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Countdown to Christmas Day 22

Christmas Magic and Traditions by Penny Jones Part 2

Where did I put the bloody scissors?

The second part of our Christmas traditions comes when we are wrapping the Christmas presents. Again for this mind numbing, finger cramping, sellotape sticking fiasco, we want something cheery and Christmassy to pass the time. So as I peel the sellotape (and the skin) from my lips (ouch! Yes it did bloody hurt and I no longer rip the sellotape with my teeth), try to find the scissors which have gone walkies again, and wonder why we thought our second cousin’s baby would want a set of handkerchiefs. We put on the ever so Christmassy “Box of Delights”, again another Christmas staple I’m sure of many people. This BBC adaptation of John Masefield’s novel has the Christmas spirit in spadefuls.

From the moment it starts with the tinkling refrain of “The First Noel”, to the snowstorm and Christmas Eve Carol service at its finale, the whole series screams Christmas, and scream it certainly does. With witches, evil clergyman, demons and pagan magic; this is what Christmas is surely about.

 

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Christmas Countdown Day 21

Christmas Magic and Traditions by Penny Jones Part 1

The Gordian knot of Christmas lights

Christmas is a time of magic and tradition. But although I’m sure some families gather round their Christmas tree to eat mince pies and drink mulled wine, whilst others may go to their local church for midnight mass or to attend the carol service. Happily watching as their precious cherubs shuffle down the aisle whilst wearing a tea-towel on their head, or scratching at their tinsel halo. Our family have their own traditions (Okay we may do all of the above too; except for the mulled wine, I really hate mulled wine). However our traditions are sometimes a bit darker than the expected jolly frivolity of the season, but I’m pretty sure that when you look closely at your own family traditions, you’ll wonder yourself whether you are waiting for Santa or Satan.

Our festivities start when we put up our Christmas tree. The children (now 21 and 19 years old), still come up for the annual swearing at the tangled mess of lights, “picky food” (their term for a buffet), and the first annual showing of “The Muppet’s Christmas Carol” (one year we made the mistake of watching it before they came up, and they still haven’t forgiven us). Now that all sounds lovely and sweet. I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself, how Christmassy, and yes it is. There is a long tradition of ghost stories of Christmas, and The Christmas Carol is a wonderful reminder of the joys of the season. The loneliness of Scrooge, the slow starvation of the Cratchits, and the looming death of their son Tiny Tim, the family arguments with Scrooge’s nephew Fred, and of course poor Bean Bunny freezing on the streets of London.

So the four of us, safe in our warm house and with full bellies, decorate a superfluous tree with decorations that cost an arm and a leg, whilst singing along to the jolly songs that tell the story of greed, death and redemption. Oh happy times.

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Christmas Countdown Day 20

Today we turn the spotlight on another skulk member and sometime werewolf, Kim Bannerman.

Kim was recently interviewed over at Damien Seaman’s writing blog, it’s a good in depth interview and well worth a read.

There is also an in depth review of Kim’s latest novel, an Austen inspired tentacle romance, ‘Love & Lovecraft‘. 

Here at Fox Spirit we have adored Kim since our pre publishing days when we reviewed ‘The Tattooed Wolf’. So treat yourself to one of K. Bannerman’s titles this Christmas for something a little less ordinary.

 

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Christmas Countdown day 19

Review by Penny Jones

“Naming the Bones” – By Laura Mauro

Laura Mauro is an award winning author and is best known for her horror and sci-fi short fiction. She was born and raised in London, where her BFS nominated novella “Naming the Bones” is set.

“Naming the Bones” is a wonderfully creepy novella published by Dark Minds Press, and is a thing of beauty, with its instantly recognisable cover art by Peter Frain the book grabs your attention, drawing you in, before you even start to read Laura’s mesmerising story.

The title of the novel “Naming the Bones” comes from the coping strategy of the protagonist Alessa Spiteri, who following a bombing incident on the London underground struggles to cope with returning to her day to day life, and uses the simple trick of reciting the bones in the human body as a distraction to her growing fears and anxiety. However it isn’t just the trauma of the bombing that bothers Alessa, but also the disappearance of a fellow commuter who wandered off down the underground tunnel towards a light and what he thought was help; but instead was just a darkness that seemed to swallow him whole. Now that darkness seems to be everywhere for Alessa, and as it encroaches on her life more and more, she realises that the monsters in the dark are more than just figments of her traumatised imagination.

