In the spirit of supporting my local library, I borrowed Isabel Allende’s ‘The Wind Knows My Name’. This story of generations of lost children, refugees, murdered parents and government led racism and misogyny is harrowing. Comfort comes in the actions of brave and loving adults who come together to help as much as they can. Samuel escapes Nazis and grows up in England, a beneficiary of the Kindertransport. Letitia and her father return from a trip to find their entire village murdered by government militia. Anita and her mother flee from a murderous man but are separated by USAian government policies. Their stories draw together slowly as hidden links and themes become clear.
By the time I’d finished the Allende book, the three sequels to Joan Slonczewski’s ‘A Door Into Ocean’ had arrived. I didn’t finish the fourth book in the series until earlier this month, but I’ll post them all in this month’s blog.
It’s entirely possible that late 20th Century feminist science fiction is my favourite genre. I felt truly happy whilst reading this book, and am slightly annoyed that it’s taken me this long to find out that ‘A Door Into Ocean’ has sequels. It’s like finding out that your favourite frock has pockets, but you didn’t know until the 20th time of wearing it. So, Daughter of Elysium … in depth exploration of the problem of wanting to extend human life but also to have kids, lots of kids. Philosophical exploration of ‘compassion’ and who it’s owed to. What is sentience? Who is human? To come from the first chapter of Book One, with pairs of Sharers visiting Valedon, twin planet to their own Shora, to decide if the human inhabitants were ‘human’ by Sharer criteria, to the last chapter of Book 2 where ‘humanity’ has just got a whole lot bigger, has been a vastly entertaining and interesting ride. I absolutely loved this book.
The third book in the Elysium Cycle has a much simpler plot than the first two books. Again, Slonczewski explores what it means to be a person, and at the same time looks at the evolution of individuals, species and societies. Two centuries on from the events of Daughter of Elysium, the story stays connected to the previous book via three long lived characters and a generational link with the Bronze Skyans who were central to that story. Genetics and biochemistry again play a big role, along with more questioning of the ethics of terraforming. I absolutely devoured this book.
And so to the final book in the series, which I’ve read 25 years late.
Brain Plague takes us back to Valedon, the planet where it all started. Sentient alien microbes have found that the human brain provides a wonderful environment, and they find a way to communicate with their hosts. For these tiny creatures, a year is just a day for their host, but they find a way to communicate. They are explorers and would be colonists, and symbionts with their hosts, helping them to work and create. Unfortunately, not all the colonies are beneficial to their hosts, they have discovered that manipulating a human brain to provide a dopamine rush can turn a human into a willing slave to unscrupulous microbial ‘masters’.
When a young artist is inoculated with a refugee colony, her life changes forever, and she finds new friends both within her own body, and with the community of ‘carriers’. She is recruited onto a committee that guards carriers against rogue microbes, and finds that she must act, as the brain plague masters grow bolder and more desperate in their need to recruit new host bodies.
I have loved reading these books, and will have a hell of a book hangover over the next few days. Late twentieth century feminist hard sf is very much for the win. The series explores what it is to be human, it looks at speciesism, environmental destruction, the inevitable conflict between longevity, fertility and environmental protection, and then brings the series to an awesome conclusion by turning human beings INTO the environment that needs to be protected from intelligent microbes with an overwhelmingly ‘human’ urge to breed and explore. I wish there were more books in this series.
I decided that this year would be the year of the re-read, the year that I caught up with missed sequels, the year that I made some progress with those piles of books that are yet to be read. I also decided to go off genre a little more, and use the library. So, the first book of the year is a re-read. A big time re-read. Lisa Tuttle’s ‘Skin of the Soul’ has been on my shelves almost since the day it came out. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read this anthology, but I know it’s been a while since the last re-read. This was one of the collections that changed horror. I’ve re-read a lot of older anthologies recently, and been struck by how few of the stories were by women. These days it’s unusual to read a decent collection that doesn’t have a lot of women contributors, but if you go back to the nineties, you’d be lucky to find two or three stories from female authors. Then the Women’s Press came out, with their brilliant SF imprint, making space for women in genre fiction. Lisa Tuttle’s collection still feels fresh, and includes many authors who are still big names in horror and genre fiction. I recommend it to all horror fans.
Book 2 of 2025, Joanne Sefton’s ‘The Guilty Friend’ had been on my to read pile for a few months, I bought it direct from the author at one of the Telling Tales events at Chorley Theatre (very much recommended if you’re local to Chorley and are interested in books.) I’m going off genre a lot these days, probably because I’m meeting local authors who write outside sf / fantasy / horror. Having said that, there were parts of ‘The Guilty Friend’ that were pure horror, one of the characters wouldn’t be out of place in a Stephen King novel. So, starting at the beginning – three girls meet on their first weekend at Cambridge, and become friends. Odd sorts of friends, more of a weird clique, but still … Fast forward thirty years, one is dead, one is widowed and unemployed with kids, the other is childless, a consultant doctor, and in a loose kind of relationship. The living women have lost contact with each other and have no intention of ever seeing each other again. Until, that is, footage from a news story shows the blurred face of their dead friend and sets in motion a series of events that change both their lives forever. This book had a strong story, it was gripping, and I enjoyed it.
