Tuesday 27 September 2022

The Book That Wouldn't Burn

In May 2023 I have a new book coming out!  Pre-order it (please)  https://lnk.to/tbtwb


& here's Tom Roberts's glorious art unadulterated by my name etc


(drink in that detail!)


It's called The Book That Wouldn't Burn, and it's book 1 in a trilogy (provisionally called The Library Trilogy). 

You can help me (& you) out by marking it "to read" on Goodreads.

& you can pre-order it in many places, including Barnes & Noble, US Amazon, and UK Amazon.

Pre-ordering is a great help to any author!

Books 2 & 3 are finished (bar editing) and due for release in May 2024 and May 2025.



I don't like discussing what my books are about, never have done. It feels as if it lessens them. But I know many readers like to know. Hell, some readers turn to the back page and read that before starting on page 1. I mean ... those people are evil, and there should be laws against such behaviour. But yes, it takes all sorts.

If you read on you'll get a series of progressively more expansive (though still vague) descriptions of the content / themes / motivations.


The books concern a vast, ancient library. I mean big. Like REALLY big. (see how good I am with the words!)


The blurb on Goodreads says:

"A boy has lived his whole life trapped within a vast library, older than empires and larger than cities. A girl has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust where nightmares stalk and no one goes. The world has never even noticed them. That's about to change. 

Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another. A journey on which knowledge erodes certainty, and on which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned."

It's a story that plays out across worlds and times, and involves doorways to new places. It features, unsurprisingly, a lot of books, and librarians, and some bookshops too!


A real bookshop in Porto, Portugal - they have my books in Portuguese!



It surprises me, but I’m actually more excited for the release of my 16th book than perhaps for any of its predecessors. Prediction is notoriously difficult in this business – which is why publishers need to be brave souls, prepared to gamble on their instincts and experience – but I feel THE BOOK THAT WOULDN’T BURN has the potential to reach my widest audience yet. The reaction from my editors and test readers has shown it to be a book that generates enthusiasm. And it’s that kind of excitement that can catch fire and make great things happen.

            It’s a book that’s been bubbling around inside me for a long time. My oldest memories are of libraries. When my (English) parents brought me to the UK from the US for the first time at age 1 my mother’s first job was as a librarian, and I still carry those toddlerhood impressions of wandering what seemed huge halls filled with impossibly tall book-laden shelves. I wanted to wrap up every book-thing I had in me, from library to bookshop to home-shelf and make it into a story. In the end it was clear to me that the story had to be inside a library, lost in it, trapped in it, sustained by it.

            THE BOOK THAT WOULDN’T BURN is about many things, adventure, discovery, and romance for starters, but across the trilogy it becomes obvious that it’s also a love letter to books and the places that they live. The focus is on one vast and timeless library, but the love expands to encompass smaller more personal collections, and bookshops of all shades too.

            It’s a novel wrapped around theme of books, and society, and how they interact. About access to information, the difference between information and truth, the seduction of convenient lies, and the danger of knowledge not tempered by wisdom. It’s also about the almost sacred awe a big library, church-quiet, can inspire. And about the comfortable heaping of paperbacks in a second-hand shop. Also, there’s kissing. 

An imagined bookshop, drawn for you by the AI Midjourney.




And here's Tom Roberts' original colouring on the cover art:



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Monday 26 September 2022

A Gamble of Gods

Debut author Mitriel Faywood is releasing her first book in November.


Why should you care, you ask? Well, it's a great read that I've reviewed on Goodreads.

But above and beyond that, Mitriel has beta read the significant majority of my books. She's read through them chapter by chapter as I wrote them, offering immediate feedback, catching mistakes, and being enormously helpful.

In turn, I beta read this book. 

So, if you've enjoyed my work, you owe Mitriel some thanks, and what better way to repay her than by checking out her book? You can pre-order it on Amazon right now!





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Sunday 25 September 2022

Page 1 critique - "The Girl With All The Gifts" by M.R Carey

This continues the reprisal my series of page 1 critiques - you can read about the project HERE, and there's a list of all the critiques so far too.

I'm also posting some of these on my Youtube channel (like, subscribe yadda yadda).

I turn to another of my favorite books from the past 10 years: The Girl With All The Gifts, by M.R Carey.

I have reviewed the book.

