Interview with MARK SMYLIE

April 9, 2014 Civilian Reader Comics, Interview Archaia, Artesia, Barrow, Boom Studios, Epic, Fantasy, Mark Smylie, Pyr Books

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Mark Smylie?

Let’s see. I was born in Florida; my mother was Japanese, she had come to the States to study piano at Julliard, and my father is a Presbyterian minister who worked for the Church’s national body as their liaison to the United Nations (now long retired). I grew up in New Jersey and have lived there on and off for most of my adult life (with stints in New York and California). I’ve worked mostly in comics publishing, both as a writer/artist and as a publisher (I founded a company called Archaia that is now an imprint at BOOM! Studios).

Your debut novel, The Barrow, was published by Pyr Books last month in the US and this week in the UK. How would you introduce the novel to a new reader? Is it the first in a series?

The novel was written as a stand-alone but Pyr has agreed to publish two sequels so, yes, for better or for worse I’m afraid it’s yet another fantasy trilogy. The novel is part epic fantasy, part horror story, and I guess what could be termed part undercover detective story. At first glance it’s about a group of criminals and adventurers of few if any scruples that are following a map to find a fabled lost sword, but nothing is quite as it seems.

The novel is, I believe, adapted from a comic series. What inspired you to write the novel, and what was it like adapting the world for fiction?

It might be more accurate to say that the novel is spun off from a comics series I (used to) write and draw, an epic military fantasy story called Artesia, but it’s actually an adaptation (and expansion) of a screenplay begun back in 2004 or so. I wrote the initial screenplay with my brother, John Smylie, and a friend of ours, Hidetoshi Oneda, who was a commercial director that worked mostly in Japan. We were working on the idea of creating a low-budget prequel to the comics series (which given its military content is something that would be very costly to try filming as is). The story was initially intended as a kind of metaphor for the search for weapons of mass destruction, as we were starting to get deep into the messy aftermath of the invasion of Iraq at the time. My brother and I had always talked about the idea of turning it into a novel at some point. In many ways the novel as a medium is much better suited for fantasy writing; you get more of a chance to fill in background and flesh out a world, I think, than you do in comics, where the format of panels and word balloons is much more restrictive.

Where do you draw your inspiration from in general?

All over the place. The setting is inspired by Greek, Roman, and Celtic mythology, late medieval and early Renaissance Europe, Marija Gimbutas’ writings on proto-European Goddess culture, Carlo Ginzurg’s work on shamanism and medieval witchcraft; there are bits and pieces of the poststructuralist analysis of mythology from writers like Vernant and Detienne, classic Joseph Campbell monomyth hero quests, years of roleplaying games and other fantasy novels. The underground scene of the main city in the story is modeled after some years spent living in New York City in the late ’80s and early ’90s when the city still felt a little dangerous, so there’s a kind of postpunk, transgender vibe going on as well which might seem odd for a fantasy setting to some readers (and the film script was originally conceived as Dungeons & Dragons meets Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels or The Usual Suspects). Horror films, military history, costume, cooking and cuisine; it all kind of gets thrown in a blender.

How were you introduced to reading and genre fiction?

My father used to read my brother and I stories when we were little kids; he read us the Chronicles of Narnia, and he was reading us Tolkien when my father realized we were finishing the pages faster than he was reading them aloud. So my brother and I went on to finish the Lord of the Rings on our own. I’ll read other genres and general fiction, but fantasy literature is where I come back again and again.

How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry?

I feel very, very lucky. I mean, it’s a difficult industry to work in with the rewards few and far between, but I’ve been very fortunate to do something that I love and to publish the works of a lot of writers and artists that I admire.

Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?

I’ve got a pretty large research library, it’s a reasonably specialized one built over 20+ years of book collecting, so a lot of the time I sort of wander over to my bookshelves with an idea in the back of my head – a remembered illustration, or a chart, or a line of text – and start flipping through pages. I’ll make notes to myself about something that I want to include in the story – a myth, a kind of pastry, a piece of costume – and use those notes to build the details of the world. I think a fantasy setting needs to feel real, like you can smell it, taste it. Though nowadays a lot of readers don’t seem to have much time for exposition; they just want to read dialogue, as though we’re now a nation of script readers. I try to have an outline that I’m constantly reworking as I write, so that I know how what I’m writing is going to tie into where I want to wind up. And then I reread and rewrite.

When did you realize you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?

I don’t think I ever made a conscious decision to be an author. I took art classes in high school, drew comics, played a lot of roleplaying games; I took a creative writing class in college and found it kind of tough going, in part because I was always a genre guy and back then genre wasn’t something you were supposed to aspire to. I tried my first “official” comic book soon after college but couldn’t find a publisher for it; it wouldn’t be until my comic book Artesia came out, when I was thirty, that I would have my first published work as a writer/artist.

What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?

We’re definitely living in a kind of geek Golden Age – whether it’s television, comics, film, novels, there’s an enormous variety in terms of the kind of material that’s out there and so much of it is being produced at a very high level of quality. I think that also makes it very competitive for those of us that are tying to get our work out in this kind of marketplace right now, which can be kind of tough. I’m not sure where my own work falls into it all; Artesia was sort of a pagan Joan of Arc military fantasy story, but The Barrow is more horror-oriented, very much grimdark, I suppose, though I didn’t discover that term until a few months ago.

What other projects are you working on, and what do you have currently in the pipeline?

Well, in terms of my personal work I’m currently working on the sequel to The Barrow, called Black Heart, along with a board game set in the world of the book and the comics, with an eye towards doing a second edition of an Artesia roleplaying game that I put out back in 2005. I’m still at Archaia as my day job, transitioning over to hopefully starting a games line for the company soon.