So, Book 3 – a library book. Zadie Smith’s ‘The Fraud’. Way, way, waayyyyy off genre for me. Historical ficton is not my forte, but I enjoyed White Teeth a lot, although it was a while ago, and this was the only book in the library that caught my eye. Next time I’ll go there with my specs. Having said all that, I enjoyed this book. The protagonist, Elisa Touchet (Mrs) is, throughout the book, a stern widow, and housekeeper to the jovial and handsome cousin of her late and unlamented husband. They move in Victorian literary circles, numbering Thackerey, Dickens and Cruikshank amongst their regular dinner guests. Themes of hypocrisy and freedom run riot, and although there is one obvious candidate for the title of ‘The Fraud’, he is not the only character who might deserve that title. Based on historical fact, this book paints a captivating picture of the period.
Book 4 is another re-read, Joan Sloncewski’s ‘A Door Into Ocean’ from the great and much missed Women’s Press SF imprint. Set on a binary planet system, part of multi planet empire. The water world has been left alone for millennia, and is home to the Sharers, a race of female only humans who are experts in managing the ecosystem and their own population. It’s been ignored by the empire for a long time. The other world is much like earth, with a mix of land and water. The people of this planet are ruled with a somewhat heavy hand. Trade has begun between the two worlds, and Berenice, a heiress to a trader family, is a bridge between the two populations. An Envoy from the Patriarch visits Shora, the Ocean moon, and sets in motion a deadly series of events that puts the pacifist beliefs of the Ocean people to the ultimate test. I read this book on release, I must have been tired or busy at the time, because my memory of it was that it wasn’t an easy read. Decades later, I loved it, and enjoyed the re-read. I also found out that there are three more or less sequels to the book now, so I’ve ordered them and will be reading them soon.
Book 5 was a gift. a YA book, A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid. A good story idea, with nice prose.
I read a lot of books, and published one, in December 2024. Silverwood Rising was published halfway between my 61st birthday and Christmas Day, a gift to myself that I’m very happy with. I celebrated by reading a lot.
My first read of December was a short one – The Stillness in You by Katharina Unverricht. This is her first novel, and I hope it isn’t her last one. It’s a lovely story, full of hope and optimism. We meet Grace as she reaches a crossroads in her life. It’s a comfortable life, as seen from the outside, but Grace needs more. She flees her life and finds Josie, an older woman who takes her under her wing and finds that together they have the courage to reach for what they need.
From a slim indie tale, I moved onto one of Ellen Datlow’s horror anthologies. ‘Fears : Tales of Psychological Horror’. We kick off with ‘Bait’ by Simon Bestwick, a well constructed and expertly told version of the tale of a woman who has turned the tables on predatory men. Annie Neugebauer’s ‘The Pelt’ is a claustrophobic story set in a wide open space, which struck me as both skillful and memorable. John Malerman’s ‘A Sunny Disposition’ puts a child in an awkward position as his grandfather reminisces about a long marriage and a much missed grandmother. The title of Dale Baileys ‘The Donner Party’ does somewhat give the game away. I’m sure I’ve read this story before, or one very much like it, perhaps in another anthology. It’s not the only story in this collection to give off strong 1970s Pan Book of Horrors vibes, but it is the first. Steve Duffy’s ‘White Noise in a White Room’ deals with the dehumanisation of those involved in war. Weirdly, it reminded me in some ways of Third and Fourth Doctor era Dr Who stories, maybe it’s the settings … anyway, I got some real Dark U.N.I.T hints from this story. Margo Lanagan’s ‘Singing My Sister Down’ is one of my favourites from this collection, it’s a story about an execution, told with love and pity. Bracken MacLeod’s sparsely told ‘Back Seat’ has a plot born of equal parts Cormac McCarthy and Stephen King. Tim Nickel’s ‘England and Nowhere’ is one of the weirder stories in the book, I did struggle with it, perhaps I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. Stuart O’Nan’s ‘Endless Summer’ is a story about a serial killer. Priya Sharma’s ‘My Mother’s Ghosts’ is another of my favourites in this collection, it’s a tense story of family loyalties viewed through an unusual lens. ‘The Wink and the Gun’ by John Patrick Higgins establishes an atmosphere of brooding menace. Livia Llewellyn’s ‘One of These Nights’ is a creepy little Mean Girls story that I liked a lot. Laird Barron’s ‘LD50’ is the story that this anthology was made for, originally self published on his blog and revived for the delectation and delight of new readers. I would love to read more about the central character in this story. Theresa Delucci’s ‘Cavity’ is another beautifully written study that iterates all the murderers the protagonist has met. I loved it. Sharon Gosling’s ‘Souvenirs’ is a story with an underlying horror that we can all understand, especially as we get towards the end of our lives … but there’s an extra horror, a treat at the end. ‘Where are you going? Where have you been’ by Joyce Carol Oates is an utterly terrifying story that traps the reader in a spiral of hope and hopelessness. Ray Cluley’s ‘The Wrong Shark’ is based on enough facts about the shooting of ‘Jaws’ to make the ending hit hard. I loved Carole Johnstone’s ’21 Brooklands’, it’s the kind of story I’d love to write. Hailey Piper’s ‘Unkindly Girls’ just made me sad. Charles Birkin’s ‘A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts’ has been dragged out of its timezone, to poor effect. The last story in the book, Stephen Graham Jones’ ‘Teeth’ is a longer story that takes its time but is worth it in the end.
From psychological horror to cosy crime is a bit of a leap, but I attempted it by borrowing Belinda Bauer’s ‘Exit’ from my local library. I have a tenuous connection with Bauer, which was why I went off genre out of a sense of curiosity. This is a very cosy crime novel indeed, nearly everyone is trying to do the right thing and the main characters are as sweet as sugar. It’s amusing, well plotted and kept my interest throughout.
