Tall Story by Candy Gourlay

Synopsis:

Be careful what you wish for . . .

Andi is short. And she has lots of wishes. She wishes she could play on the school basketball team, she wishes for her own bedroom, but most of all she wishes that her long lost half brother, Bernardo, could come and live in London, where he belongs.

Then Andi's biggest wish comes true and she's minutes away from becoming someone's little sister. As she waits anxiously for Bernardo to arrive from the Philippines, she hopes he'll turn out to be tall and just as mad as she is about basketball. When he finally arrives, he's tall all right. But he's not just tall ... he's a GIANT.

In a novel packed with humour and quirkiness, Gourlay explores a touching sibling relationship and the clash of two very different cultures.

Tall Story by Candy Gourlay looks like a small unprepossessing book - something you might pick up as a snack read between heftier volumes.

Yes, it's small but for all its smallness it packs quite a punch. I read it a few weeks ago and I've not been able to stop talking to friends about it and I've not been able to stop thinking about it. I don't know why. Some books just have this bit of magic about them and Tall Story has a lot of magic.

Andi is a skinny small eleven year old kid who no one really notices except for the fact that she is an ace basketball player, tiny size notwithstanding. There is more to Andi than slouchy clothes and grumbling. She has a big heart, she has a heart the size of a giant, in fact and I had the impression that if Andi could, she'd be punching holes in the sky. Her voice is big, clear and lovely. I fell in love with her immediately. Here is a strong heroine who keeps believing, no matter what. She gets her parents, she gets her mum and she understand her mum's heartbreak at not having her oldest with her. By this I mean Bernardo, who is the Tall in the title.

When Barnardo was very small, a baby still, his mum had to leave him behind in the Philippines as she couldn't afford to look after him in London, which is where she relocated to. For many many years she's been trying to bring him across to live with her and Andi and Andi's dad. For many years she's been failing. But eventually the true news came through - Bernardo can come and live with them. Fantastical excitement ensues.

But Mum's family have kept a secret from her. They didn't actually ever tell her quite how big Bernardo's grown. Eventually, they came clean but Andi's mum never tells Andi quite how tall her big brother is. Not until she sees him at the airport for the first time. And he's eight foot tall!

The story moves from Andi's point of view, to Bernardo's. It tells the story of the past, it tells the story of the present.

Ms. Gourlay manages to write fluidly, taking us deeper into both Andi and Bernardo's stories. She shows great empathy writing Bernardo's story, the story of a boy who unexpectedly starts growing. Who is maybe not the fastest or the most intelligent but someone who is inherently kind and generous. Tied in with Bernardo and the area he lives in, is the legend of another Bernardo, someone who had become a legend in his own lifetime, many years before. Everyone in Bernardo's village is now convinced that Bernardo is the new Bernardo and well, this entails me doing a reveal about who Bernardo really is, but I won't go there. The mythology is so deftly woven throughout the storyline you don't for a second mis-believe it. Cleverly making use of religion and long ago beliefs we are presented with a very clear picture of this tiny part of the Philippines.

Andi's story is less big, if you excuse the unintended pun. Her struggle is more internal and her story would be an easy one to overlook but the author makes very sure that this doesn't happen. She imbues Andi with a life and vividness that is vibrant and real. We feel Andi's success as she is chosen to be part of a basketball team, how she never ever misses her drops into the basket, we feel for her when it transpires that they have to move and the realisation that she has to give up this brand new place in a team. We empathise with her when at the new school she wants to try out for the team but they don't take on girls.

Throw a freak of a big brother into the mix and Andi's life is hell, especially when her parents leave her to mind her brother as they have to take extra shifts at work.

Obviously I'm not going to reveal how the story pans out but it is deliciously wonderful and uplifting and it made me laugh and cry at the same time. I definitely think that David Fickling Books have a winner on their hands and I hope that Tall Story makes a big splash because it genuinely does deserve it. Small in size, but big in impact, Tall Story won't leave a dry eye in the house. It's so many things but mostly it's powerful storytelling at its best.

Find Candy's website here, the Tall Story website here and of course this is the David Fickling books website. Tall Story is out later this month.

The Dead - David Gatward

Lazarus Stone is about to turn sixteen when, one night, his normal life is ripped to shreds by a skinless figure drenched in blood. He has a message:

The dead are coming.

Hell is full, and they have found a way through to this world.

Now Lazarus is all that stands in their way. To fulfil his destiny, he must confront not only the dark past of his family, but horrors more gruesome than even hell could event – with only a winged angel and his best mate to help him. And it all begins with the reek of rotting flesh...

Poor Lazarus.

One ordinary night he’s at home chatting to his mate Craig, whinging about his dad being away from home yet again, making plans for a few days away in Craig’s parents’ caravan. A bit dysfunctional, but otherwise blessedly mundane.

By the time the sun rises though, he will have come face to face with a blood drenched fallen angel, had everything he’s ever known thrown into doubt and seen hell ripped open in his lounge.

And from there things only get worse as the truth about his absent father comes to light, sending Lazarus and Craig are thrown into a desperate flight to find his father and stop the dead from punching through into our world, with only an apparently alcoholic angel to guide them.

Lazarus is a likeable character: a normal, reluctant student who’s desperately trying to cling to the life he’s always known, flawed as it might be; it’s a vain attempt though as Gatward quickly drags him into a hell tainted reality.

Clocking in at 230 pages, The Dead is a quick read but it packs mean punch between the covers, creating a clear sense of Lazarus’ life diverging from normality, a journey punctuated with some truly terrifying imagery and magnificent gore. Equal parts terror, splatter and fun, The Dead’s a great read and I look forward to the second instalment in the series (The Dark, due in October this year).

Find David's website here. The dead arrive 1st July 2010. Are you prepared?

Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve

Synopsis


FEVER CRUMB is set many generations before the events of Mortal Engines, in whose dazzling world huge, predatory cities chase and devour each other. Now, London is a riot-torn, ruinous town, clinging to a devastated landscape and hiding an explosive secret. Is Fever, adopted daughter of Dr Crumb, the strange key that will unlock its dangerous mysteries?

So far I've only read the first in the Mortal Engines series but was drawn to this as, although in the same fantasy world, has a whole new set of characters. Fever, found in a basket as a baby, has lived her whole life in the head of a statue. This head houses the engineers of which her adoptive father is one so naturally Fever followed in his teachings. She has shunned hair (irrelevant) and emotions (ridiculous) and is content in a world of logic. However, an eccentric and minor archaeologist called Kit Solent asks the engineers for Fever to help him in his work. Fever's emergence into London society sets off a chain of events which develop at an alarming speed.

Initially I must admit that Fever reminded me a little of Spock with her belief in all things rational but as soon as she meets Kit and his two children her struggle with the logic and emotions becomes endearing. She begins to remember things that she can't possibly know: rooms she's never seen and people she's never met. Unbeknownst to Fever and Kit, she has been noticed and Londoners believe her to be Scriven; a race that controlled London and were eventually overthrown. Any Scriven that appear in London are to be hunted and killed by the Skinners or rather the last remaining Skinner, Bagman Creech. Due to his age he now requires a boy to help him which is where the loyal and endearing Charley Shallow comes in. He shadows Bagman and takes his position of Skinner's apprentice very seriously.

It becomes apparent that Kit has a hidden agenda that Fever struggles to comprehend. The answers that she seeks take her all over London and beyond and all the while Bagman and Charley keep her in their sights. There are so many wonderful things about Fever Crumb that I haven't the space to mention them all. The place names are pure genius: Ox-fart Circus, Chel's See and Pimlicker to name a few. Other parts of our life have survived into the era of Fever Crumb in a slightly twisted way such as the religious procession made up of people wearing, "Robes and pointed hats ... chanting the name of some old-world prophet, 'Hari, Hari! Hari Potter!' "

Although the story is full of fast-paced action it also has a thread of touching humanity running through it. I really felt Fever's confusion as she struggles with her identity. Kit, a wonderful father, is shown grieving for his dead wife. Dr. Crumb's story is also explored and it was a joy to see him change as the book progresses. Shrike makes his first appearance too and his story (before being turned into a Stalker) is both enlightening and desperately sad.

I'm always wittering on about covers but I must mention the limited edition hard cover which is gorgeous for those who like the illustrations of the Mortal Engines reprints.

This is the perfect introduction to the amazing world that Philip Reeve has created. Don't worry if you've never read any of his work before as Fever Crumb is a wonderful, action packed and touching story that can serve as a way in or as a new addition to those who have already read the Mortal Engines series.

Michael Ridpath talks Iceland, sagas and shows us some photos

I was so excited reading Where The Shadows Lie last week, I impetiously emailed poor Michael Ridpath and gushed at him. He was clearly so taken aback by it and so stunned by my mad word skills, he agreed to a guest blog before he had time to register how devious I was! I was keen to find out more about him writing WTSL, how it came to and the locations he uses and he's kindly complied with the following guest blog:

***

Where The Shadows Lie is an important book for me. It is four years since I decided to change genres, and this is the result.

After writing eight financial thrillers, I decided to try my hand at something else. The motivation was partly commercial: although I thought my books were improving in quality, sales were declining steadily, a trend which I put down to a lack of interest on the part of the general reader in financial fiction. But also, after spending years dealing with subjects I knew well, I wanted to move on to subjects which were both new and interesting.

After examining the shelves of a local Smith’s to look for popular areas that appealed to me, I decided to embark on a detective series. For that I needed a distinctive detective. My sub-conscious settled on Iceland. I had been on a book tour to the country ten years before and found it a fascinating, quirky place. For years I had tried to figure out how I could set a financial thriller there, but couldn’t see how (of course now it would be dead easy!).

So I needed an Icelandic detective. The name was easy – Magnus. The late Magnus Magnusson is every Englishman’s favourite Icelander, and his name was far too good to waste. But then a problem arose: I needed a detective who spoke Icelandic but was also a bit of an outsider. This was partly because I am obviously an outsider and would find it hard to pull off book after book written from the point of view of someone whose language I don’t speak. But also I wanted to point out the many extraordinary aspects of Icelandic society, which would be difficult if Magnus was a native – to him they wouldn’t seem worth mentioning.

So I devised a complicated background for Magnus, which not only addressed this difficulty, but also gave him a set of personal insecurities of the kind that any good fictional detective should carry around with him.

Magnus’s story goes as follows. He was born in Iceland, but his parents split up when he was a child, and Magnus followed his father to Boston where his father took a job as a professor of Mathematics. Magnus grew up a lone Icelandic kid in an American High School, reading the sagas for comfort. He went to university and was planning to go to Law School, when his father was murdered. The local police couldn’t find the killer, and despite his obsession with the task, neither could Magnus. But it caused him to change his career plans and become a cop.

Twelve years later, he is a homicide detective in Boston when he gets caught up in a police corruption scandal and he needs to disappear for his own safety. The Reykjavík police are looking for an adviser to help them with increasing levels of big-city crime. So Magnus moves to Reykjavík.

He still doesn’t know who killed his father. I do, but I’m not telling you, or him. Not for a few books anyway.

So, I was happy with my detective, but I needed a plot. I did some background research. I read some sagas, the medieval tales of Icelandic settlers in the tenth century, and found them fascinating. So, a lost saga then. How about a professor of Icelandic Literature found dead at his summer house?

OK, so what’s so great about this saga? I wanted something really big, something that would resonate beyond Iceland. An answer came quickly: Lord of The Rings.

Not bad. I didn’t know much about Tolkien, but I thought it plausible that he had an interest in the sagas. I remembered at university reading an academic article by him published in 1936 about Beowulf. So I did some more reading.

