Books I've read but not yet reviewed..

... even though I've been meaning to.


The Leaping by Tom Fletcher

Jack finished university three years ago, but he's still stuck in a dead-end job in a sinister call-centre in Manchester. When the beautiful (and rich) Jennifer comes into his life he thinks he has finally found his ticket out of there. Trouble is that his boss is interested in Jennifer as well, and there's something strangely bestial about him... So when Jennifer buys Fell House, a mysterious old mansion out in remote Cumbria, a house party on a legendary scale seems like the perfect escape for them and their housemates. But as the party spins out of control on a seemingly neverending night, they must face up to the terrifying possibility that not all their guests may be human - and some of them want to feed.

I picked a copy of The Leaping up earlier this year during a random jaunt to Waterstones to feed an itch for some horror flavoured at that time. Jack and his housemates work at a grubby call centre- they're quite a mixed bag, bound together by a mutual hatred for their dead-end jobs and the dream of finding Something Better. The creepiness starts off slowly, and builds towards creating a claustrophobic and unsettling vibe; even a stark and rolling countryside becomes something sinister in Fletcher's hands. I really enjoyed this- it starts off innocently enough but quickly snowballs into a sordid and savage fever dream. Recommended.

Department 19: The Rising by Will HillDepartment 19: The Rising by Will Hill

After the terrifying attack on Lindisfarne at the end of the first book [our review here!], Jamie, Larissa and Kate are recovering at Department 19 headquarters, waiting for news of Dracula’s stolen ashes. 

They won’t be waiting for long. There are only 91 days to Zero Hour.

Vampire forces are gathering. Old enemies are getting too close. And Dracula… is rising.

Ah, Department 19. As fast and furious as its predecessor, if not more so. This time Jamie and the rest of the Dept 19 crew are working to a deadline to try prevent Dracula from rising and assuming his full and terrible power. The Rising is a chunky beast, but you don't notice it once things get going- the action and pace is unrelenting The pages fly by as Jamie and his friends have to deal with their own troubles over and above while trying to stop the world's most powerful vampire from plunging the world into a bloodsoaked darkness. The Rising was a fun and exhilarating read, complete with lashings of gore (and a fantastic scene where Hill turns a Hollywood cliche on its head). You will need to have read Department 19 to really appreciate it though, although that's no hardship. 

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

Johannes Cabal has never pretended to be a hero of any kind. There is, after all, little heroic about robbing graves, stealing occult volumes, and being on middling terms with demons.

His purpose, however, is noble. His researches are all directed to raising the dead. Not as monstrosities but as people, just as they were when they lived: physically, mentally, and spiritually. For such a prize, some sacrifices are necessary. One such sacrifice was his own soul, but he now sees that was a mistake - it's not just that he needs it for his research to have validity, but now he realises he needs it to be himself.

Unfortunately, his soul now rests within the festering bureaucracy of Hell. Satan may be cruel and capricious but, most dangerously, he is bored. It is Cabal's unhappy lot to provide him with amusement.

In short, a wager: in return for his own soul, Cabal must gather one hundred others. Placed in control of a diabolical carnival - created to tempt to contentiousness, to blasphemy, argumentation and murder, but one that may also win coconuts - and armed only with his intelligence, a very large handgun, and a total absence of whimsy, Cabal has one year.

What really made this pop for me was the distinctive voice that came through in the writing. Wry and laced with a wonderful black humour, it hooked me from the first page and didn't let me go until the last. Cabal isn't a nice guy (the cover blurb refers to him having 'the moral conscience of anthrax' - brilliant!) and he stays that way throughout, which is as gratifying as it is fun. I highly recommend taking Cabal for a spin - I'm certainly going to be picking up the others in the series.

Book Shenanigans in London this Saturday, 18th August

This coming Saturday, 18th August, Blackwells is hosting a fantastic line-up of YA writers on a panel (which I get to moderate, the fools!) and I thought I'd share with you who will be in attendance.

From Blackwell's website:

High Fantasy Night in Blackwell's Charing Cross Road, August 17th at 6pm

We are thrilled to be hosting a panel of exciting young authors who write genre fiction for the Young Adult market, though that doesn't mean old adults can't read it too!

Tom Pollock's debut novel, The City's Son, is about graffiti artist Beth Bradley who stumbles upon a hidden world of monsters and miracles underneath London's streets. It is the first in The Skyscraper Throne Trilogy and is a story about family, friends and monsters, and how you can't always tell which is which.

Tanya Byrne is a writer, feminist, drinker of tea and sniffer of books. Her debut novel, Heart-Shaped Bruise, is a compelling, brutal and heart-breaking story about identity, infamy and how far a person might go to seek revenge.

