbone that turns her in to a true hero.

In all this was a very enjoyable read and one which I am sure children of all ages will enjoy.

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires). He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

He would like to point out that having Eddie pose with a copy of your book is a special privilege reserved for those who have met Eddie and given him a stroke.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

Buy Lurking Miscellany (paperback)

Buy Lurking Miscellany (Kindle)

[Review] Primal Storm

27 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Review

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Book Review, Jennifer Winter, Kara, Mary, Oblivion, Oblivion Storm, Primal Storm, R.A Smith, Review, Xychler Publishing


Primal Storm (Book 2 of the Grenshall Manor Chronicles)
By R.A Smith
Published by Xychler Publishing

This sequel sees the aftermath to last year’s Oblivion Storm and our heroes Mary, Jennifer and Kara are adjusting to their new lives. Mary has taken full possession of Grenshall manor and has spent most of her time learning about her new found abilities over ghosts and nursing the almost fatally wounded Jennifer. Kara has been finding her skills as a paranormal expert becoming more in demand.

Then, Jennifer, feeling trapped by her status as an invalid and needing to stretch her legs, sneaks out to exercise and stumbles onto a very well organised robbery of the British museum run by a crack team of supernaturals. Her intervention in this and her resemblance to a figure in a work of art known as ‘The Face of War’ leads her into a conspiracy of secret societies, supernatural artefacts and a confrontation with her own past and true nature.

Unlike Oblivion Storm, which focussed on Mary and her connection to the realms of shadow, Primal Storm is almost entirely Jennifer’s show. As such it is a very different story that veers away from the spooky events occurring between an atmospheric Victorian London and the modern day and into an action orientated plot. Several scenes come across as more like an X Men movie than a paranormal horror as Jennifer Winter tears into her enemies Wolverine style. Likewise, the flashbacks are not to Victorian London but to Jennifer’s childhood where a history of abuse and accusations of murder lead her to becoming the woman she is and explain her connection to the mysterious and vibrant Primal realm. Meanwhile, Mary and Kara travel Europe on a mission to rescue Jennifer and encountering a variety of characters on the way including the very same supernaturals that Jennifer is involved with and someone with the very same abilities Mary has.

The loss of spooky atmosphere could have been a weakness here but it is more than made up for by the change of pace, including the dark and violent nature of Jennifer’s past. The flashback scenes are brutal and honest and reveal a woman who has risen from extreme adversity into her eventual greatness. However, one weakness that is apparent is Smith’s presentation of some characters. While all the female characters come across as strong, three dimensional creations his male characters seem to lack depth. Having said that, at least one of them showed a lot of promise and if he is to return for book 3 it can be hoped that there will be a chance to develop him some more. This would be a good thing as it is nice to see a character of colour represented in a non clichéd way.

Overall Primal Storm is an enjoyable read. It holds onto enough elements of Oblivion Storm to make it a familiar setting but then takes off into new directions that explore and expand on that setting a great deal. According to Smith himself, the plan for book three (as yet unnamed but I am guessing the word Storm will be in there somewhere) is to focus on Kara – the one non-supernatural member of our trio of heroes. I for one am intrigued to see how she develops in this final instalment. If her back story is anywhere as interesting as Jennifer’s we are in for one hell of a finale.

[Review] The Rings of Anubis by E. Catherine Tobler

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Archaeology, E. Catherine Tobler, Egypt, Indiana Jones, Rings of Anubis, Steampunk


Published in 2013 by: Masque Books 

Released as a duology – two ebooks:

Book One: Gold and Glass

Book Two: Silver and Steam

Eleanor Folley is the daughter of an archaeologist who is working on her father’s ‘Niknackatarium’ at the Exposition Universalle in Paris in 1889 when her dark past catches up with her. She is approached by Agent Virgil Mallory, a member of a secretive organisation with suspicious motives known as Mistral who are interested in her past association with Christian Hubert, a roguish archaeologist more in the mould of Indiana Jones than her academic father, and also in a set of rings known as the Rings of Anubis that are linked to her dead Egyptian mother. Eleanor is recruited into Mistral as a consultant and there then ensues a fun romp across a Victorian Steampunk world in search of the rings. On the way there are complications galore and intrigue enough to keep the cast of variable characters busy throughout.

Of course, there is the inevitable love triangle which seems unavoidable in stories where the primary character is female. The one here is entertaining as it involves both the rogueish Hubert – the blast from the past who the main character never trusted then and certainly doesn’t now – and the stiff and proper Agent Mallory – whose overly formal demeanour disguises some interesting flaws and dark secrets, of which his opium addiction is only a minor one. The triangle is also suitably kept in the background rather than being the focus of the story as it becomes very clear that Eleanor’s true love is actually Egypt itself and, in particular,  her quest to find out what happened to her mother and how it ties in with the rings of Anubis. This drive, along with her being a slightly older heroine than normal at 30 years old and having a dubious past, serve to make her a very interesting character who manages to be strong and feminine without resorting to unrealistic clichés. This allows her to carry the book and makes all her responses realistic and believable.

There are a number of flaws in this work, the main one being that it is sometimes hard to remember that Virgil Mallory is supposed to be French. He comes across so perfectly as the typical stiff backed English gentleman throughout the book that when you meet his vineyard owning French family there is a bit of a dissonance. Not a major one, just a brief ‘Oh yes, he’s French’ moment which temporarily shakes you from the story. The other is the tendency for flashbacks which come from several different time points from several different character point of views. This means you have to pay attention to the titles of the chapters in order to work out which year is which and as there are so many switches it can some times be difficult to work out what is happening. However, the back stories are compelling enough to make this effort worthwhile.