I returned to my usual genre with Quicksilver by Dean Koontz, another library book. Honestly, I have a tbr pile three feet high at home, but I do feel a moral urge to use the library now and again. It’s sadly lacking in genre fiction though, and this was the most promising find of the day. I am not particularly a fan of Koontz, but decided to give his books another chance, because I did like Odd Thomas. I got a quarter of the way through Quicksilver and realised that my tbr pile was right there next to me. I DNFd this book. I don’t often DNF. Looking at the other reviews, I think I may have picked up the wrong Koontz book. Not for me, your mileage my vary, etc. etc.
I keep buying N K Jemisin’s ‘How Long ’til Black Future Month’, then losing the copy. I don’t mind, it’s worth buying several times. Last month I finally got round to reading it. It’s one of those things where you leave your favourite food on your plate until last. I’ll donate my extra copies to the charity stall and hope that they introduce more people to her wonderful stories. My review is brief but heartfelt. Pure, classic science fiction short stories. Some are set in the worlds of Jemisin’s novels, others aren’t. They’re all great reads.
Last year’s final book of the year was John Scalzi’s ‘Starter Villain’, so when I saw ‘The Kaiju Preservation Society’ just sitting there in the library, all Christmassy and fun, I had to check it out. I’m glad I did. It turned into my penultimate read of 2024, which means that I now have to continue the trend next year. Someone remind to obtain a Scalzi book which can be my third last read of 2025.
This book is an absolute romp, with sf in jokes aplenty. So, basically, there’s an alternate universe with nuclear powered monsters who like to browse on actinides. When we start letting off nuclear bombs, they bimble through the dimensional barrier for a snack. Hence, Godzilla. The KPS is set up to maintain a research station in the alternate universe and look after the monsters. They recruit their staff organically, from people they know and like, leading to a good working environment, if you ignore the fact that everything wants to eat them. Naturally, there are other very nasty people around who would fuck both universes over for a goddamn percentage. And … go.
My very last book of the year was a re-read. Tom Cox’s ’21st Century Yokel’. I’ve been reading a lot of Tom Cox’s rambling ramblings recently, mostly on his Substack blog. It’s always a pleasure, and I find nothing to disagree with it and everything to enjoy. He sparks joy. This was a library book read, and it’s possible that this book is the same one that I borrowed six and half years ago, although the stamp dates don’t line up. Perhaps I auto renewed it? It would be nice if it was the same book. I know this isn’t a review, but Cox’s work is fairly hard to review. He just rambles on and keeps his readers entertained and amused and makes us think.
On Friday 20th December 2024 my fourth book will be published. It’s the fourth and final book in the Ransomed Hearts series. No spoilers, I promise.
I have mixed feelings, on some level I didn’t want to get to this stage, because it could be the end of my journey as a self published writer. Self publishing is expensive, and right now I don’t have an income or a lot to fall back on. I got a windfall, some years ago, and decided that some of it would be spent getting my stories out into the world. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot more stories, but my deal with myself only involved these four books. I say ‘mixed feelings’ because on another level I’m proud of the books, and the reception they’ve had. People have been asking for book 4, and are invested in the characters. Those characters are my imaginary friends, the people who have populated my internal world for twenty or more years. I’m glad that I’ve told their story, and that they’re now known outside my own head.
It’s over twenty years since I started writing the short story that would become Ransomed Hearts and Hearts’ Home. It started with a scene that’s barely in the book now, which came from a dream that wouldn’t go away. A werewolf, hunting dark city backstreets, eating rats and feeling that she was in the right place. The dream expanded into my waking life and I had mild hallucinations about this woman. She didn’t have a name. It expanded, she met other werewolves, and we started to find out more about their lives. It finished at about seventy thousand words, and I realised that it had a plot, characters, a subplot and all sorts of interesting things going on. On impulse, I sent the first chapter to a small press. I hadn’t even edited it. It was literally fresh off the keyboard, and my husband was the only other person who’d read it. He’d sat up all night reading it, which was a real compliment.
To my surprise and delight, my email found one of the volunteer readers for the small press that very night, and she asked for the full story. The following morning I got a message from her saying that she’d been up all night reading it, and that she was going to take the story to the boss. Well, that was easy!
Later that week, it transpired that there was no space in the schedule for another book, but the small press did like it, and one of the editors had volunteered to work with me to improve it, to get it ready for next year’s schedule. He said it was too short, and asked for another twenty or thirty thousand words. He recommended changing the point of view to third person. And as we were working on these things, he left the industry. I hope he’s doing really well, because that advice was absolutely on the nose. Unfortunately his change in direction lost me the opportunity at the small press.
Xan wasn’t originally in the book, and neither was Joyce. They were added because I needed to enlarge the scope of the book. Ironically, they seem to be the characters that most readers want more of, perhaps because I was a slightly more experienced writer when they came into my life.
So, I wrote my book, and I couldn’t find another publisher, or an agent. I was working part time back then, and volunteering pretty much full time for a national cat rescue charity. Finding time to write or edit was difficult. And then, I developed gallstones. Gallstones made me into a writer. I was up all night, most nights, with the pain, and I wrote to distract myself from it. I rewrote the first book, I wrote it from two different perspectives, which made it grow and grow. Eventually, I conceded that it was two books, Hearts’ Home being the second one.
I carried on writing, I wrote a sequel, which is now Silverwood Rising. It carries on directly from the events of Heart’s Home. You can view Ransomed Hearts, Hearts’ Home, and Silverwood Rising as one story, spanning three books.
