Author: Civilian Reader

Cover: THOSE ABOVE by Daniel Polansky (Hodder)

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Wow. This is a beautiful cover for Daniel Polansky’s next novel. Colour me very excited and incredibly impatient.

THOSE ABOVE is the first novel in Polansky’s next two-part series, The Empty Throne. It is due to be published on February 26th, 2015. Can. Not. Wait.

Polansky is the extremely talented fellow who wrote The Straight Razor Cure (or Low Town in the US), Tomorrow the Killing and She Who Wakes. The first two are amongst the best novels I’ve read. I have shamefully not yet read the third novel in the series (only partly because Daniel signed my book at WFC in Brighton, which automatically made me want to protect the book more than usual…). Hm. Maybe I will read it next…

Also on CR: Interview with Daniel Polansky

Audio Review: TRAVELLING TO WORK – DIARIES 1988-98 by Michael Palin (Audible/Orion)

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PalinM-Diaries3-TravellingToWorkThe third volume in Michael Palin’s bestselling diaries

After the Python years and a decade of filming, writing, and acting, Palin’s career takes an unexpected direction into travel, which will shape his working life for the next 25 years. Yet, as the diaries reveal, he remained ferociously busy on a host of other projects throughout this whirlwind period.

Travelling to Work opens in September 1988 with Michael travelling down the Adriatic on the first leg of a modern-day Around the World in 80 Days. He was not the BBC’s first choice for the series, but after its success and that of the accompanying book, the public naturally wanted more. Palin, though, has other plans.

Following the tumultuous success of A Fish Called Wanda, he is in demand as an actor. His next film, American Friends, is based on his great-grandfather’s diaries. Next he takes on his most demanding role as the head teacher in Alan Bleasdale’s award-winning drama series GBH. There is also his West End play, The Weekend; a first novel, Hemingway’s Chair; and a lead role in Fierce Creatures, the much-delayed follow-up to Wanda.

Michael describes himself as “drawn to risk like a moth to a flame. Someone grounded and safe who can be tempted into almost anything.” He duly finds time for two more travel series – Pole to Pole, in 1991, and Full Circle, in 1996 – and two more best-selling books to accompany them.

These latest Diaries show a man grasping every opportunity that came his way, and they deal candidly with the doubts and setbacks that accompany this prodigious word-rate. As ever, his family life, with three children growing up fast, is there to anchor him.

Travelling to Work is a roller-coaster ride driven by the Palin hallmarks of curiosity and sense of adventure. These 10 years in different directions offer riches on every page to his ever-growing army of fans.

This is yet another excellent instalment in Michael Palin’s series of diaries. Unlike the first two audio editions, this one is unabridged. This series is a real must for fans of any of Palin’s work: Palin is genial in his delivery, and there is plenty of gentle comedy. It was a welcome ‘more of the same’. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Influences & Inspirations” by Jamie Schultz

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SchultzJ-AuthorPicMy taste in books, of whatever genre, can be summed up as follows: I like to turn literary rocks over and see if something nasty crawls out. I can’t help it. For this, I thank my mother, who got me hooked on that stuff at a young age. I remember being about eleven or twelve when she came home with a box of used books, one of which was a battered copy of Stephen King’s Christine, old even then. The cover was black with a white or silver striped design with a skull on it, best I can recall, and I thought it looked pretty cool. Plus, I had read some of IT over her shoulder at some point, and, with a twelve-year-old’s typical fascination with the morbid, this seemed like a pretty good author to tackle. My parents’ attitude toward my reading material was, “Whatever you think you can handle, kid,” so I dug in. Continue reading →

Short Story: SARCOPHAGUS by David Annandale (Black Library)

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Annandale-Yarrik-SarcophagusAnother excellent Yarrick tale

Trapped in an overturned tank after being caught in a bombing run on Armageddon, Commissar Sebastian Yarrick fights to escape and return to his forces, but as he emerges, he finds himself surrounded by greenskin foes. Can the Old Man of Armageddon survive the onslaught with power claw and Evil Eye, or will he finally fall to the servants of the Great Beast Ghazghkull Thraka?

I’m really enjoying Annandale’s stories about Commissar Yarrick. The author is doing a great job of fleshing out the character’s backstory (and his “present”). This short story manages to give us a look at Yarrick’s tenacity for survival, his faith in the Emperor and Imperium, while also giving us just a hint of the character’s ongoing battle (physical and psychological) with Thraka. Given it’s length, it’s tricky to go into much more detail than that. But, if you’re looking for a quick WH40k read, then this will absolutely suit your needs: it’s very well written, interesting, and adds to the character’s growing mythology. Very highly recommended.