The author of Department 19 and its thrilling sequel, Department 19: The Rising, Will Hill is a growing name in the Young Adult genre fiction market. When Jamie Carpenter's mother is kidnapped by strange creatures, he finds himself dragged into Department 19, the government's most secret agency.

When not writing ads for videogames featuring people being blown up, Kim Curran writes books for young adults featuring people being blown up, namely her debut novel Shift. She volunteers as a writing mentor at The Ministry of Stories and her greatest achievement was when Tom Baker told her a script she wrote was funny. He was being paid.  <-  I have it on authority that a handful of pre-release books for Shift will be on sale. 

James Dawson, author of dark teen thriller Hollow Pike, grew up in West Yorkshire, writing imaginary episodes of Doctor Who. Until recently, James worked as a teacher, specialising in PSHCE and behaviour. He is most proud of his work surrounding bullying and family diversity. He now writes full time and lives in London.

To reserve your tickets for either of these events, please email events.london@blackwell.co.uk 

***

This is going to be a mad event - and we're hoping to see lots of faces there.

The panel is aimed at readers and interested folk who want to find out about writing and what makes writers tick.  If any of this is of interest to you, do email Blackwells to reserve tickets - it's free and to be honest, what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than chinwagging with a bunch of creative types and getting books signed?

Random Bits #2 - 2012

So today has been a crazy day with news in the publishing world. But this one especially has made me grin like a mad person.




International best-selling author Audrey Niffenegger is to pen her first ever story for a commercial trade anthology, after signing to Solaris’ forthcoming short story collection, Magic.

Solaris are proud to announce that Niffenegger, whose novel The Time Traveller's Wife has sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide, is to produce a story for the themed anthology of the occult and arcane, due for release in November 2012 in North America and the UK, in both paperback and ebook.

The story marks Audrey’s first ever appearance in any commercial trade anthology and is the third themed collection from Solaris editor-in-chief Jonathan Oliver. The previous critically-acclaimed anthologies include The End of the Line, which featured stories set on the Underground, and House of Fear, which rebooted the haunted house for the 21st Century. The titles garnered ecstatic reviews, with The Times describing End of the Line’s stories as “exceptionally good”.

“I'm delighted to be involved in this project,” said Audrey Niffenegger. “My story is called The Wrong Fairie and is about Charles Altamont Doyle. He was a Victorian artist who was institutionalized for alcoholism. He was also the father of Arthur Conan Doyle, and he believed in fairies.”

Niffenegger became a publishing sensation thanks to The Time Traveller’s Wife, published in 2003 and made into a Hollywood movie in 2009, and her subsequent novel was the subject of intense bidding by publishing houses.

“It's really very exciting to be working with Audrey, whose novels The Time Traveller's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry show an author with a great talent for subverting genre norms and delivering the unexpected,” said Jonathan Oliver. “Audrey's story is sure to make a great addition to Magic.”

The line-up for Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane is set to include other high profile authors, including Richard and Judy Book Club-choice Alison Littlewood, NYT Bestseller Dan Abnett, and celebrated authors such as Christopher Fowler, Storm Constantine, Robert Shearman, Paul Meloy, Sophia McDougall, Will Hill, Gemma Files, along with new writers such as Sarah Lotz, Lou Morgan and Thana Niveau and more.

Will Hill talks to MFB about his Horror Influences

All joking aside, we are very proud to support Will and Department 19. We are also very proud to be part of his official blog tour. And a big thanks goes out to everyone at HC publicity for getting this all done. And also to Mary Byrne for being such great fun to work with.

When the invitation came to attend this top-secret unveiling at the War Rooms, Mark and I had no idea what to expect. The letter came in a brown envelope with this WWII typeface. The letter itself was in a thick cream envelope sealed with this waxed seal:

The letter itself, similarly written in this old-fashioned typewriter style urged us to not tell anyone about the invitation and that operatives would later be in touch. It also cited the Official Secrets Act...

It was great fun being part of  something a company worked so hard on and then, unexpectedly, we met this young guy at FantasyCon late the one night, after probably too many drinks. I noticed this cool tattoo on his arm and thought: it looks a bit familiar. Then Mark turned to me and said: THIS is the guy. And I went: What guy? And Mark goes: THE guy? The author. The event we're going to NEXT week at the War Rooms. And I went: OMG, serendipity is thy name. Needless to say we tried pumping Will for info about what he had written and no matter how much boozy things we bought him, he did not cave.  Well, not really.

We chatted till the small hours of the morning and knew that Will was one of us: a geeky kid. His influences were the same things we watched and loved. So it gives us great joy to host this first leg of the blogtour on MFB, with Will chatting to us about his Horror Influences.

Take it away, dude:

***

Department 19 is pretty obviously influenced by Dracula and Frankenstein. In fact, influenced doesn’t really do it justice – it’s fair to say that without the two great horrors of the nineteenth century, it wouldn’t exist at all!