I was too busy and tired to look for agents or publishers, but I did go to a subsidised creative writing class at the Continental pub in Preston. It was organised by Jane Brunning, of the sadly missed Lancashire Writing Hub. Speakers included Nicholas Royle of Nightjar Press, and Zoe Lambert, now a lecturer in creative writing at Lancaster University. It was there that I met the editor Dea Parkin, the proprietor of the editing consultancy Fiction Feedback, along with her friend Victoria Walsh. Victoria is a brilliant writer, but she’s quiet at the moment, writing wise. Other writers on the course were Dana Nadeau and Alan Whelan. Alan’s tales about his travels were fascinating and funny, and I would recommend his books.
In the wake of that course, I joined a small creative writing group at the same venue, and started to go to the Word Soup spoken word events there. I watched and listened to David Hartley, Carys Bray, Emma Decent, Fat Roland, Sarah-Clare Conlon and a host of other talented writers and performers who blew my tiny mind. I never knew, I mean, I never knew that that kind of thing went on in the dark corners of pubs in north west England. It was there that I stood up and read my own fictional stuff out loud for the first time. I have a choppy academic background, of sorts, I’ve written and delivered a postgraduate course, I’ve taught undergraduates, I have never had any trouble standing up in front of a class and teaching. This was different, this was my own heart that I was holding up for inspection. It was terrifying and exhilarating and my hands trembled like a trapped dove. I was hooked.
I wrote short stories, flash fiction, poetry. I read Writers’ Review and submitted a short story, which was printed and earned me £100. To this day it’s the most lucrative thing I’ve ever written. I joined Twitter, and ‘met’ the author, broadcaster and anthologist Hannah Priest, who under her nom de plume of Hannah Kate was putting together an anthology, Wolf Girls, about female werewolves. I wrote a story for it, in the same universe as my novels, and submitted it. It was accepted. Over the next few years I wrote three more stories for Hannah’s anthologies, you can find them in Impossible Spaces, Hauntings, and Nothing.
And the world of Ransomed Hearts and Silverwood kept on growing. There are many stories set after the events of Silverwood Rising, but the story that I needed to tell you all was the tale of Frances and Anthony, of Miriam and Tomas, and of how they met and what became of them. It was a story of the 1960s and two young men who wanted their music to shine, but who had to hide. It was a love story, and a story about twins, and a story about trying to survive the hate of a ridiculous yet powerful force. So I wrote Fight for the Future and once it was finished, I knew that I wanted to publish it.
By this time, the writing group at the Continental had folded, but Victoria Walsh had kindly introduced me to Chorley and District Writing Circle, usually known as Chorley Writers. They met in the upstairs room of the Hartwood Hall pub, on the A6 just outside Chorley. It was there that I met Dea Parkin again, along with a host of other writers including the late, great Dave Harrison. Many of the people I met there are still in my life, as friends and fellow writers. For reasons too boring to go into, I left Chorley Writers a year or so ago, and am now a founding member of Chorley Creative Writing Collective.
Chorley Writers had traditionally concentrated on writing, and on allowing new writers to share their writing. We critiqued kindly. We had guest speakers who advised on description, research, setting a scene, point of view, grammar and punctuation, and all the things a writer needs to know about. We ran events and learned about self publishing. Dave set up his own little publishing company and began to put his own Jenny Parker books out there. He really wanted to write sf and fantasy, and when he was diagnosed with cancer, he threw himself into writing the books that became the Tyrant fantasy trilogy, and also Anomaly, his sf novel. Dave’s gone now, and I miss his humour and gentleness at every writers group meeting we have. There is no doubt that he helped me to decide to self publish.
My husband, Adrian, fully encouraged me to get the books into the light of day. We agreed that I’d publish the first four books, and see how things went from there. I paid Dea Parkin’s Fiction Feedback to critique Fight for the Future and got two contradictory critiques back. The readers had very different reactions to the book, but both agreed that it was worth publishing. I took the sometimes passionate responses as a good thing, but then developed a holy terror of taking the next step.
For the next few years, I avoided the subject of publishing the books, although I did keep writing and rewriting more of the stories. It was a big step. For one thing, people would read them. That was a scary thought. What if ‘they’ didn’t like them. Even worse, what if they liked them and wanted more? I wrote a story for the Manchester Speculative Fiction Group, for their anthology ‘Revolutions 2’. It was accepted and published, and I was so happy about it that I started to think seriously about publishing again. I contacted Fiction Feedback again, and sent them Fight for the Future to be edited.
Also, around this time, I left my part time job. I’d been there for fifteen years, it had lost its shine, and to be fair, it wasn’t a job that anyone should be doing unless they were 100% committed to doing it very well indeed. I think that for those fifteen years, I did do it to the very best of my ability. I hope so. My husband was doing well in his job, and we agreed that I’d concentrate on my writing and my voluntary work. (And the housework, of course, I’d concentrate on the housework …) The truth was, there was enough of the voluntary work to expand into any free time I had at all, and I found it very hard to disentangle myself from it. The other volunteers were my friends, the work was challenging, worthwhile and interesting, and I was doing a lot of writing as part of my role. I wrote the newsletter, I did the social media, I sent out letters in reply to queries. I was the main contact with the press. I even got involved with running the craft stall. I was busy. The book didn’t get the attention it needed, and the edit sat in my inbox, glowering at me. I was too scared to take the next step, and I might have stayed too scared for the rest of my life. Despite this, I got involved with Lancashire Writers Association and What’s Your Story Chorley.
