The Book Zone

Coming Up In 2012 #13: The Demon's Watch by Conrad Mason

2012-01-31T08:31:00.000Z

At the end of the Random House bloggers' brunch that I attended recently I felt both excited and a little concerned. Excited because of the plethora of great sounding titles they have coming out this year, but concerned because I'm not sure where the time is going to come from to read them all. If only I could win the lottery, quit the job and spend the rest of my days reading? The Demon's Watch by Conrad Mason is another one of the books we were told about that I can't wait to read. Here's Conrad to tell us a little more about his book:

My first novel, The Demon's Watch, is out in March from David Fickling Books. It's a piratical fantasy adventure in which magicians sport tricornes, ogres wield flintlocks and elves carry cutlasses.

The story is set in Port Fayt, where humans live in peace alongside trolls, goblins and fairies alike. Captain Newton and his men are the Demon's Watch, and they keep the town safe from pirates and smugglers. But now Fayt is under threat from a much more powerful enemy - the League of the Light, who want to destroy anyone who isn't human. And to make matters worse, a dangerous witch has just arrived in town.

Half-goblin boy Joseph Grubb works in his uncle's tavern, the Legless Mermaid, and has only ever heard stories of the Demon's Watch. But when he runs away from his uncle and finds himself deep in a criminal underworld, Grubb might be the one person who could help the watchmen save Port Fayt.

I've tried to write a book which is full of action, humour and mystery, and most importantly of all, heroes you can root for. A book in which a person doesn't have to be evil just because they're a goblin. A book which I hope you'll love. Because if you don't, I'll be sending the ogres round...

Coming Up In 2012 #12: Itch by Simon Mayo

2012-01-30T07:30:00.002Z

Back before Christmas I received an email from the lovely people at Doubleday asking if I would be interested in reading a book that Simon Mayo had written for the 10+ age group. Yes, that Simon Mayo. He of BBC Radio 1 and now Radio 2 fame. The man whose Radio 2 Book Club I listen to every Monday evening on may way home from work. Naturally I said yes please, and I really, really enjoyed it. The book is called Itch, and it is being billed as 'Alex Rider with Geek-Power'. Watch this space for my review, which will appear on The Book Zone a little closer to its March publication date. In the meantime, here is Simon to tell you a little about Itch:

Hi to all readers of this top blog. My name is Simon Mayo and I am the author of Itch which is out on March 1st. This is my first novel and I hope you enjoy it because I absolutely loved writing it. Itch is 14 and lives with his family in Cornwall. He is a bit of an outsider really. He struggles with his family and finds it difficult to make friends. At school everyone else is obsessed with sport and computer games, Itch is just interested in science. He considers himself an element hunter, a collector of the elements in the periodic table. From the boring ones like iron and lead, to the more interesting ones like helium and mercury, and the downright dangerous ones like arsenic and polonium.

In this adventure, Itch and his sister Chloe (11) and his cousin Jack (short for Jacqueline and also 14) get their hands on a very mysterious rock. They quickly discover that it is both fantastically valuable and extraordinarily dangerous - nothing less than nuclear power in a bag. And the bag is in Itch's rucksack! Itch quickly becomes the most hunted boy in the world; police, terrorists, criminals and particularly his evil science teacher Nathaniel Flowerdew all want to find him. Very, very badly. Itch doesn't have long to decide what to with the rocks. But if he doesn't do the right thing, it could cost him his life.

Let the hunt begin!

News: WIN $250 AUD By Making A Trailer For Money Run by Jack Heath

2012-01-29T21:13:00.001Z

I saw a link to this competition tweeted by author Jack Heath yesterday, and I thought it was just the kind of thing that some of you might be interested in. I reviewed the book back in July 2011 and thought it was one of the best action thrillers for the 10+ age group that I had read in ages.

Now Jack is offering up a prize of 250 Australian Dollars for the winner of his 'Make A Money Run Trailer' competition. As long as you live in Australia, UK, USA, Canada or New Zealand you are eligible to enter, and the deadline for entries is Tuesday 21st February. Jack isn't necessarily after anything long or expensive, and gives his own home-made trailer for the sequel, Hit List, as an example (see youtube video at the end of this post).

Full details cane be found here. Happy film making!

Coming Up In 2012 #11: Black Arts by Andrew Prentice & Jonathan Weil

2012-01-25T07:50:00.002Z

Back before Christmas I was sent a proof of Black Arts, a debut novel from Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil. I loved the premise so much that I dropped everything to read it, and I can tell you that it is superb. This Saturday just gone I was fortunate to be one of a number of bloggers invited to a brunch held by Random House Children's Books, and when one of the team was waxing lyrical about how good this book was I was the one sat at the back vigorously nodding my head in agreement. My review will follow nearer its April release date, so for now you will have to have you appetites whetted by the authors who very kindly agreed to take part in my Coming Up In 2012 feature:

Welcome to London.

Jack knows that London is dangerous. This is a place where government spies can make you disappear into the torture chamber, and where most crimes are punishable with death. As a child thief, he knows he’ll be lucky to live to the age of twenty.

He doesn’t know that London is crawling with invisible devils. He doesn’t know about the gruesome murder spree that is about to be unleashed. He doesn’t know that soon the most powerful man in the city will be hunting him to death.

He’ll find out, though, soon enough.

We set our story in London because it’s the city where we grew up, the city we love above all others; and because it’s an evil, twisted, magical place where anything can happen.

The original idea for the book came from a true London story:

Four men walk into a London pub and have lunch together. When the bill arrives, two of them disagree over who should pay, and one stabs the other through the eye, penetrating the brain and killing him instantly. The victim is London’s most successful and celebrated playwright – who happens to be a spy on the sly. He has also been accused of inciting riots and fomenting treason . . . not to mention the rumours of black magic and lewd sexual practices . . . The murderer is a petty conman, and one of the witnesses is the Queen’s own spymaster.

This happened in 1593 (the victim is Christopher Marlowe). We thought a place where that story could be true must be a good place for the sort of story we wanted to write – i.e. the sort of story we’ve always enjoyed reading ourselves. Black Arts is a story about death, vengeance, gold and devils. Anything can happen.

News:

2012-01-24T19:28:00.000Z

These days I get quite a few book and reading related press releases through. Some of them I share with you, many of them slip by the wayside as I only have so many free minutes in a day. Today I received an email that I felt I had to share with you, regarding a free online event that is taking place on Thursday. Here are the details:

Scotland’s National Poet Liz Lochhead is to give a live broadcast to children around the world during a special Robert Burns celebration on Thursday 26 January at 11am. The Scottish Friendly Meet Our Authors Special Event, run by Scottish Book Trust, will be streamed live from BBC Scotland in Glasgow and available after to watch again for free from the Scottish Book Trust website. The broadcast will be most suited to children from P6 – S4 (9-16 year olds) and any fan of Scottish poetry.

You too can join over 10,000 pupils across the UK and beyond watching the event live by following this link: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors-live-with-liz-lochhead. Alternatively, in case you don't read this until after the event, or you are already busy on Thursday at 11am, the event can be downloaded or streamed from next Thursday following the same link.

Liz will be celebrating the poetry of Burn’s as well as reading her own work. We’re sure this event is going to be really inspirational as no-one can make Burns come to life like Liz can.

Scottish Book Trust do loads of events like this every year: our previous events have featured authors such as Michael Rosen, Michael Morpurgo, Julia Donaldson, Eoin Colfer, Jacqueline Wilson, David Almond and many more. You can stream or download any of these events for free here: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/childrens-authors-live/2010-11.

News: New trailers for Apocalypse Moon & The Joshua Files series by MG Harris

2012-01-23T10:00:00.001Z

In my first post of 2012 I mentioned how I was both excited and a little sad about the publication of Apocalypse Moon, the final book in MG Harris's brilliant Joshua Files series. Back in 2008 when I was still reading children's and YA books based upon their covers attracting my attention, rather than on press releases from publishers, I could not help but buy Invisible City, in its unique orange day-glow gel sleeve. I loved that story and the publication of each book that followed became an annual event in my diary. Now, with the publication of Apocalypse Moon just over two months away, there have been two new trailers released, one of the series as a whole and one for Apocalypse Moon. They are both brilliant - enjoy!

Coming Up In 2012 #10: Freaks by Kieran Larwood

2012-01-22T14:25:00.002Z

I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to reading this book by debut writer Kieran Larwood. Members of a travelling Victorian sideshow by night, crime fighters by day? How good does that sound? Add in the fact that Freaks is the book that won The Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition and it has six-pack of win written all over it. Freaks is due to be published by Chicken House in April, but in the meantime here is Kieran to tell us a little more about it in his own words:

Victorian London in 1850 is full of diseased slums, foul stenches, seedy villains and sinister sideshows. 'Freaks' follows the members of one such sideshow as they are drawn into the underworld in an attempt to solve the mystery of pauper children being snatched from the stinking river banks. There is Sheba the wolf-girl, Sister Moon- ex-assassin, Gigantus the Man Mountain and Monkeyboy- the most disgusting creature in the British Empire. The book is a mixture of mystery, action, atmosphere and humour. It basically contains everything the ten-year old me would have loved to read, all squished together into one fast-paced, suspense-filled, freakish blob. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

Review: The Court Painter's Apprentice by Richard Knight

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000Z

'Paint what you see, Johann; not what you think you see.' This is the advice that Hugo, master portrait painter, gives to his protege, Johann. But Johann's talent for painting the truth runs deeper than anyone can ever imagine. Johann soon discovers how changing the portraits he paints, can change the lives of his subjects. But with the power to bring good fortune to those around him, Johann is soon tempted to change his own...

I quite often find that small independent publishers publish some great stories that fall short because of the quality of the editing. This is most often simply down to manpower issues – less staff means less time to edit as thoroughly as might happen with one of the majors. This is MOST DEFINITELY NOT the case with Catnip Publishing – every one of their books that I have read so far has been a little gem in one way or another, both as a story and in the quality of its editing. Catnip really know their stuff, and most importantly of all they know what makes a good story that will engage a young reader. Great books from Catnip that you may have heard mentioned on The Book Zone or elsewhere include Edwin Spencer: Mission Improbable by JD Irwin, Clash by Colin Mulhern, and The Dead Ways by Christopher Edge. Now you can add The Court Painter’s Apprentice by Richard Knight to that list.

The Court Painter’s Apprentice is a great example of quality rather than quantity. My proof copy weighed in at only 175 pages, and yet the story it contains is not missing any of the key elements one would expect in a book for the 9+ age group: a gripping plot; an intriguing and original premise (the concept of being able to change a person’s destiny and character by making subtle changes to a painting of them); an element of horror that will send chills down the reader’s spine; a handful of great characters who are written in such a way that the story, however fantastic, is completely believable; and a cracking, mysterious twist towards the end.

This is the perfect book for all young readers who like a good mystery story, but especially for those who enjoy historical fiction or who are developing an interest in art and paintings. However, its appeal is not, I believe, solely restricted to middle grade readers as I think it holds something for everyone. Sometimes when I am reading a book written for children or Young Adults, and I spot things that do not appeal to me as an adult, I have to remind myself that I need to look at the story as if I were a member of the target market. With this book I never had to make this mental shift, and I feel it has great cross-generational appeal.

My thanks go to the wonderful people at Catnip for sending a copy of this book to review.

*** Tarzan Competition Result

2012-01-19T21:45:00.000Z

The lucky winners of the copy of the signed copies of Tarzan: The Greystoke Legacy by Andy Briggs are:

Taryn Hay
Ron Goodwin
Millie Harvey
Helen Farrar

Well done and thank you to all of you who entered. I will now endeavour to contact the winner through by email. Please reply within 48 hours or I will draw another name out of the hat. Many thanks to Andy for providing the prize.

Coming Up In 2012 #9: The Bonehill Curse by Jon Mayhew (and exclusive cover reveal)

2012-01-19T09:05:00.000Z

My Coming Up In 2012 feature focuses on new first in series or standalone books due out this year. Some may question my inclusion of Jon Mayhew's new book, The Bonehill Curse, as it is set in the same world as his previous two stories, Mortlock and The Demon Collector. Well I make the rules, and I love those two books and their dark Victorian setting, so I have decided that The Bonehill Curse fully deserves to be a part of this feature. Of course, Jon being the great guy that he is, very kindly agreed to write something especially for us. He also sent along the image of the cover, which is very different from the one that has been doing the rounds on the internet. He tells me that this is a recent change, and that this is an exclusive reveal for The Book Zone - it is well woth clicking on the image to see it in all its hi-res glory, and I have to say that I like it much more than the one that had previously been touted as the cover for the book. The Bonehill Curse is scheduled to be published by Bloomsbury in May.

Coming up in May 2012, the final book set in the world of Mortlock. Necessity Bonehill is arrogant, a bully and trapped in Rookery Heights Academy for Young Ladies. Bored and aimless, she spends her time training with the retired, and slightly insane, Sergeant Major Morris or fighting with the local peasant boys. So when her Uncle Carlos sends her a seemingly empty bottle with the instructions, “Never open it,” she can’t resist the temptation and pulls the cork.

But Necessity unleashes an evil genie, a demon of pestilence and a creature that bears her parents a terrible grudge. With only seven days to rescue them, Ness has to find out how to kill the genie. She begins a desperate quest that takes her through the dark streets of London and to the Oasis of the Amarant in uncharted Africa. If she fails, her parents die and the world will fall prey to the genie’s hideous plague. Her nightmare magic-carpet ride brings her face to face with the Pestilents, the genie’s living dead servants, a vampire army and worst of all…herself.

The Arabian Nights viewed through a murky gothic lens with a fist-fighting girl for company! What would you wish for?

Coming Up In 2012 #8: Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress by Sarwat Chadda

2012-01-18T16:34:00.000Z

Any new release by Sarwat Chadda is cause for celebratory street parties and church bells to be rung across the land. His Dark Goddess was a truly worthy winner of The Book Zone Book of the Year 2010, and I have been waiting very excitedly ever since to read whatever Sarwat wrote next. In March that next book will hit the book shops and libraries of Britain (start ringing them bells!), and it is a corker. I consider myself very privileged to have read it already, and Rick Riordan had better watch out - there is a new 'myth master' in town and he means business. Here's Sarwat to tell us a little more about Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress:

Holidays in Hell by Sarwat Chadda

My new book, ‘Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress’ is your average tale about a boy during his summer holidays. You know, the type of holiday where the boy meet an evil sorcerer planning to raise an ancient demon king and his army of demons and it’s totally down to the boy to save the day and kick everyone in the arse, pretty damn hard.

I’m sure you’ve had summer breaks just like it.

The book’s set in India and is all about Indian mythology and history. We all know and love the Greek myths, our days are named after the Norse gods so I though it about time we brought in some eastern deities, they’re quite unlike anything you’d have come across before.

Take Kali, the goddess of death and destruction. The hero, Ash, finds something very valuable of hers, a divine superweapon that was lost on a battlefield thousands of years ago. This weapon is the only thing that can stop the demon king but Ash is not your usual hero. He’s not a hero at all. He’s 13 but the kind of boy who still might sleep with the light on. Fortunately he teams up with Parvati, a half-human half-demon girl who’s the world’s greatest assassin. Ash must learn the ways of Kali if he’s going to stand a snowball’s chance in Hell of surviving the rebirth of the demon king and beating Lord Savage, the sorcerer behind the resurrection.

It’s not a story for those with tender hearts. It’s a story about blood, sacrifice and death. You see how far Ash is willing to go to do what’s right, even if he’s terrified almost every step of the way. A true hero is not the one who’s unafraid. He’s the one who, though filled with fear, conquers it and acts in spite of it. Ash Mistry takes the darkest path, the path of Kali, and I hope you’ll come along for the journey. It’ll be like no other.

Review: Casper Candlewacks in the Claws of Crime by Ivan Brett

2012-01-17T13:00:00.004Z

Most villages have an idiot but Casper's village is full of them. So being bright makes poor Casper something of an outsider.

An infamous cat burglar has struck in the village of Corne-on-the-Kobb, stealing a precious jewelled sword and kidnapping Casper’s baby sister. To make matters worse a gaggle of amateur detectives are on the case, questioning the villagers and getting in the way. Armed only with his wits, an egg-boiling lie-detecting machine and his best friend Lamp, can Casper rescue his sister and save the day?

Casper Candlewacks in Death By Pigeon was one of my favourite books of 2011. At the time of reading I had been going through a case of the much dreaded blogger burnout, struggling to get into many of the books I was being sent by publishers, and it was Ivan Brett's hilarious début that cured me. At the time I suggested that it should come with a health warning: if read at bedtime make sure plastic bed sheets are fitted as your child will laugh so much a little bit of wee may come out. Now the sequel, Casper Candlewacks in the Claws of Crime, has finally hit the books stores and please believe me when I say that you had better get those plastic sheets back out of storage and back on to those beds.

In this second episode in the life of the only non-stupid person in the superbly named village of Corne-on-the-Kobb, Casper and his inventor friend Lamp have to play detective. Infamous cat burglar, Le Chat, is in town and he has stolen the village's prize ancient artefact - the priceless bejewelled sword of Sir Gossamer D'Glaze. The mayor of C-o-t-K has offered a £20,000 reward for whoever captures the burglar and retrieves said sword, and with Julius Candlewacks needing exactly that amount of money to re-establish his restaurant, his son sees it as his duty to solve the crime. Of course, every one of the idiotic villagers also want to get their hands on the reward money, as do a horde of amateur detectives who descend on the village (although fortunately for Casper they are almost as stupid as his fellow villagers).

