Planetfall by Emma Newman

I'd never heard of Emma Newman until I attended Worldcon in London last year. There, on the first day, an American lady started a conversation with me. Top topic, of course, was "which authors are you most excited about", and her instant answer was Emma Newman. She couldn't wait to sign up for a Kaffeeklatsch (small group chat with the author). She described the books and the podcast, and I was instantly intrigued.

As a result of that conversation, I attended Emma Newman's reading at that convention. She came across a little nervous and like an immensely likable, warm and quite intelligent person. The opening of Between Two Thorns was funny, intriguing and I bought it instantly. As it turned out, much as I loved the start, I did not love the book entirely. It mixed fun and magic and excitement with an undercurrent of psychological abuse, which made it hard for me to enjoy it. To put it differently, of the recent Disney movies, Tangled is the best, but its manipulative, passive aggressive villain is genuinely uncomfortable for me to watch - and Between Two Thorns had rather more of that sort of stuff than I can digest while still having a good time. (That said, if you enjoyed the second book in Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, then you're probably thick skinned enough to enjoy The Split Worlds novels)

Since then, I've seen Emma Newman at two other conventions: I attended a useful small group workshop on fear and writing which she ran, and which again showed her as a caring and intelligent woman, dealing with anxieties and trying hard to help others who are in the same boat - basically, she came across a little bit like a British Jenny Lawson, only less manic. And I also watched a live recording of the Tea & Jeopardy podcast.

So I was really hoping to love her new standalone novel Planetfall. A departure into science fiction, a different setting entirely, and perhaps, I hoped, a novel that would be more easy for me to enjoy.

Planetfall is the story of Renata, a woman living in a small colony on a new planet. The colony lives very long, easy lives: they are almost post-scarcity, careful to live entirely sustainably but assisted by biotechnology which makes this easy, and which lets them still be in their early middle age at age 70. She is different from the others - privacy is important to her, she keeps herself to herself, and as an engineer and a maker, she treasures and fixes things that other people don't bother thinking about. The rest of the colony live open lives, with a constant presence on social media and a very gossipy, nosy attitude, and not very much to do.

Renata's entire world begins to shake when a newcomer arrives at their colony: a young man who must have been born after Planetfall, the arrival of these settlers. He must be a descendant of the other people, those who arrived with them, but who had all been killed. Renata is one of only two settlers who know the terrible secrets of that disaster. The other is Mack, the inofficial leader of their colony.

Dark secrets, life on a different planet, a future that includes social media and cloud computing and 3D printing? It's a promising, well thought through, excitingly different setting for a novel. I got entirely absorbed by Planetfall. It's engrossing and tense. It's also intelligent, featuring a complex protagonist and various interesting ideas. Characterisation is excellent when it comes to Renata, Mack and several other key characters, but perhaps a little thinner for the rest of the colony.

As a literary achievement and as a scifi thriller, the book is no disappointment at all. The problem for me is that it turned me into a nervous wreck as I read it. One of its themes is mental illness, and this was handled realistically, convincingly, and, for me, gut-wrenchingly. A lot of it hit very close to home, and much of the final act was utterly devastating for me as a reader. I suspect the same may not be true for most, or even many, readers, but yeah: this book made me feel bad inside. That's not what I was hoping for, and not what I read for. If I believed in 'trigger warnings' (which I don't), then this book would need a fairly substantial one for my personal issues.

That said, as a thoughtful, clever, complex, authentic and well-written thriller, this book is an excellent achievement. It just isn't the book for me at this time.

Rating: 4.5/5

The Severed Streets by Paul Cornell

The Severed Streets is the second book in a new series which began with London Falling. You could describe this series as a darker, grittier sibling to Ben Aaronovitch's Peter Grant novels: Paul Cornell's London is also full of magic, but bereft of humour and warmth.