Amazingly something happened which almost never does: the more I found out about Tolkien and the sagas, the more it all fit together.

Tolkien was obsessed by Icelandic sagas, from the time when, as a child, he first read the translation by William Morris of the Saga of the Volsungs. He started an Old Norse drinking club at Leeds University in the 1920s, where they sang Icelandic drinking songs and read Icelandic tales. It turns out there is a bloody great volcano in Iceland called Mount Hekla which erupts all the time. It was known as the Mouth of Hell in medieval times, and is the perfect place to drop a ring.

The most famous lost saga in Iceland is Gaukur’s Saga. Not much is known about Gaukur except that he lived at a farm called Stöng in the shadow of Mount Hekla. So much in the shadow it was covered in ash in an eruption in 1104 and rediscovered in 1939. This is a replica.

So everything slotted into place. Brilliant!

The problem was I didn’t quite believe the story myself. I don’t go in for the supernatural very much, and I didn’t want my man Magnus to either. You can’t write a story you don’t believe in.

What to do? Go to the pub with my friend Toby, that’s what. By the third pint Toby had the problem sorted. Magnus could remain cynical, so could I, and so could the readers, if they so wished. Some of the other characters in the book would be credulous. And I should inject just the tiniest hint of something otherworldly in the book, the barest clue, to set the reader wondering.

That worked. I started typing.

I won’t tell you the ending. But I will show you. (Liz: This photo is Gulfoss where the climax takes place - it's pretty evocative and scary and beautiful!)

With those ingredients, how could I fail to make a good story?

Michael Ridpath

June 2010

**Just a small note: all photos featured in this guest blog was taken by Michael during his visits to Iceland. Except for the Tolkien photo, of course. That was nabbed from here.

Mythopoeic Awards Shortlist

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature

Barbara Campbell, Trickster’s Game trilogy consisting of Heartwood, Bloodstone, and Foxfire (DAW)

Greer Gilman, Cloud & Ashes: Three Winter’s Tales (Small Beer Press)

Robert Holdstock, Avilion (Gollancz)

Catherynne M. Valente, Palimpsest (Spectra)

Jo Walton, Lifelode (NESFA Press)

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature

Kage Baker, The Hotel Under the Sand (Tachyon)

Shannon Hale, Books of Bayern consisting of The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Forest Born (Bloomsbury)

Grace Lin, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Little, Brown)

Malinda Lo, Ash (Little, Brown)

Lisa Mantchev, Eyes Like Stars (Feiwel & Friends)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies

Gavin Ashenden, Charles Williams: Alchemy and Integration (Kent State, 2008)

Dimitra Fimi, Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Douglas Charles Kane, Arda Reconstructed: The Creation of the Published Silmarillion (Lehigh Univ. Press, 2009)

Michael Ward, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (Oxford, 2008)

Elizabeth A. Whittingham, The Evolution of Tolkien’s Mythology: A Study of the History of Middle-earth (McFarland, 2008)

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies

Lucas H. Harriman, Lilith in a New Light: Essays on George Macdonald’s Fantasy Novel (McFarland, 2008)

Farah Mendlesohn, Rhetorics of Fantasy (Wesleyan Univ. Press, 2008)

Marek Oziewicz, One Earth, One People: The Mythopoeic Fantasy Series of Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L’Engle and Orson Scott Card (McFarland, 2008)

Leslie A. Sconduto, Metamorphoses of the Werewolf: A Literary Study from Antiquity through the Renaissance (McFarland 2008)

Caroline Sumpter, The Victorian Press and the Fairy Tale (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)


The winners of this year’s awards will be announced during Mythcon XLI, to be held from July 9 -12, in Dallas, Texas. A complete list of Mythopoeic Award winners is available on the Society web site: http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/

Where the Shadows Lie by Michael Ridpath

Synopsis:

Amid Iceland’s wild, volcanic landscape, rumours swirl of an eight-hundred-year old manuscript inscribed with a long-lost saga about a ring of terrible power.

A rediscovered saga alone would be worth a fortune, but, if the rumours can be believed, there is something much more valuable about this one. Something worth killing for. Something that will cost Professor Agnar Haraldsson his life.

Untangling murder from myth is Iceland-born, Boston-raised homicide detective Magnus Jonson. Seconded to the Icelandic Police Force for his own protection after he runs afoul of a drug cartel back in Boston, Magnus also has his own reasons for returning to the country of his birth for the first time in nearly two decades – the unsolved murder of his father.

And as Magnus is about to discover, the past casts a long shadow in Iceland.

Binding Iceland’s landscape and history, secrets and superstitions in a strikingly original plot that will span several volumes, Where The Shadows Lie is a thrilling new series from an established master.

There are few books that are so beloved, so read and re-read and analysed as the Lord of the Rings.

Personally, I’ve never succumbed to the massive sequence’s lure. I loved The Hobbit and I loved reading the various sagas LoTR was based on, but I’ve never managed to get further than The Fellowship, but that’s just me.

I can’t argue lineage or speak Quenya but I still count myself a fan. I adored the movies, I loved the back-story to the various characters and am probably the only person who has never read LoTR but who has read The Silmarillion.

You may wonder what tangent I’m on writing this review. The book is called Where The Shadows Lie and not Reminisce about LoTR and Tolkien. But bear with me, all of this will make sense. I promise.

Where The Shadows Lie introduces us to Magnus Jonson, a Boston police officer who discovered some nefarious goings that involved a well-thought of cop in his precinct and a pretty nasty Dominican drug dealer. After a direct attack on his life, his superintendent decides to reconsider a request from Iceland and sends Magnus on secondment to Iceland, to work closely with the police force there, until the drug lord’s trial comes to fruition in the States.