What are you reading at the moment (fiction, non-fiction)?

For fiction I’m juggling Steven Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon (I’d never read Erikson before but several reviewers have compared my work to his so I figured I’d better get familiar with it), Scott Lynch’s Republic of Thieves, and Kate Elliott’s Cold Magic. For non-fiction research I’ve been glancing through City of Sin, a history of the underbelly of London by Catharine Arnold, and Israel’s Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition by Brian Schmidt.

What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?

Given the sex and violence in the book I suspect some readers might be surprised to learn that I have a daily yoga practice (hatha raja vinyasa mixed with ashtanga). Or that I have a lot of cats (not on purpose).

What are you most looking forward to in the next twelve months?

World peace and a cure for cancer?

Guest Post: “Influences & Inspirations” by Duncan Jepson

April 8, 2014 Civilian Reader Guest Post Article, China, Duncan Jepson, East-West Relations, Emperors Once More, Influences and Inspirations, International Relations, Politics, Quercus, Thriller

During the last 150 years, China and the West have collided many times, virtually always on Chinese soil, and their relationship is heavily coloured by this history. Many in Asia are choosing and building their futures motivated by their own and their family’s experiences, ambitions and histories, much of it unclear and unknown to most in the West. The relationship between China and West is set to become more intense and complicated and we have to hope these two sides will work together rather than tear the world apart.

The story of Emperors Once More is about the collision of these different motivations and forces in China and among Chinese people, set against their position on the world stage. On a national level, the government is tasked with maintaining a union of a billion plus people so it does not crumble into chaos again, fighting the very human feeling of humiliation from centuries of defeat, both personal and national, the need to re-establish respect on the world stage, the clashes that will arise from the very practical need to obtain vital resources for the future and China’s new role in the global order. The story is also about those very personal experiences such as migration, subservience, colonialism, aspiration, ideology, revolution and tradition.

This is also personal to me. As a Eurasian, I have often found myself stuck awkwardly in geography, sometimes feeling at home in no place in particular but persistently trying to be comfortable in both East and West. I have watched the older generation in Hong Kong, those having lived and grown up under colonial rule, feel the weight of a heavy glass ceiling whether due to limited education, lack of understanding of the governing culture or, at times, simply by race. To some there is a deep frustration and resentment to having been treated as what they feel is a foreigner in their own home. Thankfully the world has moved on and a young generation of Chinese don’t see themselves this way – many are now of a new global generation.

The premise of Emperors Once More is that, in 2017, China has bailed out the West, but the West has defaulted on its debt. For many Chinese, this has the same strong sense of bitterness as the humiliations of the Opium War, Rape of Nanjing and Boxer Rebellion. One man in Hong Kong, deeply affected by colonialism, wants to use this new collective anger and indignation to push Chinese to demand China use its global power to reclaim its rightful place in the world order. To achieve these ends, he will draw on both ancient rites and modern technology to commit a series of killings and provoke national rage.

I wanted a criminal with a purpose and an anger that is rooted deep in history and personal experiences, believing there are wrongs to be righted, and a hero who is of a new different world who sees a better future that does not have to pay for the past. I hope that this story pulls the reader into a full-bloodied crime tale while drawing on Chinese history, culture and mysticism.

***

Duncan Jepson is the award-winning director, producer and writer of five feature films. He also produced documentaries for Discovery Channel Asia and National Geographic Channel. He was the editor of the Asia-based fashion magazine West East and a founder and managing editor of Asia Literary Review. He is a social commentator on Asia and regularly writes for The New York Times, Publishing Perspectives and South China Morning Post. A lawyer by profession, he lives in Hong Kong.

Jepson’s Emperors Once More is out now, published in the UK by Quercus Books. Jepson is also the author of All the Flowers in Shanghai. Be sure to follow Duncan on Twitter and Goodreads.

“& Sons” by David Gilbert (Fourth Estate/Random House)

April 7, 2014 Civilian Reader Review Ampersand, And Sons, Author Fiction, David Gilbert, Fiction, Fourth Estate, Literary, New York, Publishing, Random House

An intriguing, engaging literary novel

The funeral of Charles Henry Topping on Manhattan’s Upper East Side would have been a minor affair (his two-hundred-word obit in The New York Times notwithstanding) but for the presence of one particular mourner: the notoriously reclusive author A.N. Dyer, whose novel Ampersand stands as a classic of American teenage angst. But as Andrew Newbold Dyer delivers the eulogy for his oldest friend, he suffers a breakdown over the life he’s led and the people he’s hurt and the novel that will forever endure as his legacy. He must gather his three sons for the first time in many years – before it’s too late.

So begins a wild, transformative, heartbreaking week, as witnessed by Philip Topping, who, like his late father, finds himself caught up in the swirl of the Dyer family. First there’s son Richard, a struggling screenwriter and father, returning from self-imposed exile in California. In the middle lingers Jamie, settled in Brooklyn after his twenty-year mission of making documentaries about human suffering. And last is Andy, the half-brother whose mysterious birth tore the Dyers apart seventeen years ago, now in New York on spring break, determined to lose his virginity before returning to the prestigious New England boarding school that inspired Ampersand.

But only when the real purpose of this reunion comes to light do these sons realize just how much is at stake, not only for their father but for themselves and three generations of their family.

& Sons is a very good novel. It’s a bit tricky to review, though. I was quickly drawn into the story, and the lives of the protagonists. It was by no means perfect, and sometimes downright weird, but Gilbert’s prose and characters were engaging throughout.