First of all I'm going to cut and paste the disclaimers, and anyone prone to outrage really should read them:

It's very hard to separate one's tastes from a technical critique. There are page 1s from popular books with which I would find multiple faults. I didn't, for example, like page 1 of Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule (I didn't pursue the rest of the book). But that book has 150,000+ ratings on Goodreads, a great average score of 4.12 and Goodkind is a #1 NYT bestseller. His first page clearly did a great job for many people.

I'm not always right *hushed gasp*. You will likely be able to find a successful and highly respected author who will tell you the opposite to practically every bit of advice I give. Possibly not the same author in each case though.

The art of receiving criticism is to take what's useful to you and discard the rest. You need sufficient confidence in your own vision/voice such that whilst criticism may cause you to adjust course you're not about to do a U-turn for anyone. If you act on every bit of advice you'll get crit-burn, your story will be pulled in different directions by different people. It will stop being yours and turn into some Frankenstein's monster that nobody will ever want to read.

Additionally - don't get hurt or look for revenge. The person critiquing you is almost always trying to help you (it's true in some groups there will be the occasional person who is jealous/mean/misguided but that's the exception, not the rule). That person has put in effort on your behalf. If they don't like your prose it's not personal - they didn't just slap your baby.


I've flicked through some of the pages looking for one where I have something to say - something that hopefully is useful to the author and to anyone else reading the post.


I've posted the unadulterated page first then again with comments inset and at the end.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Her name is Melanie. It means “the black girl”, from an ancient Greek word, but her skin is actually very fair so she thinks maybe it’s not such a good name for her. She likes the name Pandora a whole lot, but you don’t get to choose. Miss Justineau assigns names from a big list; new children get the top name on the boys’ list or the top name on the girls’ list, and that, Miss Justineau says, is that.

There haven’t been any new children for a long time now. Melanie doesn’t know why that is. There used to be lots; every week, or every couple of weeks, voices in the night. Muttered orders, complaints, the occasional curse. A cell door slamming. Then, after a while, usually a month or two, a new face in the classroom – a new boy or girl who hadn’t even learned to talk yet. But they got it fast.

Melanie was new herself, once, but that’s hard to remember because it was a long time ago. It was before there were any words; there were just things without names, and things without names don’t stay in your mind. They fall out, and then they’re gone.

Now she’s ten years old, and she has skin like a princess in a fairy tale; skin as white as snow. So she knows that when she grows up she’ll be beautiful, with princes falling over themselves to climb her tower and rescue her.

Assuming, of course, that she has a tower.

In the meantime, she has the cell, the corridor, the classroom and the shower room.

The cell is small and square. It has a bed, a chair and a table. On the walls, which are painted grey, there are pictures; a big one of the Amazon rainforest and a smaller one of a pussycat drinking from a saucer of milk. Sometimes Sergeant and his people move the children around, so Melanie knows that some of the cells have different pictures in them. She used to have a horse in a meadow and a mountain with snow on the top, which she liked better.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Her name is Melanie. It means “the black girl”, from an ancient Greek word, but her skin is actually very fair so she thinks maybe it’s not such a good name for her. 

Interestingly, in the movie Melanie is actually black. 


This was back in 2016 before half the population seemed to have an aneurism if a black actor played a character described as white. Or perhaps it just wasn't a popular enough book/film to rile the base. It should be a more popular book/film since both were excellent, and the actor for Melanie did a great job.

Back to the thing in hand - shockingly, for me this isn't a great opening. As I've said before "great book" doesn't guarantee "great page one" or vice versa. 

It's good we've opened with a character and that we've got some of her thoughts. It just seems a little dull - wondering about her rather ordinary name.


She likes the name Pandora a whole lot, but you don’t get to choose. Miss Justineau assigns names from a big list; new children get the top name on the boys’ list or the top name on the girls’ list, and that, Miss Justineau says, is that.

This is much more interesting. We should have opened with this, but delaying it by ~30 words is hardly disasterous. To complain about it would be churlish - so I retract the churl.

This is interesting. So many questions. Children given their names on arrival, mechanically, from a list.


There haven’t been any new children for a long time now. Melanie doesn’t know why that is. There used to be lots; every week, or every couple of weeks, voices in the night. Muttered orders, complaints, the occasional curse. A cell door slamming. 

More interest. Faintly ominous - why no new children? Cell doors? It's a prison. The text is making me speculate. That's good.