But while I was writing it, and in the years before when I was thinking about it, when it was percolating in the back of my head, I was influenced by far more than just those two classic works. Here are a few of the films, books and characters that led me to write Department 19…


1. Best Horror Film

I always say Jaws when I get asked this question, partly because it’s my favourite film of all time, and because I think it’s an almost perfect piece of cinema. But because it’s far more than just a horror film – it’s also a thriller, and an analysis of small-town politics, of class prejudice and family dynamics – I’m going to go with John Carpenter’s original Halloween.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone – Jamie’s surname is not a coincidence! The iconic, much copied opening of Halloween, where young Michael Myers murders his sister, is, to my mind at least, one of the most unsettling sequences ever committed to film – that sense of horror invading normal life, for reasons that are difficult, or even impossible to understand, is very much what I was going for with the prologue of Department 19.


2. Best Horror TV Show

There have been very few straight horror TV series in the last couple of decades, and the ones that have appeared have tended to not last very long – horror is by its very definition challenging, and uncomfortable, and the major networks on both sides of the Atlantic tend to prefer not to ask that much of their audiences. Of the ones that did make it to the screen, I loved the The X-Files, although it’s more SFF than horror, and Carnivale and Supernatural. But there’s only one answer to this question, really – Joss Whedon’s epic, masterful Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Yes, it was about a cheerleader who killed vampires, yes it was pre-watershed and aimed squarely at teenagers, but the people who derided it for those reasons missed out on some of the finest writing, plotting, acting and directing of the last twenty years. Effortlessly imaginative, brilliantly funny and witty, genuinely scary, and set in a world where people really die, where grief and loss are real and don’t disappear at the end of the episode, it was a masterclass in long-form drama. It belongs, in my humble opinion, in the same league as The Sopranos and The Wire, and remains my favourite TV series of all time.


3. Best Horror Book

There are more than a handful of horror novels that I’ve read repeatedly, and that I know I’ll read again one day – The Books Of Blood and Weaveworld by Clive Barker, Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill, Meat by Joseph D’Lacey. But there’s one novel that, for me, towers over all the others – Stephen King’s It.

Pennywise from IT

When I was writing Department 19 I spent months working out the backstory of the titular organization, because I wanted it to feel like it lived and breathed, like it had a history that pre-dated the story in the book, a history that informed the present. In It, Stephen King does the same, but for an entire small town in Maine. As a piece of literary construction it’s nothing short of miraculous – the story jumps between two parallel quests involving the same characters thirty years apart, as well as the dark, bloody history of Derry, a town with a terrible secret underneath it.

But it’s far more than a literary exercise – the enormity of King’s ambition is matched by the brilliance of his writing. He is, as far as I’m concerned, the finest writer of children around, and this extremely rare skill is unleashed here – the seven children around who the story revolves are potentially my favourite literary characters; they live and breathe, they play and bicker and fight, they face unimaginable horror and they stick together, because that’s what you do for your friends. It’s just a stunning, stunning novel – it’s more than 1000 pages long and I reckon I’ve read it fifteen times, at least. That should tell you how good I think it is…


4. Favourite Horror Character

This is incredibly difficult, and I warn you now that I’m going to cheat a little bit here. There are so many characters from the world of horror that I love – Bill Denbrough from It, Buffy Summers and Xander Harris from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Gentle from Clive Barker’s Imajica, Roland Deschain from Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, to name just a few. But a huge part of what excited me about writing Department 19 was the opportunity to use some of the greatest characters from the history of literature, regardless of genre. Dracula looms large over Department 19; he is the reason it was founded in the first place. But another classic character plays a far more central role in the story.

Frankenstein and his creation are just flat out brilliant characters, and the cheat is that I’m choosing them both. But they are almost indivisible; the complexity in Shelley’s original novel, the heartbreaking motivations of both the creature and the scientist, make the novel so much more than just a horror story, even though Shelley herself was surprised, and even somewhat disappointed, at herself for having dreamt up such a gruesome tale.

The novel’s central concept is the definition of humanity; can the creature be considered human despite the circumstances of his ‘birth’ and can Frankenstein be still considered merely human following his mastery of life and death, or has he ascended towards the God-like? It’s powerful, thrillingly intelligent stuff, and it hinges on the beautiful dichotomy between the creator, for whom the creature represents his greatest achievement despite the evil things it has done, and his creation, a being that wants nothing more than to experience companionship but finds only fear and rejection. The mutually destructive nature of their relationship, the way each comes to define the other, leads to one of the great endings of horror literature, an ending that left me wondering ‘what if?’ and led directly into the genesis of Department 19.

