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jemck at 05:27pm on 26/10/2007
jemck at 05:27pm on 26/10/2007Well, having worked this week rather than taking half-term off as I had hoped, I am now pretty much where I should have been at the close of play last week. Which means I should still be wrapping up the first draft of Straws in the Wind this time next week. As originally planned. Phew.
Which is not bad going, given how busy the past six weeks have been. And leaves me with six weeks for rewrites and such before I had to hand the thing over. Doable.
Still, I am looking forward to starting the second volume after Xmas with rather more time in hand and thus flexibility in the schedule. And I shall be keeping strict limits on the diary in the run-up to the next deadline.
Mind you, one of the paradoxical plusses of the busy period has been the unavoidable chunks of downtime on planes and trains, in hotel rooms and airports and the like. When I've been catching up with some reading. I don't have time to write full reviews but here are a few recommendations, not in any order of merit, just as the books strike my eye in the study.
Mike Carey's Dead Men's Boots. This is the latest Felix Castor novel, a series that gets better and better. Here we have the supernatural picking up threads from London gangland and US serial killer history and twisting them into a yarn showing just how the evil that men do lives on after their deaths. As before, this is a superbly chilly thriller in its own right, leavened with nicely black humour but now there's an increasing sense of a wider plot arc looming. Intriguing.
Charles Stross's The Jennifer Morgue. Bob Howard, hero of The Atrocity Archives, is back. This is a full-on SF/contemporary thriller with seriously scary villains and monsters steadily cranking up the page-turning tension. At the same time it's threaded through with some frankly outrageous jokes that few authors would have the audacity to try. Fewer still have the talent to make them pay off in ways so comprehensively essential to the plot. Excellent.
Brandon Sanderson's Elantris. Part of my current quest to read US/Canadian authors as yet unpublished over here. A fantasy novel complete in itself, the plot continues to spring surprises from start to finish, as engaging characters try to stay alive long enough to unravel the mysteries surrounding the collapse of a nicely unusual magic system. They also need to stay a few steps ahead of priests out to spread their ominously absolutist religion. Though this is in no sense a black and white tale of good versus evil. A thoroughly enjoyable read, with undercurrents subtle enough to be thought-provoking without being obtrusive.
Elizabeth Bear's Blood and Iron, and Whiskey and Water, both Novels of the Promethean Age. A good many folk have been recommending I read her stuff while at the same time being oddly vague about the substance. Oh, you really need to read it yourself, they say. Hah. Now I know why. Because these are people who know full well how scathing I can be about half-baked cod-Arthurian rehashes. Well, this series couldn't be further from such uninspired pap. There's faerie queens and a merlin and adragon and hero-princes and mythic monsters, up to and including fallen angels. All of them like nothing you'd expect. All playing their parts in a tale seamlessly blending the deepest traditions of myth with intelligent contemporary story telling.
C E Murphy's The Walker Papers, namely Urban Shaman, Thunderbird Falls and Coyote Dreams. When so-called urban fantasy is becoming overloaded with uninspired fang-bangers, these books are refreshingly distinctive, set in Seattle and blending a range of traditional magics and myths into something quite new. Joanne Walker is an appealingly capable protagonist who tackles the eruption of the supernatural into her life as best as she can. She doesn't look for excuses when she gets something wrong and she definitely refuses to quit no matter what the dangers. Fast-paced, written with a skillfully light touch, the convincing reality makes the fantastic in these books satisyingly believable.
Right, time to call it a day. Till tomorrow.
Which is not bad going, given how busy the past six weeks have been. And leaves me with six weeks for rewrites and such before I had to hand the thing over. Doable.
Still, I am looking forward to starting the second volume after Xmas with rather more time in hand and thus flexibility in the schedule. And I shall be keeping strict limits on the diary in the run-up to the next deadline.
Mind you, one of the paradoxical plusses of the busy period has been the unavoidable chunks of downtime on planes and trains, in hotel rooms and airports and the like. When I've been catching up with some reading. I don't have time to write full reviews but here are a few recommendations, not in any order of merit, just as the books strike my eye in the study.
Mike Carey's Dead Men's Boots. This is the latest Felix Castor novel, a series that gets better and better. Here we have the supernatural picking up threads from London gangland and US serial killer history and twisting them into a yarn showing just how the evil that men do lives on after their deaths. As before, this is a superbly chilly thriller in its own right, leavened with nicely black humour but now there's an increasing sense of a wider plot arc looming. Intriguing.
Charles Stross's The Jennifer Morgue. Bob Howard, hero of The Atrocity Archives, is back. This is a full-on SF/contemporary thriller with seriously scary villains and monsters steadily cranking up the page-turning tension. At the same time it's threaded through with some frankly outrageous jokes that few authors would have the audacity to try. Fewer still have the talent to make them pay off in ways so comprehensively essential to the plot. Excellent.
Brandon Sanderson's Elantris. Part of my current quest to read US/Canadian authors as yet unpublished over here. A fantasy novel complete in itself, the plot continues to spring surprises from start to finish, as engaging characters try to stay alive long enough to unravel the mysteries surrounding the collapse of a nicely unusual magic system. They also need to stay a few steps ahead of priests out to spread their ominously absolutist religion. Though this is in no sense a black and white tale of good versus evil. A thoroughly enjoyable read, with undercurrents subtle enough to be thought-provoking without being obtrusive.
Elizabeth Bear's Blood and Iron, and Whiskey and Water, both Novels of the Promethean Age. A good many folk have been recommending I read her stuff while at the same time being oddly vague about the substance. Oh, you really need to read it yourself, they say. Hah. Now I know why. Because these are people who know full well how scathing I can be about half-baked cod-Arthurian rehashes. Well, this series couldn't be further from such uninspired pap. There's faerie queens and a merlin and adragon and hero-princes and mythic monsters, up to and including fallen angels. All of them like nothing you'd expect. All playing their parts in a tale seamlessly blending the deepest traditions of myth with intelligent contemporary story telling.
C E Murphy's The Walker Papers, namely Urban Shaman, Thunderbird Falls and Coyote Dreams. When so-called urban fantasy is becoming overloaded with uninspired fang-bangers, these books are refreshingly distinctive, set in Seattle and blending a range of traditional magics and myths into something quite new. Joanne Walker is an appealingly capable protagonist who tackles the eruption of the supernatural into her life as best as she can. She doesn't look for excuses when she gets something wrong and she definitely refuses to quit no matter what the dangers. Fast-paced, written with a skillfully light touch, the convincing reality makes the fantastic in these books satisyingly believable.
Right, time to call it a day. Till tomorrow.