Magnus goes reluctantly. He grew up half in Iceland (till the age of 12), half in the States (till present) so he can speak the language and he’s used to the Icelandic inhabitants’ quirks but he’s not really used to the way the police work there. But more importantly, what he does not expect is the impact moving back to Iceland has on him emotionally. He fondly remembers the time he spent with his father, their talks about the Icelandic sagas and more recently, and sadly, his father’s unsolved murder. He acutely feels his isolation as he has family in Iceland, but no one who would want to speak to him, because of his father. They blame him directly for Magnus’s mother’s death and things did not end well between them when Magnus was there last.

When Magnus arrives in Reykjavik on secondment, he’s hurried off to the site of the country’s first murder in a very long time indeed. A professor has been killed at his weekend home. An investigation reveals that he had been working on the translation of a very old saga, one the world did not know about. A saga about a cursed ring and how its owner failed to throw into the yawning mouth of an inferno and how each subsequent wearer of that ring is cursed.

Magnus tries puzzling out the modern day quandary of the two suspects, characters called Gimli and Isuldur via online forums, certain that one of these two men, one English, the other a wealthy American, had something to do with the murder of the professor. The two men had the motive and the opportunity as they were both huge Tolkien fans, almost rabidly so. They were prepared to do almost anything to own the Saga on which their all-time favourite book is based.

As the story unfolds – pretty darn seamlessly, I may add – the back story of the lost saga is filled in. There are several reveals, plot twists and characters coming clean. I completely rooted for the wrong person to be the murderer (dammit!) and found that the mystery of lost saga and that of the professor’s murder is solved pretty adequately.

What binds the story together is the force of the storytelling, the under-stated bleakness of the Icelandic countryside and the subtle differences highlighted throughout the novel between Magnus the American man and Magnus the Icelandic boy. What was once and what is now. This sense of difference and isolation is magnified when his work colleagues are friendly, yet remote, with the officer in charge of the case being not at all welcoming.

The financial climate is mentioned a few times in the novel, it’s touched on, to indicate that everyone in Iceland is currently suffering, with a lot of people losing their jobs and businesses after the financial turmoil last year. More than anything else, it makes Where The Shadows Lie a very pertinent novel, as the entire story evolves from one person who decides to reveal the saga to the world, through the subsequently murdered professor, as the money is needed to keep a business afloat.

I found Where The Shadows Lie a well written, intelligent thriller novel, teetering on being a complete cross-over for fans of magical realism and urban fantasy with a detective noir twist. Having never been to Iceland, but having seen photos and documentaries, and having read various sagas for school and uni and for nerdy pleasure reading, there is an otherworldliness about the place that Ridpath taps into that lifts this “yet another police procedural” from the mundane to the noteworthy. It’s more than just the subject, the lost saga, that pushes this novel out of the crowd. It’s also the clear writing style and the main character that is noteworthy. We leave Magnus at the end of the novel with a murder solved, a blossoming relationship and a trip back to the States to bear witness in the drug trial he almost got murdered for. But we know he’s going to be back. He’s realised that there are things about his father‘s life that he does not know and that it is up to him to find out what they are. Especially if he wants to solve his father’s murder.

Find Michael Ridpath’s website here. Where The Shadows Lie is out now from online retailers and in all good bookshops.

The Sky is Everywhere Extract - Jandy Nelson

I do not go to the altar of the desk to talk to Bailey on the mountaintop. I do not even turn on the light. I go straight into bed with all my clothes on and pray for sleep. It doesn’t come.

What comes is shame, weeks of it, waves of it, rushing through me in quick hot flashes like nausea, making me groan into my pillow. The lies and half-truths and abbreviations I told and didn’t tell Joe tackle and hold me down until I can hardly breathe. How could I have hurt him like this, done to him just what Genevieve did? All the love I have for him clobbers around in my body. My chest aches. All of me aches. He looked like a completely different person. He is a different person. Not the one who loved me.

I see Joe’s face, then Bailey’s, the two of them looming above me with only three words on their lips: How could you?

I have no answer.

I’m sorry, I write with my finger on the sheets over and over until I can’t stand it anymore and flip on the light.

But the light brings actual nausea and with it all the moments with my sister that will now remain unlived: holding her baby in my arms. Teaching her child to play the clarinet. Just getting older together day by day. All the future we will not have rips and retches out of me into the trash bin I am crouched over until there’s nothing left inside, nothing but me in this ghastly orange room.

And that’s when it hits.

Without the harbor and mayhem of Toby’s arms, the sublime distraction of Joe’s, there’s only me.

Me, like a small seashell with the loneliness of the whole ocean roaring invisibly within.

Me.

Without.

Bailey.

Always.

I throw my head into my pillow and scream into it as if my soul itself is being ripped in half, because it is.

For the next installment, pop by ChickLitReviews .

Corvus: Oath of Vengeance by James Thomson - Viking Week

I am extremely chuffed to feature our friend Darren from Bookzone 4 Boys here at MFB. I love Darren's blog but due to a hectic work schedule for both of us, we've not had much of a chance to chat recently. So when he sent me a message yesterday saying that he's just finished reading a YA novel, centred on Vikings, I thought: brilliant! I must get that to read. Then he offered me the review for Viking Week and I was over the moon. But, over to Bookzone:

OK... we all know that vampires are pretty damn cool, although they would be no match at all for ninjas in a “Who is the coolest” contest (unless they were vampire ninjas like in Nick Lake’s Blood Ninja). We also have cool werewolves courtesy of Steve Feasey’s Changeling series, and then there’s the multitude of cool zombie stories around these days. I bet if you asked a group of teen boys and girls what the coolest book or movie “vocations” are it would be one of the above. I think I would also be safe in betting that not one them would laugh in the face of popular opinion and vote for Vikings!

