The Violent century by Lavie Tidhar

 

Brilliant

 

They’d never meant to be heroes…

 

In the 1930’s a German scientist, called Vomacht,  performs an experiment that accidentally(?) creates “The changed”. The changed are kind of like the X-Men and exist in most countries. Our story concentrates on two of the changed called Fogg and Oblivion but along the way we get to meet a good many of them, on all sides. The story here is chopped into many little pieces and thrown together in an enthralling jigsaw. We often swap between the past and the present and yet there is a solid narrative thread running throughout. I am in awe of Tidhar’s skill with the story here and the believable characters, even though they each have superpowers. It helps that he concentrates on the British as the Americans are full in your face superhero types and the Germans are also Ubermenschen (as well as, on the whole,  super-creepy). Oblivion and Fogg work for the retirement bureau and act, mainly, behind the scenes.

 

The world is lovingly detailed and we get to see the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s with an alternative history. Tidhar is playing with structure, playing with narrative and playing with conventions such as how dialogue is usually represented. He pulls it all off admirably. This is a tale, at heart, about people, which is a brilliant achievement considering it is full of ubermenschen. Along the way we get Nazi’s we get noir undertones, we get WW2 re-imagined, we get cool powers, we get a British superhero called Mrs Tinkle, we get Dracul in Transylvania, we get Auschwitz and Mengele and a book packed from cover to cover with great reading.

 

And yet the eye is drawn to the pictures, the bright uniforms in pixelated garish four-colour. There’s Tigerman, framed dramatically on top of the Empire state building, holding on to a cowering criminal mastermind. There’s the Green Gunman chasing outlaws in the wilds of Texas. The Electric Twins in Detroit capturing Al Capone. Fogg is mesmerised by the images, their brashness, their colour. It is raining on the Charing Cross Road. A grey morning, people hurrying past with black umbrellas over their heads. You’re a good watcher, Fogg, the Old Man says, his voice is in Fogg’s ears. We need men like you. Do not be tempted by the Americans, the loudness, the colour. We are the grey men, we are the shadow men, we watch but are not seen.

 

Overall - This is the first of a two book deal and I’m definitely impatient to be reading the second. Since this one isn’t actually published yet (I got it as part of my Hodderscape haul) I’m going to have to learn to be patient!

 

What I did on my holiday...

Had a great short break in Scotland last week. On Sunday I flew to Edinburgh, hired a car and drove to Loch Ness. Spent a day at the Loch with its black waters of mystery and then drove to the very top of Scotland, jumped on a ferry and went to Orkney. A few days on Orkney sampling the local cuisine, whisky tasting and visiting Neolithic sites. Then to Aviemore, Boat of Garten and the Spey Valley smokehouse (owned by Jethro Tull's Iain Anderson!) and then back to Edinburgh to enjoy the Fringe.

Saw -

Scroobius Pip - spoken word. Very good and he was actually very funny too, bought his book which he was kind enough to sign

Stewart Lee - funny, but not as funny as last year, still much funnier than most other comedians

Bristol Improv - got to support the locals! They improvised a noir story set in "Spaceland", highly amusing with a great cast

Shhhh! - Not bored of improv this one was an improvised silent film about a trapeze artist

Hannah Berry and Gareth Brookes talked about Adamtine & The Black Project respectively which was really good. Bought a copy of The Black Project and got both creators to sign their work

Jura Unbound event in the Spiegeltent at the Edinburgh Book Festival which saw a number of different comic themed events on stage, actors acting out a story, creating a story around 3 panels, live drawing with Paul Cornell and Emma Viecilli. Spent a happy drunken evening in there, chatted a lot with some of the creators and generally had a lot of fun. Missed out on a free whisky though as had no pen...

Lauren Beukes and Inaki Miranda - they talked about the Fables collaboration, stunning art and a great slide show whetted the appetite, bought a copy obviously

Bryan and Mary Talbot - Talked about their respective careers and their books Dotter of her father's eyes and a new one due out soon about suffragettes

Caitlin Moran started the evening of queuing where we went to 3 events in the same place but had to exit and queue in between with the queues stretching all around the book festival. She was highly amusing.

Hannah Berry interviewed Neil Gaiman about Sandman - Neil was effusive and so happy to talk about Sandman rather than Ocean at the end of the lane etc. Hannah did a great job despite the nerves and got a huge round of applause at the end.

The evening ended with a tribute to Iain Banks with Ian Rankin, Val Mcdiarmid and Ken Mcleod (and a surprise guest appearance by Neil Gaiman to tell a hilarious story of Iain climbing through a window during a police investigation in the Metropole during a convention. I have heard Iain tell this story too so it was nice to get the bystanders, in this case Neil, view of it) - we ended with a wee dram of Jura

The last show was Wyrd which had a very cool premise (immersive theatre at a séance) but sadly didn't live up to it losing the plot, and any illusion of collusion from the audience near the end. Some interesting ideas to take away though...