Our four police officers who have been blessed / cursed with The Sight, which lets them perceive the supernatural, have just about recovered from the traumatic events of the previous novel. They work from their little portakabin and wait for a new case to arise which requires their expertise. Lo and behold, a LibDem MP gets brutally eviscerated in his locked limousine. There's no weapon in the car, the driver insists he didn't do it, and CCTV shows no one getting in or out...

Paul Cornell makes some interesting choices in the writing of this novel. For one, he instantly dates it by setting it during the Con-Dem-Nation coalition government. He creates thinly veiled replicas of real people and events: a media baron who is a thinly disguised Viscount Rothermere (called Russel Vincent in the novel), protests based on the London Riots but set in post-Olympic-Games-London, masks based on the V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes masks made popular by Anonymous, but consistently and irritatingly described as 'Toff masks'... but then real people also appear in his book. Frankie Boyle makes a cameo. Neil Gaiman makes an appearance that seemingly starts out as cameo and then develops into a full blown story arc. I thought it's more common for age-defining authors to get fictionalised posthumously (Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen etc.), so the appearance of Neil Gaiman was a bit of a surprise, and when he got involved in the plot, well, let's just say Paul Cornell had better be a good friend of Neil Gaiman...

There is something mischievous and a little transgressive about this aspect of the book, but also just a tiny bit frustrating. Paul Cornell's Neil Gaiman talks about similar sorts of things as the real one (stories, Neverwhere, bees), but he does not quite sound like real Neil, or perhaps the opposite - perhaps he sounded a bit too matter-of-fact and authentic, and I sort of expected something a little grander.

OK, Neil Gaiman out of the way, the Severed Streets is a grim dark, horror-filled urban fantasy. The Smiling Man continues to be behind things, and the attacker eviscerates quite a few people using the riots for cover (wearing a protester's mask, rising from crowds & flying off, invisible to those without The Sight), while two of our police officers are obsessed with their own problems - getting a father out of hell, and trying to avoid going to hell, respectively. There are some betrayals, some schemes, a lot of individual actions - basically, if our team finally learnt to work as a team in book one, they are now again working quite independently and with serious obstacles to fully trusting and sharing information with each other. They keep running off without telling any of the others what they're up to.

The book may spill more blood than the first, but is a less gruelling read: this time, no children get boiled alive, and while there's plenty castrations, the horror is less emotional than it was in London Falling. There's a lot of work in creating something uncanny, but it feels a little uncanny-by-the-numbers. If it's ever turned into a movie, I think Terry Gilliam should direct it.

The Severed Streets is an engrossing read, relentlessly grim, with a few emotional gut-punches, but none that equal those surprises that made the first book so harrowing towards its finale. The series is definitely worth a look for people who like urban fantasy, but not perhaps the series of choice if you're in the mood for something cheery and light. While The Severed Streets does explain and sum up some of the key events from the first book, I doubt it works very well as a standalone - start with London Falling if you have not read that yet.

Rating: 3.5/5

London Falling by Paul Cornell

London Falling is an urban fantasy novel set in the most fantastical city in the world - London. There is really no other city as suitable and rich for urban fantasy as London.

London Falling is also a police story, with a small squad of police at its heart. Our protagonists are two undercover agents, their supervisor and a backroom techie. The novel starts as a multi-month operation is about to come to its end, on New Year's Eve. The mob boss they've been trailing is frantically taking his crew around different houses, while the higher ups in the police have scrapped their operation's budget, so they need to make their arrest that night, irrespective of whether they have enough evidence to make prosecution viable or not. The pressure is on.

There are tensions in the team - or rather, they are really not a team at all yet. Instead, they are four people who work on the same project, but rarely together and each laden with resentments towards some or all of the others.

The mob boss, meanwhile, is coming to the end of a ten year reign of unimpeachable crimes, having taken over every other gang in his territory without ever getting into a bloody war. He's used his private room to do so, and there is an air of secrecy around his working methods. No one, not his closest allies, have any idea how he did what he did.