Why is this? After all, if you look at the evidence then Vikings should at least be making a regular appearance in the Top 5. They were, after all, some of the greatest adventurers the world has ever known. They travelled far across Europe, even reaching North Africa, and battled the vicious waters of the Atlantic Ocean, making it as far as America in their wooden ships. They had a great mythology, with stories of Valhalla, Ragnarök and a God for almost every occasion (including, of course, the mighty Thor). And above everything else, their prowess in battle is also legendary, so much so that we “celebrate” their memory every time we go berserk. Not bad for a bunch of farm boys who initially only set out to find more fertile land.

So just why is it that Vikings do not appear to be a popular theme in YA and children’s books? Is it a fault of our education system? After all, last time I looked neither vampires, ninjas or zombies were in the National Curriculum. Or maybe it is the fact that the Vikings have a reputation for having pretty much pillaged, burnt, looted and murdered their way across most of England. Does this make them a subject that authors have been scared to tackle for fear of being accused of glorifying these violent excesses?

Whatever the reason for this dearth of Viking stories, one author has now decided to go against the trend, and in doing so James Thomson has delivered an action packed adventure romp that deserves to be big hit in the young adult market. How’s this for a synopsis?

Corvus Gunnarson returns home after a period of exile to find his parents murdered and his two sisters captured by the ruthless warlord Wulfric Cold-blood. Corvus swears an oath of vengeance and sets out to find Wulfric and rescue his sisters. His quest takes him on a journey from the fjords of Norway to the shores of Saxon England and beyond. On his journey he encounters giant sea serpents, armies of warriors, knights and shape-shifting berserker wolves. A thrilling, epic tale of bravery, honour and revenge.

Corvus: Oath of Vengeance is the first book in a new series following the adventures of the book titular main character. And it does exactly what it says on the tin book cover. Bravery? Corvus possesses this by the bucket load, and proves this in battle scene after battle scene. Honour? When Corvus makes an oath he has no intention of ever breaking it, even if he risks angering the Gods. And revenge? The thirst for vengeance drives Corvus throughout the story.

Unusually for a YA book, the main character is an adult. Corvus’ age is not actually mentioned in the text, but the description of him would make him 18 or 19 at the very youngest, but as he has spent at least a couple of years fighting for the King of Denmark my best guess would be that he is in his early twenties. Despite this I think this story has great appeal to the 11+ age range, and I don’t think they will have too many problems identifying with Corvus. They will be able to sympathise with the anger he feels at the injustice suffered by his family at the hands of Wulfric. But whereas modern boys may have a quick scuffle when they are angry with someone, Corvus sets off on a journey to another country with an axe in each hand, and boy does he know how to use these axes in a fight. The battle scenes are very well written; they are breathless and bloody – just the way we like them. Lines such as “slicing his arm in two”, “[the axes] cut deep, virtually severing his leg above the ankle” and “the patch of earth in front of him tuned red with gore” are just three of the phrases we are treated to as Corvus hacks his way through the foes that he finds himself up against. And then there’s the Blood Eagle, the Viking torture method of choice – just go look it up on Wikipedia!

When I was in my teens I devoured the Conan books by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp, and elements of Corvus remind me very much of those. Conan regularly found himself fighting against seemingly insurmountable odds, and the same is the case for Corvus. The two characters also share a strong sense of honour – Corvus certainly isn’t your everyday raping and pillaging kind of Viking. In fact, he is more likely to fight for a Saxon village than against them. And finally, like Conan, Corvus is a born leader, even if he does not yet realise it for himself, and he forges bonds with a number of secondary characters who then happily follow him into battle.

I am a little ashamed to admit that had I seen this on a shelf in a book shop I probably would not have bought it – I would never have thought I would find a Viking story so appealing. My thanks therefore go out to Graeme Maynard at Boxer Books for sending me a copy and thereby showing me the error of my ways. This book is a definite page-turner and kept me captivated throughout. Like most first-in-series books it does end on something of a cliffhanger with many loose ends left untied, but many kids, and boys in particular, will not mind this, as like me they will feel hungry for more and look forward to the release of the second book in the series.

***

Fab! I love the whole premise, as well as the main character's name: Corvus. Strong indication there of ties to Odin, with his crows and such!

Thanks Darren, for this review and for taking out the time to do it, it's much appreciated.

Celebrating Tamsyn Murray's Book Launch for Stunt Bunny: Showbiz Sensation

Mark and I were so pleased to be invited to Tamsyn's newest book launch for Stunt Bunny: Showbiz Sensation held at the Women's Library in the City earlier this evening.

A whole load of people from Twitter were in attendance and some of us knew each other from previous events. Thank heavens! No awkward silent moment. *shifty eyes* But importantly, it was great to be able to share this lovely milestone with Tamsyn. As always, she was a very gracious hostess and made all her guests very welcome, laying on soft drinks and wine and a variety of really good nom snacks.

But enough of me blabbing, here are some photos. I even made sure to get Tamsyn's awesome shoes in.

Poor Tamsyn, I hadn't even said "hello" to her and I had her posing by her books!

Here are some of the books in question - that cover is just awesome and made of win.

Tamsyn delivering her thank you speech, looking demure and lovely and sweet. But we know better...

Harriet looks amazing on the cake. We sadly couldn't light the candles as it would have set the smoke alarms off.

Tamsyn signing some books for her adoring fans.

Tamsyn feeding the fans some Harriet Cake.

Some fans and friends hovering near the food tables.

Parting and final shot of the table with My So Called Afterlife and Stunt Bunny: Showbiz Sensation neatly on display.

We wish Tamsyn the best of luck with Stunt Bunny here at MFB. Humour books for younger folk is difficult to do, but from other reviews I've seen, I suspect that she's managed to pull it off. Our review will be up soon.