This is a peculiar novel, in many ways. Gilbert writes extremely well, but that didn’t stop the beginning from being a bit confusing – specifically, the narrative style wasn’t clear. I wasn’t sure who was narrating the tale. It is presented as if Philip Topping has written an account of the events, but bestowed upon himself omnipotence, able to write inside his subjects’ heads without really any way of knowing what was going on. A strange decision, but one that I quickly got used to and accepted.

It is the story of families, fathers and sons. Philip Topping, never particularly close with his father, was always enamoured of the Dyers – revering Andrew, idolising Richard and Jamie, glomming on to the family as an attempt to become a de facto member. For this desire, he has long been mocked and pranked by the elder two Dyer brothers. It was a strange and sometimes-creepy dynamic. Andrew Jr., the half-brother whose existence cratered A.N. Dyer’s marriage, is probably the best character in the novel, and I enjoyed seeing him navigate his world, and the strange dynamic he had with his father and brothers.

Literary fiction seems to require a peculiarity. I’m not sure why this trope has developed, but almost every literary fiction novel I’ve read contains a truly bizarre element or event, and this can often be the stumbling block that takes a great novel and almost ruins it. With & Sons, the peculiarity is the secret Andrew wishes to share with his sons. I’m not going to spoil it, but it kind of came out of nowhere, and we’re never sure if it’s real or a delusion of the fast-declining Andrew Dyer.

I’m not really sure what else to write about the book without spoiling the twists and turns, or delving too deeply or academically into its contents (which is not something CR has been doing in the past). Needless to say, I enjoyed reading & Sons. There’s a great deal of insight and shrewd observation about families – especially fathers and sons – presented in both remorseful and amusing ways. Despite the muddled narrative voice of the first couple of chapters, this grew to become a very strong novel and engaging read.

Recommended for fans of New York-based literary fiction – for example, Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children, Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch – and also authors such as Michael Chabon, Philip Roth and Richard Russo.

David Gilbert’s & Sons is published by Fourth Estate in the UK and Random House in the US. It is out now.

Recently Received Titles…

April 5, 2014 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Bloomsbury, Books Received, Charlaine Harris, David Wingrove, FR Tallis, Gary Meehan, Gollancz, Isla Morley, Jo Fletcher Books, Maclehose Press, Mark Millar, Pan Macmillan, Quercus, Samantha Shannon, Sceptre, Titan Books, Tom Rachman, Two Roads

Featuring: Anne Bishop, Carole K. Carr, Joël Dicker, Charlaine Harris, Tanya Huff, Mark Millar, Gary Meehan, Isla Morley, Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter, Tom Rachman, Samantha Shannon, Joel Shepherd, F.R. Tallis, David Wingrove

Anne Bishop, Heir to the Shadow (Jo Fletcher Books)

Witch – the Queen who would bring freedom to the realms – has come, but now she is lost in darkness, and has a long road to recovery ahead of her.

While her adopted father, Saeten, waits for her to return to the living world, the third side of the triangle needed to complete the prophecy – the lover, Daemon – walks in the Twisted Kingdom on the edge of madness.

As insidious whispers and dark schemes ferment treachery and betrayal, Jaenelle must make a choice: to protect those she loves, she must be more than an heir, she must become a Queen.

The second novel in Bishop’s Black Jewel trilogy, available in the UK for the first time (as a non-import).

Carole K. Carr, India Black & India Black and the Widow of Windsor (Titan Books)

When Sir Archibald Latham of the War Office dies from a heart attack while visiting her brothel, Madam India Black is unexpectedly thrust into a deadly game between Russian and British agents who are seeking the military secrets Latham carried.

Blackmailed into recovering the missing documents by the British spy known as French, India finds herself dodging Russian agents, seducing spies and embarking on midnight sleigh rides, not to mention ignoring the attraction she starts to feel for her handsome and exasperating British co-conspirator.

These are the first two novels in Carr’s A Madam of Espionage series (of four, with also a couple of short stories). I am quite intrigued by the series, as it looks both fun and different to what I normally read.

Joël Dicker, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (MacLehose Press)

August 30, 1975. The day of the disappearance. The day a small New Hampshire town lost its innocence.

That summer Harry Quebert fell in love with fifteen-year-old Nola Kellergan. Thirty-three years later, her body is dug up from his yard along with a manuscript copy of his career-defining novel. Quebert is the only suspect.

Marcus Goldman – Quebert’s most gifted protégé – throws off his writer’s block to clear his mentor’s name. Solving the case and penning a new bestseller soon blur together. As his book begins to take on a life of its own, the nation is gripped by the mystery of “The Girl Who Touched the Heart of America”. But with Nola, in death as in life, nothing is ever as it seems.

This is one of my most-anticipated novels of the year. I’ll be reading it next-but-one (it’s always dependent on my mood, as long-time readers will know). Because before that, I’ll be reading (and have actually already started)…

Charlaine Harris, Midnight Crossroad (Gollancz)

Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town.

There’s a pawnshop (where someone lives in the basement and runs the store during the night). There’s a diner (although those folk who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident: Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).

If you stop at the one traffic light in town, then everything looks normal. But if you stay a while, you might learn the truth…

The start of a brand new urban fantasy series from mega-selling author of the Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood series. This will actually be my first read by Harris, and I will be starting it within a couple days.

Tanya Huff, Valour’s Trial (Titan)

Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr is a Confederation Marines marine. She’s survived more deadly encounters and kept more of her officers and enlistees alive than anyone in the Corps. Unexpectedly pulled from battle, Torin finds herself in an underground POW camp that shouldn’t exist, where her fellow marine prisoners seem to have lost all will to escape. Now, Torin must fight her way not only out of the prison but also past the growing compulsion to sit down and give up not realizing that her escape could mean the end of the war.

This is the fourth novel in Huff’s Confederation series – an ass-kicking military sci-fi series. It’s been available in the States for some time, but Titan have been releasing the series over the course of the past couple of years in the UK – and I’m very happy they did!

