Yellow Blue Tibia

Adam Roberts

Orion (2009)

ISBN: 9780575083585

Reviewed by Alexandra Pierce

This novel is billed as an autobiography, “Konstantin Skvorecky’s memoir of the alien invasion of 1986.” Skvorecky had an established reputation as a science fiction writer in the USSR in the mid-1940s, when he and a number of other SF authors were called together by Stalin to write the story of a new enemy for the USSR, on the assumption that the defeat of capitalist America was nigh. Their task was to invent an alien nemesis that Stalin and the Communist Party could use as a focus for the hatred and fighting spirit of the people of the USSR. As quickly as this was all put together, though, it was shelved.

Skip forward to the mid-1980s, and Skvorecky is an old man, near-alcoholic and bitter. His writing career has largely been a bust, as has his personal life. All of a sudden, however, Powers That Be are taking notice of him once again – including some people whom he has not seen since those frantic weeks in the 1940s, creating Stalin’s new enemy. His (mis)adventures take him to Chernobyl, lead him to meet an intriguing American woman who is an ambassador for Scientology, and bring him into conflict with the KGB. All of this within the possible context of an actual alien invasion.

The Waters Rising

Sheri S Tepper

Orion

ISBN: 978-0-575-09495-6

Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack

In recent years Sheri Tepper has been writing books where environmental concerns have come to the forefront; The Waters Rising is one such novel, but one with a powerful and interesting story that just happens to touch on environmental concerns. Unlike some authors, Tepper doesn’t need to preach to get her point across.

As the story opens, the peddler Abasio and his talking horse Blue are approaching Wold, a part of the world not yet affected badly by the rising seas, rivers and lakes. They’re not quite sure what they’re doing there; Abasio just had a feeling that he needed to head in that direction. And when he meets the child Xu-lai, he reluctantly realises that perhaps he is intended to help her. He’s not quite sure, and he’s afraid to make a dreadful mistake; and he’s also afraid that helping her could lead to a lot of trouble.

Xu-lai is a Tingawan soul carrier. The Tingawan princess Xu-i-lok, wife of the Duke of Wold, is dying. When she expires, her soul passes to Xu-lai, who is then responsible for returning it to its proper resting place in Tingawa. However, the journey will hardly be short or safe. For one thing, the world is changing. The waters are rising, and all people keep finding themselves scrambling further back from the shores – up mountains, further inland, onto islands. Within a century the waters will have risen so far that all land life, including mankind, will be extinct. And some of the scrambling surviving settlements are becoming quite strange.

The Sookie Stackhouse Companion

Edited by Charlaine Harris

Orion (2011)

ISBN: 978-0-575-09753-7

Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack

I tend to eye “guides” and “companions” with some suspicion; too often they seem designed for people who have crossed that fine line between dedicated fan and obsessed geek. However, this particular volume offers enough new material to avoid that trap. As the name suggests, it’s a companion to the Sookie Stackhouse books (such as Dead in the Family, reviewed here.)

The companion is edited by Charlaine Harris, the author of the novels, and she’s at pains in the introduction to be clear: it’s a companion to the Sookie Stackhouse novels, not the TV series True Blood which is based on the books. If you’ve tried both then you’ll know that they are very different. Harris does include a few nods to the TV series, most notably an interview with series creator Alan Ball. Appropriately, many of the questions focus on differences between the books and the TV series.

Ravensoul

James Barclay

Orion

ISBN: 978-0-575-08199-4

Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack

Ravensoul is one of those novels which clearly has a lot to offer a particular audience; unfortunately, I am not part of that audience. The main reason for my lack of appreciation lies in the fact that it is (apparently) the seventh book in a series, and I haven’t read any of the earlier novels. However, it seems a novel which would be appreciated by those who have read the earlier books in the series.

For one thing, Ravensoul relies heavily on the personalities of the characters, including the relationships they have built up over time. It’s hard to get full benefit from the novel if you haven’t been a party to those relationships before. The Raven is – or was – a band of mercenary warriors. As this novel opens, the band has been all but destroyed by events in earlier novels, with most members now dead. Sol has survived, and is now both an inn-keeper and a reluctant king. Denser, the other survivor, has been working his way up the magical hierarchy to a position of power.

The Things That Keep Us Here

Carla Buckley

Orion

ISBN: 978-1-4091-1308-9

Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack

The Things That Keep Us Here is one of those books of which people sometimes say, “Oh no, it’s not science fiction. It’s just a novel that is related to science that might happen…” If that increases the audience for this particular novel, that’s a good thing. Buckley’s debut novel is a terrifying, realistic, human depiction of the advent of an avian flu pandemic.

There was a lot of kerfuffle about a possible pandemic a few years ago, but once it appeared that avian flu wasn’t about to cross into the human population to any great extent, most people forgot about it. But scientists tell us that we’re overdue for a pandemic – it’s more a case of when it will happen than if it will. And in that light, Buckley’s novel should scare the pants off most readers. It’s possible, it’s credible, and it made me want to board up every window in my house.

Ann Brooks has had a tough year. Her husband left her, and she and her daughters have been struggling to adapt to his absence. There was no dramatic reason for Peter’s departure; he just decided after a long period of unhappiness that something had to change. So Ann became a single mother, and went back to work, and her kids saw less of their father. Ann is completely taken by surprise when avian flu strikes America. Sure, she knew it had struck humans overseas and that some countries were very dangerous. But America?