In the process of trying to catch the criminal, Casper's baby sister Cuddles is kidnapped by Le Chat, who leaves a note for the villagers to say that he will only release her if they guarantee safe passage out of the village. Of course, most of the villagers have at some point been on the receiving end of a bite from the somewhat vicious baby, and they are less than sympathetic, leaving it to Casper and Lamp to retrieve the sword, rescue the baby, capture the thief and save the ~~world~~ day. Added to the mix is the new girl in the village, Daisy Blossom, who has a big effect on both Casper and Lamp. With the aid of Lamp's latest invention, a bizarre lie-detecting machine christened The Bluff Boiler, the duo turned trio begin their sleuthing - what is the identity of the mysterious Le Chat?

There are a number of authors who seem to be vying for the title of "The New Roald Dahl" and based on the evidence so far I would suggest that Ivan Brett is in with a great shout. His characters are a delight to read, both main and secondary and his word-play is sublime. The closest contender for the crown would probably be Andy Stanton, although on reflection I think I prefer the silliness of Brett's Casper Candlewacks books to the over-the-top anarchy of the Mr Gum books. As far as laughs go, I think there is only one other book I have read in the past six months that made me laugh as much as the Casper Candlewacks books, and that was an unpublished book written by a friend of mine.

Casper Candlewacks in the Claws of Crime is a must-read book for any 7+ child who loves a good laugh, and it is perfect for bedtime reading by a parent as well. Although the second in a series it is fine to be read as a stand-alone book, but you are definitely missing out if you don't at some point get your hands on a copy of Death By Pigeon as well. What's more, it llooks as if we only have to wait until April for the next silly adventure, Casper Candlewacks in the Attack of the Brainiacs! My thanks go to the good people at HarperCollins for sending me a copy to review.

Coming Up In 2012 #7: Shadow Runners by Daniel Blythe

2012-01-13T07:30:00.003Z

Back in the autumn I received a nice pile of press releases from Chicken House, detailing some of the books they were publishing in 2012. These were all printed in glorious, glossy high quality - a great way of showcasing the books. One of the books that jumped out and shouted "Read me!" was Shadow Runners by Daniel Blythe, and so I contacted Chicken House and asked if Daniel would like to take part in my "Coming Up In 2012" feature. He very kindly agreed to participate, and so now I hand you over to Daniel who will tell us a little more about his new book:

Firecroft Bay. The town's name comes from the Old English meaning 'wickedness', and when 12-year-old Miranda May moves there with her mum and her little brother, she thinks at first that it is just a quiet, windswept little end-of-the-world harbour. But forces are stirring in Firecroft Bay, and Miranda's new teacher, Miss Bellini, may have something to do with it all... For the Bay is a place where ancient stories come to life, where supernatural curses are very real, and where the dark shadows Miranda sees at the edge of her vision also creep into her dreams. What is the mysterious Shape? Who is the girl in the burning forest who haunts her nightmares? And what does it all have to do with her strange new friends - a bunch of children and teenagers calling themselves the Shadows? They could be Miranda's allies in a terrifying fight against the darkness - but can she really be sure who she can trust?...

I hope readers will be frightened, entertained and enthralled by "Shadow Runners", which is my first book for younger readers outside the "Doctor Who" series which I've also written for. It's my first book for Chicken House, who have been great to work with at every stage. I wanted to write a book which both boys and girls will enjoy - Miranda is a feisty, witty, skateboarding heroine who tells the story in a sardonic first-person voice, taking you with her on every step of her new journey. I hope it will be the first in a series of "Shadow Runners" adventures. Excitingly, I hear it's already going worldwide, with Brazil the latest country to snap it up!... And there will be an audio-book from AudioGo too.

For all the latest news on Daniel Blythe and Shadow Runners, please go to www.danielblythe.com

15 Days Without A Head Blog Tour - Guest Post by Dave Cousins

2012-01-12T07:50:00.001Z

I first heard about Dave Cousins' debut YA novel, 15 Days Without A Head, at a bloggers' event heald by OUP back in 2011. Dave treated us to an reading of one of the many laugh-out-loud funny scenes from his book, which tells a story that is poignant, heart-warming and hilarious in equal measures. To celebrate the publication of the book on 5th January Dave has embarked on a ten-stop blog tour, and I am really chuffed to be hosting him today.

~~~

My Dream Holiday by Dave Cousins

In 15 Days Without a Head, Laurence attempts to win an all-expenses-paid holiday of a lifetime courtesy of local travel company, Hardacre Holidaze. Readers sometimes ask what my dream holiday would be like …

The Hardacre Holidaze brochure arrived on a wet Wednesday morning. It slipped through the letterbox like a glossy paving slab and slammed onto the mat. Fortunately the cat wasn’t occupying the spot at the time, but the sound woke me up.

Not just a holiday, the best daze of your life, read the slogan above the photo of the beautifully bronzed family on a golden beach – so far removed from my icy attic, they might as well have been on the moon. I didn’t remember ordering the brochure; I wasn’t sure I had time for a holiday. But I opened it anyway – it couldn’t hurt to dream.

It might have been my imagination, but I was sure I could smell something wafting up from the pages; had the printer imbued the ink with the essence of holiday perhaps? The way fashion magazines offer tear-off perfume samples, or supermarkets pump out the smell of baked bread to make you hungry.

I flicked through the slick pages of silver sand and azure seas, and felt vaguely nauseas. I’m not a huge fan of the heat – my Celtic blood is better suited to cooler climates, I suspect. A beach holiday wasn’t what I wanted – somewhere in the mountains maybe, or a city. I’d always liked the idea of New York in Winter, when it snows … And then I saw it: a black and white half-page advert towards the back of the brochure. It looked out of place – squeezed in as an after-thought.

Your Dream Holiday! I read. Dream it and you’re there! No early check-in queues; no rough sea-crossing; no sweaty hours in the car – you won’t even need to leave your bed. Just take our special pill and close your eyes. Anywhere, anytime, anyplace. If you can dream it – you can go!

Two days later the sunburst yellow tablet rested in my palm. I hadn’t really expected it to arrive; hadn’t thought I’d actually take it. But then it seemed a waste not to. New York in the snow – if you can dream it, you can go!

It should have occurred to me that I might just as easily end up in a nightmare. The dream holiday equivalent of arriving to find that your hotel is a building site, or that enjoying your sea view requires binoculars and an intricate arrangement of mirrors. The big difference was – I couldn’t just get the next plane home. My luggage, along with my RETURN pill, was on its way to New York. All I had were the pyjamas I was wearing, the Hardacre Holidaze brochure and the cat – who must have sneaked onto the bed as I fell asleep and found himself on holiday, by mistake.

In hindsight, the bedtime snack of cheese on toast probably hadn’t been a good idea. I remembered something in the instructions that arrived with the tablet, about foods best avoided. It must have been the cheese. What other explanation was there for the fact that I was now walking along a seafront made entirely of Camembert? The cat didn’t seem to mind, and was quite happily sniffing and licking his way along the promenade. But as the twin suns climbed higher in the purple polka dot sky, the cheese began to melt and I was soon up to my knees, the cat beside me, riding the Hardacre Holidaze brochure like a surfboard. We had to find a way home before we were both turned into fondue.

The cheese was up to my waist when I glimpsed salvation – a red post box, rising up out of the yellow sea like a lighthouse perched on a rocky outcrop of Wensleydale. By the time I hauled us from the cheesy slop, the cat was hallucinating from an overdose of lactose. I extracted the holiday brochure from his claws and wiped the cheese from its glossy laminated cover. It was a relief to see our address still legible on the label. A plan was forming in the back of my mind, a plan that unfortunately involved climbing all the way to the mail slot, high above our heads.

Luckily the post box was made from bricks, the gaps between providing hand and foot holds, but it was a slow and dangerous climb, particularly with a twitching cat tucked inside my pyjama top. It was the longest night of my life. With the darkness came a storm, an angry sea clawing at us from below while grated cheddar rained down from the sky. We finally reached our destination as dawn broke above the distant Edam mountains, and with my last gasp of strength, I dropped the brochure into the slot and fell … backwards into space.

The snap of the letterbox and the sound of something heavy landing on the mat woke me. I sat up, surprised to find the cat inside my pyjama top and grated cheese in my pocket. Then I remembered the cheese on toast I’d eaten late the previous evening. That might explain the strange dream I’d been having – though the moment I tried to recall any details, it vanished. I removed the cat from my nightwear and went downstairs to see what the post had brought.

I didn’t remember ordering the Hardacre Holidaze brochure; I wasn’t sure I had time for a holiday. But I opened it anyway – it couldn’t hurt to dream …

~~~

My huge thanks to Dave for taking the time to write this brilliant piece for The Book Zone. Watch this space for my review of 15 Days Without A Head coming soon.

Coming Up in 2012 #6: Road To London by Barbara Mitchelhill

2012-01-11T15:00:00.003Z

I am loving the sound of Road To London, due from author Barbara Mitchellhill in April. As some of you will know I love historical fiction, especially that set in the Tudor period, and this one sounds like it is right up my street. Adventure? Check. Intrigue? Check. Blood and guts? Check! Put all of those together and you have a great sounding, boy-friendly story set in my favourite historical era. Result! I can't wait to read this one, and here's Barbara to tell us a little more about her book:

Thomas lives in Stratford upon Avon where everyone knows the madly successful local hero, William Shakespeare – a writer and actor with loads of money. Thomas wants fame and fortune, just like him. He plans to join Shakespeare’s acting troupe in London but he needs money to get there. When his attempts at poaching fail spectacularly, he has to flee the town and travel the road to London on foot. Exhausted by the journey, Thomas finds the city full of rogues and thieves and cutthroats and, although he manages to join Shakespeare’s Chamberlain’s Men and soon enjoys strutting upon the stage, he discovers that the life of an actor is not as easy as it might seem. When he uncovers a plot to kill the Queen, things turn decidedly nasty.

A Tudor adventure with blood and guts and all that!

Review: Mortal Chaos by Matt Dickinson

2012-01-11T07:45:00.081Z

Some will live. Many will die. All are connected.

'The Butterfly Effect ': the scientific theory that a single occurrence, no matter how small, can change the course of the universe forever. When a butterfly startles a young rabbit, and the rabbit makes a horse rear, it starts a chain of events, over the course of one day, that will change people's lives . . . and end people's lives. From a climber on Everest to a boy in Malawi . . . from a commercial pilot to an American psycho . . . the chaos knows no bounds.

Some time ago I was fortunate to be invited to an event for bloggers held by the good people at OUP. The purpose of the event was to introduce us to two of their authors, Joss Stirling and Dave Cousins. During the event we were each given a copy of another of their 2012 releases, Mortal Chaos by Matt Dickinson. They spoke about this book with great excitement, assuring me it would be like no other book I had ever read. I finally got around to reading it two nights ago, and I have to admit that they weren't wrong.

This is Matt Dickinson's first book for the YA market, although I gather that he is the author of several action/adventure book for adults. I'm not sure what I expected from Mortal Chaos, perhaps some kind of hi-octane action story, but what I got was something very different indeed. In fact, I am struggling to think of how I can describe it.

The premise of Mortal Chaos centres around an aspect of chaos theory known as the butterfly effect. This concept suggests that a small, seemingly minor incident can result in a major incident elsewhere. The usual example given is that of how the fluttering of a butterfly's wings could create ripples that eventually lead to a hurricane forming somewhere in the world. Matt Dickinson's story starts off with this infamous butterfly, but the consequences in this case have little to do with a hurricane, but are potentially as destructive as far as the lives of a number of disparate characters are concerned.

The characters in question range from a pair of boys bunking off school to go hunting in the local woods, to a female airline pilot, to a six year old African boy, to a teenage climbing prodigy on an ascent of Everest, to an american guy with his heart set on mass-murder. On the face of things their lives have absolutely nothing in common, and on any normal day their destinies would be completely unconnected. However, that darn butterfly changes this state of affairs with extreme consequences for some of them.

This book is only 286 pages long, and the sometimes only half-a-page chapters jump between the multitude of different characters as the day-in-their-life unfolds. It hooked me from the first few pages; so much so that before I knew it I was more than half way through and then just couldn't go to sleep before I had finished it. With so many characters gradually being introduced I initially thought that I would struggle to develop empathy for any of them, but the author manages to make you care about their various fates without you even realising he is doing it. The publisher's blurb states that "Some will live. Many will die. All are connected" and part of the appeal, and the moments of extreme tension I felt whilst reading it, was in trying to work out just who would or would not survive by the end of the book.

I will definitely be ordering this one for the school library as I think many boys will find its short chapters and fast paced stories as addictive as I did. I assumed that this book was a one-off, but in searching for the blurb to include at the beginning of this post I have discovered that Matt Dickinson has another book scheduled for publication in July. It does not appear to be a sequel as such, more a brand new series of stories based on the same butterfly effect theory. The details of Mortal Chaos: Deep Oblivion read as follows:

Hannah, homeless and on the run. Gwen and Tehpoe, kidnapped by violent rebels. Todd and Isabella, threatened by piranha attack. Wai Yan, hunted by a cruel dictator. Stian Olberg, fighting to save his vessel from imminent destruction. For them, and many others, things will never be the same again. Some will live. Many will die. All are connected.

Something worth waiting for I feel, if its predecessor is anything to go by.

Coming Up in 2012 #5: The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith

2012-01-10T07:50:00.002Z

I am a huge fan of Alexander Gordon Smith's Escape From Furnace series, although this won't be news to anyone who had been following this blog for a while. That series came to a dramatic and brilliant conclusion in 2011, but Smith is not one to rest on his laurels - he already has The Fury, the first book in a new two-part series scheduled for release in April. I can't tell you how excited I am about this - it is one of the books that I am most looking forward to reading in 2012. Now I hand you over to Alexander Gordon Smith to tell us more about it (and even though my wife is a PE teacher I have to sympathise with his memories - I too had a totally sadistic PE teacher and to this day I am still feeling the trauma created by some of his lessons):

The Fury is my most recent book, but I think the seed of the idea was planted in my head many years ago. Back at high school, when I was about twelve, we used to play a game in PE called Murderball. It was, just as it sounds, extremely unpleasant. I hated PE anyway (what overweight, geeky, asthmatic boy doesn't?), and what made it infinitely worse is that my PE teacher was a total sadist (what PE teacher isn't?). He obviously thought that making us run around on the field in the snow playing rugby for two hours wasn't quite punishing enough, so he devised a brand new version of the game.

Murderball, at its heart, had one rule. Try not to die. This wasn't as easy as it sounds. Basically, the PE teacher would select a victim, usually one of the fat kids (me), one of the nerdy kids (me), or one of the wheezy kids (me), hand him a rugby ball, and tell him to start running. He'd give the victim a five second head start, then he would send the rest of the group after him.

The objective for the chasers was to get the rugby ball back from the victim, but this is where Murderball really earned its name. The victim would usually abandon the ball after a few metres, but the rest of the group ignored it, and set upon the unfortunate child like a pack of dogs on a fox. It was absolutely terrifying. One minute you'd be running, the next you'd be on the floor, twenty other boys piling on top of you, plunged into darkness. Some would be jumping on your chest or elbow dropping you in the stomach, others bending back your fingers to breaking point; some would stuff grass and mud and snow in your mouth so you couldn't breathe, others took great delight in kicking you repeatedly in places you never want to be kicked. When you were the victim, drowning in flesh, you believed with absolute certainty that you were going to die.

Thankfully, nobody actually perished. But it always fascinated me how in the space of a few seconds your best friends (yes, all my friends at school were in the bottom set PE with me) could go from being lovely, gentle people who would never dream of hurting you, to a mob of savage, howling animals intent on tearing you to shreds. And the weird thing was that everybody in the group had a go at being the victim, at being at the bottom of the pile, and yet as soon as it was somebody else's turn they would become as wild and mindless as the kids who had been attacking them.

It was twenty years later that the story for The Fury came to me, but I think the idea was born when I was lying beneath a mound of people asking – with what I thought was my dying breath – why all of my friends were trying to slaughter me. This is exactly what happens to the heroes of the book (including one scene on a school playing field). For no reason whatsoever, the world turns against them – friends, family, teachers, strangers, everyone becomes a mindless, bloodthirsty savage hell-bent on killing them, and only them. And as soon as they have killed you, they go back to their lives as if nothing has happened. In the book, of course, the reason for the Fury is much more exciting than a sadistic PE teacher. But that sense of utter fear, of panic and confusion, of trying to survive while everyone you know attempts to murder you, is hopefully just as potent and as terrifying when you read the book as it was twenty years ago for me playing Murderball.

Coming Up In 2012 #4: Hollow Pike by James Dawson

2012-01-09T15:00:00.002Z

Back in 2011 I was fortunate to be invited to a special event that Orion held for bloggers in order to showcase their new YA imprint, Indigo. For me, one of the books that really stood out from their presentation was Hollow Pike, by debut author James Dawson. Firstly, I love the sound of the story, centred around witchcraft, and secondly the book cover struck me at the time as being incredible, and it is still one of my favourites these few months later. I didn't do a Top Ten Book Covers of 2011 at the end of last year, but if I do a 2012 list then this surely will be in there.