Then, after a while, usually a month or two, a new face in the classroom – a new boy or girl who hadn’t even learned to talk yet. But they got it fast.

Children who haven't learned to talk yet. But who learn fast? This is good. I have questions. I can imagine answers - feral children snared in a jungle - but am I right?


I asked some of my Discordians from my Patreon to read a possible page one of mine recently. The exercise highlighted the fact that many people don't distinguish between "being confused" and "having questions".

In a page 1, "being confused" is bad. "Having questions" is good.

Something that creates confusion is contradictory in a bad way. It can be read as bad writing. As a mistake.

-- John and Mary kept running down the twisting subterranean tunnel. "Slow down," Mary called. The blazing sunshine was rapidly overheating her and the distant mountains seemed no closer.


That's confusion. They're in a tunnel, so how can they be in the sunshine and see the mountains. It doesn't make sense.


-- John and Mary kept running down the twisting subterranean tunnel. "Faster!" Mary called. The grobbla was catching up.


That's a question. What's a grobbla? Why are they running from it?


Sure, this is just semantics. You can say, "I'm confused, what's a grobbla?"

You can say, "I have questions: how is the sun shining underground?"


But I hope you'll agree that the first one is confusion - direct contradiction in text. Whereas the second is questions, "what's chasing them?" And that one is bad and the other good.


Melanie was new herself, once, but that’s hard to remember because it was a long time ago. It was before there were any words; there were just things without names, and things without names don’t stay in your mind. They fall out, and then they’re gone.

So, we're getting more about the character - always good. She was one of these non-speaking children. She's been here a long time. Interesting. What's going on? [questions - not confusion]


Now she’s ten years old, and she has skin like a princess in a fairy tale; skin as white as snow. So she knows that when she grows up she’ll be beautiful, with princes falling over themselves to climb her tower and rescue her.

So, we're back to her skin colour, but here it's more interesting - it echoes the language in Snow White and with the other fairytale imagery is telling us that despite arriving as non-verbal and being doled out a name, and there being cell doors, she has been educated and told stories.

We see her ambitions and they are touching / innocent / childish. 


Assuming, of course, that she has a tower.

Another note of caution. She's not wholly naive. 


In the meantime, she has the cell, the corridor, the classroom and the shower room.

Great, efficient, effective world building. We see how small her world is. We know for sure that it's a prison of sorts. And we see how she doesn't really see it as such.


The cell is small and square. It has a bed, a chair and a table. On the walls, which are painted grey, there are pictures; a big one of the Amazon rainforest and a smaller one of a pussycat drinking from a saucer of milk. Sometimes Sergeant and his people move the children around, so Melanie knows that some of the cells have different pictures in them. She used to have a horse in a meadow and a mountain with snow on the top, which she liked better.

More world building. We're touched by her interest in the minimal distractions/art that her captors afford her. We understand that this is a military operation, not some weird paedophile sect. We are intrigued.


To conclude - despite a very brief wobble in the first two lines, my opinion of the first page is that it's very good. Perhaps not quite up to the promise of the excellent story that follows, but it does a great job and I don't think anyone's putting the book down and walking away at this point.




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Sunday 18 September 2022

Page 1 critique - "Strange The Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

This continues the reprisal my series of page 1 critiques - you can read about the project HERE, and there's a list of all the critiques so far too.

I'm also posting some of these on my Youtube channel (like, subscribe yadda yadda).

I turn to another of my favorite books from the past 10 years: Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor.

I have reviewed the book.

First of all I'm going to cut and paste the disclaimers, and anyone prone to outrage really should read them:

It's very hard to separate one's tastes from a technical critique. There are page 1s from popular books with which I would find multiple faults. I didn't, for example, like page 1 of Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule (I didn't pursue the rest of the book). But that book has 150,000+ ratings on Goodreads, a great average score of 4.12 and Goodkind is a #1 NYT bestseller. His first page clearly did a great job for many people.

I'm not always right *hushed gasp*. You will likely be able to find a successful and highly respected author who will tell you the opposite to practically every bit of advice I give. Possibly not the same author in each case though.

The art of receiving criticism is to take what's useful to you and discard the rest. You need sufficient confidence in your own vision/voice such that whilst criticism may cause you to adjust course you're not about to do a U-turn for anyone. If you act on every bit of advice you'll get crit-burn, your story will be pulled in different directions by different people. It will stop being yours and turn into some Frankenstein's monster that nobody will ever want to read.