Raven: Blood Eye by Giles Kristian - Viking Week

Synopsis:

For two years Osric has lived a simple life, apprentice to the mute old carpenter who took him in when others would have him cast out. But when Norsemen from across the sea burn his village they also destroy his new life, and Osric finds himself a prisoner of these warriors. Their chief, Sigurd the Lucky, believes the Norns have woven this strange boy's fate together with his own, and Osric begins to sense glorious purpose among this Fellowship of warriors.Immersed in the Norsemen's world and driven by their lust for adventure, Osric proves a natural warrior and forges a blood bond with Sigurd, who renames him Raven. But the Norsemen's world is a savage one, where loyalty is often repaid in blood and where a young man must become a killer to survive. When the Fellowship faces annihilation from ealdorman Ealdred of Wessex, Raven chooses a bloody and dangerous path, accepting the mission of raiding deep into hostile lands to steal a holy book from Coenwolf, King of Mercia. There he will find much more than the Holy Gospels of St Jerome. He will find Cynethryth, an English girl with a soul to match his own. And he will find betrayal at the hands of cruel men, some of whom he regarded as friends...

An opening line that starts thus:

'I do not know where I was born. When I was young, I would sometimes dream of great rock walls rising from the sea so high that the sun's warmth never hit the cold, black water....I know nothing of my childhood, of my parents, or if I had brothers and sisters. I do not even know my birth name.'

..really does make you want to curl up and read more, doesn't it? And it now annoys me in retrospect that it's taken me a while to sit down and read Raven: Blood Eye because I could have hung around with Osric (Raven), Sigurd and the boys, a whole lot earlier. But, having said that, I strongly believe in a bit of chaos theory: things come to you when you're ready.

So, Raven came to me and I fell in love. First of all, having met Giles Kristian at the book launch for the second book: Raven: Sons of Thunder, I was struck by how charming he was, but also how immersed he was in his writing. During his speech when he thanked various people for their help he mentioned things like: steering the dragon ship along the whale road and he mentioned skalds and other words which now escape me, as it was some time ago. I initially thought, yeah yeah, Kristian, good one, playing the game, live up to the heritage and the writing and the research. But honestly, having read both these books, in rapid succession, I now suspect that that speech was probably more real than I had anticipated.

When I say this novel is immersive, I mean it. It's written in a very macho way. No, that sounds wrong. It's written in a manly way, hua! How can I describe it? The writing reflects the characters, the age and the rough camaraderie and friendship that bonded these raiders and warriors together. Therefore the use of language is strong, sometimes violently over the top, as it is seen from Osric's point of view initially and he's only a young boy.

You can't write about Vikings and tough guys without violence and death. But there are ways to do so and still retain your reader's belief in your characters and the action. Mr. Kristian manages that with devastating ease and bearing in mind, this is his debut novel, you can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, he was channeling something from a previous life? I'm kidding, of course, about the previous life thing, but honestly, the battle scenes are nasty and vicious and yet they never made me want to put the book down and I never caught myself thinking, okay, this is rubbish, it's going a bit over the top and becoming pointless and gratuitous. And yes, that rumour you've heard about the blood eagle explained in great detail, but not with relish, is as grim as you can imagine. *shudder*

The story is held together by Osric/Raven. A deeply human character with flaws, hang-ups and strengths and insecurities, we at first experience the terror of the raid on his village coupled with the fact that he can actually understand and speak these invaders' language! Having been found two years before, no one really knows anything about Osric. He's an outsider in the village, mainly because of his one red eye. The fact that he can't remember anything about where he comes from or what had happened to him, sets him apart from the small community he lives in, and he is treated a bit disdainfully.

As he's taken by Sigurd and his crew he realises it's a case of sink or swim and slowly but surely, he comes to be accepted, firstly by Sigurd, then other members of the crew. He's given his new name and a new life opens before him. The action is thrilling and wild and practically non-stop. And I'm also pleased to say that the characterisation is rich, as is the world-building.

Raven: Blood Eye is a really neat (if bloody) package that ticks all the right boxes when it comes to what epic historical fiction is all about, and then some. I've noticed some people liken it to other writers such as Bernard Cornwell, Tim Severin and others and honestly, it's as good as that and the even better thing: there is more to come.

Giles Kristian, please, don't stop writing! Raven: Blood Eye and Raven: Sons of Thunder can be found online as well as other good high street bookshops. And this is Giles' website.

Beowulf and Grendel - Movie Review - Viking Week

Write-up taken from the IMDB site

The blood-soaked tale of a Norse warrior's battle against the great and murderous troll, Grendel. Heads will roll. Out of allegiance to the King Hrothgar, the much respected Lord of the Danes, Beowulf leads a troop of warriors across the sea to rid a village of the marauding monster. The monster, Grendel, is not a creature of mythic powers, but one of flesh and blood - immense flesh and raging blood, driven by a vengeance from being wronged, while Beowulf, a victorious soldier in his own right, has become increasingly troubled by the hero-myth rising up around his exploits. Beowulf's willingness to kill on behalf of Hrothgar wavers when it becomes clear that the King is more responsible for the troll's rampages than was first apparent. As a soldier, Beowulf is unaccustomed to hesitating. His relationship with the mesmerizing witch, Selma, creates deeper confusion. Swinging his sword at a great, stinking beast is no longer such a simple act. The story is set in barbarous Northern Europe where the reign of the many-gods is giving way to one - the southern invader, Christ. Beowulf is a man caught between sides in this great shift, his simple code transforming and falling apart before his eyes. Vengeance, loyalty and mercy powerfully entwine. A story of blood and beer and sweat, which strips away the mask of the hero-myth, leaving a raw and tangled tale.

I don't know how many people actually know about this movie or how many people have watched it. It was released in the States and I had to order in my dvd copy in from the US as it was nowhere to be found here in the UK. It was only at the end of last year, after Christmas that I picked up a UK copy. On blu-ray, for a fiver. What went wrong, I wonder?

It's not the best movie ever made but it is definitely one worth watching. Gerard Butler convinced as a Beowulf struggling with his own identity. Grendel's character is not just a crazed monster on a rampage for the sake of going on a rampage. There are two sides to each coin.

