Review: Fearsome Magics

I've only picked up short story collections relatively recently, I (exceedingly) foolishly thought that they might not be good as a full length novel.

This book, Fearsome Magics (edited by Jonathan Strahan), proves I could not have been more wrong.

Inside we have stories from Garth Nix, K.J. Parker, Justina Robson, Ellen Klages, Christopher Rowe, Isobelle Carmody, Tony Ballantyne, James Bradley, Karin Tidbeck, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Frances Hardinger, Kaaron Warren, Genevieve Valentine and Robert Shearman. ( I didn't want to leave anyone out)

I enjoyed every single one of the stories in this anthology and highly recommend you go and read them all. But I thought that perhaps the best way to do a review was to pick some favourites and go into detail about those and then do a round up, so without further ado!

‘Home is the Haunter’ by Garth Nix

                This was one of the longer stories in the anthology and did take a little longer to get into  (but still not that long, I mean there’s not that long altogether!). A story of Sir Hereward and Mr Fitz, who just happens to be a living puppet, it took a little time to get drawn into the world but when I was I did not want to go anywhere. Once the story got going I could barely put it down, the writing was fantastic, the pacing was excellent, and the characters were outstanding. As soon as I finished this story I set out to find out more about Sir Hereward and Mr Fitz and purchased a collection of short stories on them. 

'Grigori's Theorum' by Isobelle Carmody

                I don’t think I have anything bad to say about this story.  A story about the end of the world, it gave me chills. The imagery that Carmody brought up and the feelings of sheer inevitability and acceptance just blew me away and I have been telling people about this story all week. Seriously, I thought it was amazing, an interesting concept exceedingly well told. 

"The Changeling" by James Bradley

                A haunting tale really blurring the lines between what might actually be magic and what we might just want to perceive. Exploring a theme of escapism and social acceptance this particular short story did stay with me for its ambiguity in its ending. Bradley definitely pushed his protagonist to the edge.

 

All in all I think this a very strong anthology with a collection of stories that are all wonderful, creepy, epic, and heart-breaking all at once. To say that I would recommend this short story collection would be a bit of misdirection. I have already recommended this anthology several times to friends.  It has strong female characters, teddy bears, maths, and a village jam and preserve competition. What more could you want?

If you need something to occupy your mind for an hour and you want something that will stay with you and you can get your teeth into, grab a steak and this book.

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Review: Emperor of Thorns (Audiobook)

Once again this was an audiobook but I actually got a signed hardcopy as a gift (awesome gift!) and it turns out the new POV character's chapters were in a different font, which I thought was really cool! 

Anyway! 

As per usual Mark Lawrence does a wonderful job of throwing us right into the action and then folding in the back-story like a fine cake made of blood, death, and misery. This time we join Jorg as he is about to make his way to Congression (I’m not sure if that’s supposed to the capitalised but why not?) and again some backstory woven in that adds wonderful depth to the world, story, and character.

A brand new twist on this book in particular in another POV character! Say what!

This time we hear from … Chella’s perspective (Sorry I had to look that up, fantasy audiobooks mean I’m not sure how to spell things sometimes). It’s an interesting tale and gives us much more information about the world and a fresh perspective on things (although definitely not a fluffy happy one).

If there’s something that Lawrence can do, it is weave different levels of stories together. We also get lots of those throwaway sentences that Lawrence is so good at which are just beautifully put together and just make you stop to appreciate them. 

One thing I was slightly confused about was the foreshadowing that Lawrence included in his book. Don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of foreshadowing, especially if it means your second read through is completely different.  I’m not sure if I felt the foreshadowing was obvious, because it wasn’t very heavy handed at all, or perhaps more that Lawrence’s writing process is more of a (to use a term made famous by GRRM) gardener than an architect. Whatever the cause, reason, or rhyme I did find that I had seen ahead the twist long before it happened.

I don’t want you to take away that this is necessarily a bad thing, I’m not sure if it was supposed to remain a mystery until the big reveal or if Lawrence wanted us to guess it early on. With the story being in first person (for the most part) it added a tremendous amount of dramatic tension to the final chapters of the book and made those scenes all the more powerful. 

All in all this book was a very good close to the Broken Empire trilogy and I very much look forward to reading the next series that Lawrence has lined up for us (especially if he takes us beyond the end of Emperor of Thorns in his world's timeline to see what effects the finale had on it).