Additionally - don't get hurt or look for revenge. The person critiquing you is almost always trying to help you (it's true in some groups there will be the occasional person who is jealous/mean/misguided but that's the exception, not the rule). That person has put in effort on your behalf. If they don't like your prose it's not personal - they didn't just slap your baby.


I've flicked through some of the pages looking for one where I have something to say - something that hopefully is useful to the author and to anyone else reading the post.


I've posted the unadulterated page first then again with comments inset and at the end.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


MYSTERIES OF WEEP

Names may be lost or forgotten. No one knew that better than Lazlo Strange. He'd had another name first, but it had died like a song with no one left to sing it. Maybe it had been an old family name, burnished by generations of use. Maybe it had been given to him by someone who loved him. He liked to think so, but he had no idea. All he had were Lazlo and StrangeStrange because that was the surname given to all foundlings in the Kingdom of Zosma, and Lazlo after a monk's tongueless uncle.

"He had it cut out on a prison galley," Brother Argos told him when he was old enough to understand. "He was an eerie silent man, and you were an eerie silent babe, so it came to me: Lazlo. I had to name so many babies that year I went with whatever popped into my head." He added, as an afterthought, "Didn't think you'd live anyway."

That was the year Zosma sank to its knees and bled great gouts of men into a war about nothing. The war, of course, did not content itself with soldiers. Fields were burned; villages, pillaged. Bands of displaced peasants roamed the razed countryside, fighting the crows for gleanings. So many died that the tumbrils used to cart thieves to the gallows were repurposed to carry orphans to the monasteries and convents. They arrived like shipments of lambs, to hear the monks tell it, and with no more knowledge of their provenance than lambs, either. Some were old enough to know their names at least, but Lazlo was just a baby, and an ill one, no less.

"Gray as rain, you were," Brother Argos said. "Thought sure you'd die, but you ate and you slept and your color came normal in time. Never cried, never once, and that was unnatural, but we liked you for it fine. None of us became monks to be nursemaids."

To which the child Lazlo replied, with fire in his soul, "And none of us became children to be orphans."

But an orphan he was, and a Strange, and though he was prone to fantasy, he never had any delusions about that. Even as a little boy, he understood that there would be no revelations. No one was coming for him, and he would never know his own true name.

Which is perhaps why the mystery of Weep captured him so completely.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's worth noting, as I did for Senlin Ascends, that just because I think this is a great book, it doesn't necessarily follow that it has a great page 1, any more than it means it has a great cover(*).

(*) My copy has this cover

 ... it's OK. 

.


MYSTERIES OF WEEP


What do we think of chapter titles? Me, I'm not a big fan, but not opposed to them either. This one is fine.

Names may be lost or forgotten. No one knew that better than Lazlo Strange. He'd had another name first, but it had died like a song with no one left to sing it.

As a first line ... pretty neutral, but as a first 3 lines (all short) it's good. We immediately have a character to focus on. This isn't disembodied chat, we're not staring at the mountains or describing the weather. There's a person, and he has an interesting name. The most important thing is that we immediately know we're in the hands of an author who wields words with skill. His name had died like a song with no one left to sing it. That's non-standard use of the language - that's a line reaching toward poetry. This is a writer who understands the power of writing on the small scale and has declared her intention to do just that for us. 

Maybe someone would call that purple or flowery. They'd be wrong (in as far as anyone can be in a subjective judgement) this is on point, a direct hit on my taste centre. Purple or over-flowery language certainly can be used by someone attempting this sort of impact. Often people who try this fail painfully and the result is a cringe to read - though again, tastes vary and there will be readers who eat up the purplist of purple. Anyway - onwards!

Maybe it had been an old family name, burnished by generations of use.

Immediately we're hit by another fine line. A name burnished by generations of use. It's a small thing, but applying the familiar concept of burnished by use to something intangible, like a name, rather than an object, is just a nice linguistic step. Taylor is brave enough to colour outside the lines, and skilled enough to make it look good.

Maybe it had been given to him by someone who loved him. He liked to think so, but he had no idea. All he had were Lazlo and StrangeStrange because that was the surname given to all foundlings in the Kingdom of Zosma, and Lazlo after a monk's tongueless uncle. "He had it cut out on a prison galley," Brother Argos told him when he was old enough to understand. "He was an eerie silent man, and you were an eerie silent babe, so it came to me: Lazlo. I had to name so many babies that year I went with whatever popped into my head." He added, as an afterthought, "Didn't think you'd live anyway."