As it's an urban fantasy, you might guess that the supernatural is involved. Things very quickly spiral out of hand, and our crew of coppers spend the rest of the book trying to adjust to a new perspective on the world, trying to become a well-functioning team, but, most of all, trying to catch and eliminate a major baddie.

London Falling differs from Ben Aaronovitch's magical London police procedural in tone (it does not go for 'funny') and in approach (there is no wise magical mentor, just four police officers trying to learn as they go). It's very much a thriller, with heavy doses of peril, gruesome crimes, and gut-wrenching plot developments that damn near made me tear up at one point.

It does take a while to find its feet, and some of the personal histories / demons of the characters felt a smidgen by-the-numbers. The supernatural London also differed from that in other books in being almost entirely sinister - a thing to be feared. While this worked well in terms of creating an atmosphere or peril, it deprived this London of complexity. To draw comparisons: Hellboy 2 is a much superior movie to Hellboy for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that in the sequel, a very richly drawn supernatural coexists with the mundane, and we get glimpses of an otherworld that is not just full of monsters, but filled with the magical everyday, with non-human characters living independent lives, especially in the Faerie Market. It is that sort of perspective which is missing in London Falling (as it was also largely missing in the first Hellboy movie).

London Falling is a good, entertaining, thrilling read. It's a lot darker than other recent offerings of urban fantasy, with heavy elements of horror. I have high hopes for the series as it develops, but this is definitely a satisfying start.

Rating: 4/5

Conning in 2015

In 2014, Worldcom came to London. It was the first big convention I ever attended. (I'd been to some very small events before, in Cardiff and Newport, but they were very different things.)

Before Worldcon, I'd never felt quite so at home before, anywhere, among any group of strangers, ever. I'd been quite nervous, even worrying about stuff like dress code (what if I'm the only one not in cosplay fancy dress?), and then felt enormous relief to see so many others with fashion sense that wasn't miles away from my own. (Comfortable, bit scruffy, slightly unkempt, BECAUSE WHY ON EARTH SHOULD PEOPLE WASTE BRAIN ENERGY THINKING ABOUT CLOTHES, so long as they cover what they need to cover and regulate the body's temperature / exposure to precipitation appropriately...)

So, anyhow, I quickly decided that I wanted to do this again. And again. And again...

After attending every geeky convention I could in 2015, here are my thoughts:

Eastercon

• The biggest literary annual sf/f convention in the UK. 
• The closest UK covention in size, scope and atmosphere to Worlcon, but still a lot smaller
• I will definitely go again.

Nineworlds

• A convention celebrating pop culture, fandom, some literature but also TV, computer games, academia, popular science & technology and all things geek
• The most internet-led of the conventions I attended: it seems to have been organised by and for bloggers, tweeters, tumblerers etc. 
• Nineworlds put a lot of emphasis on diversity. There was, however, a lot more white diversity noticeable than ethnic / racial / religious / cultural diversity. (I.e. many people with disabilities, many LGB and especially many T attendees). 
• I've read claims that some of the organisers have close links with a particularly vicious online troll / bully, so I'm not quite sure what to make of that. Perhaps inevitable for an event that is internet-centric in its origins.

I enjoyed myself, but I don't think I will go again. I'm more interested in books, so large proportions of Nineworlds were of limited or no interest to me at all. Whereas every other con would frequently have two or three things vying for my attention, Nineworlds rarely had more than one event of interest at the same time. 

Somewhat to my surprise, it was the academia track that turned out to be this con's strongest feature. It was joyful and exuberant and excited about knowledge, without any of the trappings of the Hay Festival (egos & a pervasive air of superiority complexes) or academic conferences (academic feuds / politicking). Academia is not always the best at humility and kindness, but at Nineworlds, the events and discussions felt wholesome and warm in ways that are preciously rare.

Bristolcon

• Small but local (well, across the bridge) and affordable. 
• There are quite a few high profile SF/F writers based around Bristol and the West of England & Wales. 
• Shame Cardiff doesn't have any similar book conventions. (There are horror & comic conventions in Cardiff, but not SF/F book ones, as far as I know)
• I'll go again.