Mark Millar, Secret Service: Kingsman (Titan Comics)

The world’s greatest secret agent is on the most exciting case of his career. But will the end of the world as we know it take a back seat to training his street-punk nephew to be the next James Bond?

Meanwhile, what’s the secret link between a series of kidnapped sci-fi stars, the murder of an entire town, and a dark secret from inside Mount Everest? Under Uncle Jack’s supervision, Gary’s spy skills and confidence blossom – but when the duo learn what’s behind the celebrity kidnappings, the knowledge comes at a price. The conspiracy begins to unravel, but who can be trusted when so many prominent figures seem to be involved?

I read the first issue of Secret Service when it first came out in the US. It was pretty good. I don’t really know why I didn’t keep reading it… Well, now I have the opportunity to get the whole story.

Gary Meehan, True Fire (Quercus)

Sixteen-year-old Megan is pregnant.

As she prepares to tell her family, the unthinkable happens. Her village is razed by soldiers: her grandfather murdered, her twin sister taken.

On a desperate mission to rescue her beloved Gwyneth, Megan discovers a terrifying truth – that the destruction of her old life is inextricably linked to her unborn child. The feared witch soldiers, vanquished a generation ago, have returned to see the fulfilment of a prophecy: one that will put Megan and her new friends – Eleanor, a fiery ex-aristocrat, and Damon, a wayward charmer – at the heart of the greatest war her world has ever known.

This could be interesting. Not sure how quickly I’ll get around to it, but I do hope to read this relatively soon.

Isla Morley, Above (Two Roads)

I am a secret no one is able to tell.

Blythe Hallowell is sixteen when she is abducted by a survivalist and locked away in an abandoned missile silo in Eudora, Kansas. At first, she focuses frantically on finding a way out, until the harrowing truth of her new existence settles in – the crushing loneliness, the terrifying madness of a captor who believes he is saving her from the end of the world, and the persistent temptation to give up. But nothing prepares Blythe for the burden of raising a child in confinement. Determined to give the boy everything she has lost, she pushes aside the truth about a world he may never see for a myth that just might give meaning to their lives below ground. Years later, their lives are ambushed by an event at once promising and devastating. As Blythe’s dream of going home hangs in the balance, she faces the ultimate choice – between survival and freedom.

Never heard anything about this book or author, before it arrived in the mail. Guess I’ll just have to dive in, see what I find…

Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter, The Long War (Transworld)

A generation after the events of The Long Earth, mankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by Stepping. Where Joshua and Lobsang once pioneered, now fleets of airships link the stepwise Americas with trade and culture. Mankind is shaping the Long Earth – but in turn the Long Earth is shaping mankind… A new “America”, called Valhalla, is emerging more than a million steps from Datum Earth, with core American values restated in the plentiful environment of the Long Earth – and Valhalla is growing restless under the control of the Datum government…

Meanwhile the Long Earth is suffused by the song of the trolls, graceful hive-mind humanoids. But the trolls are beginning to react to humanity’s thoughtless exploitation… Joshua, now a married man, is summoned by Lobsang to deal with a gathering multiple crisis that threatens to plunge the Long Earth into a war unlike any mankind has waged before.

The second volume in Pratchett and Baxter’s shared science fiction series, The Long Earth. I haven’t read the first in the series, but I’m willing to give the series a try.

Tom Rachman, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (Sceptre)

Tooly Zylberberg, the American owner of an isolated bookshop in the Welsh countryside, conducts a life full of reading, but with few human beings. Books are safer than people, who might ask awkward questions about her life. She prefers never to mention the strange events of her youth, which mystify and worry her still.

Taken from home as a girl, Tooly found herself spirited away by a group of seductive outsiders, implicated in capers from Asia to Europe to the United States. But who were her abductors? Why did they take her? What did they really want? There was Humphrey, the curmudgeonly Russian with a passion for reading; there was the charming but tempestuous Sarah, who sowed chaos in her wake; and there was Venn, the charismatic leader whose worldview transformed Tooly forever. Until, quite suddenly, he disappeared.

Years later, Tooly believes she will never understand the true story of her own life. Then startling news arrives from a long-lost boyfriend in New York, raising old mysteries and propelling her on a quest around the world in search of answers.

I’ve only read one of Rachman’s short stories, but I’m really looking forward to giving this a try.

Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season (Bloomsbury)

It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others’ minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing.

But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. The voyant prison is a separate city – Oxford, erased from the map two centuries ago and now controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. These creatures, the Rephaim, value the voyants highly – as soldiers in their army.

Paige is assigned to a Rephaite keeper, Warden, who will be in charge of her care and training. He is her master. Her natural enemy. But if she wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives.

I’m hoping to read this pretty soon – I’ve been dragging my feet. I’ve heard mixed things, but I’m going to go in with an open mind.

Joel Shepherd, Shield (Pyr)

Part military SF, part cyberpunk, part grand-scale space opera, and part techno-psychological thriller, the Cassandra Kresnov novels transcend the recently narrow segmentation of the science fiction genre.

In 23 Years on Fire, Cassandra discovered that the technology that created her has been misused in her former home and now threatens all humanity with catastrophe. Returning home to Callay, she finds that Federation member worlds, exhausted by the previous thirty-year-war against the League, are unwilling to risk the confrontation that a solution may require. Some of these forces will go to any lengths to avoid a new conflict, including taking a sledgehammer to the Federation Constitution and threatening the removal by force of Cassandra’s own branch of the Federal Security Agency.