Then the pandemic arrived. It touched every life didn’t it? Some died, many lost loved ones, some were disabled for a long, long time. Adrian and I are introverts, we don’t like mingling at the best of times, so had no problems at all in avoiding other people, socially distancing in public, wearing masks and washing our hands at any given opportunity. In a household of two, we had every opportunity to avoid the virus, and we took them all. Adrian started to work at home, and I got stuck into the edits, engaged a cover designer (the amazing Ravven) and finally published Fight for the Future. It was well received by those who read it, put it that way. To date I’ve sold a couple of hundred copies, but I know that people are wary of starting to read an unfinished series, and now that the series is finished, I’m hoping that things will take off.
Then I had to tackle books 2 and 3, the first things I’d ever written, and the story that I’d rewritten from the perspective of several characters and from third and first point of view. I had half a million words. I had to get rid of some of them. The first step was to establish a cutting point to split the book into two. It was an obvious point that marked not only a major event, but a change in focus. Again, no spoilers. Making that cut was a big event, because it gave me a much shorter book to concentrate on, and when I finally got it back from the editor I was very happy with it. Ravven wasn’t available to do the cover, but the talented Jon Stubbington stepped into the gap and made two brilliant covers for books 2 and 3, keeping to the themes established for book 1. Ransomed Hearts came out eighteen months after Fight for the Future, and I set to work on Book 3. It didn’t have a title. I’ll tell you a secret, I am very last minute about titles. It’s always the last thing to happen. Until I have to actually ask a cover artist to design a cover, I usually don’t have a title. Eventually, it came to me, Hearts’ Home was a little bit twee, but it fit. This was the hardest book to get ready for publication, at a whopping 110 thousand words or more, it had multiple viewpoints, changing points of view, and a lot of story telling. It took nearly two years to bring it to publication, and by this time my readers and I were all ready for the last part of the story.
And so, Silverwood Rising. It was written, it had been written and rewritten for years. It was 150 thousand words long, and in desperate need of a good trim. I sat down and went to work, cutting out scenes, pages, paragraphs, sentences and words until it was only a little bit longer than Hearts’ Home. I sent it to Dea Parkin for the edit, and despite the anxiety about ‘being finished’, I edited and formatted it. Ravven was already booked to do the cover, and I’m delighted with it. I’m proud of my series and hope that you love it.
I just about read three books in November, but one of them was an absolute stonker. It took me a month to read it, with short breaks to read the other two books. Neal Stephenson’s ‘Fall, or Dodge in Hell’ is a big book, with big themes. It felt, as I made my way through it, like several books, many stories. An anthology, a bible maybe? It’s a sequel to Reamde, which I didn’t realise until I was a good quarter of the book in. I would probably have re-read Reamde if I’d known, because it’s been a while. So, what happens when a famous and wealthy game designer, along with his game designer friends, die, have their brains scanned, and have those scans uploaded to a quantum computer?
Drawing on the mythology of many civilisations, Fall tells the story of the evolution of a world. Fans of Stephenson’s earlier work will be interested to know that Enoch Root drops in from time to time.
Like most of Stephenson’s longer books, this story takes its time, with lots and lots of exposition. At times it feels like that first episode of Star Trek DS9, with all that ‘What is Love’ stuff going on, but it does pick up. If you like Neal Stephenson’s books, you’ll probably enjoy this. I did. If you don’t like long books where nothing much happens for several chapters, this isn’t for you.
I also read and very much enjoyed ‘Ludluda’ by Jeff Noon and Steve Beard, which is reviewed separately.
My third book of November was Alix E Harrow’s ‘The Starling House’ I’ve read a short story and two novels by this author, and have been waiting for the paperback of Starling House for a long time now. And then, because I’m me, I left it on the table until I deserved it.
At some point the week before last, I decided that I did. I decided that I definitely deserved it, and would take it out with me to read whilst I tried to raise funds for a cat charity at a craft fair, and to sell my own books too, on the next stall. It was a cold room, and there were interesting people to listen to, and I didn’t get quite as far as I wanted to with the book, but I did annoy some of my neighbouring stallholders when I laughed out loud, and read a short passage to them. They didn’t ask for any of that, did they?
I was captured by the book, as I have been by every other thing I’ve read by Alix Harrow, but then something went wrong. I lost my way. I got bogged down, the mist hid the story, the river dragged me down, and I got distracted.
Of course, I’ve been busy editing my own fourth novel, so it would take a LOT to keep me interested at this point, but still, I found myself too tired at bedtime to manage a chapter or two.
And today, with my own novel almost finished, I gave myself the gift of GETTING THINGS DONE. I sewed up the zip on those jeans. I ironed a lot of things. I listened to some music. I hunted out those toddler shoes that I’d promised to clean up and donate, and I put them in the wash. I went shopping for food. And once those things were done, I could read, for fun and for love, because once I was out of the mist and the mire, I could relax and enjoy this gorgeous story about a house and a girl and a boy.
Shall I tell you about it? Because, you know, spoilers? No, I’ll just say that it’s about the best kind of American Gothic, the best kind of haunting house, the best kind of weird book that defines your life, and the best kind of boy and girl fighting and fainting and telling each other to GO AWAY. I loved it.