This was an excellent book of the same high calibre that Mark Lawrence has crafted before. In Jorg we get a philosopher, warrior, king, and broken thing. Mark Lawrence makes no apologies for Jorg but we don’t want to and we fall in love with him all the same (perhaps more so because of that). The story moves a little slower than the previous books but it is still quick and compelling. It will make you laugh, it will tear at you and make you cry and leave you wanting more stories from Lawrence’s world.

What more could you want?

 

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Review: The Gospel of Loki

Okay, first off, this isn't a bad thing, but a lot of the time sentences would jump out at me in Tom Hiddleston's voice. It was pretty cool.

Anyway, so what's this book! It's The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris, the first person retelling of Norse mythology, with Loki as the main character, straight from the horse's mouth (and that's not just a phrase in this case!).

Before we get onto the story, writings and characters themselves I just want to make a quick comment about how the book itself. I can be a bit of a nerd for how books look and feel, I think that can really bring a book together. Even if the writing is phenomenal but it looks like something a dolphin’s sat on when it was waiting for the bus then it’s going to put me off.

Thankfully, there was no dolphin. The title and look of this book work very well together. I very much like the juxtaposition of the title; The Gospel of Loki, as he is a well known fiendish liar, and yet here we have his gospel, his truthful word.

Just lovely

Equally the cover illustration is exquisite. The bold lines and solid colours of the illustration is reminiscent of a stained glass window. The illustration draws upon many elements of the story to provide a wonderfully diverse colour scheme across the cover. All in all a brilliant design for this book.

But anyway onto the actual work.

So we follow Loki all the way from his origins in the very heart of chaos right up until Ragnarok, with all the highs, lows and middle-y bits that go with it.

At first I found it slightly jarring at times that the language was quite colloquial, that sort of thing doesn't happen so often in an epic fantasy tale. It was slightly odd to read a sentence or a piece of dialogue with the gods talking to frost giants or something similar when the dialogue read; "Okay, just, like, calm down!" Alright it wasn't that colloquial, but you see where I'm coming from.

But thankfully that doesn't happen very often and once you've seen it happen a couple of times it actually fits in very well with the image of the cheeky and mischievous Loki with the silver tongue that I'm sure we've all come to know and love.

Cheeky devil

We start the story at the very beginning and get a nice overview of the characters, the setting and how everything generally works. Harris' writing immediately puts you at your ease and lets you gently settle into how the tale is going to be told.

Harris very much captures the essence of the Loki character; mischievous but altogether good. It's from the first person perspective of Loki and so comes across in pretty much all the aspects of her writing. There is never a word or phrase that doesn't weave this image further into the book.

The storyline also presents a side of the mythology that doesn't seem to get much of a look in nowadays. Odin is presented as a much more shady character than you would expect. This gives the book plenty of opportunity for twists and turns to keep you guessing and then keeps you guessing about guessing.

This book is very entertaining, it has all the right amounts of epic fantasy and tongue-in-cheek humour and an excellent mix of heroic and dastardly characters. Harris skillfully weaves the stereotypical evil Loki into a self-aware but misunderstood antihero with a heart of gold. Or at least a heart of fire that's covered in gold.

I hope that you check this book out, it’s a wonderful piece by a wonderful author. Well worth your time.

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A Red Review of Red Seas Under Red Skies (The Most Expected Review...)

So in a recent blog post I hinted (badly) that a friend had mentioned to me that Red Seas Under Red Skies felt like it was just filler. But at the time I hadn't finished the book so I couldn't really comment.

Well, now I can. 

First off, let's deal with what was said about the book being filler. Now from what I can see about how the book went down, I think that the reason this has been said is because although there's a fair amount that happens in the book you get the feeling that a lot of it is build up to the climactic ending. And there is a climactic ending, but because the ending explodes and snaps rather suddenly you very much get the feeling when you're closing that 'There's not enough room to finish this'.

I definitely started wondering how Lynch was going to resolve the plot once I started getting to 150 pages left to go ... 100 pages left to go. And then boom. 

Another reason I think that it felt like a bit of filler is partly because of the setting. Even after the swashbuckling quote on the front of the first book and piratical adventures suiting the characters, the fact that they were gallivanting on a ship with a very strong captain made it feel like they were almost piggybacking on another story for a large part of the book. 

It's a strange feeling really, because I don't think this in any way detracted from the enjoyment that is to be had from the book. The writing is still good, the characters are still very entertaining and the world is still fascinating.