More frighteningly for Sandy, she has brought back to Callay three young children, whom she met on the mean streets of Droze, discovering maternal feelings she had not known she possessed. Can she reconcile her duty as a soldier, including what she must do as a tactician, with the dangers that those decisions will place upon her family-the one thing that has come to mean more to her than any cause she now believes in?

I’ve been aware of Joel Shepherd for a little while, having seen his name and novels mentioned in Pyr’s catalogues and on their website for a while. And yet, for some reason I’ve never picked one up. They seem to be in the same sub-genre of science fiction as Justina Robson’s Quantum Gravity series (also published by Pyr in the US, and Gollancz in the UK). This is the second in the series, so I’m not sure how long it will take me to catch up and read the first one before moving on to this. It does sound cool, though…

James Smythe, No Harm Can Come to a Good Man (Borough Press)

How far would you go to save your family from an invisible threat?

ClearVista is used by everyone and can predict anything. It’s a daily lifesaver, predicting weather to traffic to who you should befriend.

Laurence Walker wants to be the next President of the United States. ClearVista will predict his chances. It will predict whether he’s the right man for the job. It will predict that his son can only survive for 102 seconds underwater. It will predict that Laurence’s life is about to collapse in the most unimaginable way.

This has a really intriguing premise. I’ve dipped in already, and am not sure what I think. I’ll come back to it when I’m more in the mood for something along these lines. Hopefully won’t be too long.

F.R. Tallis, The Voices (Pan Macmillan)

In the scorching summer of 1976 the hottest since records began Christopher Norton, his wife Laura and their young daughter Faye settle into their new home in north London. The faded glory of the Victorian house is the perfect place for Norton, a composer of film soundtracks, to build a recording studio of his own. But soon in the long, oppressively hot nights, Laura begins to hear something through the crackle of the baby monitor. First, a knocking sound. Then come the voices. For Norton, the voices mark an exciting opportunity. Putting his work to one side, he begins the project of a lifetime a grand symphony incorporating the voices and becomes increasingly obsessed with one voice in particular. Someone who is determined to make themselves heard…

I’ve never read anything by Tallis. Not sure when (or if) I’ll be able to get around to this one, but it does sound interesting.

David Wingrove, The Empire of Time (Del Rey UK)

There is only the war.

Otto Behr is a German agent, fighting his Russian counterparts across three millennia, manipulating history for moments in time that can change everything.

Only the remnants of two great nations stand and for Otto, the war is life itself, the last hope for his people.

But in a world where realities shift and memory is never constant, nothing is certain, least of all the chance of a future with his Russian love…

Wingrove is the author of the multi-volume Chung Kuo series. I have the first book in that series, but for some reason I just never got around to reading it. This novel has a really intriguing premies, though, so I may get to this far sooner than the author’s previous series.

Which of these has caught your eye? Any other books you’ve received recently that you’re excited to get started on?

Guest Post: “Fantasy – It’s Not a Choice, it’s a Way of Life!” by Debbie Johnson

April 4, 2014 Civilian Reader Guest Post Dark Vision, Debbie Johnson, Del Rey UK, Urban Fantasy

I was recently asked by a journalist why I felt ‘compelled’ to write fantasy. It’s probably very telling that my first frame of reference for that questions was ‘Compelled? Like, by a vampire or a mystical creature with mind control tricks?’

As I forced variations of ‘these aren’t the ‘droids you’re looking for’ from my brain, I tried to give a coherent answer – but it’s a very difficult affinity to explain to someone who’s not inclined that way. It stems from so many childhood memories – reading The Hobbit, getting bitten by the David Eddings bug as a teenager, watching Labyrinth 10,000 times when I worked as a cinema usherette in the 80s. All of this and more contributed to the kind of brain that sees things a little bit differently than other people.

By the time I was in my late teens, it had become serious. If my mother had known that I was involved in a penpal circle where we all pretended to be fictional characters from Pern, she’d probably have called in the trick cyclist.

Now, as an alleged adult and mother of three myself, I have all the trappings of maturity – a car, a mortgage, even a stately Golden Retriever. But I still see things a little bit differently. That’s part of how my first book, Dark Vision, came to life. I live in Liverpool – a vast, complex multi-cultural city. That alone is interesting enough – but what about if you add the little extra touches? Like a fairy mound in the Wirral, or a magic portal in Sefton Park, or a raging Celtic battleground along the banks of the Mersey? What if the Liver Birds didn’t just look amazing up there, perched and glinting – what if they could come alive and take a creaking, mechanical flight over the city?

What if a normal Liverpool girl – one who’d also always seen things a little bit differently – was caught up in the middle of it all, fighting for a sense of identity and sanity in an existence spiralling out of her control?

It’s not difficult to spot the wish fulfilment there. And surely that’s one of the reasons fantasy appeals so much: often revolving around taking a ‘normal’ human being and plunging them into totally alien and mind-expanding situations. From Bilbo onwards, that’s what’s drawn us in – it might be an alternate reality, but it’s populated by People Like Us.

Most of us lead pleasingly dull, mundane lives. There is nothing wrong with that – it’s a lot better than displeasingly exciting. But fantasy allows us to spread our wings (sometimes literally) and fly around the ever-changing landscapes of the mind. Alll fiction does that to some extent – but with fantasy, it’s a whole different level. With urban fantasy – which I unashamedly love – it’s even easier: see that bloke over there, outside Costco? Yeah, that’s him, the security guard. He’s actually a werewolf assassin in disguise!

All of this makes reading a marvellous adventure – and makes writing an absolute joy. It does, however, make trips to Costco ever-so-slightly tense.

I suppose I could try and stop thinking like this. Apart from the fact that I’m simply compelled…

***

Dark Vision by Debbie Johnson is published by Del Rey UK.