I just logged in to blog my November 2024 reading and realised that I’d neglected to blog my October reading. So, here goes. My first book of the month was Geoff Ryman’s ‘The Child Garden’. It’s an old book and an old favourite. It’s been so long since I read this book that all I remembered was the name, Milena. After a while, I remembered ‘Milena / Ma’. I’m not sorry for my poor memory, I’m grateful for the fresh eyes that I could bring to this book, thirty five years or so after I first read it. I wasn’t long out of Uni that first time, and fond of Ryman’s adventures in the ‘new’ discipline of genetics. The fact that this was a climate change story probably also contributed to me buying it way back then. What struck me this time round was the mastery of story telling that brought us to different parts of Milena’s strange life but brought everything together in the last few chapters. I very much enjoyed this book, and its characters.
From one sf classic to another, my next read was China Mieville’s ‘The City and The City.’ First of all, the idea behind this book is bloody amazingly brilliant. The concept of two cities existing as they do, geographically occupying the same place, but politically and psychologically separate, is genius. Utter genius. Then add the idea of a third group, policing these same cities against any potential Breach of the heavily constructed barriers between them, and you really do have something to play with. For fans of crime novels and police procedurals who can also hack this very sf background, this book must be a dream come true. For someone like me, who finds most crime novels very dull, the experience of reading this book was very strange indeed. I was delighted with the world building, the concepts, the sheer fun of inventing weird situations and watching the characters deal with them, but I was increasingly bored by the plot. I raced through the first third of the book, absorbing and having my sf mind blown by the ideas in it. The second third was slower, as the characters got moved around to solve the crime. The last bit, the resolution and the reveal, was even slower, and I found myself not caring at all about who did it and why. The characters were OK, I’ve met worse, but not one of them grabbed me enough to care about what they were doing and why they were doing it. So, I was ‘don’t care’ by the end of the book, the characters left me cool, but I’m five starring this book because oh my the CITIES. The worldbuilding is going to stay with me. It’s changed my brain in that subtle way that readers of great books recognise. And a book that can do that gets five stars, even when I’m glad that it’s done with. My third book of October was Christopher Paolini’s ‘Eragon’. It’s an inoffensive YA fantasy novel by numbers, well executed, definitely a ‘boys own’ read. It gets mentioned so often in fantasy circles that when I saw it in the charity shop I had to pick it up. I went off piste with my fourth and last book of the month, Maggie Thornley’s ‘One of My Kind’. As you probably know I usually read from the horror / sf / fantasy genres. I bought this book directly from the author at a writing event last week. We have similar backgrounds, and the extract that she read intrigued me, so I bought the book and was very happy that I did so. The story is a fairly simple one, I won’t go into details but it’s about two sisters growing up in unfavourable circumstances in 1970s Bolton. It’s not dreary, but it is disturbing in places, it’s not a cosy romance by any means. I liked the slow build up of the story and the plot, the careful reveals and the sense that the story will be told at its own pace. This is Thornley’s first published book, and it’s masterful. I hope it is the first of many.
Many thanks to Angry Robot Books for the review copy of Ludluda. I read and loved Gogmagog earlier this year, so this chance to be a part of the online tour for the second book of the duology is very much appreciated. Jeff Noon and Steve Beard have got together to create something very special with these two books, and it’s vital that you read Gogmagog before you plunge into the murky waters of Ludluda.
Having got that out of the way, what of Ludluda? It’s a rich, physical, story that takes our protagonist, Cady Meade, on a quest to the source of a great river, whilst travelling upstream through its avatar, the ghost of a great dragon. The ghost itself is sick, and the journey through its diseased bowels is not one for the fainthearted. Cady began this journey as the captain of a river boat taking a young girl and her mechanical guardian to a coming of age ceremony, but the waters have become muddied along the way, and in Ludluda, she finds herself flailing to find out if she is doing the right thing. Meanwhile, rumours of an old friend take her on an unexpected journey into another reality. Cady is a hero for the ages, a wise, profane, ancient creature with a love for life in its entirety, from its delicate green shoots to the stink of decay. I loved this beautiful book, it made me smile and laugh, and at one point it nearly made me vomit. Read Gogmagog, then read Ludluda.
I wrote this earlier this week, for a performance with Sid Calderbank, the Lancashire Society, and Lancashire Authors’ Association at Tarleton Library.
It’s based on a true story. There was a crack in my grandma’s pantry floor. There probably still is. It came and went. I cannot promise that it reached down to hell.
T’ole in grandma’s pantry, came and went tha see She sed th’ was a mahn shaft That fell, infernally My teddy fell in, Jasper Was found just half a ted T’ole ‘d et his body And left mi wi his ed Mi mam sed that were rubbish Twas no more than an inch A slight case of subsidence Two inches, at a pinch Big sister, she knew better She’d erd wha t’owd folks tell In’t night that ole in’t pantry Was like a wishing well What’s that yer saying mister? That ah’m t’oldest one? Ah did have a big sister But sadly, now, she’s gone
After the leviathan of a book that was ‘999’, I stuck to shorter volumes in September. The first was ‘Underground’ by Al Ramsay. Al is a local author and we’ve known each other for a while. ‘Underground’ came out around the same time as my own book, “Hearts’ Home”, so we met up for a book swap, a coffee and a natter in The Artisan Deli, a rather nice cafe in Penwortham. This is a very civilised way of acquiring reading material, but I would stress that you should have other reasons for writing and publishing a book. If the tax man is reading this, don’t worry, my publishing balance sheet is still so far into the red we’re talking infra. Having read and enjoyed the previous books in the series I’ve been looking forward to this book for a while. If you’re looking for a quick, fun read with lots of laughs, this is for you. Felix is a teenager living with his parents and his kid sister. He’s at an awkward age, and probably always will be. His ambition is to be a successful journalist, and to this end he has set up an online news outlet, focusing on local news. Suspecting that a local landmark has been sold for scrap, he makes a late night visit to a local scrapyard to gather evidence … at which point his life comes tumbling down. With a mix of global geopolitics, eco-activist cells, a terrifyingly jolly funeral director and Felix’s auntie’s late old flame all mixed into the plot, this story has a cliff hanger at the end of every chapter. Lots of fun, I hope there’ll be another Felix story.