A question has been posed, and we're speculating on it. We have a tiny bit of general world building (Zosma) and a nice bit of that pin-point detail that I'm always encouraging you to use. Will the fact that the monk's uncle was tongueless ever be important, or even mentioned again? (Spoiler: No & I don't think so.) But the fact that we get this interesting, useless, very specific detail makes it all seem more real, less generic, it grounds us and adds colour.

That was the year Zosma sank to its knees and bled great gouts of men into a war about nothing. 

That, right there, is an excellent line. Now you know that you're in for a verbal treat. I might have tweaked it slightly and opened with that, but here is fine too.

The war, of course, did not content itself with soldiers. Fields were burned; villages, pillaged. Bands of displaced peasants roamed the razed countryside, fighting the crows for gleanings. So many died that the tumbrils used to cart thieves to the gallows were repurposed to carry orphans to the monasteries and convents. They arrived like shipments of lambs, to hear the monks tell it, and with no more knowledge of their provenance than lambs, either. Some were old enough to know their names at least, but Lazlo was just a baby, and an ill one, no less.

Worldbuilding wrapped around great imagery. And all of it directly pertinent to the character, our focus, our question.

"Gray as rain, you were," Brother Argos said. "Thought sure you'd die, but you ate and you slept and your color came normal in time. Never cried, never once, and that was unnatural, but we liked you for it fine. None of us became monks to be nursemaids."

I say that description should illuminate the observer as well as the object. Here Lazlo is the object, and in having him described by the monk we're learning about the monk's character too. He seems to be a no-nonsense, practical man, his compassion delivered sparingly.

To which the child Lazlo replied, with fire in his soul, "And none of us became children to be orphans."

Lazlo's first words inject character into him. That's good.

But an orphan he was, and a Strange, and though he was prone to fantasy, he never had any delusions about that. Even as a little boy, he understood that there would be no revelations. No one was coming for him, and he would never know his own true name.

Which is perhaps why the mystery of Weep captured him so completely.

And by the foot of page 1 we're returned to the chapter title, the question that has hovered over all these words. So, encouraging us to turn the page we have the super-high quality of the prose, the question of Lazlo Strange's origin and destination, both seeming uncertain, and the mystery of Weep which has captured our main character and which I immediately want to know about too. It sounds intriguing in and of itself - what kind of a name is Weep?

++++

So, how was it as a first page? Very good, I thought. It's a tour de force of great prose, it brings two characters to life with minimal space, deploying some dialogue to great effect, and it presents us with both problems and questions.

The problem is, admittedly a general situational one - an orphan in a war-torn world, but still, our guy isn't safe, it sounds dangerous and precarious. And the questions are specific: what is this mystery? what's Weep? and general: who is this strange little boy that the book is named for?

There's not much room on page 1, not much time to hook a reader, but Taylor's done it as far as I'm concerned. And the promises of quality and of intrigue that she makes here are fulfilled in spades. Both this book and the one that completes the duology are brilliant, full of imagination and emotion. Read 'em!


Sunday 11 September 2022

Money! How much are authors paid?

I've already done a blog post and a youtube on advances. So I won't go into what they are here, except to say that the figures presented here represent the minimum that the authors involved were paid.

It's my understanding that most (possibly the large majority of) advances are not "earned out" - which means that the advance will in fact be the author's only income from the book. 

But some authors do earn out their advances - all my trilogies save for the most recent have earned out (and since financial data lags quite a way behind sales, it's possible that one has too, and I just don't know it yet), so I do get additional royalties from them based on annual sales.

The scatter plot below is from authors who have volunteered their information to me. All but one asked not to be identified, so I'll keep them all anonymous. Most of these authors I've heard of, and if you read a lot of fantasy, you will know them too.

As well as satisfying the idle curiosity of readers, I hope that the information below will prove useful to writers. It's much easier to negotiate a good deal if you know what other people are getting. 

Hopefully it will also encourage other authors to add their data to the graphic (just email me at empire_of_thorns@yahoo.co.uk and let me know (i) the advance per book (ii) how many books it was for (iii) the year (iv) if you would like to be kept anonymous.