“Naming the Bones” is a gritty urban horror story about PTSD and the fallout following a London bombing. The dark nature of the story however is lifted by Laura Mauro’s beautiful use of language and setting. “Naming the Bones” is definitely worth reading.

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Countdown to Christmas Day 18

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Review by S. Naomi Scott

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kindred is a dark and deeply disturbing novel that predominantly explores the lives of slaves in the antebellum South through the eyes of a time-travelling protagonist. The fact that this protagonist, Dana, is a woman of colour from the 1970s allows Butler to show a strong juxtaposition between the world that Dana knows and the world she finds herself unwittingly thrust into.

The story itself is told entirely from Dana’s perspective, and follows her as she is bounced back and forth in time. Her home is in 1970s California, where she is settling into a new property with her (white) husband, Kevin, while her trips to the past take her to the pre-Civil War Maryland plantation of Rufus, the son of a wealthy white landowner. Between trips, she piece together evidence to suggest that Rufus could be one of her ancestors, and that the daughter of one of the local freed slaves may be as well. In one trip, she also inadvertently brings Kevin along with her, resulting in him being left behind when she is bounced back to the present. They reunite on Dana’s next trip, though five years have passed for Kevin, leaving him bitter and cold at the atrocities he witnessed while he was in the past. The novel ends with Dana killing Rufus and returning to the present for the last time, losing an arm in the process.

This is not an easy story to read as it highlights some of the worst elements of racism and discrimination inherent in American society during the first half of the nineteenth century, and the almost casual way in which people of colour were dehumanised by their owners at the time. In portraying the slave/master dynamic, Butler rarely pulls her punches. The slave owners are shown to be cruel almost to the point of sadism, though in most cases this appears to be simply a side-effect of the near-institutional belief that the slaves are nothing more than property, objects to be bought and sold, and used for the betterment of the whites. It’s obvious that Butler wants to shock the reader into thinking about the subject matter, that she wants the reader to explore the historical and social notions of slavery that she presents within the narrative, and she does this with skill.

Having read a large chunk of Octavia E. Butler’s work over the last few months, I really wanted to love this book. However, while I found it to be an engrossing and thought provoking read, I don’t think it’s quite worthy of a full five stars.

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Countdown to Christmas Day 17

Into the Drowning Deep

Mira Grant

Reviewed by Jenny Barber

To my perpetual annoyance, I’ve never been able to get my hands on Mira Grant’s novella Rolling in the Deep, despite it only coming out in 2015.  I mean, mermaids and Mira Grant is a combination that shouldn’t be missed, amirite?  So the publication of Grant’s Into the Drowning Deep was an immediate buy and I’m not kidding, I have read it at least four times in the last year.

Fortunately, despite Into the Drowning Deep being a follow-up to Rolling, you don’t have to have read the latter to get the full thrills and spills experience of the former. In fact, the necessary details are effortlessly slid into Drowning’s narrative so it gives you the bonus of two books in one!

So, what’s it all about?  Seven years ago, Imagine Entertainment sent the cruise ship Atargatis to the Mariana Trench to film a mockumentary about mermaids.  (Thus, Rolling in the Deep.) Unfortunately for them they found real-life mermaids and the mermaids were not friendly.  History records that all crew and passengers of the Atargatis disappeared, surviving footage shows fragments of the tragedy but most of the viewing public is in two minds on the veracity of what was broadcast.

Tory Stewart, however, is certain the Mariana mermaids are real. Her older sister was one of Imagine’s media personalities working on the Atargatis for the ill-fated mockumentary, and Tory has spent her adult life trying to find hard evidence to prove the truth of what happened to her sister.  After spending years studying marine biology, with a specialisation in understanding the information sonar readouts give about deep sea population, Tory and her lab partner, Luis Martines, discover sonar evidence of something hinky going on in the depths of the Mariana Trench.  And as it happens, Imagine Entertainment are just about ready to launch a follow up mission to discover the truth about the Atargatis and the mermaids. (And fulfil the inevitable corporate dodgy interests along the way. But then, you’d expect nothing less…)