Something that is not a flaw but can be better described as an oddity is the arrangement of the story into a duology. It is common enough to find trilogies in genre fiction (ever since Tolkien’s publishers decided Lord of the Rings should be divided into three books it has almost become compulsory for fantasy and SF authors to release trilogies) but duologies are rare indeed and I am not quite sure why it was done in this case. At the end of book one there is no real sense of an appropriate cut off point – no resolution with the promise of more to come, no major cliffhanger that might leave you wanting to find out what happens next. The book just ends then picks up straight away at the start of book two as if all you had done was turn the page to the next chapter. Had this been a physical book I might have said that the publishers had set a page number limit for optimum printing costs and perhaps this was the case – using the same format for paperback and ebook. However, in cases like this I feel it is better to write two distinct books – give the readers a resolution or a cliffhanger and therefore a strong reason to buy book two – rather than simply cut it at approximately the right number of pages.

Overall this is a very well executed Steampunk adventure story that combines enough differences in society and technology from the real world Victorian period to be unique while maintaining enough of the fashions, manners and mores of the time. The touch of supernatural elements is also well done, with two major reveals – Mallory’s big secret and the secret of the Rings – demonstrating the presence of such things in this world and therefore riffing off some elements of Urban Fantasy and transplanting them into a Steampunk setting. The few flaws are more than adequately overcome by the many merits, including the strong characters and the intrigues of the Mistral organisation which contribute to making what should be a relatively easy task – finding and recovering the lost rings of Anubis – far more complicated.

I would definitely consider reading any future works by Tobler on the basis of this strong debut.

[Review] Salvage by Chris Howard

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Review

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Captain Jay Wilraven, Captain Wilraven, Chris Howard, Jon Andreden, Masque Books, novel, Salvage, Science Fiction, Thriller


Salvage

By: Chris Howard

Published in 2013 by Masque Books (an imprint of Prime books)

This entertaining novel starts out as an intriguing maritime thriller. A ship, the Serina salvageBeliz, sinks barely twenty miles from Cuba without a trace. The crew of the salvage ship Marcene, led by Captain Jay Wilraven, are hired by a mysterious backer to locate the wreck and bring it to the surface. What seems at first to be a simple job soon turns out to be far from it as the crew encounter their employer’s extreme paranoia and are very quickly the prisoners of the security team foisted on them ‘for their protection’. It is clear that there is more to the wreck than first appears and the crew begin to take steps to try to find out more, working to undermine the brutal regime of the security team without being caught. This part of the novel – involving as it does shipwrecks, mercenaries, floating cities and Cuban pirates – is firmly entrenched in the realms of a modern day thriller, at least initially. You can make comparisons here between the travails of Captain Wilraven and other maritime protagonists such as the recent Captain Phillips as played by Tom Hanks. The drama here is tense and relatively contemporary, only veering off into fantastic and futuristic areas very late in the narrative.

Meanwhile, interspersed among these scenes of hardship and violence, more or less chapter for chapter, is another tale. This involves a scientist by the name of Jon Andreden who works for a company researching submersibles with artificial intelligence. It is in this story that a vague element of science fiction creeps into the plot as the technology evidenced by Andreden and his company is slightly ahead of what is possible in the modern day. Andreden encounters a woman who refers to herself as ‘merely a Toymaker’ and is intrigued by the wonderful technology she shows to him, which is even further away from what is possible in the real world. She is searching for a missing sister and believes that Andreden can help her. This story takes us through several more thriller style episodes with a definite X-Files twist –  involving black ops teams and secret government conspiracies – before delving into deeper science fiction and finally out the other side into the realms of myth, but I won’t tell you which myth as that might be considered a spoiler.

Initially it seems as if the stories of Wilraven and Andreden are completely unconnected. Indeed, I did wonder at first if there hadn’t been some mix up in the ebook formatting that led to two entirely different novels being mixed together. However, I do not think it creates too much of a spoiler to tell you that there is a link and that this becomes apparent as the story progresses and the two do dovetail nicely into a complete tale as Anreden’s missing persons search brings him closer to the fate of the Serina Beliz and the predicament of the crew of the Marcene.

In all this is a finely crafted novel. Both storylines are well written and researched, especially the scenes involving Captain Wilraven and his crew which show a good knowledge (and possibly personal experience) of the life of a salvage crew. A lot of detail is included in all chapters and the author’s interest in the sea is evident. More importantly, this does not devolve into tedious info dumps. The advanced tech used in the Andreden chapters is also very well portrayed and involves some good ideas, with the AI submersible even emerging as a sympathetic character. The human characters are equally well realised, at least the main ones are. If there is one complaint about the characters it is that of the mercenary squad who serve as the main antagonists for one storyline, only two of them really get given any particular attention in terms of depth of character. The rest are kept as two dimensional ciphers. This is a minor criticism, however, and does not detract from the storyline.

I would definitely recommend this novel to those who like mysteries or thrillers, especially those with a marine theme.

Buy from Amazon

 

Twitter Updates

  • @CBRedWriter Its well deserved. 1 month ago
  • @faithdlee Yes, amazing disco. Much 80s. 1 month ago
  • Just entered the Resistance competition on @PurplePort #photo #competition #PurplePort purpleport.com/competition/vi… 2 months ago
  • Just entered the Cosplay competition on @PurplePort #photo #competition #PurplePort purpleport.com/competition/vi… 2 months ago
  • Just entered the Arriving or leaving competition on @PurplePort #photo #competition #PurplePort purpleport.com/competition/vi… 4 months ago
Follow @areteus

Like me on Facebook

Like me on Facebook

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join the Lurkers

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,006 other followers

Recent Posts

  • Eastercon Artshow
  • Interview: Gillian Polack
  • Blending the Con
  • The Elementals: Russell A Smith interview.
  • New Year Dog

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Lurking Musings
    • Join 2,006 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Lurking Musings
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...