(click image to enlarge)
While you look at these numbers, consider that these authors' annual writing income is (in general) the advance you see, less 15% for their agents. If they don't manage to write a book a year then reduce the figures some more.

For comparison:
Here are some average salaries against different professions in New York (many will come with job security and medical insurance).
DENTIST $120,809
SOFTWARE ENGINEER $93,103
NURSE $73,742
TEACHER $50,516
OFFICE MANAGER $50,142
CHEF $48,827
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT $42,714
CUSTOMER SUPPORT $40,329
RECEPTIONIST $34,635
CASHIER $25,790
WAITER $24,652



Note, this is only for rights in English (US + UK + other English speaking countries). Some books only sell in the US (& Canada) or just in the UK (and Australia and New Zealand). Some books - it tends to be more successful ones (also ones that attract a big advance for the rights in English) - also get published in countries like Germany, France (two of the biggest markets) and others. My books have come out in 25 languages. Typically these deals are much smaller than the US/UK ones, but on occasion they can (in Germany particularly) reach comparable levels.

Currently, there's insufficient data to draw conclusions. It's certainly worth noting that a lot of these advances are in the $5,000 to $10,000 range. And sure, $10,000 is a nice sum to have fall in your lap. But books often take a year to write, and you're not going to eat well on $10K a year. Which is why most authors have a day job.

One observation of immediate interest to me, and perhaps worth the effort behind the exercise all by itself, concerns the green dots.

The green dots are for audiobooks. Now, traditional publishing, certainly the big few publishers who dominate the industry, has linked arms and essentially refused to sign a contract with any author, big or small, that does not include the audio rights. So, all of those non-green dots will probably include the audio rights.

However, some authors do sell the audio rights separately. I suspect these authors can then not find a publisher for the paper and ebook versions of their novels, and end up self publishing those. HOWEVER, if you can strike a deal for ~$70K or $100K per book as we see here, and for multiple books, then it may well make sense to sell the audio to a traditional publisher (and here we're probably talking about Audible itself) and self publish the other formats.

If those audio advances are in any way representative then I could see a lot of traditionally published authors investigating that route in future.




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Saturday 10 September 2022

Word Theft! :o

Look what Amazon is selling... 


I believe I have seen those words before.

Look what you can buy on Walmart.com

One of my Patrons (Professor John Mauro) kindly brought these to my attention.

Did some unscrupulous person/people curate a list of quotes then generate a range of produce-on-demand items featuring them? Did some bot trawl the popular quotes on Goodreads and construct a vast inventory of such things? Don't know...

Am I going to do anything about it?

Of course not. I doubt many (any?) of these have ever sold, and I'm certainly not spending my money or time chasing ghosts on the internet. 

But it seemed interesting. I've considered producing merch beyond my free promotional stuff before:

(I gave some of these out as competition prizes.)

(I secured permission from the artist - Jason Chan)



(These were gifts designed by the excellent Pen Astridge.)


I never got around to it though. Demand is limited, my design skills are terrible, distribution is expensive, and the effort involved always felt too great. Also, I don't own the rights to any of my cover art.

However, if I ever do become famous enough to warrant it, I'll delegate and we can have cool stuff!

Until then, it seems that the internet will provide. And if being complicit in their exploitation leaves you feeling icky - join my Patreon and it's all good 😄



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Wednesday 7 September 2022

Shelfish Opinions: 2 - The B's!

Continuing the Youtube theme - making these videos is also giving me blog material.

Previous Shelves here: 1 (A's)

I decided that I would move on from critiquing people's writing to critiquing people's writing, but now the writing is whole books, and the critiquing is cursory opinion, and the selection is made by my (mostly) alphabetised shelves.

Since I have a great many fantasy shelves, this could be a new recurring feature that will hit dozens of episodes.

Let's see how it goes.

Imma present one shelf at a time and just talk my way through the titles there, saying if I've read the book and briefly, what I thought of it. It's worth noting that I'm not responsible for the purchase/acquisition of the majority of the books on our shelves. My wife's an avid fantasy reader, and my children have been also at various points in their lives.


First to backup my claim in the first of these blog posts / videos - here's an 'A' book that was AWOL, A Touch of Light, by Thiago Abdalla, a recently published epic fantasy that I read and reviewed this year. An enthusiastic sprawling tale with griffins, almost-zombies, magically enhanced guardian knights, outer tribes, lots of world building, and a steep learning curve.