The 2nd February release date for Hollow Pike is now less than a month away, and James has very kindly written a short piece about his book for The Book Zone. Over to you James:

Hollow Pike is a YA thriller aimed at anyone who loves a darkly comic scare. It tells the tale of fifteen year old Lis London, the new girl in the village of Hollow Pike. Lis quickly befriends the local misfits, and learns of the town's sinister history of witchcraft. But then a local girl is found dead, and Lis begins to wonder if the rumours really are a thing of the past. A shadowy figure stalks the forest on the edge of town, and Lis starts to think she and her new friends might be in grave danger...

Hollow Pike both is and isn't a supernatural romance thriller! It's something a little bit new. I think it's a rollercoaster thrill ride, and a must for anyone, who, like me, loves horror movies! I especially wrote this book for anyone who has ever felt like an oddball, an outsider or a freak...boys, girls and all that's in-between!

Competition: WIN a signed copy of Tarzan: The Greystoke Legacy by Andy Briggs

2012-01-09T07:50:00.005Z

2012 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Last year, to help commemorate the occasion, Faber published Tarzan: The Greystoke Legacy, the first book in Andy Briggs's new series featuring the legendary character (I loved it - you can read my review here). The second book, Tarzan: The Jungle Warrior, is scheduled to be published in July.

Thanks to Andy Briggs you now have the chance to win one of four signed copies of The Greystoke Legacy, simply by answering the question below and filling in your details.

The first four names drawn at random after the closing date will each win a signed copy of the book. Deadline for entries is 8pm GMT Monday 16th January. This contest is open to UK residents only.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;Loading...&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>
Contest open to UK residents only.
Neither the author or I will not be held responsible for items lost in the mail.
I hold the right to end a contest before its original deadline without any prior notice.
I hold the right to disqualify any entry as I see fit.
I will contact winning entrants for their postal address following the close of the competition. Winners have 48 hours to reply. Failure to do so in this time will result in another winner being randomly selected.

Coming Up In 2012 #3: The Book of Wonders by Jasmine Richards

2012-01-08T13:38:00.001Z

I first made contact with Jasmine Richards through Twitter, when I somehow managed to persuade her to send me an early copy of William Hussey's brilliant Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide. Jasmine is a senior editor at Oxford University Press, and I have since had the pleasure of meeting her at several of her events. These meetings have always been extremely pleasurable as, like me, she loves to talk for hours about books.

Now Jasmine has a couple of books of her own scheduled to be published in 2012, the first of which is The Book of Wonders. Unfortunately for UK readers this book has not yet been bought by a UK publisher and so for the time being it will only available in the US (once it is released on 17th January). However, if you are canny like me, you will probably order a copy from the brilliant Book Depository. Now let me hand you over to Jasmine so that she can tell us a little more about her book:

The Book of Wonders, my debut novel that publishes Jan 17th 2012 is loosely based on tales from Arabian Nights and on the seed of an idea which has been with me since I was 9 years old!

You see, even back then, it bothered me that the sultan in Arabian Nights [who has been busy executing young women left, right and centre] should end up finding love. I understand that over 1001 nights the sultan is healed through Scheherazade’s stories of Sinbad, Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, that his cold heart is melted. But still, it all seems rather unfair to me - after all who speaks for those poor girls that were killed?

And so, I have a written a novel in reaction to the traditional tale. In my version of events, Scheherazade does not tell stories of monsters, sea journeys and sorcery she lives these adventures. She and her best friend Rhidan experience many horrors and triumphs on their quest to defeat the sultan, giant snakes, a giant made of brass and angry djinnis. The action does not let up for a minute.

I think this is a breathless, headlong adventure but I’m going to say that because I wrote it! I would love to hear your thoughts. Do come over and say hello on www.jasminerichards.com!

News: HarperCollins Publishers Signs Director Chris Columbus For New Book Series

2012-01-08T12:31:00.000Z

Every now again I receive press releases from publishers about their new big signing. I don't always choose to share these with you, but this one I thought was worth a mention. On the face of it some of you may just go "Chris Columbus, isn't he the guy who directed a couple of Harry Potter movies? Is this a case of another celeb cashing in on his fame by jumping on the chidlren's book badwagon?" And in reply I will have to remind you of a couple of thing. Long before Harry Potter was even a seed of an idea in J K Rowling's brain, Chris Columbus wrote Gremlins. Yes, the totally brilliant 80s comedy horror film. And then he went on to write the screenplay of one of my all time favourite films - The Goonies - based on the story written by Steven Spielberg. Chris Columbus knows a good story when he sees one and so this leaves me with a lot of hope that his book will be just as good as his films.

Press Release

New York, NY/ London (January 5, 2012)—HarperCollins Publishers announced today that it has preempted rights to a three-book middle-grade series, House of Secrets by iconic Hollywood director and producer Chris Columbus, co-authored by acclaimed young adult novelist Ned Vizzini. This is Columbus’s debut series for young readers with the first book slated for global publication in Spring 2013.

The three-book North American deal was negotiated by Alessandra Balzer, Co-Publisher of the Balzer + Bray imprint at HarperCollins Children’s Books, with Dorian Karchmar at William Morris Endeavor. UK & Commonwealth rights were acquired by Rachel Denwood, Publishing Director from Cathryn Summerhayes at William Morris Endeavour. Rights have been sold in twelve foreign territories so far.

“Master storytellers Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini have created a high-stakes fantasy,” said Balzer. “From the very first page I knew we had to publish this series. It’s an incredibly imaginative adventure with clever plot twists and nonstop action—not to mention a family that readers will immediately fall in love with. House of Secrets has all the hallmarks of a new classic."

Denwood added, “Combining classic adventure with sublime offbeat humor, and with three brilliant siblings at its heart, this has the potential to be the next big series. It's going to be epic.”

“The opportunity to write this novel is a dream come true," said Columbus. "I have lived with the characters of this novel and their world for many years, and was saving them for something very special. Working on House of Secrets with Ned has been a thrill.”

The Pagett kids had it all: loving parents, a big house in San Francisco, all the latest video games . . . But everything changed when their father lost his job as a result of an inexplicable transgression. Now the family is moving into Kristoff House, a mysterious place built nearly a century earlier by a troubled fantasy writer with a penchant for the occult. Suddenly the siblings find themselves launched on an epic journey into a mash-up world born of Kristoff's dangerous imagination, to retrieve a dark book of untold power, uncover the Pagett family's secret history and save their parents . . . and maybe even the world.

Wereworld “7 Realms, 7 Beasts” Blog Tour and Review of Shadow of the Hawk by Curtis Jobling

2012-01-06T07:13:00.005Z

I am really excited to be involved in the Wereworld "7 Realms, 7 Beasts" blog tour, taking place over the next week or so to celebrate the release of Shadow of the Hawk, the third book in Curtis Jobling's fab Wereworld series. My review of the book will follow a few words from Curtis, but by way of introduction to the great man, a short explanation about format of the tour is called for. In Shadow of the Hawk we get to see more of the amazing world Curtis has created, and even more importantly we get to meet more Werelords. Each day on the blog tour Curtis is going to introduce you to one of his new creations. He started off yesterday at I Want To Read That, so pop on over there once you have finished reading to find out more. For now, it's over to Curtis:

KRIEG, THE WERERHINO

One of the most experienced fighters of the Scorian arena, Krieg is the Furnace’s oldest surviving performing gladiator. The Rhino hails from the Blue Veldt Plains, one of Bast’s most ancient, settled lands. When the Catlords of the jungle marched south from their home, enslaving all who stood in their way, the Rhinos of Stroheim provided the greatest resistance. Krieg was the eldest son of King Otker, but his regal heritage counted for nothing when the Catlords exacted their vengeance upon the Rhinos. Taking away in chains of silver, Krieg was sold to the Lizardlords, a gift to Ignus’ arena for the amusement of the people of Scoria.

Every bit the image of a Rhino, even when in human form, Krieg’s neck is all but invisible, his head set deep within the thick folds of tough skin that cover his broad shoulders. His wide nose appears broken, flattened against his hard face, a trait particular to all of the Wererhinos, heavy horns ready to emerge at the moment’s notice. Renowned for having a fierce temper, Krieg long ago gave up all hope of returning to his homeland. Having been imprisoned for nearly twenty years, it seems unlikely Stroheim bears any resemblance to the city he was spirited away from in his youth.