In this version we have a very human Beowulf confronted with all he has done in the past, what he is prepared to do now for fame and for money. Is it the right thing?

The landscape is beautifully evocative and harsh and wild and looking at it, you can appreciate why stories like Beowulf and Grendel resonated for so long in the oral history and memories of people.

I'm not going to pretend to be a scholar of the original story but I felt that the reworking of the story for this film was done with a sensitivity a lot of big Hollywood movies completely manage to miss out on.

My copy of the book Beowulf, as done by Seamus Heaney is one of my all-time favourite books of all time. He manages to capture the wild essence of the story, of heroes who walk the fine line between being a hero and villain and about monsters so terrible they haunt your waking hours.

This movie is a definite favourite too. In fact, I'm popping along to go and stick it in the player right now, to be honest!

I know some people will watch this, waiting for the in your face machismo and it's there in the various battle and action sequences but it's a slower, deeper story that lingers and makes an impression.

I love how with only a few changes and a bit of tweaking of the overall story and characters, our perceptions of the overall story changes. It's by far better than I expected and something I am happy to recommend to others to try.

Happy watching!

Wolfsangel by MD Lachlan

Synopsis:

The Viking King Authun leads his men on a raid against an Anglo-Saxon village. Men and women are killed indiscriminately but Authun demands that no child be touched. He is acting on prophecy. A prophecy that tells him that the Saxons have stolen a child from the Gods. If Authun, in turn, takes the child and raises him as an heir, the child will lead his people to glory.

But Authun discovers not one child, but twin baby boys. Ensuring that his faithful warriors, witness to what has happened, die during the raid Authun takes the children and their mother home, back to the witches who live on the troll wall. And he places his destiny in their hands.

And so begins a stunning multi-volume fantasy epic that will take a werewolf from his beginnings as the heir to a brutal viking king, down through the ages. It is a journey that will see him hunt for his lost love through centuries and lives, and see the endless battle between the wolf, Odin and Loki - the eternal trickster - spill over into countless bloody conflicts from our history, and over into our lives.

This is the myth of the werewolf as it has never been told before and marks the beginning of an extraordinary new fantasy series from Gollancz.

A superbly written fantasy epic that spans hundreds of years of our history to bring Norse legends and the myth of the werewolf to blood-curdling life.

I already gave a bit of spiel about me liking Wolfsangel by MD Lachlan. It's a winner - for me at least - on various levels.

Allow me to digress here for a bit. Last year Mark and I attended Dragonmeet only for one thing: to sit in on a talk by a handful of authors, amongst them David Devereux, Stephen Deas, Johnny Nexus and MD Lachlan (aka Mark Barrowcliffe). The talk had to do with gaming and writing and it was probably one of the funniest and interesting talks I've been to. What came out is that most of the authors on the panel were all gamers or at least ex-gamers but that a lot of them had interest in the occult. MDL mentioned this a few times and this made me itch to read Wolfsangel more. I suspected dark dealings, spells, evil, witches...interesting things.

And I wasn't disappointed. MDL takes a story and imbues it with a wild dark magic that lifts an almost standard quest adventure (historical) fantasy into something vivid, gritty and wonderfully epic.

The king's action at the beginning of the novel is so imaginatively over the top, I initially thought it was a dream sequence. Little did I know this was in fact the tone of the entire novel. King Athun leads a raid on a small village with the express desire to steal away a baby boy, to take him back to his own kingdom and raise him as his own. Only thing is, when he finds the boy, he discovers not one but two boys. Twins. He takes the decision to raise one and send one to be raised by the witches who sent him on this quest in the first instance. Athun's word is law - his thanes, friends and fellow warriors - obey his instructions and stay to fight the people from the village and surrounds, ensuring their king's escape. This opening salvo is already seeped deeply with the magic of the otherworld. It shows us the iron-hold of the witches on a king and a king's hold on his people.

The boy who is taken by the king, Vali, grows up a little bit spoilt and is sent off to be fostered. His life is not too bad, a bit of practice with a sword, but mostly Vali is an easygoing kid who is more than just a bit in love with the lovely Adisla.

The twin brother given to the witches were sent off to the Beserkers to be raised. And boy, did they turn this child into a feral beast! The author uses reserves of imagination here yet he doesn't bombard us with the grimness of the boy's education. It is what it is. Fact. Move on.

On one level we have an almost basic quest happening here: Vali has to prove his dedication to his friend and true love Adisla by following the orders of his step-father to go off and hunt down one of the wolves that's been preying on travellers. This leads Vali to capture his twin brother Feileg. Their society is so steeped in lore that when Vali sees his brother's face for the first time he thinks he's being tricked by a witch, a demon, and doesn't realise that it is in fact his brother. He carries him back to the settlement where Adisla takes pity on the feral boy-man. Her kindness to him, generates a loyalty and love within Feileg, something he's never felt before. When pirates / raiders attack and Adisla is taken, Vali and Feileg set off to bring her back.

MDL has taken this recognisable tale and spun it through various layers, using some pretty impressive story telling skills and what I can only assume was insanely fun research to create a dark mysterious world that feels like it's walking side by side with one we know. There are monsters, battles, love, betrayal, witches...the works.

What sticks Wolfsangel together is the sense of place and of time. The characters are well developed yet not all of them are likeable. Which in itself is a feat. They stick in your mind, they make you wonder about the bigger story here, the story of Odin, Fenris and Loki. How the humans in this story try and cope with the choices they make, but are they really making it or has it all happened long before?

I can maybe gab on a lot more about Wolfsangel (I'm sorry MDL, the next time we meet, your ear will be bent!) but I think what it boils down to is this: epic storytelling never grows old, especially if you have someone like MD Lachlan to tell it to you. But please, don't take my word for it. Go read it for yourself.

Find MD Lachlan's site here. Wolfsangel was released last week through Gollancz.