Been a bit behind on reviews due to playing the marvellous Last of us and revisiting the world of Gormenghast. However back to it so here's a review for Brother Kemal by Jakob Arjouni
 

Average

 

Kemal Kayankaya is a Turkish private eye working in Frankfurt. He is hired by the wife of an artist to find her missing 16 year old daughter who is alleged to be with an older man, a photographer. Whilst he is preparing for the missing person case, he is also hired for a body guarding gig for a Muslim author at Frankfurt Book Fair. The Muslim author has written a book about a homosexual Muslim and is apparently threatened with violence by religious extremists. Both cases are straightforward but once one bleeds into the other it leads to abduction and murder.

 

This is the 5th book in the Kemal series, I have not read any of the other books. Despite a couple of references to earlier cases and, I suspect, recurring characters I didn't feel it was necessary to have read the other books to follow the plot.

 

The book has been translated into many languages and has won awards including the German crime fiction prize. It is a very fast read being less than 200 pages long and in an easy reading style. It's not really my cup of tea so with that proviso take the following with a pinch of salt.

 

It felt as though the author was trying too hard in the first chapter, to establish Kemal as a Sam Spade/ Phillip Marlow style character. It's also heavy on the misogyny as he ogles the woman who is hiring him to find her daughter. I almost didn’t get past that first chapter but luckily the book settles down somewhat from that point for a fairly standard plot. Kemal is in his 50’s and he and his ex-prostitute girlfriend live together and there is a sub-plot of her trying to get pregnant and him wondering what fatherhood would be like. There were a few incongruities such as pretending to be a police officer but having no badge, or police car or convincing story and yet being believed. For me there was nothing to elevate this above the standard for the genre. It was competent and, although well written (a good translation) there was nothing to elevate it or convince me that I needed to spend any more time with Kemal. I won’t be getting the other books in the series.

 

Overall – Pretty standard PI tale

So at the weekend I was at Nineworlds, a new, multi-strand Con at Heathrow. https://nineworlds.co.uk/ The program was absolutely packed and a bit of a labyrinth to manoeuvre through, I only really got to grips with it once I'd downloaded the Lanyrd App. Because there was so much going on I missed out a lot on some things (too many choices) but overall we thought this was probably a good thing. Better to have too much going on, than too little.

 

I arrived early Friday evening, about 7pm and the Con was in full swing. Good that I missed the queues to register though. My itinerary looked like this:

 

Just a Minute - with Paul Cornell, Adam Christopher, Helen Keen, Gary Rusell (who won) and Adrian Tchaikovsky. This was a lot of fun and a good start to the Con for me.

 

I planned to go to new voices but got distracted by lots of beer and wine and authors in the bar (with Jonathan L Howard & Anne Lyle).

 

The next day was feeling slightly worse for wear, but recovered somewhat after a cooked breakfast. The first thing on the agenda was to go to Paul Cornell's signing where I picked up a copy of London Falling strange that only one other person in the queue ahead of me, or not so strange due to the early time? (10am).

 

Then I went to The future of technology& society - Hosted by science comedienne Helen Keen with Cory Doctorow, Lilian Edwards, Helen Keen & Charles Stross. This was really interesting, a packed room, lots of discussion about open rights etc.

 

Next up was Keynote: The current state of gaming culture - Leigh Alexander. Which I enjoyed less but was OK. Not really aimed at people who hadn't grown up in the 90's I think. Seemed to be a bit more about 90's music than 90's gaming without really any appreciation for what happened before the 90's. Still there were flashes of interest in the talk despite this.

 

After managing to get a spot of lunch at the local co-op (the hotel prices were stupidly expensive, they'd already applied a hoover to my wallet for the drinks on Friday) I headed off for a scary but useful critique session on one of my stories with the T-party.

 

After the mauling I caught the second half of The Infected - Diseases of the Cultural Body - Panel with Dr Julia Gog, Helen Keen, Will Porter & James Vaughan and at this point it looked like Helen Keen was on all the interesting stuff!

 

A quick stop at the signing table to grab a copy of the second David Tallerman book, Crown Thief and then to a talk on Cyberpunk which seemed to have far too many panellists and turned a little bit into the Charlie Stross show. After he berated a fellow panellist (whose name I'm not sure of) for saying that SF is "inspirational" by saying that this was propaganda and a political statement I lost interest and left - this was the only panel I walked on the whole weekend.

 

The to the Gin Appreciation with the Steampunk crowd, hugely entertaining and 3 glasses of gin to boot.

 

More drinks with friends, old and new, and a buffet dinner in the hotel to recharge batteries. Then to the new voices session with Catherine Banner, Zen Cho, Paul Cornell, Laure Eve, Benedict Jacka, Francis Knight, Snorri Krisjansson, Den Patrick, Tom Pollock & Tade Thompson. Zen Cho, Snorri Krisjansson & Tom Pollock were especially good performances.

 

Night cap then to bed after watching the Alien (from Alien, Aliens etc.) dancing.

 

The next day was an even later and slow start for me.

First up was Laurie Penny talking about Cybersexism. This was supposed to be a book launch but it didn't come off but Laurie read out a long section and then chatted and answered questions. Really interesting session.