Author’s note: Krieg steps into a familiar role for Drew, that of the ‘uncle’ he can confide in, turn to in times of need. While Duke Bergan and Duke Manfred were able to provide counsel in the earlier books of the series, taking a liking to him instantly, it’s more of an uphill struggle in the case of the Rhino. They’re from different worlds, with very different stories to tell, but their common ground – prisoners of Lord Ignus, enemies of the Catlords – ensure there’s room for their relationship to grow. In Drew, Krieg can see a lot of himself, albeit from many years ago, and with a remarkably different outlook. Being a grumpy old Rhino, he sees Drew as idealistic, a dreamer, little realising that the young Wolf’s determination runs deeper than that of anyone he’s ever met. Having a hot-headed ally who is as stubborn as a mule isn’t going to make life easy for Drew: he’s going to have to earn the Rhino’s respect. If that means he has to fight him, then so be it...

~~~

Huge thanks to Curtis for taking the time to write this for us. On Monday the tour will be continuing with an introduction to another Werelord, over at A Dream of Books. You should also head on over to Spinebreakers where you could win a signed set of the three Wereworld books that have been released so far.

Review

DREW FERRAN, THE RIGHTFUL KING OF WESTLAND, IS TRAPPED.

Enslaved by the Goatlord Kesslar, young werewolf Drew finds himself on the volcanic isle of Scoria, forced to fight in the arena for the Lizardlords. With the help of an unlikely ally, he must find a way to break free - but who has ever managed to escape?

Meanwhile, Hector the Wereboar flees the forces of the Catlords. Now on board the pirate ship Maelstrom, the enemy's net is closing in. Haunted by the spirits of the dead, Hector is soon left wondering who the true enemy is . . .

Be warned, reader. I will try my hardest not to include any spoilers about Shadow of the Hawk in this review, but I cannot promise the same about the previous two books in the series. If you have not yet read them then you may want to look away now.

It is no secret that I love the first two Wereworld books. The first was brilliant, and the second, Rage of Lions, even better. So much so that it made it into my list of top picks of 2012. I know that many others share my admiration for these books - so no pressure then Mr Jobling.

Did I say pressure? The man must thrive on it as Shadow of the Hawk is yet another outstanding addition to the series, the only downside being that having finished I am now thoroughly annoyed that I won't be able to find out what happens next until the fourth book, Nest of Serpents, is published in June.

There is very little time in the story between the close of the last book, and where this one kicks off. Drew is held captive by the evil Kessler, a Weregoat who has made a name for himself as a slaver. He has only one plan for Drew - to deliver him to the Isle of Scoria and sell him as a slave. Meanwhile, his close friend Hector has managed to escape the armies of the Catlords, and is safely on board the Maelstrom, in the company of Manfred, Vega and Queen Amelie. I say safely, but that isn't strictly true - his dabbling in the dark arts is beginning to have quite an effect on the young Wereboar, but more about that later.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we are granted the opportunity to 'meet' a whole host of new Werecreatures in this book, and Curtis Jobling maximises this treat for his readers by taking his characters off to different places, just as Tolkien did in The Lord of the Rings. In The Fellowship of the Ring we are introduced to the lead characters, and then in The Two Towers Frodo and Sam head off for Mordor, whilst Pip and Merry are taken in a dfifferent direction by the Orcs. These diverging story strands enabled Tolkien to show us more of the incredible world he created, and Curtis uses a smiliar device in this book. Therefore, we get to meet a plethora of new characters on Scoria, where the enslaved Drew is forced to become a gladiator; and we also get to see other parts of Lyssia and its seven realms, and its inhabitants, as Drew and his party head out across the ocean. Mr Jobling seems to manage all of these new additions to his story with consummate ease.

Now that he is away from the friends he made in the first two books, we really get a chance to see how Drew grows as both a character, and as the rightful heir to the kingdom of Lyssia. His life has changed in a way that few young people can identify with - from farm boy, to prospective king, to slave/gladiator, all in a matter of months. Most young people would find this impossible to cope with, but the honest and loving upbringing that Drew experienced seems to have given him the foundations he needs to take all of this in his stride. In the first two books there were many moments where he suffered extreme (and totally understandable) self-doubt, but there were a few key scenes where his natural gift for good and kind leadership shone through. In this third book these moments begin to occur a little more often and we are now really beginning to see the potential king that lies within the boy. Drew also seems to be becoming more confident at leading, even to the point where he will lecture one of the realm's other kings about the evils of slavery. A king, it must be said, who could quite easily have Drew slapped in silver chains and executed for his disrespectful words.

Whilst all this is going on, there is of course the other plot strand running - that of Hector and his companions. I am sorry to say that the future is looking fairly bleak for Hector - he is now firmly attached to the vile of his dead brother Vincent, a spectre that is invisible to all except Hector, and who never misses a chance to goad his brother, gradually eating away at his self-esteem. It was a horribly fascinating experience to read as Hector slowly seems to descend into a kind of madness, the flames of his growing paranoia constantly fanned by Vincent's cruel taunts. Who knows where Curtis Jobling will take Hector next? Perhaps even betrayal of the people he called close friends? We will just have to wait and see.

There are two popular characters from the first two books in the series that are conspicuous by their absence in Shadow of the Hawk. Gretchen and Whitley also managed to escape the grasping claws of the Catlords at the end of the last book, but for the story of their adventures since we will have to wait until June. If you have seen the cover of Nest of Serpents you will probably have already guessed that they will feature quite heavily in that story. I guess Mr Jobling could quite easily have used their story as a third plot strand in Shadow of the Hawk, but instead he chose to focus on Trent Ferran, the son of the couple who brought up Drew as their son, and as good as being Drew's brother. As we discovered at the end of Rage of Lions, Trent is hungry for revenge on the creature he believes murdered his mother, and so we see him now riding with the armies of the Catlords, hunting and killing enemies of the new state. Will he find out the truth before it is too late, or will it all end in tears for the angry young man?

If there was a book award going for best series then Curtis Jobling would surely be on the shortlist, and if he won I for one would applaud the decision of the judges. If he manages to sustain the quality of storytelling across the remaining books in the series then the Wereworld books may one day become recognised as one of the best fantasy series for young people of all time.

Coming Up in 2012 #2: The 13th horseman by Barry Hutchison

2012-01-05T07:48:00.000Z

Read Barry Hutchison's Invisible Fiends books?

No? Where have you been for the past two years. Shame on you - go out and get them immediately.

Yes? Then you will no doubt be just as excited about his new book, The 13th Horseman, coming from HarperCollins on 1st March. Harper are touting it as Pratchett meets Python, and having read it myself I find I can't disagree with that statement. It is a hugely entertaining, very funny, comedy fantasy story, and as Barry is infinitely more talented than I am when it comes to writing, here is a little more about it in his own words:

Things are not easy for Drake Finn. His dad isn't on the scene. His mum works three jobs. Oh and he's just been expelled for blowing the roof off his school and inadvertently setting a teacher on fire. Forced to moved to a new house and a new school, Drake believes things can't possibly get any worse.

And then he finds the shed at the bottom of his garden and his world is turned upside down.

Living in the shed are the Horsemen of the Apocalypse - or three of them, at least. There's War, an angry bearded Scotsman with an exquisitely sharp sword; Pestilence, a flaky-skinned hypochondriac with OCD and a deep rooted love of musical theatre; and then there's Famine, a bulging, bulbous behemoth of a man who will - quite literally - eat anything.

The Horsemen were created at the beginning of time and given the task of riding across the sky at the end of time. The problem is, they've got naff all to do in between, and after a thousand odd years of sitting around playing board games, Death has gone mad and jacked it all in. He's taken human form and gone off to start his own Apocalypse, but that leaves the other three a Horseman short, and they believe Drake is just the lad for the job.

After reluctantly assuming the role of Death, Drake has only a few days to learn the ropes before his predecessor pushes the button on Judgement Day. The only problem is that Drake doesn't want the Apocalypse now. Can he convince the other Horsemen to go against everything they were created for and help him stop Armageddonm, or will he have to accept that the end of the world really is nigh?

The 13th Horseman is a fast-paced comedy fantasy crammed with evil doubles, barking cats, flying horses and more Buckaroo than you can shake a stick at. Who knew the end of the world could be this much fun?

Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

2012-01-04T21:42:00.002Z

It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.

A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?

Department 19 by Will Hill was The Book Zone Book of the year 2011. It was the book that I wanted to give to every teen boy that I know. As I said in my Book of the Year blog post, I had decided very early on that it would take a damn fine book to beat Department 19 to that top spot, it really is that good, and it wasn't until more than twelve months later when I read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline that I found a book to match it.

Before I say any more I would like to ask you a handful of questions:

Do you enjoy games, either of the video or role playing variety?

Do you enjoy richly imagined dystopian stories?

Were you a teen in the 1980s?

Do you love 80s films?

Do you love 80s music?

Do you love 80s TV?

Do you consider yourself to be a geek, either wholly or partly?

If your answer to any or all of these questions is yes then you have to get your hands on a copy of this book. Ready Player One is now the book that I want to give to every guy who like me had their teenage years in the 1980s, every guy, whatever their age, who loves gaming, be it computer or RPG, and every guy who considers themselves even just a little bit of a geek. It was written for the adult market, but is perfectly suitable for boys of 15+, especially those who are into gaming, comics, and general geekiness.

I read this book during the recent Christmas break when we visited friends in Canada. On the flight across the Atlantic I was very privileged to be able to read The Rising, Will Hill’s sequel to last year’s Department 19. I read it cover to cover during the flight from London to Chicago (it was brilliant btw), and I was then left with the dilemma of what to read next. Surely anything else would seem dull and boring in comparison? For some reason I turned to Ready Player One, a book I had downloaded to my kindle on impulse – I can’t remember how I heard about it, but the blurb (and the 100s of five star reviews) made it sound a little different from my usual fare.

I was hooked from the first chapter – it felt as if this was the book I had been waiting for all my adult life! OK, that is a little melodramatic, but Cline’s story gelled with me in a way that few books have. In fact, I am struggling to find the words to explain just how great I think this book is, and for this reason I apologise in advance if this review comes across as a little less coherent that normal. It didn’t pip Department 19 to the Book of the Year title as I have read D19 several times and it is just as good each time. I can’t say this about Ready Player One, although I have a strong feeling that its appeal is more likely to increase on further readings. Only time and multiple readings will tell. It could well squeeze its way into my list of all time favourite books.

I am proud to be a geek, even though I probably sit much further down the scale than many other guys. It shames me to admit that I have never played an RPG like D&D, I didn’t spend my teenage years playing on arcade machines (although I do still have my ZX Spectrum on which I must have logged thousands of hours throughout the 80s), and my knowledge of the early home computers is fairly limited. But I do love the music and films of that decade, I love gaming on my PS3, and I still have many of the action figures I collected back then. Ready Player One tapped into every single nostalgic cell in my brain and had me grinning from ear to ear as I read it.

The story is set in the not-too-distant future in a society where the environment has pretty much collapsed and there is wide-spread poverty, disease and famine. Yes dystopia fans, this book is for you as well! To escape the day-to-day bleakness that surrounds them people jack into the OASIS in their millions. OASIS is a huge online world where, if you can afford it and/or have the skills to 'level up' you can be or do just about anything. Hero of the story, Wade Watts, is a typical geek - overweight, low self-esteem, self-deprecating - who has grown up loving and living the OASIS. He doesn't even need to attend his regular school as he was academically able enough to ditch that and be educated at one of the OASIS schools.

The story starts five years after techno genius and creator of the OASIS, James Halliday, passed away, leaving a huge surprise in his last will and testament: his complete fortune and control of the OASIS would go to the first person who could solve his puzzle. It is the ultimate contest, where winner takes all, and as such Wade and everyone of his generation became totally obsessed with solving the puzzles and finding Halliday's Easter egg. And five years on nobody has come even close.... until Wade Watts has a flash of brilliance whilst daydreaming during his online Latin class. From this moment the race for the prize is on, with Wade competing against some of the most famous egg hunters (or 'gunter's' as they become known) in the world.

Of course, no dystopian novel would be complete without a particularly nasty villain and in Ready Player One this takes the form of IOI, a huge corporation that seeks to control the OASIS and start charging users, thereby shattering the lives of the many poor and needy that rely on it to escape from their terrible real lives. With this in mind, IOI employ huge teams of players, known as sixers, who work full time to try to solve the various puzzles that emerge as the story unfolds. For IOI the end completely justifies the means, and they will stop at nothing if it means they win control of the OASIS. Even mass murder.

For me, this book has everything. I love quest novels - it has a grand quest. I love action and adventure - it has these in abundance. I love ordinary heroes who are flawed, and can easily be identified with - Wade Watts is one such guy. And I so, so love the 80s: the TV (just got the complete MacGyver DVD box set for Christmas); the movies (Ferris, Breakfast Club, Goonies, Wargames to name but a tiny few); the cartoons (He-Man, Transformers); the list goes on and one and this book bundles all of these elements together in the perfect story.

Whatever your level of geekness, and whatever your age, from teen upwards there will be something for you in Ready Player One. Yes, it is full of 80s references and terminology, and therefore those alive during this time will get the most out of it. But there were many references that were totally new to me, and far from causing problems, this just made the book even more fascinating. It made me want to read it all again, with a PC close at hand so that I could look up many of the games, machines, films and music mentioned in the story. After all, films such as Wargames and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and TV shows such as Ultraman, are readily available on DVD, Rush’s 2112 can be listened to on youtube, and also thanks to the internet you too can play early 80s arcade games such as Joust and Black Tiger. This book is written for every geek out there, and I am sure will go down a storm with some of the 15+ boys at school.

Coming Up in 2012 #1: Talina in the Tower by Michelle Lovric

2012-01-03T07:50:00.002Z

Throughout January 2011 I ran a feature on The Book Zone titled "Coming Up in 2011" where I asked authors with new stand-alone or first-in-series books due out in that year to write a short big-up about their new book. This seemed like quite a popular feature at the time and so I have decided to run it again this year.

The first book I want to showcase is Talina in the Tower by Michelle Lovric. If you tend to judge a book by its cover then you will already be shouting that it doesn't look particularly boy-friendly. However, neither did the covers of her previous two books for younger readers, The Undrowned Child and The Mourning Emporium, and yet both of these books are easily amongst my favourite of the past couple of years. As you will read in Michelle's description, Talina in the Tower is not a sequel to these two stories, although it is set in Venice and I hope will be just as magical as Michelle's other two books set in that amazing city. Here is Michelle to tell you a little more about Talina:

Talina in the Tower is the tale of a boy who loves to argue and a girl who is more passionate than she is careful. Ambrogio dreams of being a barrister. His friend Talina, the daughter of an archivist, has earned herself the reputation of being the most impudent girl in Venice. When she’s not campaigning for egrets’ rights, or terrorizing the school librarian, Talina adores reading, cooking and magic.

The story takes place in a sinister nineteenth-century Venice, one inhabited not just by frightened people but also by bully-boy tomcats, educated rats and ravenous vultures. In the dead of night, savage hyena-like creatures called Ravageurs prowl the waterways of Venice, snatching men and women, not to mention children and cats.

When Talina’s parents disappear, she and her loyal cat, Drusilla, are forced to go to live with her sinister Guardian in his gaunt and lonely tower on the northernmost edge of the city. In the tower’s kitchen, Talina cooks up an unusual problem for herself: a complete change of identity – and species. It is only Ambrogio who recognizes Talina in her new state. The two friends become caught up in a fast-paced adventure, one in which Talina can never be sure whether she is more human than cat, rat, vulture … or Ravageur. If she wants to stay in girl form, fiery Talina must stay serene and reasonable. And yet, as the monstrous plans of the Ravageurs become more menacing, brutal and sarcastic, who would NOT be inclined to lose their temper?

The story explores ideas of ownership and identity. Who owns a city? What can a child own? How can you stay true to yourself, and yet grow as a person?

Set thirty years before The Undrowned Child and The Mourning Emporium, this book stands alone. But readers of the earlier books will meet up with a couple of old friends – in their younger days.

Huge thanks to Michelle for writing this for us. Talina in the Tower is published by Orion and is scheduled to be released at the beginning of February. Michelle tells me that there will be more information about the book appearing on her website in January.

Review: The Beast by Barry Hutchison (Invisible Fiends)

2012-01-02T17:37:00.000Z

Kyle is having trouble with the neighbours. They’ve turned into black-eyed, flesh-eating zombies. Now would be a good time to leave town but out there, on the snow covered streets, something far worse is lurking.

There is a beast in the shadows and the only way for Kyle to fight it is to use his powers. But every time Kyle uses them, he weakens the barrier between this world, and the terrifying, world of the Darkest Corners. If the barrier breaks there will be more killers on the streets.

I feel I must offer my apologies in advance for the brevity of this review. However, there is a very good reason for its relative shortness: to write as much as I normally do would create spoiler after spoiler as in The Beast a number of our Invisible Fiends questions are answered, and there are also a handful of "What the.....?" moments that you really will not see coming. If I had read a review where these were revealed to me in advance I would have been livid! In the words of Lord Melchett the plot of The Beast "twists and turns like a twisty-turny thing" and I am sure that you will need to be picking your jaw off the ground at least once during the story.

The Beast is possibly Barry's least scary Invisible Fiends book to date. However, this isn't saying much considering how pants-wettingly terrifying the first four books in the series have been and there are still more than enough nail-biting scenes to keep you balancing precariously on the edge of your seat. This time around the nasties that kyle finds himself up against are zombies, or Barry's own take on the ever-popular monster at least. I have likened each of the books in the series so far to a genre of horror film, and this one is most definitely a tribute to zombie movies, even if Barry does stray from the traditional by making his zombies super-fast moving. I had a brief Twitter chat with Barry about this, and I know he shares my opinion that zombies should be slow moving. As such he instead christens then Screechers (as a result of the noise they make), and as it is their fast speed is fully justified.

This is the penultimate book in the series and Barry uses it to treat us to a number of huge revelations, answering some of the questions that have been bouncing around in my brain ever since I first read Mr Mumbles. However, not ever loose end is tied off, and there is more to come in the final instalment, The Darkest Corners, scheduled for release in August of this year. This means that we are left on something of a cliffhanger at the end of The Beast, but Barry can be completely forgiven for this as I am sure he is setting us up for a truly epic finale to the story (no pressure Barry!). I for one can't wait to read it, although as I mentioned in yesterday's post there will be a certain degree of sadness that there will be no more Invisible Fiends books to look forward to again. This is definitely one of my favourite series of books for the 9+ age group of the past few years, if not of all time.

The Beast is scheduled to be released on 5th January, but it is already appearing in a number of stores, both online and in the high street. My thanks go to the lovely Rosi at HarperCollins for sending me a copy.

2012: The End of Days?

2012-01-01T22:32:00.001Z

No, unlike many people I am not talking about the Mayan apocalypse prophecy. Instead I am referring to some of my favourite book series that are scheduled to come to an end in 2012. I'm a typical boy when it comes to reading - I love series books. In the past, before I started The Book Zone and I had a little more time on my hands, I would often re-read all the books in a series prior to a new instalment being published. I did this with Harry Potter, The Saga of Darren Shan and the original Percy Jackson series, amongst many others.

For me, a series coming to an end is usually a bitter-sweet experience. Sweet because it is great to finally come to the end of a much-loved and long-running story; bitter because it means that there will be no more. That's it. The End. With 2012 now upon us I know that I am going to experience those same emotions this year as several of my favourite series of recent years are coming to a close.

The first of these is M.G. Harris's truly amazing Joshua Files series. I have been reading (and loving) the ongoing adventures of Josh Garcia ever since the orange gel covered book screamed "Buy Me!" back in 2008. It is going to feel a little odd not having a new Joshua Files book to look forward to once the final book in the series, Apocalypse Moon, has been published in April. I know that M.G. has other projects in the pipeline, and if they are even only half as good as her Joshua Files books I will be queuing up to read them.

Another series scheduled for a conclusion this year, and not before time, is the final book in Anthony Horowitz's Power of Five series. There seems to be no end to this man's writing talent - Scorpia Rising was a mighty fine end to the Alex Rider series and I am sure that Anthony will bring P of F to an equally brilliant conclusion. He has warned over on his blog that "it has a pretty bleak conclusion" and also that it is twice as long as any book he has ever written. If you search that blog entry very carefully you will find a clue and then a link to the first chapter of The Power of Five: Oblivion.

One of my favourite series of the last couple of years has been Barry Hutchison's Invisible Fiends. Sadly this too is scheduled to be brought to a conclusion in August 2012, with the final book titled The Darkest Corners. I have already read the fifth book in the series, The Beast (released this week) and it is yet another great addition to this already fantastic horror series.

One of the current masters of boy-friendly series books also has a mini-series coming to an end in 2012. Of course, I am talking about Darren Shan, whose Saga of Larten Crepsely will end in May with Brothers To The Death. However, fans of Shan series will just about have time to get their breath back before his new Zom-B series hits the stores in September.

2012 is all about ending though (unless you believe that Mayan prophecy of course) as there are still many of my favourite series continuing beyond the next twelve months. There are two (yes, TWO) Wereworld books coming from the pen of Curtis Jobling; Rick Riordan has two more books scheduled, one from each of his two continuing series (Kane Chronicles and Heroes of Olympus); Alex Scarrow's TimeRiders series has at least one new addition due in 2012 (Gates of Rome in February); in March Will Hill's The Rising, the sequel to Department 19 will be unleashed on the world (I have read it - it is brilliant!); Robin Jarvis is back with Freax and Rejex, the follow-up to his jaw-droppingly brilliant Dancing Jax; and with any luck Andrew Lane will be treating his legion of fans to a fifth Young Sherlock book. Perhaps Henry Chancellor might finally release the final instalment of his Tom Scatterhorn trilogy? I will keep my fingers crossed but I'm not going to hold my breath as the release date for this has been pushed from 2010 to 2011 and now into 2012.

All in all, series wise it is looking like 2012 could be a great year for boy-friendly books, and I haven't even begun to mention brand new series from some of my other favourite authors, including Sarwat Chadda, David Gatward and Alexander Gordon Smith, to name a few.

Reflections of 2011

2011-12-31T07:00:00.003Z

It feels like 2011 has whizzed by as far as blogging is concerned. I look back now over twelve months of posts and part of me feels a little disappointed. There are several months where I did not post as regularly as I would have wanted, and some months where the number of reviews posted is so small it is embarrassing. Just as shameful is the pile of books I have read and enjoyed greatly, but are yet to have a review posted on The Book Zone. Friends say that they are amazed that I have time to blog at all, considering the demands of my job, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to set the bar high for myself. My mantra for 2012 will be: MUST TRY HARDER!

Aside from the disappointments there have been some massive highs for me during 2011. One of the biggest of these was having the opportunity to listen to Anthony Horowitz deliver a lecture for the National Literacy Trust, and the great man signing my copy of Scorpia Rising before it was even available in the shops. Other high points have been (in no particular order):

my review of Department 19 being quoted on the spine of the paperback edition;
Rick Riordan doing a Q&A for The Book Zone about helping kids with ADHD and dyslexia to read;
the various blogger events I have been so fortunate to be invited to by overly generous publishers
meeting more and more authors whose work I have loved (Robin Jarvis, Andy Mulligan & Will Hill in particular);
the Orion summer party where I met Michelle Lovric, an author whose work I completely adore.