Tory and Luis get invited to be a part of a crew that includes ex-eco-warrior and infamous mermaid expert Dr Jillian Toth; Olivia Sanderson, Imagine’s latest media face; and a motley crew of others who include extreme big game hunters, corporate representatives, scientists of various stripes and trained dolphins. (And yes, the dolphins get a point-of-view chapter of their own!)  Some believe the mermaids are real, some don’t and are just in it for the corporate funding of their work, either way, no-one is ready for what they find when they reach the Trench…

It should go without saying that if you’re reading a book by Mira Grant (or her alter ego, Seanan McGuire) then you’re going to get a healthy range of well-drawn diverse characters centre stage – and Into the Drowning Deep is no exception – here you’ll find characters of a multitude of ages, abilities, sexualities and nationalities, with a delicate balance maintained between recognising their individualities, and exploring how who they are affects their life and interactions with each other.

It’s this kind of easy and consistent representation that makes Grant’s books a must-read, regardless of the specific story, but Drowning is no slouch in the story department either – it’s a juicy romp of a novel that balances monsters of the deep and tense survival horror, with fascinatingly plausible science and a whole host of interesting themes that wind their way throughout. Issues such as environmentalism and the effects of climate change and oceanic depletion form both the foundation of the world setting, and the motivating force for the mermaids’ recent emergence and desperate mass feeding behaviour.

Communication and alternative perspectives are also strong threads that tie the story together – we see the story from the viewpoint of a range of humans, as well as from the mermaids, and the ship’s dolphins, creating a multi-directional view of both general life in the depths and of this particular story of the sea.  But beyond that, there’s a constant push and pull of communication efforts as disparate people try to bridge their differences to find common ground to be understood – from the obvious attempts of humans bodging a common language with dolphins and mermaids, to the more subtle shades of human communication where neurodivergent personnel have to navigate the shifting and often confusing behaviour and language of neurotypicals; or deaf scientists have to find ways to work with the hearing, both with and without the aid of the resident sign language interpreter.

Each thread, and each perspective, makes the story that much richer and when you add to that some intriguing scientific concepts and the sheer pulpy horror fun of killer mermaids swarming a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, what you’ve got is a magnificent tale to chill your bones over the Christmas period and beyond!  Highly recommended!

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Christmas Countdown Day 16

DEFENDER (Hive Mind 2) by Janet Edwards

CreateSpace / 354 pgs / £8.99 paperback, £3.99 ebook / ISBN 978-1981728275

Reviewed by Carol Goodwin.

I am not a fan of the term YA as I feel it creates an artificial separation and removes many excellent novels from the attention of “adult” readers. Indeed, many fondly remembered SF books from earlier years such as Andre Norton or much Robert Heinlein, would now probably be classified as YA. Janet’s novels to me have that same appeal to a very wide readership – indeed my son was fighting me to read this book first when he saw I had it which is not something he does with most of my reading material (Jim Butcher and Ben Aaronovitch being the other notable exceptions).

            In the first book, TELEPATH we saw Amber as she turns eighteen and enters the Lottery, the psychological testing that determines the future role and rank of every citizen based on their aptitudes and society’s needs. However, Amber is found to be a very rare and valuable telepath. Telepath’s are vital in detecting criminals and preventing crimes in the vast closed community of the Hive in which she lives. So valuable is this ability that unlike other citizens she will not be imprinted with relevant information (and attitudes) and she must be protected and her abilities kept secret from all but a handful of people.

            In the first book we saw Amber getting to know her team who both protect her and help her hunt. She had to come to terms with incidents from her childhood and adapt to her new circumstances. In this second book, set only a few months later, Amber is now working effectively with her team in identifying potential criminals and preventing incidents. However, finding a dead body of someone they knew without Amber having detected any warning signs of a crime precipitates a crisis. Someone with close knowledge of telepaths and how their teams work is clearly involved. As they try to uncover the traitor and their plans for massive destruction and disruption, Amber must also struggle within her mind as opening her thoughts to others brings its own threats to her sanity and identity.