& I also have the prequel novella A Prelude To Ashes to read, which is also not on my shelf!


Shelf 1:

(the whole thing is too much to read the titles easily, so I've broken it up below)


Bit 1:

We start off with a couple of A's - Thieves' World book 2 & book 7, by Robert Asprin and Lynn Abbey. Yellowed pages, heavily foxed, printed in 1980, so from the year of publication. Owned for 42 years. Not read either of them!

Next, Fae: The Wild Hunt, by Graham Austin-King. Which I think he gave me at a Bristolcon, and I've not read. Then The Lore of Prometheus, by Graham Austin-King, which I think he gave me at a later Bristolcon ... after it was a semi-finalist in the SPFBO. I have read this one and it was very good. A modern day tale, mostly set in an underground laboratory in Iraq. A program to torture superpowers out of individuals who showed flashes of them under duress. A veteran and a medic are the the two point of view characters here. It's an intriguing tale with plenty of frustration followed by pay off, solid writing, exciting story.

The first B is Bancroft, and his Books of Babel quadrilogy. Senlin Ascends, The Arm of the Sphinx, The Hod King, & The Fall of Babel. Why do I have book 2 twice in hardback? Dunno. These are excellent. Senlin Ascends was an SPFBO semi-finalist and its failure to make the finals prompted a whole new rule! I've praised Senlin Ascends at length. And the rest of the series lives up to the promise of book 1. Calling this steam-punk puts it in an inappropriate box, but the mechanics are steam-punk. The books are literary, with world class prose. The eponymous Senlin is an unlikely hero, the straight-laced headmaster of a tiny school, a fish out of water, lost in the vast, bizarre, and frightening embrace of the tower. Extra point of view character join the cast as the series progresses. Expect a fantastic journey, with an air of whimsy, but also grounded by the humanity and wonderful portrayal of its characters, along with the strong undercurrents of darkness.

The Way of Wyrd, by Brian Bates is a 1983 fantasy - I've not read it.

Bit 2:

Even more books I've read! I picked up The Darkness That Comes Before from a 'free books' rack at the hospital on a stay with my daughter. I certainly acknowledge its cleverness, interesting writing, and breadth of vision. I did enjoy it. I didn't LOVE it. The reason was that my taste is for books that strongly engage my emotions, not just my intellect. This one didn't. But there's much to recommend.

Nod, by Adrian Barnes, I bought in Waterstones, nipping out from a different hospital stay. One of the staff sold it to me with a personal recommendation. It's a literary book with a low average Goodreads rating (rather like The Magicians) but a lot to offer. The prose, ideas, and atmosphere are excellent. The plot stumbles at the end. The central conceit is that everyone except the main character suddenly stop being able to sleep. Society crumbles and we have the sleepless as a kind of zombie analogue.

I've not read Greg Bear's Legacy. It's actually book 3 in a trilogy. Where are the other two? Who knows! I've also not read Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses (seems very successful), or Oliver Bowden's The Secret Crusade (he's sold a ton of books under the Assassin's Creed IP).

Lythande (hard to see) is by Marion Zimmer Bradley, a Thieves' World book from 1986. I've not read any of hers.

Bit 3:

Next we're into Peter Brett's Demon Cycle: Where's The Warded Man? Who knows! The Skull ThroneThe Desert SpearThe Daylight War, and an ARC of The Core, with the novella The Great Bazaar slipped in there. I thought The Warded Man was a great read. The books felt progressively weaker but still good as we went on. The Core perhaps had too much going on for me to really feel grounded in it.

Next are four Hopeless, Maine graphic novels by the excellent Browns, Tom (art) and Nimue (words). VictimsSinnersNew England Gothic, and The Oddatsea. These are a mysterious, darkly drawn and darkly plotted tale of surreal realities on a misty isle where many things are possible, and most of them have tentacles. 

Finally we dip our two into the C's. Rotherweird by is a fairly recent book by Andrew Caldecott. I've not read it.

Then comes Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. A sci-fi gem from the 80's, prescient in its prediction of the internet - though wildly optimistic about its use and effect. Oddly, given the controversy about its author, it was also ahead of most of its competitors in giving women and minorities significant roles. Essentially a fight-school story. I loved the book, was surprised by the surprise, and also enjoyed the film.




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