I think it's that because you felt like they were just hopping along with someone else's adventure you knew that they were going to leave those characters behind in the end so it almost felt inconsequential. This feels silly to say because Lynch does try and address this and he does that well, introducing characters and intertwining them with our protagonists with skill and consequence.But I guess, at least from my perspective, I'm always aware that they're the great con-artists and it's hard to forget that whatever might happen they're going to move on to the next big score at some point. Although that view point is probably not helped by the fact that I knew there was a third book, so maybe if I didn't know that I might have thought they could settle down at the end.... 

Anyway! 

The work itself is just like reading more of the first, so that's no bad thing. The characters retain their playfulness, intelligent and cunning ways. There's more baggage than you get with the first book, the ending of Lies of Locke Lamora clearly weighs on them and at times there is the feeling that there's a sword of Damacles dangling overhead waiting to split the group asunder. But that's not a bad thing, it just adds another dimension to the plot along with the usual tension from whatever score they're planning. The writing retains its wit, keeps its pacing and generally drags you along for the ride whether you want to put the book down or not.

I've touched on the setting. But the fact that the characters are out in the big wide ocean for a portion gives a good reason for Lynch to show you the characters weaknesses and expose their raw nerves. You definitely feel like the characters are being pushed to their limits and that they're finding out just as much about themselves as we are. 

I would definitely recommend this book, even more so if you've already enjoyed The Lies of Locke Lamora. I am glad that the next installment is already available for purchase as the ending almost felt too quick. You're just getting ready for a big climactic ending and you get one, but it's over almost before you know what's happening. 

So yes, read this, it's just as good as the first and you'll be hard pressed not to dive straight into the next one!

See you next time!

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3 Reasons You Should Be Writing Short Stories

One of the main mantras for writers, whether they’re hopefully, published, or old hats (not literally. Although I would definitely buy a book by an old hat, if just for the experience) is: Write, write, write, write. And then when you feel like your pen can go no further, write some more. So I won’t be going over this rule too much. There it is. You see it. It has been proclaimed.

So what is today going to be devoted to. Well, I’m going to give you (arbitrary number alert) five reasons you should be writing short stories. I don’t care if you’re writing a huge, ten-book, epic fantasy series. I don’t care if you’re just letting your newly finished manuscript settle before you go back for some editing. You should be writing short stories.

Okay that sounds quite draconian. But writing short stories is good for the literary muscles, there’s a host of reasons that short stories can help all of your writing from sprawling epic series to your opening line. I know you’re just aching to see the list, so let’s get to it.

1: YOU GET A BREAK WITHOUT LOSING YOUR EDGE

You’ve been penning your sprawling space opera series for 5 years now. You’re almost at the last chapter and then you’ll be done! Ready to throw it out there for all the publishers and agents to fight over. Maybe you’ve just finished the first draft of your very first book, and you’re super excited to get it out there!

Well it would be a good idea for you to write short stories for a bit. That way you still get to work on your craft (so you’ll just keep getting better) but then you can come back to your big work with a fresh perspective. I’m not saying that you won’t be able to effectively keep working on it, but you’ve heard of being too close to the problem to see the solution? Working on a piece of writing for a long time can be like that. You might not have any problems with your writing, and that’s great! But it would definitely be worth taking a month off to come back fresh to double check. And then if you write short stories you still get to do what you love and it’s still a break! Huzzah!

2: IF YOU CAN’T WAIT TO GET SOMETHING OUT THERE SHORT STORIES ARE THE WAY TO GO

Patience is a virtue, especially in the business of scribbling, re-scribbling and then making once more sweep of edits. But sometimes patience isn’t what you want, or heck even what you need sometimes! It’s nice to have something to actually show for all your hard work, beyond just saying to people “I write.” and getting a look that says ‘suuuure you do.’ Short stories mean that you have something you can show to people, it’ll take a lot less time to get to a professional level (thinking purely from the perspective of how many words you have to shine!). You could also potentially get together with some fellow authors and make an anthology! Of course this will still have all the normal effort of publishing a book but if you just can’t wait until your major project is finished then this can be a good way to have your name on the internet with a product in tow!

3: IF YOU’RE A SECRETIVE SALLY IT’S SOMETHING FOR PEOPLE TO CRITIQUE

If you’re someone who doesn’t like showing people your big work because you’re afraid that they’ll steal your idea, I have two things to say to you. It’s  super super super unlikely, and short stories.

