For one night only

I’ve been away to Bristol for the weekend having a very nice wedding anniversary rest and recuperation holiday that involved much food and wine but also a trip to see the Banksy exhibition 'Banksy vs the Bristol Museum', which was better than I anticipated after queuing for nearly three hours to get inside. His art is cool and funny and clever and poignant, some works only fall under one of these adjectives but others take into account more if not all of them at the same time. I’ll add some photos to my flicker stream which can be seen here.

Last week was busy as I went to see a couple of authors both with new books out. First was John Connolly, who was full of energy and eager to regale stories from his trip to New York talking to men who were cops during the late 70s. Having read the new parker novel you appreciate the amount of work and research that John puts into his books. You can read my review below.

Me and John Connolly

The second author was to meet with Alan Campbell who’s third volume from the Deepgate Codex: God of Clocks is out in hardback. Alan is of course the writer of the introduction in the small print and on the back of our meeting I now have a small performance spot at this years Fringe Festival.

I’m joining other writers as part of Underword on their ‘newbie’ night. Details are below:

Wednesday 19th August, 7.50pm–8.40pm

Fingers Piano Bar, Frederick Street

Admission is free so if you’re in Edinburgh come along and give me your support. I’m going to need it.

***

The Strain is the teaming up of Guillermo Del Toro (director of such films as Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy franchise) and Chuck Hogan. Now Del Toro is one of the most prolific directors in the cinema today and I can't imagine he has much time to sit down and write a best seller, therefore I conclude that the ideas are his and in truth Hogan wrote the book.

It’s not bad, a retelling of the Dracula myth but set in modern day New York. It feels very much like a modern American TV show, a sort of 24 or else Heroes format. The story really picks up near the end but as this is part of a trilogy it doesn’t end very satisfactorily. The vampires are interesting, giving a new twist to the idea and staying far away from cool Goth types with tonnes of sex appeal.

The new Charlie Parker novel is brilliant. Stop reading this review and go and buy it. Go on, get it now! Oh all right - The Lovers sees Parker trying to get to the bottom of his family life. Why did his father kill two innocent teenagers and then take his own life? What happened on that fateful night? Why will no one talk about it? Parker travels back to New York to visit his father’s old friends and something is waiting for him, something old and nasty.

The books are getting darker and moving ever closer to a natural conclusion. I feel that Connolly is taking the reader somewhere and that somewhere is going to be a very dark, very bad place. The supernatural elements are also increasing as Parker delves deeper into the honeycomb world that exists around us. The writing as ever is fluid and fast paced, the characters are well rounded and mature and the ideas are frightening. A great book from a continually improving author. Thanks for this book John.

Read this week:

The Strain by Guillermo Del Torro and Chuck Hogan

The Lovers by John Connolly

Watching the Authors

Down to the last chapter of 'The Missing'. I've had my sweep through and a made a few subtle changes. I'll have a call with Maureen later this week, make further changes before printing the entire novel off and reading it as a reader. I want to try and put myself in the position of someone picking the book up off the shelf for the first time and reading it for enjoyment. At the same time it will be read by the chief editor at Libros where further changes can be made.

****

The book festival is now up and running and I was able to see Jasper Fforde read from his new work which is set in a world where colour is a key indicator to your position in life and society. Like all Fforde books the concept sounds alien and completely off kilter but no doubt he'll pull off something unique and funny and tight. If you have never read any of his books pick one up, he's as funny as Pratchett and as clever as Adams. Well worth reading.

Also got to see John Connolly, who was amusing and seemed more at ease speaking to large crowds than when I saw him two years ago. He speaks and reads so fast that he can fit into half an hour what most authors drivel on about for at least two. He read from a work in progress which is a new Charlie Parker novel out next year called 'The Lovers'. It's sound like the supernatural elements have been upped in the new book, which is good because it was something I missed in the last.

I'm off to see Alan Campbell tomorrow which I'm looking forward to.

Outside of the Book festival we saw Jimmy Carr, who was quick and clever and funny and immensely rude in all of the right places.

****

Finished 'The Secret History of Moscow', which is a subterranean fiction work set in Russia where creatures of fable, old Gods and characters from history exist below Moscow. Its from the point of view of Galina who's younger sister turns into a jackdaw and flies away whilst giving birth. Trying to track her sister down she meets with several strange individuals all who suffer from the dislocation of living in modern Russia in a big city that is crime and prejudice ridden.
The book has very much of a Russian feel to it, reading like Tolstoy (thankfully not as long) with plenty of wit. The subterranean world does not feel as fleshed at as the city above but Ekaterina Sedia has an inventive and playful mind and is able to pull on the history of her country and its myths.

'Nevada' is strange and funny and shocking and clever all at the same time. I only heard of Steve Gerber just after he died earlier this year when I discovered he was the creator of Howard the Duck, a character I remember from a film which involved aliens, comedy and inter species love (not something that seemed strange when I was about 10 years old).
This comic book was realised back in 1999 and I picked it up via the excellent book swapping site 'Read it, Swap it', based on Gerber's name. It revolves around an exotic dancer in Las Vegas, her pet ostrich Bolero, time and dimension travel, daemons and cosmic answers. It's a great read and worth picking up, I'll definitely be searching out more of Gerber's work on the back of it.