Fantasycon

• It's all about books and writers.
• An instant favourite among UK conventions
• Smaller in number of attendees than Eastercon & Nineworlds, but equal number of industry professionals
• A convention with the occasional whiff of a trade fair: better for networking than any of the other events.
• Top Tip: Publishers are looking for manuscripts about vampire unicorns at the moment, according to the panel where the heads of all the SF/F publishing houses were discussing the future of publishing. 
• I suck at networking
• I will definitely go again.

The final convention I attended in 2015, and an instant favourite. Virtually all the professionals who attended any of the other cons were at Fantasycon, too. The professional / panellist to fan ratio was staggering: enough fans and readers to avoid the place feeling empty, but so many professionals that each room contained not just a panel, but also an audience of people in the publishing business. It felt like about 30% of the people here were working in the industry. 

Also, this event had more freebies than any of the others, while having a smaller cohort of attendees. Basically, I shamelessly picked up so many books, it would probably have cost me more than the ticket price to buy them in a shop. 

This was the one convention where I wished that I was a bit more social / outgoing and less awkward. After some gruelling months in work, and feeling totally knackered with a sore throat and a slightly feverish / woozy head, I was even more antisocial than usual. 

For any writer seeking an event that's useful for networking, Fantasycon beats all the others, hands down.

The Dealer's Room was quite different from the other conventions, too. It was surprisingly horror-centric, and it featured one or two publishers I hadn't seen at other UK conventions. That said, I got the impression that the stalls did less trade than at other events. 

The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley

The Beauty is a short novel / long novella. It's postapocalyptic, it's horror, it's science fiction and it's unlike anything I've read. It feels almost insulting to use those genre monickers. It's simply unique.

The Beauty starts years after all the women have died. Men and boys have survived, seemingly unaffected by the bizarre fungus plague that wiped out womankind. Our narrator Nate is a youngster, living in an isolated commune. Even before the plague, they'd lived apart from mainstream society: a group of hippies / nature-worshippers who set themselves up in a nature reserve. (I read this story in Cornwall: somehow I kept imagining it set in an emptier version thereof)

Nate is the storyteller of the group. His role is to tell stories each night, keeping memories alive through the oral tradition - and helping the men and boys continue to see worth in life.

One day, he notices that there are mushrooms growing in the graveyard, where the women are buried. Soon, those who touch the mushrooms disappear. Nate goes to search for them. Then, he, too, disappears for a while, in an earthen cavern, held prisoner, visited by a strange figure whose arrival will change their society forever...

The story has four parts / acts. Each is atmospheric, rich and almost a novelette of its own. The mood shifts from melancholy to uncanny to outright horror. There is a lot that's interesting about The Beauty, not least of which is the gendered way in which the story is likely to affect people. I suspect that men will find it more unsettling than women. I certainly felt uncomfortable at times.

It's not just a story about uncanny horror, however. It's also a story about group dynamics and power. Nate is one of the younger men in the group. He's not exactly the omega male, but nowhere near the top. The inofficial leaders / alpha males occasionally instruct him which stories to tell, and so we understand who runs things. Over the course of the book, power shifts, several times. Nate's soft power, built on reimagining their past and mythifying their own history, and later on, painting possible futures with his words and getting ever more driven towards giving people a sense of purpose, helps him influence and shape things at times. Rhetoric and dreams make him a shaman-like figure, while the others occasionally grapple for leadership through control of force. He's all hearts and minds, the other candidates for leaders are all shock and awe, and occasionally, there are frictions between factions...

What this review fails to capture is just how rich and atmospheric the book is. It handles the uncanny and horror with such confidence. I'm not sure it could ever be made into a movie, but if so, Guillermo del Toro (who made Pan's Labyrinth) would have to direct.

Quite simply, The Beauty is a stunning achievement.