            As with other books by this author, DEFENDER combines well a strong plot and narrative with interesting and fallible characters. The story is well paced and the reader wants to keep reading to see what happens next. Amber in particular is extremely likeable and shows development and growth as she deals with both professional and personal crises. As well as the plot strands of the traitor and Amber’s psychological health, there is clearly a larger arc plot developing around Hive Societies and the complexities of being a telepath as Amber starts to learn and importantly question her new circumstances. YA or crossover it may be but there is a lot of story and depth in these books while still appealing to that market. The author is not afraid to move to different characters and settings than her previous series and the world of the Hives is interesting and very different from that of the Earth Girl series. The style and SF settings remind me very much of Anne McCaffrey’s non-Pern series (eg The Talent, Crystal Singer and The Ship Who … series) and anyone who enjoyed those will find much to like here. Another thoroughly enjoyable SF novel that will appeal to many.

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Christmas Countdown Day 15

A review of Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms, by Eugenia Bone.

Review by Kim Bannerman

            As dusk settled over the woods, I spotted the thing through a break in the trees, where the underbrush was thinnest. Imagine, if you will, a floppy-frilly brain, about the same size and shape as head of cauliflower, squatting on the top of a rotten log, an eerie ghostly white against the gloomy damp.

            I crept closer, utterly perplexed. I’d never seen anything so alien. I took a photo, and once my hike was finished and I’d returned home, I sent the picture to a neighbor, who also happens to be a botanist, and asked her what it might be.

            Instantly, I received a text.
            ‘Where?’
            I told her the trail and location of the rotten log.
            ‘Tell no one,’ she urged. ‘Must get it immediately.’

            What clandestine monster had I stumbled across? The brain, she informed me the next day, was a sparassis, a difficult-to-find delicacy that, once washed of bugs and boiled, has the texture of egg noodles and a mild flavor. After my message, she’d immediately donned her boots and raingear, grabbed a flashlight, and headed out into the misty night to find the rotten log, harvest the beast, and devour it with butter. The reason for her excitement was made clear when she explained, that same rotten log will sprout more sparassis next year, and they are not easy to find in the wild. As for the precise location, she’s swore me to secrecy.

            There’s a certain type of madness that is mycophilia, the fiery passion for fungi that overwhelms all rational thought, that sends neighboring botanists into the black woods in the middle of the night with a only a jackknife and a canvas sack. Soon after sharing the discovery of the sparassis, I received a gift: a copy of Eugenia Bone’s book, Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms.

            The book appears at first glance to be a compendium of fungi, but instead, it perfectly captures the characters and personalities of mushroom-lovers, and is more of a journey through this strange, bizarre, and multifaceted community than a simple field guide. Bone, an internationally-acclaimed journalist and food writer, divulges a slew of facts, figures, and trivia about mushrooms as we follow her on her voyage into the fascinating subculture of fungi enthusiasts — from scientists and mushroom hunters to truffle aficionados and medicinal researchers. It’s an engaging book, not only for widening your appreciation of the mushrooms on your pizza, but also displaying the hidden passions that lurk in people’s hearts. You may have a mycophile in your life, and not even know it.

            Bone’s writing style is casual, relaxed, with just a hint of bewilderment, and you can sense her own mycophilia growing as, chapter by chapter, she follows hunters into the wilderness, explores mushroom farms, and meets with mycologists around the world. Can it be a coincidence that, since writing this book, she has become the president of the New York Mycological Society? I sincerely doubt it.

            Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms has doubtlessly sparked new generations of mycophiles to sprout in dark corners, and it certainly altered how I look at mushrooms, whether they’re on the forest floor or in the produce section of the grocery store. The book provides an eye-opening introduction to both fungi and human behavior, unearthing gems in both realms. I may have given up a cherished location to a prized and delicious fungus, but I received a book that revealed a whole new world in return, and that’s fine with me.

 

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Christmas Countdown Day 14

FOR LOVE OF DISTANT SHORES (Tales of the Apt 3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

NewCon Press / 274 pgs / £12.99 paperback / ISBN 978-1910935712

Reviewed by Carol Goodwin

This collection of four novella-length stories concerns the adventures of the scientist and explorer, Dr Ludweg Phinagler as recorded by his faithful-ish (!) chronicler and assistant, Fosse. They are set in the world of the Kinden established in the author’s Shadows of the Apt novels, but again other than understanding the central concept of different types of people with abilities related to a particular animal (usually, but not exclusively, insects) no other knowledge of those books is necessary to enjoy these stories.