From Al to David… my next read was ‘Incorcisms’ by the always delightful David Hartley. Many years ago, when the world was young and David Hartley was even younger, we went to some of the same open mike reading events and I was struck by his imagination and skill with the written word. Since then, he’s gone and gotten himself a PhD and has published several collections of short and flash fiction. Treat yourself, read ’em all, they’re brilliant. A lot of them are very dark, most of them are very funny if you like it dark. I followed up ‘Incorcisms’ with two more of his short story collections, ‘Fauna’ and ‘Spiderseed’. I recommend them with absolutely no hesitation at all.
By now, it was clear that September was going to be a month for reading books by people from the North West who I’ve met a time or two. Caroline Blake and I first crossed paths at the excellent ‘Telling Tales’ book event at Chorley Theatre. She came to the first event, where I was reading, and I went to the second event, where she was reading. I bought ‘Just Breathe’ after hearing her read from it. It’s a well structured story with several interesting characters and a great premise. If you enjoy intelligently written contemporary romance, this may be the book for you.
My next read was by David Hartley’s dad, Pete Hartley. David kindly added ‘Ice and Lemon’ as a freebie when I bought a book bundle from him. I was wondering if I’d perhaps ruined my perfect September score of only reading books by people I’ve met, then I read Pete’s blog and realised that we attended at least one of the same writing events in Chorley many years ago. He got an entire book from it, I got a rather strained flash fiction. But we must have met, it was a small event and I’m fairly sure I spoke to everyone there.
Do not judge this book by its cover. It looks vaguely chick lit, vaguely rom com. It looks like a holiday read, something to take to the beach and read without thinking. It isn’t. The premise of the book is that everything dies, instantly. Bacteria, viruses, cows, cats, worms, centipedes. Everything on Earth just stops living. Except … Except for a few scattered humans who were high in the air at the time, travelling by plane to or from somewhere. A surprising number of these people manage to land safely, and thus follows a fairly standard, if somewhat bleaker than most, post apocalypse story. The fun part for me is that the story is set where I live. I know the hotel where the survivors hole up, the football stadium where our protagonist searches for his dead family, I shop at the supermarket which becomes the larder for our first group of survivors. I will never see my local B&Q in the same light again. And so, on with the story. It’s a decently plotted sf story with a nice idea behind it. It gets a bit meta and mystical towards the end, but not too much so. I enjoyed it, and have passed it on to a friend. Last thoughts – is the ‘Citric Chronicles Book 1’ a reflection of some future plan for a sequel, or a cute reference to the unwritten sequel which is one of the books McGuffins?
And then, right at the end of the month, I blew it. I didn’t have to, there are a couple of unread, indie books on my tbr pile written by authors that I’ve met at least once and who live in North West England, but I failed. I went to a fair to sell my own books and completely forgot to take something to read. I’d forgotten to bring my ‘currently reading’ so did something I never do … I bought a cheap paperback from a nearby supermarket. It was that or a magazine, and ‘The Gathering’ by C J Tudor was probably roughly the same price. I don’t usually do thrillers or murdery things, but this book promised vampires, and I was tempted. I read it in the space of seven hours of sitting behind my stall, whilst, of course, trying to engage with potential customers. Another stallholder saw me reading it, and came over to rave about C J Tudor and ask me if I’d read any of her other books. I had to confess that this writer was completely new to me. My new friend hadn’t yet read this book, so I happily passed it to her when I finished it. So, it was a gripping, easy read with a decent plot, interesting characters and some nice worldbuilding. If you like police murder mystery thriller things with vampires, you’ll love this.
I’d say that in August, I was mostly reading books by Tej Turner; with the exception of an absolutely huge anthology that is celebrating its quarter century this year. Strictly speaking, I didn’t finish it until mid September, but I read most of it in August, and if I leave it out, my August reading doesn’t look brilliant.
Let’s get ‘999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense’ edited by Al Sarrntonio, out of the way first. I was reading this all month, dipping into other books for light relief. It’s been on the shelves since I first read it on publication, and I’ve been giving it the side eye for about ten years now, wondering if I’d ever get round to reading it again. Anyway, I did. Whew! This is a big book. I bought it when it first came out, as a collection of horror and suspense stories that was issued to celebrate the millennium. Hence the 999, for 1999. Also, I guess, for the UK emergency number, although this is a very US centric collection.
There are a lot of stories in this book. It’s a huge book. It’s massive, and heavy, and that’s probably why it took me so long to re-read it. It’s also surprisingly archaic in places, and also male author heavy, as many surprisingly recent anthologies are. I know, 25 years old isn’t ‘surprisingly recent’ unless you’re in late middle age and remember buying it on publication, but still …
Let’s tackle these notes in some kind of order. First, the ‘short novel’, by William Peter Blatty. ‘Elsewhere’ is a ghost story that is screaming out for a film or TV adaptation. It reads more like a screenplay than a novel, and is dialogue heavy. It’s a nice idea, but I found it a long read for a short novel.