It’s going to be much harder for someone to take your idea for a story with a chapter or two that you’ve given them to look at and then for them to take that idea (that they won’t have the whole picture of anyway) and then write that book. I mean, you’re already asking people to look at it, you’re (comparatively) almost done!

But if that’s something you feel that you want to be worried about, then look no further than short stories!

I think that these are all some pretty awesome reasons to give short stories a try! You can get your name out there, get some good feedback on your writing, not only as general prose but also how you tie a story together, and you don’t have to give away anything from your big work (you could even tantalise people by setting the short stories in the same place or be a prequel to your characters big story!).

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The Dangerous Game of Leap-Shark

Welcome back scribblers, scratchers and word processor tappers!

Today, I want to talk about jumping over sharks. This isn’t going to be a post about encouraging you to jump over sharks mind you, it’s more about knowing your story’s limitations, what you can do and what your audience expect of you.

But what do I mean? And why am I talking about sharks!?

Well, the term ‘jumping the shark’ generally means to do something so audacious and out there that it can only signal a decline. Originally this was referred to only with regards to television but it has since been expanded to encompass a wide range of topics and media.

Okay, so that still doesn’t really explain why I’m talking about sharks. The term ‘jumping the shark’ was coined by John Hein and it refers to an episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie, as a test of his courage, literally jumps over a shark whilst using water skis. For Happy Days this supposedly marked a gradual decline in the show’s creativity and inevitably led to the cancellation of the show.

Yeah I just jumped a shark, so what?

One of the things that I love about The Dresden Files series is that you really feel like Harry Dresden is pushed to his absolute limits. You (both the reader and Harry) find out what Harry is willing to do to protect those he loved and do what he can to save them.
Now, I will avoid spoilers, but at the end of Changes I really wasn’t sure where Jim Butcher was going to go with it. The ending was an absolute explosion of emotional, physical and magical excitement and trauma. And maybe it was that, but I really felt like the next instalment Ghost Story would have been better suited for a short story. I started reading it but found it very difficult to get into the story, or re-engage with the characters. To be honest, I skipped a large part of the middle and didn’t feel like I’d missed much.

So why am I bringing this up?

Well I read something recently that made me think of this. Unfortunately it was The Dresden Files. As much as I do enjoy the books, I recently read (I say read for The Dresden Files I listen to the audiobooks as read by James Marsters) Ghost Story and I was quite disappointed.

What I think was the problem is that Ghost Story was more about the other characters within the Dresden-verse. That’s not so much a problem but I don’t think that it merited its own novel for it.

Having said all of that, I’m a sucker for a series so I thought I’d pick up the next book Cold Days just to see if it was indeed a ‘jump the shark’ situation, or if that book was just miss instead of a hit.

It was a slow start, but a better one. And then, after a good few chapters, Butcher really stepped up the game. The storyline is back to being something Dresden isn’t sure if he can handle, but knows if he doesn’t the consequences will be dire. Cold Days definitely puts to rest the worry that Butcher’s books would face a slow and gradual decline as the series went on. Not only does he lay these fears to rest, but as far as I’m concerned he has definitely introduced enough plot points at this juncture to justify the continuing series, and there are also other elements that Butcher has brought forward from the history of the series that demonstrate a thorough overarching plan that has been in place for a long time.

I don’t think that Ghost Story was a badly written book, I just think that the story itself and how it was presented was not as interesting to me as it could have been. As I said, what I love about The Dresden Files is the tension that comes from Harry Dresden’s character and how far he’s willing to go. But in Ghost Story it was more about the supporting cast, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just not my thing.

So what I would say to you, dear readers, is the following: Be careful where you’re taking your story. It might be that something you think will be a really interesting direction might put off some of your readers.

Be careful of jumping the shark, just because something’s awesome doesn’t necessarily mean you should do it. Just because jumping over a shark looks cool it might not leave you any room to develop your characters or story further, it might not even be a relevant thing to have happen!

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be ambitious in your writing and the scope of your story, just make sure when it’s awesome, it’s awesome for the right reasons! And don’t  be put off keeping up with The Dresden Files! I still think they are a thoroughly fantastic read, and to have one book in the series that didn’t quite stack up out of a total of fourteen is no mean feat! But if you don’t like Ghost Story, I would recommend picking it up at Cold Days because it definitely gets better and so much bigger (in such a good way).

I hope that makes as much sense as it can without me revealing anything about the plot! Beware spectacle for spectacle's sake!

Well that’s all for now fellow scribblers! I wish you all well, and until next time: Good hunting!

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