Guardians of Paradise

Jaine Fenn

Orion

ISBN: 978-0-575-08326-4

Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack

Guardians of Paradise was a flat, mildly interesting novel that left me completely uninterested in reading the rest of the series.

To be fair to Fenn, it does appear that this is the third in the series, and I have not read the earlier novels. However, I’m only guessing about that; nowhere in or on the novel does it explicitly tell you that this is part of a series. I’m assuming that because half a dozen pages into the novel I felt like I was coming in at the middle of the story; because the title page lists two other novels by Fenn with very similar titles; and because this volume ends on something of a cliffhanger. Fenn is doing herself and her readers a disservice by not offering them the opportunity to start the series at the beginning.

However, it’s also worth noting that as a reviewer I often find myself starting a series part-way through. In this situation, other authors have still presented me with strong and engaging novels, and indeed in some cases novels that have caused me to later search out and read the earlier books in the series. Fenn has not done either of these things.

As the story opens, Taro and Nual are visiting the home of Elarn, an old friend of Nual’s who has died. They scatter her ashes, but before they can leave as secretly as they arrived, they are attacked with lethal force. In the midst of the attack, Jarek, Elarn’s brother and close friend to Nual, unaware of Elarn’s death, arrives and helps them to escape.

The Thief-taker’s Apprentice

Stephen Deas

Orion

ISBN: 978-0-575-09448-2

Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack

The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice is a fairly good book, but it’s distinctly lacking in sympathetic or likeable characters. As a result, it’s hard to picture what audience the novel will find, and many readers may not bother to look for the next in the series. There is no indication of how many books are planned, but there are enough loose ends in the plot to fuel several.

Berren is a thief, and has been for most of his life. Early on the orphanage sold him to the thief who is his master; he lives a particularly squalid version of Oliver Twist’s life, with his master, Hatchet, brutally controlling a gang of young boys through violence, starvation, and lack of choice. One day Berren goes to watch an execution of three thieves; blood thirsty like many young boys, he thinks this would be fine entertainment, as well as a chance to pick a few pockets. But Berren makes a mistake; he sees the purse of gold the thief-taker is given as a reward for capturing the (soon executed) thieves. Berren wants that purse and follows the thief-taker with intent to take it.

Things don’t go exactly as planned, and Berren soon finds himself more or less forced into apprenticeship with the thief-taker. By most people’s standards this is a better life than the one he’s been dragged from, but Berren isn’t sure he agrees. His master is mysterious, and Berren doesn’t understand much of the intrigue that underlies their work. But he knows this might be his best chance to be Someone Important. And at least he gets fed more regularly.

Down to the Bone

Justina Robson

Quantum Gravity, Book 5

Orion (2011)

ISBN: 978-0-575-08565-7

Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack

Down to the Bone is the fifth and final book in the Quantum Gravity series. Readers who have followed the series will find it satisfying, but readers who pick it up without having read any of the other books are likely to think it weak. Down to the Bone follows the earlier novels Keeping it Real, Selling Out, Going Under and Chasing the Dragon, all previously reviewed here. The five books together tell one overarching story, and each instalment is designed to be read as part of the series, not in isolation.

As the novel is opening, ex-spy Lila Black is suffering something of a crisis. She suspects the world will end soon, and isn’t sure what to do about it, or even if she can do anything. Dead people are returning to life, vigilantes are killing the dead and the live indiscriminately as they try to dispose of the returned dead, and the world as a whole seems to be going to hell. Possibly literally. Lila and her husbands have been scarred by the events of earlier novels. Lila herself has evolved into some kind of magical machinery, and no-one, including her makers, seems to know exactly what she is or where her limits lie. Zal, her rock star elf husband, can’t hear music anymore. Teazle, the demon who is her other husband, is busy killing a lot of other demons to regain the status Lila lost for him.

Fever Dream

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Orion

ISBN: 978-1-40-911353-9

Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack

Although the idea underlying the plot of Fever Dream is interesting, the novel itself veers between melodramatic and lame (particularly the climax). In addition, it leaves the reader with a cliffhanger designed to draw you into the next novel, so at the end of the novel you find yourself with an incomplete, lame and melodramatic ending which is spectacularly unsatisfying.

The novel opens as Aloysius Pendergast and his wife Helen enjoy a hunting safari in Africa. Within pages Helen is dead, eaten by a lion as a hunt goes wrong. The novel jumps twelve years, to (now) Special Agent Pendergast unexpectedly discovering that it wasn’t a tragic accident; Helen was murdered. Pendergast enlists police lieutenant Vicent D’Agosta in an intense and bitter search for who murdered Helen – and why.

Dexter is Delicious

Jeff Lindsay

Orion (2010)

ISBN: 978-1-4091-1347-8

Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack

Should you be a viewer of the television series Dexter, who has never before read one of the novels the series is based on, know this: they are very different. From the first season of the television series they diverged sharply, with characters surviving or dying in quite different combinations. So television viewers will have a few surprises if they come into the series with this, the fifth novel.

I was disappointed in the first novel, finding the plotting fairly weak and the characterisations often muddy. However, the series improved drastically with the second title. This fifth volume, Dexter is Delicious is an accomplished novel, despite some minor plot holes, and should be enjoyed by many. A particular strength is the black humor which runs through the novels (and to a lesser extent, the television series) – Lindsay appears to revel in this, seeding it through the novel generously, but not ever quite going over the top.