 

After that I went to Nightmare Fuel: How to Scare your Audience for Fun and Profit - Ben Aaronovitch, Will Hill, Kim Newman& Jonathan Oliver. Being a big fan of Kim Newman this was a no-brainer and the panel didn't disappoint.

 

Next was The Evolution of Blake’s 7 – Ben Aaronovitch, Alastair Lock, John Medany, Andrew Mark Sewell & James Swallow. Which talked about how the new radio show was made. Interesting insight into radio and TV and how to write a reboot. Plus we got a free copy of one of the shows which was a bonus.

 

Last event for me was attending the Pod Delusion live podcast where we explored Spock's emotions, the weight of yarn, invisible gorillas and the incomplete genome of the universe. A really good session and fitting end to the Con.

 

Of course just a list of what talks I attended doesn't really give you an appreciation of just "being at the con" which is half the fun. Watching the cosplayers, talking to old friends, making new friends. Glancing into the weird world of Brony (from a distance), hearing about what other stuff was happening from people who'd gone to different stuff. Buying 12 new books, chatting with Robert Rankin who was hidden away in the basement! spotting Chris Barrie and so much more.

 

Nineworlds was one of the best cons I've been to and I will definitely be returning next year.

Of course being a Con I did buy some books:


freebies:
control point by Myke Cole - not my usual fare but may be worth a shot
Theft of swords by Michael J Sullivan - even less my usual bag, may rot on the shelf or go to a friend

2nd hand (from a really good 2nd hand stall):
the house on the borderlands by William Hope Hodgson
the web between the worlds by Charles Sheffield (a childhood favourite author and a book by him I've not read)

Signed books:
London falling by Paul Cornell - strangely there was only 1 other person getting a book signed at the same time, I would have assumed that Cornell would have been huge...
The alchemist of souls by Anne Lyle - we spoke to Anne and she said that her signing was before most people arrived and so hardly anyone turned up, so we bought a copy
Alice on Mars by Robert Rankin - Rankin was hidden away with the Steampunkers in the basement, I managed to have a long chat with him whilst he signed my book, I was the only person in the room, apart from the other stallholders at the time

Random purchases:
And God created zombies by Andrew Hook
Myth-understandings Edited by Ian Whates
Shoes, ships and cadavers Edited by Ian Whates (he was running a store and we got chatting and then bought some books)
A glass of shadow by Liz Williams (A recommendation by Ian Whates)
 

 

So it looks like my week for competitions - I must buy myself a lottery ticket and get 3!

First off I got a mail from the fine folk of Angry Robot to say I'd won their pre-competition competition for correclty guessing that RFAD stood for "Robot for a Day". I'll be getting a goody bag from them which is cool.

Then even more exciting news! my story An unexpected return won the Dodo short story competition over at Hodderscape here: http://www.hodderscape.co.uk/dodo-fiction-competition-2/

I'm off to 9 worlds (https://nineworlds.co.uk/)  tomorrow so watch out for my convention report next week...

In other news here's a couple of reviews:

Eat him if you like Jean Teule

Good

Based on a historic incident from the summer of 1870 this small but powerful book tells the tale of an incident when a town seemed to lose its mind and become a howling bloodthirsty mob. Alain de Moneys, a well-liked young nobleman visits the local fair before he goes off to fight in the Franco-Prussian war. An overheard comment about the war, badly misconstrued leads to de Moneys being targeted by an angry mob. If you don’t like graphic descriptions of violence and torture then this book is really not for you even though the unremitting darkness is sometimes tinged with ghoulish humour. This is a car crash of a book, it makes you wince, it may even turn your stomach but a sense of grim fascination draws you ever on.

Overall – powerful, sad, gory, horrific yet compelling reading

The last banquet Jonathan Grimwood

Category

Good

The book begins with Jean-Marie Charles d’Aumont as a penniless orphan eating dung beetles and when a passing noble takes pity on him and gives him Roquefort his future, as a creature of taste as the ultimate sense, is born. The book follows his life from this inauspicious start through his school years, his training to be a soldier, his friendship with a couple of nobles and his later career as master of the menagerie at Versailles. His life rushes along, with lifelong friendships made and loves found and lost, towards the 1790’s and the advent of revolutionary France. He corresponds with Voltaire and meets Benjamin Franklin and always throughout all his experiences he explores the world of taste. Peppered through the book are recipes, my favourite being the one for Wolf’s Heart (although, of course, I haven’t had the chance to try it). It is a large stage and our players have some difficulty filling it, there is a lack of dramatic exploration of the historic backdrop as our narrator remains firmly on the sidelines. However it does have lots of drama at a human scale and throughout it is Jean-Marie’s quest for taste that makes the book. Grimwood, through Jean-Marie, looks dispassionately at pre-revolutionary France seeing both the good and the bad and Jean-Marie's dislike of Versailles comes through in his often graphic descriptions of e.g. people defecating in the flower beds or urinating in the corridors.

Overall – A fantastic idea competently executed but didn’t have that extra spark to make it great, yet is still a tasty treat.