They are written in a style that is an obvious allusion to late 19th/early 20th century SFF classics and will be recognisable to anyone who has read for instance, Jules Verne or Arthur Conan Doyle. As Doctor Phinagler searches for the elusive archaeological/historical find that will earn him respect from his less colourful academic colleagues, his singlemindedness and unwillingness to acknowledge danger signs leads him and his unfortunate amanuensis into four perilous, thrilling and utterly entertaining adventures – the latter from the reader’s point of view at least! The four novellas all have their own strong individual and often humorous identities and also incorporate the author’s inventiveness in designing new “kinden” based on his love and knowledge of biology

In the first novella, CITIES OF SILVER the intrepid pair find themselves in an underwater dystopia, complete with technologically superior overlords and an oppressed underclass who help the interlopers in their attempts to escape. Anyone who has seen the 1978 film WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS will recognise the plot but it is skilfully reworked and given its own unique flair to make an excellent story that is great fun to read.

The second novella, WRITTEN IN SAND sees the protagonists explore ancient ruins in the desert, rumoured to be protected by shadowy forces. I found myself thinking of this story as “He Who Must be Obeyed” (to misquote from H Rider Haggard’s SHE) crossed with THE MUMMY films.

The third novella, MASTERS OF THE SPIRE is probably my favourite. In this we see the Doctor and Fosse encountering lost tribes in the jungle (as beloved of many earlier writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs etc) where the story hinges on a very effective use of the particular abilities/biology of the insects that the tribes are based upon (to say more would be a spoiler) and there are some nice macabre scenes and “body horror” in this story which works really well. Add in an Indiana Jones style rival to the Doctor (and potential love interest for Fosse) and I found a lot to like in this story in particular.

The final story, FOR LOVE OF DISTANT SHORES sees the pair embark upon a voyage into uncharted waters. This has three major events including an exciting and gripping battle with a sea-monster (shades of MOBY DICK or JAWS spring to mind) but also tangentially examines some more serious themes such as slavery and the disastrous ramifications of badly handled first contact between indigenous and outsider cultures. For those readers who have read more of the author’s work, this story also links with his Echoes of the Fall series.

As with much of the author’s work, a major strength throughout is in characterisation. The pompous, vainglorious but often charming beetle-kinden, Dr Phinagler and his long-suffering, pragmatic and occasionally manipulative fly-kinden companion, Fosse both have many faults but are also in their own individual ways often admirable as well. The author is clearly relishing the chance to explore aspects of the world on a smaller scale than the grand, world-changing events of the novels. The tone is for the most part much lighter and often tongue in cheek and the prose and comedy are a delight. Like Pratchett, the author excels at the art of effective but affectionate character assassination in a single sentence. Finally, as an unashamed homage to early pulps, a great part of the fun in reading these novellas is in trying to identify and enjoy all the influences and references that have shaped them. An absolute pleasure to read from start to finish! 

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Christmas Countdown Day 13

Emily Nation by Alec McQuay 

Review by S. Naomi Scott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

[This review may contain spoilers.]

At some unspecified point in the future, the world is an arid wasteland thanks to a war without explanation. Onto this stage steps Emily Nation the eponymous protagonist of this remarkable and thoroughly enjoyable novel.

Emily is an assassin, and by all accounts a pretty good one at that. When her work follows her home to her wife and daughter one day things start to turn very bad indeed, and Emily is left wrecked and ruined, surviving on a diet comprising of mega-violence, casual sex and alcohol in varying amounts, right up until the point she’s dragged back to her home town of Camborne to help the locals fight off a gang of rabid raiders whilst simultaneously trying to figure out what’s going on with the daughter she thought dead.

I really enjoyed this book, and given that there are plenty of questions left unanswered at the end I’m supremely hopeful for a sequel some time soon. It’s borderline hardcore violence with more than a hint of distinctly dark humour, and rattles along at a fair old pace. In places I was reminded of Tank Girl at her best, but with a twist of some of the edgier elements of cyberpunk thrown in for good measure. All in all a fun read and one I would recommend without reservation. Not quite five stars, but not that far off.

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