Finally I must express my thanks to everyone who has helped keep The Book Zone running this year: first of all the publishers who have so generously sent me books throughout the year - I am living the dream of my 13 year old self; authors who have yet again been so happy to give up their time to write pieces for The Book Zone, or come to events to meet us bloggers; the handful of bloggers who I now call close friends - you know who you are; and last, but by no means least, all you readers who visit The Book Zone - more than 110,000 hits for my ramblings still leaves me feeling more than a little humbled. I hope you all have a Happy New Year and a truly fantastic 2012!

The Book Zone Book of the Year 2011

2011-12-30T07:00:00.098Z

This time last year I announced the Book Zone Book of the Year 2010. To help me I had been naming a Book of the Month throughout the year. For various reasons I did not do that during 2011 and so I have left myself in a little bit of a hole. I have decided to do it in a similar way to last year, and decide which was my favourite book released in each month (notice I say released, not necessarily read in that month). And so here are my favourite books of 2011:

January - Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

With honourable mentions for Long Reach by Peter Cocks and Witchfinder: Gallows At Twilight by William Hussey.

February - Dancing Jax by Robin Jarvis

March - Department 19 by Will Hill

April - The Damned by David Gatward

With an honourable mention for Casper Candlewacks in Death By Pigeon by Ivan Brett

May - Changeling: Zombie Dawn by Steve Feasey

June - Mirabilis: Year of Wonders Winter Vol 1 by Dave Morris and Leo Hartas (not sure exactly when this was released officially but this is close enough)

July - Wereworld: Rage of Lions by Curtis Jobling

With an honourable mention for Money Run by Jack Heath and TimeRiders: The Eternal War by Alex Scarrow

August - Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

With an honourable mention for Doc Mortis by Barry Hutchison and S.T.I.N.K.B.O.M.B. by Rob Stevens (Confession time - Doc Mortis was the winner when I wrote and scheduled this post last week. However, since then I have read Ready Player One and it completely blew my mind. Sorry Barry.)

September - Kill All Enemies by Melvin Burgess

With an honourable mention for Witchfinder: The Last Nightfall by William Hussey

October - Mister Creecher by Chris Priestley

November - The Haunting of Charity Delafield by Ian Beck

December - I'll be honest, I don't have one for December. Due to the fact that I had to put my blog on hold for most of November I am still playing catch up.

And so, time to announce my Book Zone Book of the Year 2011 and it is:

Department 19 by Will Hill

Part of me feels a little bad in naming this book my Book of the Year 2011 as I first read it back in October 2010. Somehow me and Department 19 just clicked, and I knew once I had finished it that it might be a very strong contender for 2011's Book of the Year, and that any book that came along to challenge Department 19 for the top spot would have to be totally amazing. To hell with feeling bad though, no book came close in my opinion (edit: although, Ready Player One, read only a few days ago, has now come very close indeed). Department 19 has everything I, and many 13+ boys (and girls) want in a book: great characters; an imaginative and compelling premise set in a world that is close enough to ours to be real; awesome action scenes; loads of blood splatter; vampires that aren't sparkly and would rip your throat at faster than you could blink; the list goes on and on and on. When I reviewed it back in February I stated that it was 'possibly the best action horror I had ever read'; with hindsight (and several more readings) I think I could have lost the 'possibly' from that statement. In addition to this, the sequel, Department 19: The Rising is also my most anticipated book of 2012 - I really cannot wait to sink my teeth into it.

Get Any Good Books For Christmas?

2011-12-28T18:04:00.000Z

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas, and were showered with wonderful book presents. I would love to hear waht you got.

This year we are visiting friends in Canada and so I have not been able to open many of my presents - before we left just seemed too soon! Christmas has therefore so far been much more of a time for giving this year, and I have spoiled my godson and his brothers rotten with books - my hand luggage for the flight was a small case filled with books. I gave Max, my godson, the first six CHERUB books my Robert Muchamore, as well as the first TimeRiders book, Justin Thyme by Panama Oxridge, and Leviathan and Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld. Frank, his ten year old brother who is more into fantasy stories, was the recipient of the first five books in Michael Scott's Secrets of Nicholas Flamel series and The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. Spike is the next one down and he is only seven, and only just getting into reading, so I gave him a selection of some of the best books for his age group that have been released in the UK over the past year or so.

Me? Like I said, I have not had the chance to open many presents yet, but I was allowed to open two before we came away. The first was recommended to me by Mark de Jager over at My Favourite Books, and is The Walking Dead Compendium Vol 1. I love the TV show and Mark said I HAD to read the graphic novel, and so this shot straight to the top of my Christmas wish list. 1000+ pages of glorious black and white zombie saga.

The other pesent I opened turned out to be a book that I thought I would never own (as it is rather expensive), but I put it on my wish list and nearly fell over when my wife gave it to me. It is called 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking and is published by Taschen. This one had to be opened before we came away as it was far too big to bring with us - it is huge (that's me holding it in the photo below)! It measures 11.4 inches wide by 15.6 inches high, and is filled with more than 700 pages, printed on thick high quality stock. I on;y had a short amount of time to flick through it before we came away but it is stunningly beautiful - my only dilemma is that it is so heavy that I'm not sure on the best way to read it :-) I have included some images from its contents below, courtesy of the Taschen website.

News: Book Cover - Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding

2011-12-21T07:15:00.001Z

This one has been around for a while as I showed it to my good friends Liz and Mark from My Favourite Books when I saw them a couple of weeks ago. It is the cover for the new edition of Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding, which is being re-released as part of Orion's YA imprint, Indigo. Whilst I really liked the cover of the original Gollancz edition, with its image of a lone person watching a fantastic airship, the new cover screams "Buy me!". Perhaps it is because I am a huge Indiana Jones fan, and there is slight hint of that. However, when reading the Ketty Jay books I am always left with a western-in-another-world feel, and this new cover portrays that brilliantly. Darian Frey is fast becoming an iconic character and it seems fitting that he gets the limelight for this new target market. Sadly no airship in sight, but with at least two more books in the series to (hopefully) be reissued by Indigo then perhaps we will see the Ketty Jay on a future cover. I may just go out and buy this for the cover alone!

News: Book Cover - Brothers To The Death by Darren Shan (Saga of Larten Crepsley Book 4)

2011-12-18T22:39:00.002Z

Unfortunately the fourth book in the so far brilliant Saga of Larten Crepsley will not be on sale until May, but in the meantime feast your eyes on this image, the artwork for the front cover of that book, to be titled Brothers To The Death. Illustrator David Wyatt has outdone himself yet again with this incredible image which I found on his blog, along with an earlier version of the cover. It looks like Larten is going to be heading to New York in the finale to the series, and the blood splattered evidence on the cover suggests that this one could be quite a gore-fest! 2012 is going to be another massive year for Darren Shan, with this final Larten Crepsley book and then in the autumn the first in his twelve book Zom-B series. I can't wait!

Edit: 15th January 2012

I've just been trawling though the HarperCollins website looking at their future releases and I spotted that the final cover of Brothers To The Death is now there for all to see. It has changed a little from David's original image (above) with the red tones being far more dominant - it really does look like hell is about to descend on the cityscape.

I am also loving the blurb about the book, sounds like it could be a great end to the quadrilogy:

Just as Larten is finding a new place for himself in vampire society, trying to help vampires escape the Nazi menace, horrifying tragedy falls on his own family, thanks to the nefarious Vampaneze.

With his old friend Wester calling for war against the ancient enemies of vampires, Larten finds himself a figurehead of the campaign.

But there are more evil things than just the Vampaneze stirring. And soon, Larten might find himself grieving again – as he faces the worst and final betrayal…

Attention Grabber #8: The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding

2011-12-16T10:26:00.000Z

Attention Grabber is my weekly feature where I post what I think is a great opening paragraph to a book, the sort of opening that pulls young readers in and hooks them from the start.

This week's Grabber is from one of my favourite author's of the moment. I love Chris Wooding's Ketty Jay stories, but I first discovered his work through The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray, one of my favourite books of the last decade. It is a glorious Gothic fantasy horror story set in an alternate London, with airships, demons and corruption at the highest level. The opening paragraphs mentioning an airship, London fog and hansom cabs give a really good feel for what is to come and had my interest piqued right from the start. I also love Chris Wooding's descriptive writing in these opening paragraphs - he has the ability to tap straight into my imagination so that I can really picture the scene he had created.

The airship lumbered low overhead, its long, lined belly a dull smear of silvery light in the fog as it reflected the gas lamps of the city beneath. The heavy, ponderous thrum of its engines reverberated through the streets of the Old Quarter, making the grimy windows of the tall, close-packed terraces murmur in complaint. Like some vast, half-seen beast, it passed over the maze of alleys and cobbled walks, too huge to consider the insignificant beings that travelled them - and finally it moved on, its engines fading to a dull hum, and then gradually to silence.

There was a chill in the air tonight, a cold nip that had crept in from the Thames and settled into the bones of London. And of course there was the fog, which laid itself over everything like a gossamer blanket and softened the glow of the black lamp-post to a haze. The fog came almost every night in autumn, as much a part of London as the hansom cabs that rattled around Piccadilly Circus or the stout Peelers that walked their beats north of the great river. Not to the south, though; not in the Old Quarter. That was the domain of the mad and the crooked and the things best left unthought of. The good people of the capital knew better than to remain there after the sun had dipped beneath the skyline; not if they valued their necks, anyway.

Review: Darth Paper Strikes Back by Tom Angleberger (an Origami Yoda books)

2011-12-14T19:02:00.001Z

It is a dark time at Ralph McQuarrie Middle School. After suffering several Origami Yoda–related humiliations, Harvey manages to get Dwight suspended from school for being a “troublemaker.” Origami Yoda pleads with Tommy and Kellen to save Dwight by making a new case file—one that will show how Dwight’s presence benefits McQuarrie. With the help of their friends, Tommy and Kellen record cases such as “Origami Yoda and the Pre-eaten Wiener,” “Origami Yoda and the Exploding Pizza Bagels,” and “Origami Yoda and the Body Odor in Wonderland.” But Harvey and his Darth Paper puppet have a secret plan that could make Dwight’s suspension permanent . . .

Star Wars is in my top five all time favourite films (more specifically, Star Wars: A New Hope, but when I first watched in back in 1978 it was only known as Star Wars). When I was a kid I had quite a few Star Wars figures, I read the books, and I watched the original trilogy on VHS over and over again. So when a book called Darth Paper Strikes Back popped through my letter box I could not help but be intrigued. A quick read of the press release informed me that it was the sequel to a book called The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, a book that I was not even aware existed. However, I started to skim read the first few pages to get a feel for the book, and I was instantly hooked.

To set the scene, here is the blurb from the first book, Origami Yoda: "Tommy and his classmates narrate this middle grade mystery, each recounting an episode in which they received wise advice from a finger puppet of Yoda, perpetually worn on the finger of their classmate, Dwight, a loser who can't get anything right. Is this puppet really Yoda? Or is Dwight a bit more together than he seems?"

From what I can work out, Dwight turned from zero to hero in the eyes of his classmates thanks to his amazing finger puppet. However, Dwight's nemesis, Harvey, has decided that he wants all of the attention and kicks off the new school year by introducing Darth Paper to his peers. Darth Paper is the complete opposite to Origami Yoda - mean, nasty, and on a mission to discredit Dwight and possibly even get him kicked out of school. If this sounds a little bizarre to you then I would ahve to agree with you on the face of it, but the story is not as strange as it sounds. It is laugh out loud funny and very, very clever.

This is the perfect book for boys (or girls) who love Jeff Kinney's Wimpy Kid books, but have read them so many times that they are beginning to fall apart. By all means go out and buy your kids new copies, but why not slip this one in as well - I am pretty sure they will love it. Especially if they are a Star Wars fan. Until recently I hadn't realised just how popular the Star Wars franchise was with today's 7-10 year olds, but friends have assured me that their sons can't get enough of it, thanks in part to the recent animated series, as well as games like Lego Star Wars. If they are big fans then can't lose with this book - like Wimpy Kid it is full of small doodle-like illustrations, it is narrated in the first person by a host of great kid voices, and if you're still not convinced - it also has instructions on how to make your own origami Darth Paper!

I guess I should just add one small word of warning - this story is set in an American school and as such all the terminology, etc is very American. This did not affect my enjoyment of the story, and I am not sure how many young readers will find it a distraction either, but I thought you had better be aware.

My thanks go to the nice people at Amulet for sending me a copy to review. Much as I hate to part with my books this one is too good not to give away and will be heading in the direction of my godson's 7 year old brother as an extra Christmas present.

Review: The Dead Ways by Christopher Edge

2011-12-12T22:08:00.000Z

Ghostly apparitions on abandoned motorways... Corpses escaping from hospital morgues... Skeletons clawing their way out of their graves... THE DEAD WAYS ARE OPENING.

The Government has a plan to clean up the environment - closing down motorways and returning the roads to nature. When Scott Williams' father is found dead in his government office, Scott resolves to find out the truth behind his death. What he uncovers is a far-reaching and sinister conspiracy to open ancient lines of power sealing this world from the next. As the roads close, the dead will wake. Soon Scott is thrust headlong into a deadly race against time. It'll be the end of the world if he loses.

My mother always used to tell me that the best things came in small packages. If that is true then The Dead Ways by Christopher Edge is a perfect example of this maxim. At a mere 208 pages it weighs in way below most horror stories for the 11+ age group, but even so it still packs quite a punch.

Main character Scott is the son of a civil servant who is very much involved in a project known as the Greening of the Roads, whereby the government plans to close down a number of the country’s motorways and replace them with environmentally railways. However, there is much more to this new initiative than meets the eye and Scott soon finds his life changing in ways he never would have predicted, first through a failed kidnap attempt and then when his father is discovered dead, apparently having committed suicide.

Alongside Scott’s story is that of Jason, a Detective Inspector in the police force. Whilst travelling home one night Jason encounters what can only be described as a ghostly apparition; a dark hooded figure that passes through the metal walls of his car and attacks him so that "the breath was crushed from his body as a soul-searing agony rushed through his veins". Unfortunately he calls for back-up and from that moment on his career would appear to be on something of a decline.

Eventually the paths of these two main characters cross and they find themselves up to their necks in a conspiracy that stretches right to the roots of the government, with a super-creepy cult trying to open the Dead Ways of the book’s title – an event that would have disastrous consequences for everyone.

This is not your everyday zombie book (of which there are many on the market at the moment). In fact, although the dead do rise I did not associate them at all with the zombies that seem to be flavour of the month in kids’ and YA books at the moment. I think in my mind I had them down as more ghostly than zombie-like, but they are none the less scary for it. There is also not a great deal of gore within the story, and again I think this adds to the creep factor of the book. Unlike most zombie books though it is not the zombies themselves that are the most creepy – this honour must go to the cult members. And believe me, they are nasty.

This is the first book in a series and as such although the initial storyline is concluded to a degree there are a lot of questions left unanswered. I guess you could liken it to Darren Shan’s Cirque Du Freak in this respect – a short first book to set up the characters and story, with (hopefully) many more books to follow. I am definitely keen to see how Christopher Edge develops his story in the sequel, although I do not yet have any information on when this might be published.

My thanks go to the good people at Catnip Books for sending me a copy of The Dead Ways to read.

News: Book Cover - Wereworld: Nest of Serpents by Curtis Jobling

2011-12-12T14:08:00.000Z

On of the books I am most looking forward to reading in 2012 is Curtis Jobling's Shadow of the Hawk, the third book in his Wereworld series. I loved the first book, and then was completely blown away by the second, Rage of Lions, and I have a feeling that book three will be just as good (no pressure Mr Jobling). I am also really chuffed to have been asked to take part in the Wereworld: Shadow of the Hawk blog tour - more details about that soon so please watch this space.

In the meantime, although the third book has not yet been released Curtis has already revealed on his blog the cover to the fourth book in the series, titled Wereworld: Nest of Serpents. It is yet another stunning cover from illustrator Andrew Farley - these books are going to look so good lined up on my book shelf come the completion of the series.

Review: The Wrong Pong by Steven Butler

2011-12-11T17:50:00.000Z

One night, Neville Brisket wakes up from a strange dream - a dream that there is a horrible, stumpy finger stuck up his nose. Then he finds his room in a mess, and his dog in the laundry basket.

Neville's investigations end sposhily, when he is whooshed down the toilet to the land of Under! In a case of mistaken troll-dentity, he finds himself part of a disgusting new family. Will anybody help Neville get back to Over, or will he be stuck eating rat patties and left sock stew forever?

If there were more hours in the day, or my life wasn't as busy as it is, I would definitely read and review more books written for readers in the 7-10 age range. Sadly, it is far too easy for me to keep moving these books down the To Be Read pile so that I can read the next great 11+ book that has come through my letterbox. However, I have been trying harder, and this year discovered Andy Stanton's brilliant Mr Gum books (yes, months after everyone else had been raving about them), and of course Ivan Brett's fantastic Casper Candlewacks. There is something refreshing about reading books for this age group - they are often riotously funny, are littered with intelligent wordplay and harbour cleverly veiled morals within their plots.

The Wrong Pong by Steven Butler is one such story. Like Alice, Neville Brisket falls down a hole and finds himself in a strange land populated by fantastic creatures. Unfortunately for Neville, in his case the hole is the toilet on which he was sitting, and the creature that drags him through the pipes is a troll, a green one called Clod Bulch that "looked like a human had been crossed with a knobbly potato". Meanwhile Clod's troll son Pong is stranded in Neville's house, although with so many fun new distractions he seems more than happy in his new environment.

The same cannot be said for Neville. The trolls of Under are everything you would expect from creatures who enjoy travelling through toilet pipes - Disgusting with a capital D. They eat rat patties fried in hair grease, battered badger lightly sprinkled with verruca shavings, and ear wax brownies. He also has to contend with Rubella - whilst Pong's parents bend over backwards to welcome their guest, his sister is less than impressed at the new arrival in her home and will do anything to get rid of him. Will Neville survive her devious schemes? Will he ever return to his normal life? Will he even want to, considering he gets more attention from the Clod's than he ever did from his own parents? And will his parents ever notice that their son has been replaced by a small green troll called Pong?

Having enjoyed this quick read for myself I tried it on my godson's younger brother and he loved it. In fact, on finishing it he demanded to know if there were any more Pong books available (there is - The Wrong Pong: Holiday Hullabloo, and hopefully more to follow). If you want to create within your son a lifelong love of reading then it is important to give them access to as many books as possible at this age, both fiction and non-fiction. Read the books yourself and then talk to them about their contents. The Wrong Pong is one of those books made for this kind of sharing - it is a story that you will find yourself giggling over with your child, as you both go "ewwwww" at all the disgusting bits.

Book Zone visits Walker Books

2011-12-10T22:29:00.001Z

This morning I had the pleasure of attending a blogger event organised by the good people at Walker Books. At the beginning of 2011 Walker launched Undercover, a campaign designed to promote their YA fiction, through their online blog. The campaign proved to be very successful, so much so that Undercover is now going to continue into 2012 with a brand new website. The purpose of this morning's event was to give us bloggers a taste of the great Undercover books that are to be released by Walker throughout 2012.

The first part of the presentation involved the nice Walker people raving about the books they have scheduled to be released over the next eight months. As with most YA 'imprints' a good proportion of these books were not typical of the kind of book I tend to read and review on The Book Zone (i.e. a bit girly). However, there were a few that I really wanted to bring to your attention:
Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones (published 5th January 2012)

The details of this book suggest that it is another corker that fits with Walker's commitment to publish gritty thrillers that don't pull any punches. Books that were it not for them having teen protagonists would more likely find themselves aimed primarily at the adult market.

Blink is on the run. He was just trying to steal some breakfast; now he's stumbled on a fake kidnapping and become a player in a bigger game.

Enter Caution. As in "Caution: Toxic". Also on the run, she sees Blink as an easy mark. But there's something about this naive, skinny street punk that tugs at her heart.

Together, they devise a blackmail scam which is at best foolhardy... at worst, disastrous.

Daylight Saving by Edward Hogan (published 2nd February 2012)

We were very fortunate to be introduced to author Edward Hogan at this morning's event. Daylight Saving is his first YA novel and it sounds original and haunting. Edward very kindly gave us some of the details behind the writing of the book, and graciously answered all of our geeky blogger questions in great detail. I can't wait to read this one!

When Daniel Lever accompanies his dad to the Leisure World Holiday Complex, his expectations are low. But then he sees a mysterious girl by the fake lake and everything changes. Lexi is funny and smart, but why does she have wounds that get worse each time they meet? And is her watch really going backwards?

As the end of British Summer Time approaches, Daniel has to act quickly. Their souls depend on it.

Girl, Stolen by April Henry (published 2nd February 2012)

I had already heard about this book as it was released in the US back in September and I have read a number of favourable reviews on some of the US blogs that I visit occasionally. Walker billed it as an "edge of your seat thriller that will have you tempted to flick to the end". Another book added to my 'must read' list.

Sixteen-year-old Cheyenne Wilder is sleeping in the back of a car while her mother fills her prescription. Before Cheyenne realizes what has happened, the car is being stolen from the car park. Cheyenne is not only sick with pneumonia - she is also blind. Griffin, the teenage driver, hadn't meant to kidnap her - he was just stealing a car for the gang. But once Griffin's dad finds out that Cheyenne's father is the president of Nike, everything changes - now there's a reason to keep her. Will Cheyenne be able to survive this harrowing ordeal, and escape? And if so, at what price?

Body Blow by Peter Cocks (published 5th April 2012)

This is the sequel to Long Reach, the first book featuring teen undercover 'agent' Eddie Savage. Long Reach is a book that I bought on my Kindle some time ago, but despite recommendations from blogging friends I had never got around to reading it. The nice people at Walker very kindly let me leave with a copy of Long Reach this morning and I started reading it on the train home, and finished it off this morning. It is brilliant, and I have no doubt at all that the sequel will be just as good.

Eddie Savage is hiding out in the West Midlands after his near-fatal shooting during the Kelly affair. But while the physical wounds are fading, the emotional scars are taking longer to heal. And when Eddie finds himself heading for the south of Spain with an unlikely travelling companion, it is as if, by some magnetic force, he is being drawn back into the criminal underworld. Tommy Kelly may be safely locked up back at home, but on the Costa del Sol the Kelly organization is still alive. And kicking.

After the presentation we were then introduced to Jack, the guy behind many of Walker's YA book cover designs. Jack is the man responsible for the awesome cover of Daylight Saving, as well as the animated version (below) that has appeared on many blogs since it was unveiled to the public in October. As a teacher of Design I found Jack presentation totally fascinating (yes, I sat there quietly geeking out). It was great to see how he came up with his initial ideas based upon the story, and then developed them bit by bit to produce the final design that you can see below. Some of you will know from a previous post I made that some of my sixth form students are currently designing book covers and I'm looking forward to talking to them about Jack's presentation next lesson.

My huge thanks go to the good people from Walker Books who very kindly gave up their Saturday morning to talk to use bloggers - it is always a pleasure to listen to other people talk so passionately about books.

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Attention Grabber #7: The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

2011-12-09T07:00:00.019Z

Attention Grabber is my weekly feature where I post what I think is a great opening paragraph to a book, the sort of opening that pulls young readers in and hooks them from the start.

For this week's Attention Grabber I have chosen something a little different from the usual fare. This is a book that somehow fell into my hands during my early teens, and had me completely hooked from beginning to end. On finishing it I rushed out to my local library, and then on to the larger one in town, to get my hands on as many of the Stainless Steel Rat books as possible. I still turn to these anarchic science fiction stories as comfort books, when blogger burn out is threatening to rear its ugly head and I just want to chill. These are just as relevant to teen boys today as they were when I discovered them, and this opening paragraph gives a great feel for the narrating character's voice, and the humour than runs throughout all of the stories. I still turn to my battered, well read copies but at least three of the books are available in an omnibus edition from SFF publisher extraordinaire Gollancz.