Viking Week

Welcome to Viking Week

This week we’ll be reviewing books and movies that can lay claim to the slightest bit of Viking/Norse/ Icelandic traces within their pages. Obviously it’s only a week long so we can’t really cover all the good books and movies out there as part of Viking Week but we’re sure gonna try. We've got a shelf of books and movies that we read and re-read and watch and re-watch. I don't know why. Maybe it's the high concept and the improbability of a man, his crew and a boat raging against the storm and nature, with a mixture of superstition and awe tossed in for good measure. It asks for good storytelling and there has been some good stories told and we're hoping to showcase them this week. Apart from the pic above, this week will be sans any horned helmets!

First up will be a full review of Wolfsangel by MD Lachlan, later this evening.

But before I review it, I just wanted to say that reading Wolfsangel made me realise a) MDL can in fact write a blood good yarn and that he would make the skalds from back in the day, very happy indeed, b) there aren't enough books about werewolves and Vikings, and c) I am so glad this is a series because looking at b, I'm keen for this to be amended.

Out of all the books that's come out thus far, this year, Wolfsangel has been a personal favourite of mine. I was keen to see how it got "done" and how he was going to pull it off.

I read part of it whilst on holiday in South Africa and then finished it off here in the UK and I can't press it upon enough people that if you are a genre fan, a werewolf fan, a history buff or a Viking fan, then this is definitely one for you. It breaks boundaries and is a piece of anchor-tough writing. New writers can do worse than check it out on how to handle exposition, back story and writing tough gritty fantasy-slash-historical fiction with elements of the supernatural and not lose plot or voice.

But, much more later this evening!

**artwork from robflc1892's deviant art page

Bristol Comic Expo

Speed of Light in Bristol - photo courtesy of Mark

We headed off early morning on Saturday to get to the Bristol Comic Expo held at the Ramada. Thankfully we stayed at the Mercure Hotel which was between the two, probably the better looking as well as the better air-conditioned.

Anyway. We got to the Ramada and hey presto, collected our weekend badges. And I was immediately pissed off. No goodie bags. 10am on the Saturday and no more goodie bags. Was this just truly bad planning or couldn't they give a hoot? Also, no plans and no programmes were handed out. A truly shambolic start. However, we managed to find a "map" of the layout of the hotel and some info about signings, panels and whatever.

The traders hall was amazing - a great buzz but boyo, the heat was already pretty high by 11am. Mainly because the hall was quite small so apart from the grin-and-bear-it traders, the place was packed to the rafters with sweating punters, most of them unused to the hot weather so they were all wearing leather jackets. I personally think there should be a law against wearing leather jackets to cons because you know, unless you are in Moscow or you are Keanu, the look sucks ass and you smell like one.

The chaps from Com X.

But I digress. We whizzed around the traders hall, said "hi" to a few people we knew, amongst them John from London's Forbidden Planet and his Bristol shop team. We also bought some goodies from 'em.

Forbidden Planet stall at Ramada

I also spotted the amazing Garen Ewing with his copies of Rainbow Orchid on sale. We chatted for a while and he was very sweet and gracious. We shared a few moments of geekness over TinTin, which both of us love.

Garen Ewings The Rainbow Orchid, Volume 2 on display.

The 2000AD stand was packed full of Dredd, Durham Red, Nikolai Dante and ABC Warriors. I hesitated over the Nikolai Dante books but moved swiftly on when Mark firmly shook his head "no". We were on a tight budget and so had to be super selective about what we bought.

I stopped to check out these classics turned into Manga. They looked lovely. But I got dragged away.

We then headed off to go and have lunch with Mike Carey and Joel from Tripwire magazine. Lunch was down at the Spyglass. The weather was gorgeous. The setting was perfect and the conversation veered from books, to politics, to previous cons. It was all good.

A very charming cosplay chap we met on our way to the station to go and draw some cash.

We briefly popped into Mercure to drop off our goodies we had collected thus far. And whilst there, we headed up to the fifth floor where the rest of the Con was taking place. Mark ended up playing some Wii hack and slash game whilst I tried wandering around the larger traders hall but I didn't get very far...I manhandled the lads from the 501st Legion and old Darth into a huddle against the wall and took a few photos.

Find their website here.

Then we legged it over to the main hotel again for The Losers talk with creators Jock and Andy Diggle. It was a very informal and fun talk, with Jock starting off asking the audience a few questions, to make up time whilst Andy went looking for a random loot bag with goodies from The Losers movie. Eventually, once both of them were there, the real talk began. More than anything, it was like sitting in a room with a bunch of your mates talking about a favourite book that got itself turned into a movie. They stressed that they had no imput into the movie whatsoever but that they got to visit the set and were struck by how close the cast were, calling each other by their Loser names.

Jock (in the blue shirt) and Andy chat about The Losers.

I sent Mark off to get copies of The Losers signed by the two of them whilst I stayed behind to listen to the DC Universe talk. Bob Wayne, DC VP of Sales previewed the forthcoming noms from DC with the help of Paul Cornell, David Hine, Lee Garbett, Jesus Saiz and Ramon Bachs.

I'm not going to say anything further because I'm going to let some of the photos talk for me.

Bob, Lee, Paul

Afterwards I got to go and talk to Robin Furth who has been working on Stephen King's Dark Tower. A tremendously nice lady, we spoke whilst Mark was still in the queue to get The Losers stuff signed. I urged her to get an online presence and we swapped emails. I am really very excited to read the graphic novels of this series. I'm coming late to them, but I'm sure they will be fun.

Below are pics of some of our loot we either got free or bought or took with us to get signed.

We had a great time, and staggered to bed at around midnight Saturday night. Bristol treated us really well. Sunday morning was mostly spent recuperating after Saturday night, a long walk around Bristol town centre and all along the river, then chatting to various artists and writers, before packing the tiny blue Polo to carry us home.

It's been a very long, very busy weekend and now I can go and collapse for an hour before I have to come back to write reviews for this coming week.