Hinterkind, Vol.1 – “The Waking World” (Vertigo)

April 3, 2014 Civilian Reader Comics, Review Dystopia, Fantasy, Francesco Trifogli, Graphic Novel, Greg Tocchini, Hinterkind, Ian Edginton, Mutants, Post-Apocalyptic, Sidhe, Vertigo, Volume 1, Waking World

Writer: Ian Edginton | Artist: Francesco Trifogli

In a post-apocalyptic world where humans have been pushed to the edge of extinction by the creatures of fantasy and fables, THE HINTERKIND tells the story of one young woman’s quest to fulfill her destiny and put the world right again.

Fifty-seven years after an unspecified biological event has all but wiped out the human race, a green hand has moved over the face of the Earth. Leaf, root and shoot have steadfastly smothered the works of man, remorselessly grinding the concrete, glass and steel back into the minerals from whence they came. Mother Nature is reclaiming what’s rightfully hers but she’s not the only one…

The Hinterkind have returned. They come from hiding places in the lost corners of the world: Centaurs, Satyrs, Elves, Dwarves, Ogres, Trolls, Werewolves, Vampires…

They’re also known as “the Hidden,” “the Twilight People,” the “walkers-in-shadow,” collective names for the menagerie that mankind has hung its tales of myth and magic upon – but these aren’t fairy tale creatures. They are flesh, blood and passion, and they have a long simmering hatred of humanity.

They are a divergent species. Exotic evolutionary try-outs that couldn’t compete with the rapacious ape. Hunted to near extinction through fear and ignorance, they fled to the great forests and deserts, losing themselves in the shrinking wilderness of an ever-expanding world.

Now the wilderness is the world and mankind is in the minority.

Collects: HINTERKIND #1-6

This is a strange, promising, and yet somewhat flawed start to a new series.

The first issue presents a fantastic post-apocalyptic world – one in which human society has been near-destroyed, global populations brought to the brink of extinction. Our protagonists are based in Central Park, New York, and have built a working community: foraging for leftover items in the over-grown city around them, hunting the wildlife. It’s a stunning start, actually, and I was immediately drawn to the setting. The characters and writing were strong, and they were well-realised by the artwork.

Then things started to get a bit weird, and this is where (for me) the series stumbled: it became very busy, and the story grew expansive so quickly, that the mash-up of genres started to feel like it was trying too hard. I hesitated for a bit, deciding on how much detail this review should go in to, but I think it’s worth pointing some things out: there are army survivors similar to Buffy’s Initiative (only, weirder), the sidhe and other fairytale creatures have proliferated across the world, and the post-apocalyptic environment can cause mutations. All of this is revealed over this one book. I feel it may have been better to unveil the overall world more gradually, teasing us with possibilities, rather than dumping them all on in very quick succession.

Nevertheless, there’s a lot to enjoy in this book. The artwork is eye-catching; the writing is well-composed; and the characters are pretty interesting. I’m certainly looking forward to reading volume two, when it’s available.

Not the best start to a new Vertigo series, but still better than a lot of other publishers’ new books.

Original Issue Covers #1-6, by Greg Tocchini

“Galveston” by Nic Pizzolatto (Sphere)

April 3, 2014 Civilian Reader Review Crime, Galveston, Little Brown UK, New Orleans, Nic Pizzolatto, Sphere, Suspense, Texas, Thriller, True Detective

An interesting, if flawed debut thriller

Roy Cady is by his own admission “a bad man”. With a snow flurry of cancer in his lungs and no one to live for, he’s a walking time-bomb of violence. Following a fling with his boss’s lover, he’s sent on a routine assignment he knows is a death trap. Yet after a smoking spasm of violence, Roy’s would-be killers are mostly dead and he is mostly alive.

Before Roy makes his getaway, he finds a beaten-up woman in the apartment, and sees something in her frightened, defiant eyes that causes a crucial decision. He takes her with him on the run from New Orleans to Galveston, Texas, permanently entwining their fate along a highway of seedy bars and fleabag hotels, a world of treacherous drifters, pick-up trucks, and ashed-out hopes, with death just a car-length behind.

Only after finishing this novel, did I learn that Pizzolatto is the creator of HBO’s critically-acclaimed True Detective series (starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConnaughey). I can certainly see it, now, though. This is a good thriller: very well-written and fast-paced. However, it also left me slightly dissatisfied at the end.

The story is told from the perspective of Roy, a bagman for a crook in New Orleans. After the set-up (mentioned in the synopsis, above), he escapes bruised and brutalised, taking with him Rocky (Raquel), the partner of a prostitute who was turning a trick at the home of the trap. Roy soon finds that, despite a desire to ditch Rocky (and her toddler ‘sister’, Tiffany, who they pick up on the way to Texas), he can’t seem to follow through. Ruminating on his life and his pending death-by-cancer, he develops a wary connection with Rocky and Tiffany. Definitely attracted to Rocky, he is unwilling to allow himself to accept any of her advances – at first, somewhat business-like, but later perhaps genuine. Instead, he plays a role of protector and, in some ways, rehabilitator – a somewhat ironic role, given his own past actions (not to mention present/future actions that he commits over the course of the story).

Pizzolatto writes incredibly well: his prose is stripped back, fluid and sparse. There isn’t a redundant phrase or extraneous word in sight. This has the positive effect of making this a very quick read (I read the first 10% on a Saturday night, after finishing another novel, and blitzed through the rest on Sunday). However, it does also mean certain things aren’t developed too much. There is a fever-like quality to Roy’s recollection and narrative – he is, after all, a practicing alcoholic who necks one hell of a lot of bourbon in these pages…

By the end of the novel, I felt pretty invested in these characters’ fates. But, given the very brisk pacing, by the brutal end, the dénouement was robbed of some impact, while remaining tragic. It was a peculiar feeling, really. Slightly disconnected.