When the office door opened suddenly I knew the game was up. It had been a money-maker - but it was all over. As the cop walked in I sat back in the chair and put on a happy grin. He had the same somber expression and heavy foot that they all have - and the same lack of humor. I almost knew to the word what he was going to say before he uttered a syllable.

"James Bolivar diGriz I arrest you on the charge - "

I was waiting for the word charge, I thought it made a nice touch that way. As he said it I pressed the button that set off the charge of black powder in the ceiling, the crossbeam buckled and the three-ton safe dropped through right on the top of the cop's head. He squashed very nicely, thank you. The cloud of plaster dust settled and all I could see of him was one hand, slightly crumpled. It twitched a bit and the index finger pointed at me accusingly. His voice
was a little muffled by the safe and sounded a bit annoyed. In fact he repeated himself a bit.

Review: Thyme Running Out by Panama Oxridge

2011-12-08T07:00:00.001Z

As the threat of the Thyme Curse closes in on Justin's family, his life is once again thrown into complete turmoil. Will he finally unmask Agent X and his spy? Has Evelyn Garnet stolen his wristwatch? What's making Eliza the gorilla act so aggressively? Why is Sir Willoughby planning a secret trip in the time machine? And where has Justin's sister, Robyn, mysteriously vanished to? Only Nanny Verity knows the truth - but can she be found before it's too late?

One of the first books I reviewed on The Book Zone back in October 2009 was Justin Thyme: The Tartan of Thyme by Panama Oxridge. At that point the book was out of print, and difficult to get your hands as it had been self-published by the author a few years earlier. Why did I review it? For two reasons: most importantly, because I loved it. Secondly, because I had spotted that its website had been taken offline with a promise of revamp, and I hoped that this could mean a sequel was due. In actual fact, new-to-the-scene publisher Inside Pocket had signed a deal with the author to publish that first book, which was released in October 2010. Now, five years on from the original release of Justin Thyme: The Tartan of Thyme, the sequel has been published.

Five years is a long time to wait for a sequel in the frantic world of modern children's publishing where most authors are expected to turn out at least one book a year, possibly even more. For example, when Darren Shan's new Zom-B series hits the book shops in 2012 the intention is to release one book every three months. Some of this is a financial thing - hook a child with a book, especially if it is written by a big name author, and they will come back for more. Make the time between releases too long and that child will have grown up another year or two and have moved on to the next big name author, the original story long forgotten. Panama Oxridge is not a big name author (although I believe he deserves to be), and so I hope that momentum can now be built and the two remaining books in the series will be released within a shorter period, giving these books the attention that they surely merit.

As you can probably tell already, my five year wait to read the sequel to The Tartan of Thyme was worth it. Admittedly it did take me a short while to get back into the story - I have read the original book several times, but time constraints these days mean that I was not able to refresh my memory prior to reading Thyme Running Out. By the end of the third chapter though, the characters of the family Thyme were like old friends, and as I progressed through the story there were enough references to the first book to have me feeling like I had only read it a couple of weeks ago.

Thyme Running Out picks up the story at a point soon after the close of its predecessor. The family are on a Mauritian island, ostensibly so that Lady Henny Thyme can make another of her world famous wildlife shows and establish a wildlife sanctuary. However, there is an ulterior motive to the trip: Justin is using his time machine to travel back in time to recover dodo egges with a view to bringing the species out of extinction and into the modern world. Not all is rosy though - friction is building between the increasingly rebellious Robyn Thyme and her mother, and Eliza, the tame, hyper-intelligent gorilla is becoming increasingly moody. Nanny Verity Kiss is still missing, presumed in hiding as she is still suspected of complicity in the kidnapping of Lady Henny.

Leaving Henny behind, the family return to Thyme Castle, and the mysteries that were set up in the first book begin to unfold again. Who is Agent X? Where is Nanny Verity Kiss? Is there a traitor living within Thyme Castle itself? So begins another richly layered mystery story laced with time travel adventure and humour, and yet again the stand out element of the story is its array of eccentric characters. Every one of them has a part to play in this story, even the minor ones who might only appear for a paragraph here and there in the story, and rarely is anyone exactly how they first appear.

Panama Oxridge never patronises his audience, nor does he relax his own obviously high standards of language and grammar in order to make the story an easier read. The vocabulary he uses throughout the book is occasionally complicated and the book is all the better for this. As Panama explained in an interview he did for The Book Zone last year: "Using interesting words is important to me.... Teachers often encourage their pupils to choose books that expand their vocabulary, but few young readers want to wade through a huge dictionary every time they happen upon an unfamiliar word. Therefore “Justin Thyme” briefly defines more than 450 of its most challenging words at the back of the book. This ensures no young reader need ever feel out of his or her depth." Thyme Running Out contains a similar mini-dictionary in the appendix, containing a few words that even this reader had to look up.

One of the unique points of this book are the clues that Panama hides throughout the story. If you have a 9+ mystery loving son (or daughter) who is a confident reader but has read all the books by the big name authors and is looking for something fresh and different then I cannot recommend this series highly enough - my godson will be receiving a copy for Christmas this year. Both books are available in beautiful hardcover editions, with the first now also available in a paperback edition. All editions include Panama's own illustrations littered throughout the book, some of them also acting as clues to the denouement.

My thanks go to Inside Pocket for generously providing me with a copy of Thyme Running Out, and also to Panama who very kindly sent me a copy of the paperback edition of Justin Thyme as my original review was quoted on the back cover.

Review: Mirabilis - Year of Wonders: Winter Volume One by Dave Morris and Leo Hartas

2011-12-07T08:00:00.002Z

There is a green comet in the sky and things are getting strange. Every day, fantasy and reality are getting harder to tell apart. Witches in bottles, warmongering cabbages from the planet Pluto, and a pterandon roosting on the Eiffel Tower. Or is it a pterodactyl? Jack Ember is caught between two very unreliable mentors. Talisin is a two-thousand year old wizard or an escaped madman - or possibly both. The Kind Gentleman is the sort of fairy godfather who will grant you three wishes you can't refuse. Both of them have plans for Jack, who's spent his life dreaming of adventure and now is about to get rather more of it than he bargained for.

Last year David Fickling Books started to release a number of books featuring work that had originally appeared in The DFC, a weekly comic that ran back in 2008/2009. Whilst researching The DFC I stumbled across this website, and instantly fell in love with the gorgeous artwork and the intriguing story concept. From that moment Mirabilis - Year of Wonders became a graphic novel that I had to lay my hands on. When I spotted that it had been published in a softcover edition over in the US I was sorely tempted to splash out, but decided instead to wait for the hardcover edition that was scheduled for release by Print Media. The wait was a little longer than had been originally suggested as the books were printed abroad, but it was worth every single impatient minute and every penny. This is a stunning book, published in a large format hardback, and printed on a good quality glossy paper that lets the artwork really shine.

Mirabilis: Winter starts on 1st January of an undisclosed year that is very soon to be christened the Year of Wonders. The first panels introduce us to Lieutenant Jack Ember, a young man who has had the misfortune to be challenged to a duel over a girl he had barely met, by an arrogant young officer called Dougie McNab. As the duel is about to start a green comet streaks across the night sky, heralding the start of the Year of wonders, a time when magic and other strange happenings start to become commonplace. Jack survives the duel but is stung on the face by a wasp, sending him into a deep fever. Whilst he is incapacitated his regiment ships out for India, and jack awakes to find he is to "run fool's errands for a bunch of old fogeys". Little does he realise that these "fool's errands" will see Jack embarking on a quest that is loaded with action, adventure and many, many more fantastical mysteries.

To say any more about the story would be to spoil it for you. There is a new surprise on almost every page, and one of the best elements of this story for me was not knowing at all what was going to happen next. What I will say is that Jack finds himself travelling across Europe on the Orient Express in the company of Estelle Meadowvane (the girl he fought the duel over) and his fellow duellist, McNab (if I describe him as a prig, you will know exactly what I mean if you are of a certain age). As their quest progresses they encounter vampires, a demon known as The Kind Gentleman, a pteranodon roosting on the Eiffel Tower (or it could be a pterodactyl), and even a Doctor Jeckyll (this one is called Gertrude, but she still comes with that certain potion).

Dave Morris's story is at times a little strange (butin a very good way), and it is also truly enchanting. This is in no small part due to Leo Hartas's incredible artwork. Every new page brings another series of beautifully drawn panels, with every one of the characters and strange creatures realised in stunning detail. Added to the mix is the colour work of Nikos Koutsis, who renders Hartas's images with a palette that perfectly matches the tone of the story.

This is one of my favourite books of the year, and I believe it is a graphic novel that will have cross-generational appeal. Adults who love the graphic form of storytelling will, like me, want to linger on every page, soaking up the detail and smorgasbord of colour. Younger readers will delight at following the fantastic story, and then want to come back to the book again and again. I am certainly looking forward to the next volume, and the other volumes that I believe will eventually follow.

Review: 20 Years Later by E.J. Newman

2011-12-06T08:00:00.002Z

LONDON, 2012: It arrives and with that the world is changed into an unending graveyard littered with the bones, wreckage, and memories of a dead past, gone forever.

LONDON, 2032: Twenty years later, out of the ashes, a new world begins to rise, a place ruled by both loyalty and fear, and where the quest to be the first to regain lost knowledge is an ongoing battle for power. A place where laws are made and enforced by roving gangs—the Bloomsbury Boys, the Gardners, the Red Lady’s Gang—who rule the streets and will do anything to protect their own.

THE FOUR: Zane, Titus, Erin, Eve. Living in this new world, they discover that they have abilities never before seen. And little do they know that as they search post-apocalyptic London for Titus’ kidnapped sister that they’ll uncover the secret of It, and bring about a reckoning with the forces that almost destroyed all of humanity.

20 Years Later is a book that I was aware of long before it was picked up by fledgling US publisher Dystopia Press. The publishers very kindly sent me a copy to review many months ago, but even before then I already knew a great deal about the story as Emma Newman, the author of 20 Years Later, had been podcasting the story through her website for some time. Three quarters of the way through doing this she got that publishing deal for the book, but Dystopia Press allowed her to continue hosting the podcasts on her website here. I wrote this review some time ago, as 20 Years Later was originally scheduled for a July release here in the UK, but this was then postponed, and then postponed again, and so I held off publishing my review. However, on Sunday I was informed by the author that the book is now officially published in the UK today. Hurrah!

I have mentioned on The Book Zone previously that post-apocalyptic and dystopian stories seem to be all the rage in YA literature at the moment, although the genre is one that I only tend to dip in and out of. Focusing more on the post-apocalyptic rather than dystopian side of things, examples that spring to mind are Jonathan Maberry's Rot and Ruin (great zombie story) and Moira Young's Blood Red Road (Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome for the new millennium). Whilst I would suggest that 20 Years Later is not as polished as either of these two, it is still a hugely enjoyable read. This story refreshingly does not include any zombies, neither is it like Mad Max, and best of all, in comparison to the majority of post-apocalyptic stories published this year, it is not set in the USA, but in London.

The story starts off with a prologue, narrated by an as yet unnamed person. I'm not a big fan of prologues in post-apocalyptic stories, as they are sometimes used to give the reader a history of whichever apocalypse has occurred, be it mass-zombification of a population, nuclear war, climate change, etc. The prologue is written as if it were the introduction to a book, long lost and finally discovered many years later, with the narrator begging the reader to read on, rather than burn the book for a few more minutes of heat. Whilst it is used to divulge a little information, to set the scene, it does not give us any information regarding the nature of the apocalypse (referred to as It), but a description of London being a 'dusty, ghost-filled monument to the dead' with bone-littered streets, leaves us with no doubt at all that 'It' was pretty nasty indeed.

The London of 2032 is a pretty nasty place indeed. Areas have been taken over by various gangs, and these gangs are happy to fight to the death in order to prevent other encroaching on their territory. We have the Bloomsbury Boys, the Gardeners and the most organised and strongest group, The Red Lady's Gang. Main character Zane lives with his mother Miri in Bloomsbury. The pair are tolerated by the gang of boys that control that part of London as his Zane's mum has often been their first port of call when injured as a result of a fight with another gang. Miri has a small house, with a tidy garden, different to most of the overgrown areas in the city. Living so close to the Bloomsbury Boys is not easy for Zane; he wants to fit in with the crowd, but also feels obliged to follow the rules that his mother has laid down for him.

Zane's world is shaken to the core by several events near the beginning of the story. First off, he and his friend Dev observe a mysterious giant stalking the corridors of a long-abandoned hospital, an event that stirs up a good deal of speculation amongst the rest of the gang. Soon afterwards a small boy, dressed only in pyjamas, is discovered on the fringe of Russell Square, central in the Boys' territory. As soon as the boy sees Zane's face he becomes completely terrifed, yet Zane has never seen him before in his life. So begins a tale that sees Zane having to grow very quickly, as he comes under the influence of the Red Lady, discovers he has a strange power, and meets Erin and Titus, two other very special young people, who join him in his quest to discover what the giant is doing, and where Titus' kidnapped sister has been taken.

One of the things I really liked about 20 Years Later was main character Zane. In may post-apocalyptic stories we are given characters who are wise beyond their years, their personalities hardened by the difficult lives they have had to lead in order to survive. Zane is very different to these characters - he is one of life's innocents, and has a naivety rarely seen in books of this genre. If he had been a fully paid up member of a gang this would not have been at all believable, but unlike the other children in the book he has been brought up within the protective sphere of his mother's influence, having to work the garden and follow sensible rules. She has shielded him from the realities that have faced everyone else, and as such he is not as well equipped as others when it comes to survival. He therefore has to grow a great deal as the story progresses.

One of the things I find quite hard to believe in many post-apocalyptic stories with young characters is how every one of them so quickly acclimatise to their new situation, fast becoming great survivalists. As someone who works with children I know that this simply would not be the case - a small number might, but many would give up as soon as things got too tricky for them. Having a character who is not worldy-wise and a ready killer is, for me, a breath of fresh air in this genre. Zane has also had the finer details of the nature of 'It' kept from him; in fact, none of the Boys seem aware of the nature of the apocalypse that affected their world, and as readers we are kept guessing until very near the end of the story. Again, I quite liked this as it kept the story feeling fresh and different to many others that deal with similar themes.

As I said before, 20 Years Later does not seem as polished as other big name books in this genre. This is not the fault of the author, who I feel has created a well-paced, exciting story. The blame needs to be laid on the head of the publisher, but not too heavily. Like all small press publishers, Dystopia Press will have limited resources and less time to put into the editing process, and I think this book would have benefited from the more rigorous editing process it would have received in the hands of one of the major publishers.

20 Years Later is the first book in a planned trilogy, and as such there are many loose ends left untied come the final page. E.J Newman does end the story in a satisfactory manner, without leaving us dangling on a nasty cliffhanger, but leaves us with plenty to look forward to in future instalments. Flaws aside, this is a hugely enjoyable read and I will definitely be wanting to follow the rest of the story.

My thanks go to the good people at Dystopia Press for sending me a copy to review.

News: Book Covers - Young Bond rebranding

2011-12-05T07:00:00.000Z

I am a huge fan of the Young Bond books by Charlie Higson and have all of the slipcased special editions and also the Silverfin acrylic-cased special edition that was published earlier this year in my collection (as well as the paperback versions). However, I always felt that the cover designs did not always do the stories justice (Double or Die and By Royal Command being the exceptions to this), and that they were not really designed with the books' main target audience in mind. I was therefore really excited when I spotted spotted these on Amazon some time ago but with everything going on here completely forgot to bring them to your attention.

The books are all going to be re-released in April with brand new cover designs, and I think the rebranding is much more in keeping with the 10+ target market. I really like the way that elements of each story are framed within the James Bond silhouette, and also how the designer has very cleverly incorporated symbols from the original cover designs. I have to admit that if these were released as a boxed set I would be sorely tempted to add them to my collection as well.

Review: The Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding (A Tale of the Ketty Jay)

2011-12-04T14:37:00.000Z

Things are finally looking good for Captain Frey and his crew. The Ketty Jay has been fixed up good as new. They’ve got their first taste of fortune and fame. And, just for once, nobody is trying to kill them.

Even Trinica Dracken, Frey’s ex-fiancee and long-time nemesis, has given up her quest for revenge. In fact, she’s offered them a job – one that will take them deep into the desert heart of Samarla, the land of their ancient enemies. To a place where the secrets of the past lie in wait for the unwary. Secrets that might very well cost Frey everything.

Join the crew of the Ketty Jay on their greatest adventure yet: a story of mayhem and mischief, roof-top chases and death-defying races, murderous daemons, psychopathic golems and a particularly cranky cat. The first time was to clear his name. The second time was for money.

This time, Frey’s in a race against the clock for the ultimate prize: to save his own life.

Firstly, apologies for my absence over the past month or so. I had to take a break from the Book Zone for family reasons, and then just as I was about to launch myself back into it my body finally decided to protest at the stress I had been under and decided to pack up on me. I have therefore spent the best part of the last five days in bed ill, not even feeling able to read for the first two. Nightmare! However, I am on the mend now, but have a huge pile of reviews to get written, and one of the busiest times of the year. Great!

I'm going to kick off with a review for a book I totally loved. Some time ago I posted a review of Chris Wooding's Retribution Falls, the first in his A Tale of the Ketty Jay series. Although written for the adult market and released through Orion's SFF imprint Gollancz, the publishers have noticed that it had been gaining a lot of interest from teen readers, and that first book is soon to be re-released under Orions YA imprint, Indigo. I really enjoyed Retribution Falls, and on finishing it I rushed out to buy the sequel, The Black Lung Captain, a book I felt was even better than its predecessor. Imagine then my delight when I received a copy of the third book, The Iron Jackal, from the ever-generous Jon Weir at Gollancz. I almost dropped everything to read it, but I had a few other reading commitments and so I decided to save it for when I was a little less busy so I could fully savour the story.

Please believe me when I say that having read it, I will definitely be dropping everything to read book four whenever it is released. Long time readers of the Book Zone will know that I do not read a great deal of SFF, and even less for the adult market, but this is one series that has fast become one of my favourites, and The Iron Jackal is by far the best in the series so far. The first two books were fun, but by necessity time was spent introducing the characters (in book one) and developing the world building (a weakness of book one, but much improved in book two). Now that these two essential elements are ticked off it is almost as if Chris Wooding has announced "And now let the real fun commence!".

I seem to remember reading a few reviews of Retribution Falls where the reviewer suggested that the characters were not very well developed. Chris Wooding has certainly answered those critics in the subsequent two books. And the same goes for the world building. Quite often I had found adult SFF too hard going because the author has felt compelled to deliver fully three dimensional characters, including back story, or spend pages going over the minutiae of the world he has created, including lengthy passages about its history and politics. In this series Chris Wooding has chosen to do this over the series, and so in each new book we have found out a little bit more about the world, and more and more of the secrets that the crew of the Ketty Jay have been keeping secret have been revealed. Where Retribution Falls was all about Darian Frey, and the second book took a big focus on the development of Jez and Crake, this book sees us really get to know the mysterious and brooding Silo much better.

The passages of the book that deal with fleshing out these characters also make the pacing of the story that bit more exquisite. Chris Wooding is now a master at writing action scenes that have you reaching to strap yourself in with that metaphorical seatbelt, and there are even more in The Iron Jackal than in his previous books, but the story would become boring if we didn't have these calmer, more introspective moments between them.

All of the books in this series have been fun, but as I suggested earlier this one really goes for it in the fun stakes. The banter between the various members of the crew, who over the course of the previous two books have developed a very special bond, is superbly written, and at times laugh-out-loud funny, and now that we know them so well we can start to predict (in a good way) how one might react to the actions or verbal snipes of another. The plot this time is also great fun, starting off with a daring heist which soon turns in to a traditional hunt for long-lost treasure. Of course, this wouldn't be a Ketty Jay story without that 'comedy of errors' undercurrent, where everything Frey does just seems to get him and his crew even further up the creek without a paddle.

As I said before, this is a series written for the adult market, but soon to be targeted at teens. There is therefore a small degree of bad language, but also a huge body count: the crew of the Ketty Jay seem to kill quite a few people along their way, although invariably in self-defence. Teen boys will totally love this, but unlike most of the books I feature on here it isn't suitable for younger readers.

I do not have any news as to when the fourth book will be published, but it is certainly one I will be carving over the next year. Chris Wooding ends The Iron Jackal perfectly, but he also raises a number of questions that still need answering, and the events in this book are suggesting that very soon the brown stuff could be hitting the fan in large quantities, not only for Frey and his crew but also for everyone else in Vardia and Samarla. I can't wait!

Attention Grabber #6: Shadowmagic by John Lenahan

2011-12-02T11:14:00.000Z

Attention Grabber is my weekly feature where I post what I think is a great opening paragraph to a book, the sort of opening that pulls young readers in and hooks them from the start.

This week's Attention Grabber opening paragraph comes from Shadowmagic by John Lenahan. This book was recommended to me by the brilliant Carol from Windsor Waterstones, and I am so glad she pointed me towards it. If you like comedy fantasy and you have not yet discovered this book then it is well worth your time. The opening paragraph gives a great taste of what is to come as this original and funny unfolds.

'How come you never told me I had an aunt?' That was the first thing I said. I know, my first question should have been, 'Are you alright, Dad?' He didn't look alright. The light was awful, but I could see blood on the side of his face. I'm amazed I didn't say 'What is that smell?' because it sure stank in there. I'm not talking about a whiffy locker room smell, but the kind of stench that can make it possible to see your breakfast a second time around. Or most obviously I guess I should have asked, 'Where are we?' or, 'Why are we chained to a wall?' But instead, the first question I asked when I regained consciousness was about genealogy.

'Well, Conor,' Dad croaked, not even looking at me, 'the first time you met her, she tried to kill you.'

She had, too.

Attention Grabber #5: Dark Life by Kat Falls

2011-11-18T08:00:00.001Z

Attention Grabber is my new weekly feature where I post what I think is a great opening paragraph to a book, the sort of opening that pulls young readers in and hooks them from the start.

Another short one for you this week, this time from Dark Life by Kat Falls (reviewed here). What I love about the first two sentences of this book is that the reader can immediately tell that something pretty disastrous has happened to the planet. It grasped my attention immediately and made me want to read on and find out more. I wonder how many rewrites this one went through before Ms Falls came up with this perfect opening?

I peered into the deep-sea canyon, hoping to spot a toppled skyscraper. Maybe even the Statue of Liberty. But there was no sign of the old East Coast, just a sheer drop into darkness.

.

The Haunting of Charity Delafield Blog Tour: Guest Post by Ian Beck

2011-11-10T09:53:00.000Z

I am joined today by author Ian Beck, author of The Haunting of Charity Delafield, a brilliant new books from publisher Bodley Head. I was really chuffed when I was asked if I wanted to take part on his blog tour as he is an author whose work I have been following for some time. I asked Ian if he would like to write a little piece for us about darkness in books for children.