Then there are the three novellas. ‘The Ruins of Contracoeur’ by Joyce Carol Oates is the first in the book and is one of only three stories by a female writer in the book, out of a total of twenty nine. It has, of course, all the grace and skill that you’d expect of the author, with a hint of something that is never quite revealed. David Morrell’s ‘Rio Grande Gothic’ is a tense story that drew me in and did not disappoint. ‘Mad Dog Summer’ is a Bram Stoker Award winning tale from Joe R Lansdale. I loved this Harper Lee meets Stephen King story about a series of murders and the free range kids of busy but honourable parents. The landscape is truly another character in this story.
On to the eight novelettes. Kim Newman’s “Amerikanski Dead at the Moscow Morgue” is exactly what you’d expect of a late 20th century Kim Newman story. It’s got zombies, black humour and a morally dubious protagonist. I loved it. On to Stephen King’s ‘The Road Virus Heads North’, which was also featured in King’s own anthology ‘Everything’s Eventual’. For me, this is a classic King story, with that sense of mounting dread and inescapable doom that he does so well. It still frightens me, a quarter of a century later. “Good Friday” by F. Paul Wilson is a lovely vampire apocalypse story that could well serve as an origin story for a vampire hunter. “An Exaltation of Termagants” by Eric Van Lustbader is a nice story with a predictable ending. Ramsey Campbell’s ‘The Entertainment’ is classic Campbell, drawing us into the dank and shadowy grotesque world of the story with no mercy at all. “The Shadow, The Darkness” by Thomas Ligotti is a stylish and dark story that left me with an impression of a place and time but, three weeks after reading it, I can’t remember the plot at all. I do remember enjoying it though. Gene Wolfe’s ‘The Tree is my Hat” is a lovely disconnected ghost story and one of the highlights of the collection. Finally, for the novelettes, “Rehearsals” by Thomas F. Monteleone is a rather sweet redemption story, which doesn’t quite belong in this collection, but does provide some relief from the darkness.
So, on to the short stories. I’d forgotten how much I love Thomas M Disch stories, but ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ reminded me. This story alone would make the anthology worth buying, it’s just perfect. “Keepsakes and Treasures: A Love Story” by Neil Gaiman is about a boy’s love for his mother, kind of. “Growing Things” by T.E.D. Klein is a fascinating story that keeps everything in the subtext, I enjoyed it. It may grow on you. “Excerpts from the Records of the New Zodiac and the Diaries of Henry Watson Fairfax” by Chet Williamson is one of only two stories that I remembered reading the first time round, a quarter of a century ago. If anything, it’s become a little too plausible to be classed as horror. I absolutely loved ‘Itinerary’ by Tim Powers, it’s exactly my kind of weird, and gets the ‘I wish I’d written this story’ award of the anthology. The second story in this book written by a woman is “Catfish Gal Blues” by Nancy A. Collins, and doesn’t it just make you wish there were many, many more. It’s funny, cutting and has a great payoff. I loved it. “ICU” by Edward Lee is a revenge gore short story, brutish and straightforward. “The Grave” by P.D. Cacek is the last story from a woman, and is a creepy little story about someone who should really, really, never have been a mother. Rick Hautala’s ‘Knocking’ is a claustrophobic horror about coping or not coping with the fall of civilisation. “Des Saucisses, Sans Doute” by Peter Schneider fills the gap until the next story, “Angie” by Ed Gorman. “Angie” is another nasty little tale that shows that we don’t need anything supernatural to invoke horror, the banality of self serving evil is more than enough. Being the work of the editor and anthologist gives “The Ropy Thing” by Al Sarrantonio a secure spot in the book. This story is pure Twilight Zone, being the tale of something eldritch taking over the planet. Creepy. Ed Bryant’s ‘Styx and Bones’ is a fun tale of witchcraft and revenge that I liked a lot. “Hemophage” by Steven Spruill is a really nice vampire story that deserves a longer treatment, I’d read the hell out of the novel. “The Book of Irrational Numbers” by Michael Marshall Smith is kinda the B side of Stephen King’s recent novella ‘‘Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream’ which was written twenty five years later. What can I say, it’s MMS, and I loved it. Bentley Little’s ‘The Theater’ is an odd little story about a hidden theatre with some very odd inhabitants; it’s well written and really drew me into the story. “Darkness” by Dennis L. McKiernan is the last short story in the book, and is expertly written, I enjoyed it.
So much for the HUGE anthology, and on to the smaller stuff.
Tej Turner’s ‘Janus’ has been on my to buy list since it came out, and I got round to it at last. Turner is an anthology mate of mine in Hic Dragones ‘Impossible Spaces’ collection, and in this book, he has created another impossible space. Janus is a club, a building, a concept. We first come across it as a place that’s one step up from a rave, a breathing space and refuge for people who don’t fit into conventional spaces. With time, the club becomes more popular, more successful, and distinctly less of a refuge. The book is presented as a series of short vignettes which introduce a cast of characters who occasionally reference each other, but don’t seem to be connected. It’s not until the end of the book that everything comes together, in an emotionally satisfying way that serves as an introduction to Turner’s next novel. I enjoyed this story, and recommend it.
The sequel, ‘Dinnusos Rises’ was my last read of August. We meet again the characters and places from Janus, and follow their experiences, bafflement and acts of courage as they become caught up in plots and plans laid by shadowy figures on both sides of a societal change.
I did enjoy this, the characters are appealing and sympathetic, and whilst I know that Turner has left this universe behind, I’d love to read more stories about these people.