Nevertheless, Galveston is still well-worth checking out. Pizzolatto has a great style, and can only get better. I am definitely looking forward to reading his next novel, and also watching True Detective.

Mini-Review: “The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar” by Martin Windrow (Bantam Press)

April 2, 2014 Civilian Reader Review Bantam Press, Martin Windrow, Memoir, Mumble, Non-Fiction, Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar, Owls, Transworld

An endearing memoir of one man and his owl

When author Martin Windrow met the tawny owlet that he christened Mumble, it was love at first sight. Raising her from a fledgling, through adolescence and into her prime years, Windrow recorded every detail of their time living together (secretly) in a south London tower block, and later in a Sussex village. This is the touching, intriguing and eccentric story of their 15-year relationship, complete with photographs and illustrations of the beautiful Mumble. Along the way, we are given fascinating insight into the ornithology of owls – from their evolution and biology to their breeding habits and hunting tactics. The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar is a witty, quirky and utterly charming account of the companionship between one man and his owl.

This is a book that doesn’t require much of a review. It is an endearing, amusing, and also moving account of an editor’s life and experiences as the owner of an owl. An interesting, short book.

“Perched on the back of a sunlit chair was something about 9 inches tall and shaped rather like a plump toy penguin with a nose-job. It appeared to be wearing a one-piece knitted jumpsuit of pale grey fluff with brown stitching, complete with an attached balaclava helmet. From the face-hole of the fuzzy balaclava, two big, shiny black eyes gazed up at me trustfully. Kweep, it said quietly.”

Windrow recounts his various experiences with Mumble (and the short tenure of his first owl), and there are so many moments that bring a smile or even laugh, as he recounts the rather cat-like affections and mannerisms of his pet owl. (Indeed, Windrow says owls are basically cats with wings). To avoid cute-overload, the author alternates some chapters of his experiences with more informational chapters – for example, one on the biology of owls, one (really interesting) chapter on their place in folklore and mythology, and so forth.

A quick read, that will make you smile and also tug on your heartstrings, The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar is an enjoyable book. It perhaps could have done with being a bit shorter: the anecdotes have a slightly repetitive quality about them, without ever losing the obvious sense of affection Windrow felt for his pet and companion. A different book to what I normally read, it was nevertheless a quick and endearing diversion.

Upcoming: GEMSIGNS by Stephanie Saulter, US Edition (Quercus)

April 2, 2014 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Cover Art, Gemsigns, May 2014, Must Read, Quercus US, Revolution Series, Stephanie Saulter, Upcoming

I’m a big fan of Stephanie Saulter’s Revolution series. The first novel, Gemsigns, was released in the UK last year. The wait is nearly over for US readers, though, as it will be hitting shelves in May. It also has a different cover:

Here’s the synopsis…

For years a deadly syndrome that targeted adolescents threatened to decimate the human race, but a cure was ultimately developed by altering the human genome. The corporations that invented the cure then began to use the process to genetically engineer an entirely new class of workers. Known as Gems, these modified humans were physically and mentally adapted for jobs that could not be undertaken by normal human beings, and branded with a gemsign: glowing, neon-coloured hair or some other visible difference, engineered into their anatomy, forever setting them apart from the Norms they were bred to serve.

Now, decades later, the Gems are fighting for their rights, and for freedom from the companies that created them. As violence begins to threaten the severely stratified society, an international conference is scheduled to decide this critical civil rights issue once and for all. In advance of the conference, Dr. Eli Walker has been commissioned to gather detailed findings on the Gems. As an apolitical, nonpartisan figure in the debate, Walker’s analysis promises to be pivotal in deciding the fate of the Gems.

But with vast corporate profits at stake, and with the bloodthirsty religious zealots of the Godgangs determined to rid the earth of these “unholy” creations, the Gems are in a fight for their very lives against violent and powerful adversaries who will stop at nothing to keep them enslaved forever.

Also on CR: Guest Post by Stephanie Saulter, Excerpt of Gemsigns

Interview with JEN WILLIAMS

April 2, 2014 Civilian Reader Interview Adventure, Copper Promise, Dragons, Fantasy, Headline, Jen Williams

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Jen Williams?

I’m a writer from south-east London. I wear odd socks and live with my partner and our cat. I have a Lego fixation and I own too many notebooks. I don’t get as much sleep as I would like, but then I like to sleep a lot. I think those are the important things covered.

Your debut novel, The Copper Promise, is out now through Headline. How would you introduce the novel to a new reader?

I like to describe it as epic sword and sorcery, so you still get a fat book that could conceivably be used as a blunt weapon, but the story moves at a tremendous pace. Two sell-swords of dubious morals are employed by a mysterious lord to explore the haunted Citadel of Creos, only to find that not only does their employer have a destructive agenda of his own, but that the Citadel is forbidden for very good reasons. A terrible force is unleashed on the world, and our heroes have to deal with it, even though it looks like they won’t actually get paid.

What inspired you to write the novel? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general?

At the time, I had a few short stories out in the world, and I thought it would be interesting to release a series of novellas. I was also just coming out the other side of a serious Dragon Age: Origins obsession (a fantasy RPG videogame from Bioware) and my love of traditional fantasy had been reignited. I’d written books in various subgenres before, such as Urban Fantasy and Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy, or just Weird Secondary World stuff, but I’d never written something that was dragons, caverns, dungeons and taverns. I decided it would be fun to embrace all those lovely trappings of traditional fantasy, whilst writing them with a modern edge – there were a number of tropes I wanted to twist and play with, such as the Loveable Rogue, the Honorable Knight, and the Minions of the Dark Lord. I started writing the first novella (The Copper Promise: Ghosts of the Citadel) and fell in love with the world and the characters so much the quick novella project quickly became a big fat book.