'Ocean' by Warren Ellis is a straight forward action comic set in space where coffins from an alien race have been discovered in the ice below Europa. It's about corporate greed and the inherent violence of the human species. Great art work by Chris Sprouse and Karl Story.

My final read this week is 'The Vinyl Underground - Watching the Detectives' which is a spin on Hellblazer but with a modern cool edge. It's good and I think it could grow into something very good but at the moment it doesn't have the skill or self awareness of Hellblazer.

****

Read this week:
The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia
The Vinyl Underground - Watching the Detectives by Si Spencer
Ocean by Warren Ellis
Nevada by Steve Gerber

Iron Arkwright

And the Blogger Buddy seems to work fine. Don't know if I'll use it very often buts it’s a handy little device for when I can't be bothered to sign in.

Just finished Iron Angel by Alan Campbell, this is definitely a book 2 kind of book. It feels like you are in the middle of something and you need to have read book 1 (Scar Night - one of my top trumps of last year) to understand what is going on while the whole book ends without really ending at all, but sets itself up for book three.
Like the first it’s probably classed as dark fantasy and as the plot spends most of its time in hell then lightness is not something you expect to come across. It is perhaps this rendering of hell that is of most interest. Campbell's imagination must have been working over time (or else he's been drinking too much coffee) as it’s beautifully rendered and unlike any version of hell I've ever read about before. It is a truly horrific place where every construct is a damned soul warped to a gods imagining.
The first story was personal while this is vast and that is perhaps my only concern. Because so much was happening across such a vast world to a myriad of characters I felt it was harder to connect with the story (plus Carnival is missing, which is shame. I liked her). It's epic but looses some of the heart of the first book.

Also read the Luther Arkwright series by Bryan Talbot (who I'm seeing in August at the festival). I read this on the back of Alice in Sunderland which was one of my favourites of last year. It's different but also just as ambitious, plotting a story across multiple versions of the same world called the multiverse (which I think I'm heard used before in Interworld (goes to check), it is! I wonder if this was homage or just a result of minds thinking alike by Gaiman and Reaves).
The simple black and white drawings help the complex language and ideas expressed which take some time to adjust to. This is not a graphic story without heart or brains and you have to bring your intellect to the party. It takes a little time to get into it but stick with it, it's worth it.

Read this week:
Iron Angel by Alan Campbell
The Adventures of Luther Arkwright Book 1, 2 and 3 by Bryan Talbot

Iron Angel

Last night we went to the signing for Alan Campbell's new novel Iron Angel, follow up to the extremely good Scar Night. It was a quick affair, as Alan points out that he doesn't enjoy public speaking, but he read a brief snippet from the work and then set about pressing the flesh and signing copies.

I'm looking forward to reading this one after reading the short Lye Street which I commented on just a few short weeks ago.

I'll put up a review after I've read it.

****

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood is a reworking of the story of Odysseus but seen from the point of view of a dead Queen Penelope. It's a slight book, a fast read in 195 short pages, but she manages to convey the brutish and violent acts of the ancient Greek myths for what they are, namely complex, incestuous and verging ever so slightly into melodrama.
Unlike the myths, the characters have a real voice, with an internal monologue giving the queen an intelligent and sophisticated view on the world in which she is thrust via marriage to the scheming Odysseus, a man who she loves and tries to understand. His killing of her handmaids on his return from the Trojan War acts as the catalyst for the story with the handmaids acting as a deathly chorus line throughout the book.

I've also just finished The Black Book of Horror but I've promised a review to the BFS. I might be able to post one here after the next release of Prism.

****

Read this week:
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
The Black Book of Horror by Various

Kiwi Article

I found a link today for a recent article I wrote for those nice people at Travel Weekly. It's a small piece on New Zealand and brings back warm fuzzy memories of mine and Madam Vin adventures in that part of the world.

If any of my Southern hemisphere friends are reading please drop me a comment.

*****

Had a nice parcel in the post yesterday from that excellent purveyor of fine fiction - Subterranean Press. It's a copy of Alan Campbell's 'Lye Street', and a beautiful signed edition with a simple Dave Mckean cover. I'll add it to my large pile of to read books.

Spanking comments

Well the writer's event with Alan Campbell was cancelled, so if you want to find out more about him you'll have to give his blog a go at http://anurbanfantasy.blogspot.com/index.html.

As the weather was atrocious we headed to the cinema to watch '28 Weeks Later', which was okay but personally not as good as the first movie. I'm sure the director was attempting to emulate the zombie horror movies of the early 60s that made reference to and commented on Vietnam. This film attempted to sum up America's war in Iraq in similar way, but came over as just a little bit hard handed. That said, great scenes of London being fire bombed. Lady H particularly liked seeing City Airport and the Docklands being levelled as she has had to spend so much time there with work.

Also went to see an The Curse of the Cat People from 1944, which was dreamy and strange and had some absolutely hilarious dialogue (that just wouldn't get past the pc brigade now), about a child being given a spanking for the first time.

Not many cats in it though.