~~~

My recently published book, The Haunting of Charity Delafield (The Bodley Head RHCB 2011) uses troubled dreams, darkness and an eerie old house as engines of the story. However it is not a conventional Ghost or Horror story, Charity’s is a haunting of a different kind. Like most faerie stories it has at its heart the fundamentals; love and loss, fear and courage, goodness and empowerment. I am not a great expert on the current darker horror fiction for young adults. I would find it hard to pass comment on it as a genre. I have read and greatly admire Marcus Sedgwick and Sally Gardner‘s work. My own impulse is toward the lyric rather than the frightening. I find the gothic genre often to be beautiful, something I first realised when visiting the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. The architecture of the house was so well done, with an astonishing attention to detail in the stained glass and so on and the spectres and their costumes only added to the effect, which in the end was exhilaratingly romantic rather than frightening.

Having raised two sons and a daughter I know well the all powerful draw of darkness in stories, or at least the idea of darkness both literal and metaphorical. From an early age and as my children grew I shared my many Edward Gorey books, and my Charles Addams collections with them. Both artists were masters of the macabre and of a kind of understated very dark humour and my children loved them. While reading stories such as The Three Little Pigs, when my children were very young, I would act it out and actually go to answer the front door after the Wolf knocked and then I came back in to the room draped in an old overcoat as The Wolf. This was both alarmingly scary and funny, and they loved it, I had to repeat it over and over.

My sons seemed almost magnetically attracted to both the militaristic and to the dark and the horrific. This was not exclusively in book form but in the computer games they played and the films they watched. I was not over anxious about their tastes for dressing up as soldiers in camouflage fatigues etc as I remembered only too well my own 1950s childhood.

Then we had an almost endless supply of toy weaponry; Dan Dare ray guns, cowboy belts and holsters etc Westerns and WW2 were everywhere, on the nascent television service and in the cinema of both the normal grown up variety and the Saturday morning children’s matinees. Here we watched in a state bordering on hysteria exciting weekly chapter serials from the 1930s and 40s such as Batman and Flash Gordon which had their moments of real darkness and terror, such as the clay men emerging from the walls in, Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars. After the screenings we would run home with our gabardine school raincoats fastened around our necks in imitation of cloaks The most wonderfully dark things that I remember from my own childhood were not books or comics at all but the 1950s Quatermass serials on television written by the wonderful Nigel Kneale.

I borrowed books from my local library with a woeful but in the end I think healthy lack of discrimination. My choices often centred on books set on other worlds and the sense I took from the best of them, the sense that I still remember and cherish to this day is the sense of wonder.

I did not develop into a violent person or one overly concerned with violence because I played Flash Gordon or used toy guns or read scary comics as a child. That phase I now see partly as a kind of rehearsal of adult fears of death and power, and partly as a joyous recreation of the images and sounds which emanated from the huge cinema screen, a remaking of that special kinetic excitement.

The second of my Tom Trueheart books was called, Tom Trueheart and the Land of Dark Stories. It was set in a place where dark deeds, dark places and especially dark endings were de rigeur. The story featured immense gloomy castles, deep dungeons, hellish gold mines run by Trolls, skeleton armies, all of that and more. However given the age range of the book which is somewhere between seven and eleven, the violence and horror, although present is minimised. There is no blood and my hero Tom does not take undue pleasure in using weapons or in despatching foes although he does face them with determination and courage especially given that he is the size of a thumb throughout most of the book.