Also on CR: Review of Copper Promise

How were you introduced to reading and genre fiction?

My very first exposure to the fantasy genre was probably stealing my brother’s Fighting Fantasy books so I could look at the scary pictures. A few years later I remember picking up The Fellowship of the Ring from the library shelf simply because it was so huge, and I figured reading such a thing would make me look really clever (I think I was about ten years old at the time). It was the first book I fell in love with, as well as the book that made me love reading. From that moment on I read almost exclusively in genre, hopping madly from Stephen King to Terry Pratchett to Neil Gaiman.

How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry?

I love it. I’ve written a number of books and stories, with many probably doomed to remain forever hidden on a memory stick, but I don’t believe I ever really thought I would get here: to have an agent, a publishing contract, to see my book on the shelves of actual bookshops. It seemed like too wild a dream, the sort of thing that happens to other people, and there’s part of me that still doesn’t quite believe it. There’s also a sense of validation too: when I was growing up everyone told me that writing would be too difficult a career path, and so you spend much of your time worrying that you’ve made a mistake. What if I’m deluded? What if I should be doing something else entirely with my life? When someone comes to you and says, “Oh, I really loved that character. And I laughed so much at this bit. Also, why aren’t these two having sex yet?” you can breath a big sigh of relief because to that person at least, you took the right path.

The novel was originally serialised. How did this impact your approach to writing the story? Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?

The book was originally split into four novellas. The tricky part of such a structure was making sure that each section had its own complete story to tell, as well as advancing the wider, overall story of the book. It was also important that the book not seem disjointed or like a series of short stories, so themes and character development had to be consistent too. The fun part was being able to have a number of slightly evil cliffhangers, and getting away with cutting out a lot of what I think of as “transition stuff”: moving the characters to where they need to be, or showing the passage of time. From a practical point of view, this meant editing each novella as if it were its own book, and then putting the whole lot together into one document and editing it again with a view to how it worked as a complete manuscript.

When did you realize you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?

I’ve had an interest in stories and wanting to write them for as long as I can remember. Two of the first presents I asked for at Christmas were a desk and a typewriter, and I cheerfully plonked out stories about dragons and pirates all day long. My first “proper” attempt at writing was a somewhat sprawling, heavily Pratchett-influenced book about a rogue witch and her scheming witch-mother. I started writing it one day after a particularly bad shift at work, and over the course of a couple of years it eventually became book-sized, and I even finished it. That book was significant for me because up until then I hadn’t believed that I could write an entire book, and although it’s full of enormous rookie mistakes and blundering cock-ups, I still have a lot of affection for it.

What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?

I think fantasy is in a healthy place at the moment, with a greater emphasis on a kind of realism, not just in the depiction of violence and the consequences of violence, but also in the depiction of characters. This feels like a good change, a move away from the lighter approach of farm boys who reveal themselves to be long lost princes, towards a genre that is taking itself a little more seriously. That is to say, we value what we do and we’re approaching it with the seriousness it deserves.

Which probably sounds like an odd thing to say given that The Copper Promise, as a piece of sword and sorcery with an emphasis on monsters and magic, is a slight step away from the Grimdark trend. What I hope is that the book takes the bits and pieces we loved from old school, pulp fantasy – the wild magic and the dungeons and the spectacle – and applies a modern approach, adding a degree of realism to the characters. I was very keen, for example, to have a female character who was not reliant on a male character to give her purpose as a love interest or a catalyst, and a gay character whose story is central to the entire plot, and so on. Generally I think fantasy is moving towards being more inclusive, and that’s definitely a good thing.

What other projects are you working on, and what do you have currently in the pipeline?

I’m in the midst of editing the follow-up to The Copper Promise, which is a slightly darker book but with the same themes of magic and monsters and general mayhem-making. Writing a sequel to a debut novel is an interesting and slightly alarming experience, because while I was finishing the first draft of book two, The Copper Promise was receiving its first reviews; it’s very hard not to get fixated on that, not to mention the added weight of deadlines and getting paid for the work. Behind the anxiety though I’ve had a great time hanging out with these characters again, and I’m already looking forward to getting into the third book.

What are you reading at the moment (fiction, non-fiction)?

As I’m knee deep in the editing swamp I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on a single book – once your brain is stuck in hyper-critical mode it’s very hard to turn it off – but I’ve just started Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, which has some of the most spectacular magic I’ve ever read, and Ash by Mary Gentle, which is an extraordinarily vivid experience. I’m not quite sure why I’ve decided to read two such enormous books at the same time, but when I need a break from all the epic I’m dipping in and out of Twisted Histories, a short story anthology edited by Scott Harrison, in which I also happen to have a short story, The Tides of Avalon.

What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?

Despite writing a book that cheerfully embraces many of the tropes, I’ve never actually played Dungeons and Dragons myself. I was always far too shy as a kid to play a game that involved, well, talking to other people, and although as an adult I’m a fan of RPG video games I still have yet to sit down with the D20 and a dungeon master. Shameful, really.

What are you most looking forward to in the next twelve months?

Lots of book related stuff! Sending book two back to my editor and starting work on book three towards the end of the year, as well as continuing to fiddle with my notes on the fantasy series I’ll be writing once this current trilogy is finished. I’m very much looking forward to going to my first Fantasycon this year, and returning to Nineworlds in August, where I may even be convinced to attempt some sort of cosplay. Stranger things have happened.

Be sure to check out Jen Williams’s website, Twitter and Facebook for more information on her novels and writing.

Civilian Reader

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Year: 2014