Please check out the banner below for the rest of Will's tour:

Expose: Secret Government Department Revealed

A Downing Street spokesman was today forced to admit to the existence of a secret department within the British government. Rumours about Department 19 have been in circulation for many years, but previous governments have consistently denied its existence. Publication of a “tell all” book today by HarperCollins, which exposes the inner workings of the highly classified department, led to the government’s admission. The book, believed to have been written by a former employee of the organisation, under the pseudonym Will Hill, is called simply Department 19.

Expose writen by author known as "Will Hill"

According to the author, Department 19’s brief is to investigate supernatural occurrences. Staffed in part by former Special Forces operatives, they are equipped with hi tech weaponry including ultraviolet light pistols, pneumatic guns and advanced explosives. The government spokesman would not confirm the particulars of the work that these special operatives are currently engaged in, but there are suggestions that an unexplained explosion off the north east coast last week can be traced back to Department 19.

Asked whether the Department 19 operatives were trained to track and capture or destroy supernatural beings, including vampires, the spokesman said “I could not possibly comment”.

More information on http://www.department19exists.com/

MFB have uncovered some "Department 19" propaganda.  We are doubtful that any one would be fooled by this. It is clearly part of some brainwashing scheme that the covert operatives in the alleged Department 19 is forced to endure.  We ask ourselves: if they are in fact real, why have we only heard about them now?





Department 19 Propaganda

Having had the opportunity in the past to meet with some of these so-called "operatives" at a secret location late last year, Team MFB are convinced that this is some kind of hoax the Government has perpetrated in order to draw attention away from the current political and social unrest in Great Brittain.   But, having said that, we can assure you that "Will Hill" knows how to spin a trendly little yarn for today's teens. 
Mark is convinced that we are being given exposure by all these authors to supernatural creatures "living among us", in order to prepare us for the inevitable invasion.  I think it is unlikely - we would have heard something by now.  No one has the power to stop the signal and the truth!  And personally, Sarah and I believe in biker-boots for stomping and big guns and cricket bats. 

Bring on that invasion, we're ready.

Department 19 by Will Hill

In a secret supernatural battle that's been raging for over a century, the stakes have just been raised – and they're not wooden anymore.

When Jamie Carpenter's mother is kidnapped by strange creatures, he finds himself dragged into Department 19, the government's most secret agency.

Fortunately for Jamie, Department 19 can provide the tools he needs to find his mother, and to kill the vampires who want him dead. But unfortunately for everyone, something much older is stirring, something even Department 19 can't stand up against…

It’s not hard to feel sorry for Jamie Carpenter.

His father died in a hail of bullets two years ago, leaving him and his mother with the legacy of being labelled as the family of a traitor and terrorist collaborator. The stories follow them wherever they move, lending the bullying he suffers at school an air of legitimacy amongst his peers. Friendless and unable to cross the widening emotional gulf between his mother and himself, Jamie has become withdrawn and cynical, the grief of his father’s death buried beneath layers of confusion and anger at what he’d left them with.

Until the secrets of his father’s past come looking for them, and his mother is taken by someone -something- that shouldn’t exist but that raises suppressed memories of the night his father died. It also brings him into contact with the top secret and enigmatic Department 19, and the war being waged in the shadows- a war only Department 19 can wage.

Even as legends come to life around him Jamie discovers that despite everything changing, some things remain a constant. Like the contempt his father is held in, a burden that follows him into this new and initially unwelcome life. But there are threads here that he can follow to unravel the truth of his father’s death -and his life. But to do that, and to survive and save his mother and himself, Jamie has to discover the strength inside himself and focus the long simmering anger within. But in a world where death is one mistake away that’s easier said than done.

The first thing that struck me about Department 19 is how undeniably more-ish it is. I opened the book on the train home after picking it up, and snapped at Liz when she shook my shoulder a few seconds later. Only it wasn’t a few seconds later- we were at our stop and I was 50 odd pages into it.

It’s a very cool concept, and the combination of the legends of Dracula and a secret organisation that’s a cultural smoothie of Blade, Alex Rider, Young Bond, SAS, B.P.R.D and MI5 has given Will a veritable treasure trove of cool stuff to play with, and he doesn’t waste the opportunity.

Amidst the cool weapons and lethal enemies (Huzzah- vampires that kill people and enjoy doing it!) Jamie has a lot to deal with, both internally and externally. There are times he comes across as petulant, but by and large you can understand where he’s coming from and live with it. Cleverly woven in amongst this is a backstory that tells how Jamie’s family came to be caught up in Department 19 and the deadly grudge that Dracula’s protege holds against them.

Written in a fast paced, visual style with no punches in the action stakes and where the vampires will eat your face long before they snog you, Department 19 sinks its fangs in from the start and doesn’t let go until the end.