New Books (September/October)

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Featuring: Mitch Albom, Gillian Anderson, Kelly Armstrong, Lauren Beukes, Adam Brookes, Christopher Buehlman, Blake Butler, W. Bruce Cameron, Michael Carroll, Al Ewing, Tana French, Peter F. Hamilton, Michael Harvey, Lee Henderson, Steffen Jacobsen, Rajan Khanna, James Luceno, Todd Moss, Claire North, Pierre Pevel, John Sandford, Graeme Simsion, Matthew Smith, Peter Watts, Alec Worley Continue reading →

BROKEN MONSTERS by Lauren Beukes (Mulholland)

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Beukes-BrokenMonstersUSA superb, surreal crime novel

Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies. But this one is unique even by Detroit’s standards: half boy, half deer, somehow fused together. As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, how can the city hold on to a reality that is already tearing at its seams?

If you’re Detective Versado’s geeky teenage daughter, Layla, you commence a dangerous flirtation with a potential predator online. If you’re desperate freelance journalist Jonno, you do whatever it takes to get the exclusive on a horrific story. If you’re Thomas Keen, known on the street as TK, you’ll do what you can to keep your homeless family safe — and find the monster who is possessed by the dream of violently remaking the world.

Broken Monsters is in many ways a novel of decline: of society, the city, sanity… But not, thankfully, of the author’s talent. Beukes is on top-form here once again, delivering a superb, surreal follow-up to The Shining Girls. It’s really very good. Continue reading →

Audio Review: MORE FOOL ME by Stephen Fry (Audible)

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FryS-MoreFoolMeA third excellent memoir from Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry invites readers to take a glimpse at his life story in the unputdownable More Fool Me.

It is a heady tale of the late Eighties and early Nineties, in which Stephen – ever more driven to create, perform and entertain – burned bright and partied hard with a host of famous and infamous friends, regardless of the consequences.

This electric and extraordinary book reveals a new side to Mr. Fry.

Stephen Fry is an award-winning comedian, actor, presenter and director. He rose to fame alongside Hugh Laurie in A Bit of Fry and Laurie (which he co-wrote with Laurie) and Jeeves and Wooster, and was unforgettable as Captain Melchett in Blackadder. He also presented Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, his groundbreaking documentary on bipolar disorder, to huge critical acclaim. His legions of fans tune in to watch him host the popular quiz show QI each week.

I listened to the Audible edition of this biography. And, much like The Fry Chronicles, it is both entertaining and excellently produced. Fry’s performance is, as can be expected, superb – welcoming, honest, and rather whimsical. This is another excellent memoir, and superb audiobook. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “City of Stairs and the Super Tropey Fantasy Checklist” by Robert Jackson Bennett

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City of Stairs is definitely a fantasy novel. It’s got dead gods, magic, monsters, political skullduggery, and a healthy serving of mayhem. (I actually think all my novels are fantasy, but that’s beside the point.)

However, despite the popular aphorism, the clothes don’t make the man: if I put on a policeman’s uniform, for example, that doesn’t make me a cop.

So despite City of Stairs having a huge amount of fantasy elements, I sometimes find myself wondering – does it act like a fantasy? Content does not dictate behavior, in other words. Continue reading →

Review: THE LAST MAGAZINE by Michael Hastings (Blue Rider Press)

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9780399169946_LastMagazineThe_JK_r2.inddA dual-personality novel from the late journalist

The year is 2002. Weekly newsmagazines dominate the political agenda in New York and Washington. A young journalist named Michael M. Hastings is a twenty-two-year-old intern at The Magazine, wet behind the ears, the only one in the office who’s actually read his coworker’s books. He will stop at nothing to turn his internship into a full-time position, and he’s figured out just whom to impress: Nishant Patel, the international editor, and Sanders Berman, managing editor, both vying for the job of editor in chief.

While Berman and Nishant try to one-up each other pontificating on cable news, A.E. Peoria — the one reporter seemingly doing any work — is having a career crisis. He’s just returned from Chad, where, instead of the genocide, he was told by his editors to focus on mobile phone outsourcing, which they think is more relevant. And then, suddenly, the United States invades Iraq — and all hell breaks loose. As Hastings loses his naïveté about the journalism game, he must choose where his loyalties lie — with the men at The Magazine who can advance his career or with his friend in the field who is reporting the truth.

Michael Hastings was one of the best young journalists in America before his death last year. Best known, perhaps, for his Rolling Stone piece that got General Stanley McChrystal fired (a media and political furore that was overblown in the extreme, in my opinion). He wrote excellent books (including The Operators, a much-expanded account of his time with McChrystal) and excellent feature articles for multiple publications. He also, as it turned out, wrote The Last Magazine, a fictional account of his time at Newsweek. Published posthumously, it took me a while to get my hands on the book, and I have very mixed feelings about what I found. Continue reading →