Rating: 5/5

The Killing Kind by Chris Holm

I'm a fan of The Collector - a series / trilogy of urban fantasy novels about a soul collector working for hell by Chris Holm. So I'd been looking forward to his newest novel, even though it's a more mundane thriller.

The Killing Kind is a novel about contract killers. Our hero Michael Hendricks is a hitman with a gimmick: he only kills other hitmen. He contacts the intended victim and offers to take out the killer sent after them, for ten times the price on their head. Then he fulfills his side of the bargain.

Unfortunately for Hendricks, the organisations whose hitters he's been eliminating have realised what's going on, even if they are unable to identify and find him. So they hire the world's most expensive assassin to take care of whoever's been taking out their killers.

Also, an FBI agent has built up a collection of cases credited to 'the ghost' - their nickname for the mysterious killer of killers.

Mostly, The Killing Kind is a solidly written thriller. If you've watched any cat and mouse game between assassins on screen, there is little here that's new or different. (If that's a subgenre you enjoy, by the way, the movie Killer Elite is good fun). Unfortunately, fitting so neatly into a subgenre, the book lacks the originality and zest that made the Collector novels so much fun.

In the final act, things fall apart because of a massive, massive plothole. Semi-SPOILER WARNING: our hero gets a distress signal. Does he contact the police / get help to where the trouble is? No, he gets frustrated at his impotence to do anything and gets into his car for a five-hour-drive to the trouble. This makes about as much sense as unleashing a T-Rex while wearing high heels.

Without the plothole, the book would have deserved an extra half-star, but as it is, it's sadly a novel that doesn't rise above average.

Rating: 3/5

The Silence by Tim Lebbon

The Silence is a creature feature horror novel by bestselling author and South Wales local Tim Lebbon. Besides the very atmospheric Thief of Broken Toys, I haven't read much of his work. (I tried Coldbrook, but zombie apocalypse is probably simply not my thing)

Ally is a teenager, living a fairly normal life in a town in Wales. She's lost her hearing in a car crash that killed her grandparents, she has an annoying little brother, and she's inseparable from her iPad, which she uses to collect information about the world she reads about on the news.

One day, she skips through TV channels to arrive at a live broadcast on the Discovery Channel that captures her attention. Explorers are abseiling into a cave system that had been isolated from the surface for millions of years. Then, shockingly, things go very very wrong, live on TV...

The monsters in The Silence - named vesps - are blind, bat-like carnivorous reptiles the size of cats. They are monstrous because they swarm, spread and procreate very very quickly. Once unleashed, they flood across the continent like the beasts in Pitch Black, drawn to every sound and killing through sheer numbers. The only way to survive is to be very, very quiet.

The novel is a solid thriller: we follow Ally's first person journal and her father's journey to return home while they hear about the spreading plague of monsters on the news. Then, we follow the family as they try to flee to somewhere quiet and isolated as the plague turns apocalyptic, approaching Britain with frightening speed.

As is often the case in horror novels, the monsters are not the only threat, not by a long short. People in despair and madness can be just as dangerous, perhaps even more so. The critters, in comparison, are a lot more predictable.

I picked The Silence because I wanted to read something scary. Is it scary? I didn't really think so. It's thrilling, yes, and entertaining, well written, interesting... but scary? Not really. I'm still looking for a novel that will terrify me as much as the scariest movie of the millennium, El Orfanato, did. (Any recommendations for genuinely scary books? Please tell me in the comments!)

There's one annoying goof / discontinuity in the book: clearly, the author had decided to kill off a character, and then decided to make the scene a bit more drawn out. Not a bad idea, except describing the horrible injuries as 'The face was a mess. (...) The red maw of X's shattered mouth opened in a silent scream' - and then, a mere few pages later, having dialogue with that character in the story makes no sense. Able to talk normally despite a shattered mouth, a face that's a mess? The copyeditor should have paid closer attention...

Rating: 4/5