I have explored darker subjects and themes as the basis of my YA stories. Pastworld (Bloomsbury 2009) centred on some Grand Guignol aspects of Victorian London and the violence and horrors rose naturally out of the subject and the setting. Samurai (Barrington Stoke 2009) and The Hidden Kingdom (Oxford University Press 2011) both have their basis in Japanese mythologies and do contain some dark and horrific scenes, although the Prince in The Hidden Kingdom uses his lyric gift and images of beauty as a weapon rather than a sword.

~~~

Huge thanks to Ian for taking the time to do this for The Book Zone. Watch this space as my review of the book will be coming soon.

Review: The Baker Street Irregulars in The Adventure of the Missing Detective by Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood

2011-11-09T12:46:00.001Z

With Sherlock Holmes missing, and the fair city of London ravaged by crime, the Baker Street Irregulars move into 221B Baker Street. When the Lord Mayor's daughter goes missing and they agree to help Eliza Mayhew find her grandfather, the Irregulars embark on their first case - and quickly discover that they are up against a sinister villain...

Back at the beginning of October I had the pleasure of meeting someone I have followed on Twitter for some time, writer Tony Lee, at another author's book launch in London. If you don't recognise the name then shame on you: Tony is a new York Times best selling writer, and has written for most of the big name comic publishers in the US and UK. He is also something of an expert at adapting other author's work for the graphic novel format, examples that immediately spring to mind including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the first in Anthony Hororwitz's Power of Five books, Raven's Gate. More exciting than anything for me though, he is currently working on a comic version of one of my all time favourite 80s TV shows - MacGyver.

During our conversation, we briefly touched on what was at that point the forthcoming release of Anthony Horowitz's new Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk. During that conversation we touched on Tony's own Sherlock Holmes related work, a series of four graphic novels for Franklin Watts' Edge, an imprint that specialises in books for reluctant readers. Tony's series does not focus on the activities of the great sleuth himself, but instead it follows the adventures of the infamous Baker Street Irregulars. For those of you who are not au fait with some of the plot details of the original Holmes stories, the Irregulars were a bunch of street urchins who Holmes occasionally employed to help him out.

The books, with illustrations by long-time Tony Lee collaborator Dan Boultwood, had been idling on my Amazon wishlist ever since I had first read about them here on the Geek Syndicate website, so on the way home on the train after the launch I used an app on my phone to treat myself to the first in this series, The Adventure of the Missing Detective. The story kicks off shortly after the events of the Sherlock Holmes short story, The Final Problem. Holmes is presumed dead, following his fight with Professor Moriarty, both seeming to have fallen to their death's at the Reichenbach Falls. There seems like there is nobody to take his place, neither Doctor Watson or Inspector Lestrade capable of filling those huge shoes. Nobody, that is, until Wiggins and his team of Irregulars step forward as volunteers, convinced that the great man isn't dead, and determined to carry on with his work in his absence. However, before they get a chance to investigate Holmes' disappearance, they are thrown headfirst into a case of their own.

At 46 pages, the uninitiated might assume that there is little meat to Tony Lake's story. They would, however, be sorely wrong. Dan Boultwood's illustrations are beautifully rendered, and perfectly portray the grimy atmosphere of the period, but I found myself so engrossed in following the words of Lee's story that I had to go back through them again once I had finished the book, to savour each panel one by one. I agree, 46 pages does not seem a great deal when the thin volume is placed next to some of the thick hardcover graphic novels that are published these days, but look instead towards the Asterix books. These are stories rich with plot and detailed graphics, and yet most of these only weight in at 48 pages, just showing that a book should not be judged by its thickness.

We have had a handful of Edge graphic novel adaptations of classic horror books (Frankenstein, Dracula, etc) on the school library shelves for some time and they ahve always been popular with the reluctant reader boys. I hope that these will soon be joined by the four Baker Street Irregulars books, whilst I will be digging into my pockets to complete by own personal collection - if the rest are as good as this first book then they are too good to miss.

Review: Blood Ninja 2: Lord Oda's Revenge by Nick Lake

2011-11-06T21:36:00.001Z

Taro was just a fisherman's son...but then his father was murdered and he was forced to become a Blood Ninja, fated to live by night, doomed to live on the blood of others. But he has had his revenge. He has killed Lord Oda, the warlord who had his father assassinated. But Lord Oda is not quiet in his grave. He has found a way to reach beyond death and Taro and his friends soon find themselves facing samurai armies, a deadly enemy from the past and strange ghostly creatures who suck life from the living. Dangerously weakened, Taro, must recover the one object that Lord Oda was desperate to find before he died: the Buddha Ball, the source of limitless power. But if Taro is to complete his perilous quest - to save himself, his friends, his mother, and the girl he loves - he must go to hell and back and face his arch enemy once again. For Lord Oda has returned - as a Blood Ninja.

Blood Ninja by Nick Lake was one of my favourite reads of 2010. For me, everything was right about it. For a start, how could I not like a book where ninjas were vampires, this fact immediately explaining the secret behind their legendary powers. Add to this a story rich with historical detail, fantastic action set pieces, great characters and the occasional gory death and I felt that Nick Lake had delivered the perfect package for boys and girls who are confident readers and want something a little more challenging in their reading diet. And let's not forget that amazing book cover by Hydro74.

Eighteen months on and I am now ready here with my review of the sequel, subtitled Lord Oda's Revenge. In my mind there was a lot riding on this book - would Nick Lake be able to sustain the magic over a second volume? The answer, happily, is a resounding yes. Lord Oda's Revenge has everything its predecessor had, and more and I am slightly surprised that neither of the two books have appeared on the major children's book prize lists so far. Perhaps, like Rick Yancey's brilliant Monstrumologist books, it is just too good for the intended audience who have possibly been dumbed down by the flood of average YA titles teenagers have had to endure over the past few years?

The book picks up the story not long after the close of Blood Ninja. Taro is pining for news about his mother, whilst also being confused about where is relationship with Hana is heading. After all, although he is the lost son of Lord Tokugawa, in his mind he is really the son of a lowly fisherman and his wife, and subsequently lacks the social skills and awareness of etiquette expected of a high born Lord. Together with Hana, and his best friend Hiro, Taro sets off on a quest to find his mother and retrieve the Buddha Ball, even if he has to go to hell and back. Standing in his way is evil personified, the vile Lord Oda, as well as Yukiko, who is hell-bent on a little revenge.

The stand out element of this book for me is the character development. The middle book in a trilogy is always going to feel as if something is lacking, as the story has already been established, and no reader is going to expect a completely satisfying ending that ties off all the loose ends. Nick Lake does what George Lucas did with The Empire Strikes Back, and that is direct the reader's attention to the characters, to make up for this ultimate lack of reward come the final page. I challenge anyone who reads this book not to develop feelings for the main characters - Nick Lake really made me care about them as they faced trial after trial.

In my review of the first book I likened it more to an adventure story than a horror. I am pleased to report that the blood splatter had increased slightly in this sequel, although never to a point where it overshadows the storyline. I would not be surprised if some enterprising artist over in Japan picked this story up to turn it into a manga series. It is not an area on which I am an expert, but the few manga books I have read suggest that this story would fit perfectly within their ranks.

For some reason these books have been released earlier in the US than over here in the UK, and I wonder whether Nick Lake secured a publishing deal over there first. It isn't something that bothers me as we got the best book covers by far - just go onto Amazon US and compare, I am sure you will agree with me. However, according to that very same internet store the third book in the series is not scheduled to be out in the US until August 2012, and considering we didn't get the UK edition of Lord Oda's Revenge until a good eight months after it was published in the State we are in for a pretty long wait to find out what happens next.

Blood Ninja 2: Lord Oda's Revenge was published in the UK at the beginning of August, complete with another stunning Hydro74 cover design. My thanks go to the good people at Corvus for sending me a copy to review.

Attention Grabber #4: The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven

2011-11-04T08:00:00.000Z

Attention Grabber is my new weekly feature where I post what I think is a great opening paragraph to a book, the sort of opening that pulls young readers in and hooks them from the start.

This week's Attention Grabber is the opening couple of paragraphs from the brilliant The Black Tattoo by the immensely talented Sam Enthoven. It is another one that I have used with my group at school to show them how adjectives and similes can make a piece of writing so interesting that you just can't help but read on. Having just started my first ever attempt at NaNoWriMo I am all of a sudden feeling a small amount of hate for Sam, and many others - I wish I could write this well!

LONDON. The West End. A little after four in the morning. At the base of the skyscraper known as Centre Point Tower, in the darkness at the end of a dank concrete walkway, something stirred. The shadows there began to ripple and coalesce. The dark became a manlike shape of pure liquid black. Then the demon emerged, taking its first leisurely step towards the woman who stood there watching it.

‘Jessica,’ it said.

Hearing that voice again, and the way the sound of it seemed to take shape inside her head like black flowers blossoming behind her eyelids, it was all Jessica could do to stop her legs from trembling. She’d been so close! Another few minutes and she’d’ve made it! She gritted her teeth and told herself to concentrate. The demon took another step. It was clear of the shadows now, and the rainy orange streetlight glinted off its inky wet skin. Its face was a blank, but she could feel it looking at her.

National Non-Fiction Day 2011

2011-11-03T08:00:00.001Z

Today is the second National Non-Fiction Day, an annual celebration, initiated by the Federation of Children's Book Groups in partnership with Scholastic Children's Books. It aims to celebrate all that is brilliant about non fiction and show that it’s not just fiction that can be read and enjoyed for pleasure.

One year on and I still don't feature enough non-fiction on The Book Zone. I do read non-fiction, but it is pretty limited to adult fare that I dip in and out of between fiction books. There simply is not enough time in the day unfortunately. However, knowing that non-fiction day was looming I have been saving a couple of cool titles just for today.

The Worst Case Scenario Survive-O-Pedia (Junior Edition)

this one has been going down brilliantly in the school library since I donated my copy. It is stuffed full of great survival tips, such as how to survive a sandstorm or a shark attack, how to deal with being stranded on a desert island, how to cross piranha-infested water and all kinds of advice on what you should do if you are caught in a lightning storm. The boys at school love books like this: they gather around in huge crowds at lunchtime, just as they do with the Guinness Book of Records and the many back-volumes of Ripleys that we stock on our shelves. Every page is festooned with photos, illustrations or small cartoons, so even if they aren't close enough to be able to read the words they are still able to take part in any related conversation that is going on. The book is also littered throughout with interesting facts and my boys love their facts.

This book is possibly a little too gruesome in places for younger readers, but reluctant reader boys of 10 and above will adore it. It is published by Chronicle Books, who I must thank for generously providing me with a copy to review.

Feel The Force! Pop-Up Physics Fun

I love being a book blogger. OK, so that's a case of stating the obvious, as a book addict I don;t think I will ever get tired of receiving books in the post. Some of them are expected, but occasionally a surprise package comes through the door and Feel The Force! was one of them, courtesy of the good people at Templar, and for me it was an extra special treat. Many of you will know that my main teaching subject is Design technology, with a specific focus on Graphic Design. As such, I totally, completely, 100% adore pop-up books. And now I have another one to add to my collection.

Feel the Force! is a pop-up and life-the-flap book about science, and more specifically the physical side of the subject. Every single page has at least one pop-up, or a tab to pull, or flap to lift, and surrounded by Thomas Flintham's colourful and quirky illustrations. My favourite page by far is the one about pressure: a super-cool pop-up of a guy lying on a bed of nails on the left hand page of the spread, whilst on the facing page there is a pull-the-tab water pistol. Learning physics was never this much fun when I was a kid. As well as the interactive elements, each of the sections also contains an experiment or two, designed to complement the scientific theory that is being put across.

Where's Asterix

Love Asterix? A fan of the Where's Wally books? (are they daft questions - surely everyone is an Asterix and who doesn't like the Where's Wally books?). If you are one of the minority who is unable to answer yes to both of those questions then please turn away now. However if, like me, you love them both then read on.

A while back the ever-lovely Nina Douglas at Orion sent me their latest Asterix book - not a new edition of one of the famous Asterix stories, but a brand new book aimed at Asterix fans of all ages. Called Where's Asterix? it plops Asterix and his multitude of Gallic friends (and Roman enemies) into a number of incredibly detailed scenes, and then asks you to find them. When I tell you that it is of course illustrated by Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo you will already know the quality of the illustrations within. As soon as it arrived I found myself poring through the pages, looking to score laurel wreaths by finding the likes of Asterix, Obelix, Getafix the druid, Chief Vitalstatistix, and many others. I thought it would be easy - it isn't. These big A3 sized double-page spreads are rich in colour and detail, so even the huge tub of lard that is Obelisk is occasionally difficult to find. This is definitely a worthy addition to my collection of Asterix books.

~~~

A huge percentage of school library budgets is spent on non-fiction books, and yet when I browse through the multitude of blogs that I follow I rarely ever see these books reviewed. Shame on us! And shame on the bookshops who are forever creating amazing displays of the latest fiction releases for kids, leaving the new non-fiction books to sit out of the way on the shelves in the darker corners of the store (I'm not joking - I have seen this on a number of occasions). You boys who love your non-fiction I applaud you, at least you are reading, and don't ever let anyone tell you that non-fiction doesn't count!

News: Red House Children's Book Award shortlist announced

2011-10-31T19:08:00.000Z

I received this press release over the weekend but unfortunately I have not had a chance to get it up on my blog until now as work has been stupid busy. However, as it is about one of my favourite book awards I still wanted to post about it, even if it is a good few hours after everyone else. I love the Red House Children's Book Award for one reason - the books on the list, and the eventual winner, are chosen by and voted for exclusively by young readers. Not librarians. Not teachers. Not stuffy journalists working for national newspapers. Kids. And let's face it - they know what they like better than we do most of the time. There are some outstanding books and authors on the list, I am sure you will agree.

Press release:

Some of the biggest names in children’s fiction are joined by exciting new authors and illustrators on the shortlist for this year’s Red House Children’s Book Award, the only national award for children’s books that is voted for entirely by children themselves. What could be a better indicator of the books that will tempt children away from computer games and DVDs than a list drawn up by young people across the country, which pits literary heavyweights like Morris Gleitzman and Patrick Ness against outstanding debut authors such as Annabel Pitcher?

Who will win? It’s up to children everywhere to decide. Voting is now open and the Red House Children’s Book Award would like to encourage every child in Britain to check out the shortlisted titles and vote for their favourite!

The Red House Children’s Book Award is highly respected by teachers, parents and librarians and has brought acclaim and strong sales to past winners such as J.K. Rowling, Andy Stanton, Malorie Blackman and Anthony Horowitz. The award has often been the first to recognise the future stars of children’s fiction and has the ability to turn popular authors into bestsellers.

Children nationwide are now invited to vote for their favourite of the ten shortlisted books. The category winners and the author of the best children’s book published in the 2011 nomination period will be announced – for the first time ever – at a glittering awards ceremony which takes place in the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre in London on Saturday 18^th February 2012.

A dedicated website www.redhousechildrensbookaward.co.uk showcases all the shortlisted titles and featured authors. Any child can vote here for their favourite book until 20^th January 2012.

The full shortlist for the Red House Children’s Book Award 2012 is as follows:

Books for Younger Children

Rollo and Ruff and the Little Fluffy Bird by Mick Inkpen, published by Hodder

Don't Worry Douglas! by David Melling, published by Hodder

Peely Wally by Kali Stileman, published by Red Fox

Scruffy Bear and the Six White Mice by Chris Wormell, published by Jonathan Cape

Books for Younger Readers

One Dog and His Boy by Eva Ibbotson, published by Marion Lloyd Books

Sky Hawk by Gill Lewis, published by Oxford University Press

The Brilliant World of Tom Gates by Liz Pichon, published by Scholastic

Books for Older Readers

Grace by Morris Gleitzman, published by Puffin

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, published by Walker

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher, published by Orion

Additional Notes:

The Red House Children’s Book Award, now in its 32nd year, was founded in 1980 by author and librarian Pat Thompson and is owned and run by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups. The overall winner is awarded the Red House Children’s Book Award Silver Tree, of which they are the custodian for a year, and an engraved silver acorn which is theirs to keep. Each of the shortlisted authors and illustrators also receives a silver bookmark and an incredible portfolio of writing and artwork created by children inspired by their book. The ten titles on the shortlist for the Books for Younger Children, Books for Younger Readers and Books for Older Readers categories, as well as 40 highly recommended titles, were chosen by children who read and voted for the books at lively events organised nationwide by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups.

The Federation of Children’s Book Groups was set up as a charity by Anne Wood, the originator of the Teletubbies. It acts as an umbrella organisation for local Children’s Book Groups all over the UK. The groups organise a variety of activities including author events and other activities that promote the enjoyment of children’s books. The Federation also produces numerous specialist book lists, organises National Share-a-Story Month each May, National Non-Fiction Day each November and holds an annual conference each spring. www.fcbg.org.uk

Red House has created a community to which book-loving parents will want to belong and an environment in which parents can, with confidence, select the books their children will take with them on their reading journey. Red House sifts through the thousands of books published each month and promotes the best through its magazines and website, taking care to select books that children themselves really enjoy. Red House provides choice without confusion, education without boredom, value without obligation and strives to make books affordable to all, with over 1000 titles half price or less.

Haunted Blog Tour: Guest Post by Philip Reeve

2011-10-31T08:00:00.005Z

Short stories are great! Especially those of the spooky kind. I remember reading through many an anthology of ghost stories as a child, but these days it seems that many young people prefer longer novels and there are only a minority of these compilations published each year. Back in September Andersen Press published Haunted, a superb anthology of ghost stories written by some of the biggest names in children's literature today. This book includes tales by the likes of Derek Landy (author of Skulduggery Pleasant), Robin Jarvis (author of Dancing Jax and many others), Joseph Delaney (author of the Spooks series), and many others, including the legend that is Philip Reeve. Yes, the Mortal Engines Philip Reeve! Thus I am more than a little excited that I am today hosting a guest post by Philip about his beloved Dartmoor. Not only that, there are also a couple of stunning photos taken by Sarah Reeve, as well as a special video produced by Philip's friend, author and illustrator Sarah McIntyre (look really closely - is that a ghost in one of the images in the video?).

Haunted Dartmoor

Dartmoor, where I live, is ghost country. You might not notice it if you see it in the summertime, when bracken greens and softens the steep hillsides, and the moorland car-parks are filled with picnicking visitors and greedy ponies hoping for a crisp. On wire racks outside the shops and cafes in Widecombe you’ might find little books of ‘Dartmoor Ghost Stories’, but they seem like pretty thin stuff: well-worn tales of phantom monks and spectral huntsmen, and the ‘hairy hands’ which are supposed to appear and grip the steering wheels of cars on the lonely road from Postbridge to Princetown, causing them to swerve off the road (that one always sounds to me like an excuse some local farmer invented after he drove into a ditch on his way home from the Warren House Inn). These are processed ghosts, served up for the tourist industry, and unlikely to scare anybody nowadays.

But come the autumn, when the leaves turn and the nights draw in and the bones of the landscape start to show through the thinning trees, then the true, spooky nature of the moor shows too. In low light or sudden mists it’s hard to tell the scale of things; those figures on the skyline that you think are a line of walkers turn out to be standing stones, set up some time in the bronze-age, forming an avenue that leads from nowhere to nowhere through the heather. The tangled woods are full of secret movements. In one of them, Wistman’s Wood, legend has it that the devil kennels his pack of ghostly hounds under the boulders which lie tumbled between the roots of the gnarled and stunted oak trees. I don’t believe in the devil, or ghosts, or anything supernatural, but when you’re alone there in autumn it’s easy to imagine that there’s something down among the shaggy moss and leaf mould and dead branches, watching... It’s not unfriendly, perhaps, but it’s as old as the moor itself, and it’s definitely nothing human. That’s where my story The Ghost Wood in the Haunted anthology comes from: it’s a little gust of autumn wind, blowing down off Dartmoor on Hallowe’en...

Photo by Sarah Reeve

Video by Sarah McIntyre

~~~

Huge thanks to Philip, Sarah and Sarah for taking the time to produce this piece for The Book Zone. However, before I go I guess you might be wanting to hear my thoughts about the anthology in more detail, so please read on for my brief review.

This book is perfect for Hallowe'en, and for any other time of the year if you love a spooky ghost story. I think what I liked most about Haunted was the way each of the eleven authors brought something very different to the mix. Some of the stories have touches of dark humour, some of them are straight pee-your-pants scary, but every single one of them makes for a great spooky read and Andersen Press have done a sterling job in collecting such a fantastic group of authors and their stories together.

I am still undecided as to which one is my favourite in the anthology. Philip's tale, The Ghost Wood, is not as scary as some of the others, but it made me think about the ancient power that could still lie within our land, despite all that has happened to it since the Industrial Revolution. Mal Peet's story, Good Boy, will have your heart in your mouth whilst reading it, worrying what will happen to main character Katie, and Eleanor Updale's The Ghost in the Machine is very clever and possibly unlike any ghost story you have ever read as it deals with haunting through the internet. For the 'sheer terror award' I think that Susan Cooper's The Caretakers is definitely in with a shout of first prize, but if I was tied to chair and threatened by a particularly nasty ghost in order to help me make my mind up I think my favourite of the anthology would have to be Derek Landy's Songs the Dead Sing. Readers of The Book Zone will know I am a huge fan of Derek's Skulduggery Pleasant series, for both its horror element and its brilliant use of humour, and both of these are present in his Haunted short story.

This book is a treat for fans of both short stories and horror fiction and if you have left it late to buy someone an All Hallow's Read then this is well worth buying. My thanks go to the good people at Andersen Press for sending me a copy and for arranging for Philip to write the guest post for us. If your appetite for all things spooky as been whetted then you can read a serialisation of Jamila Gavin's short story, The Blood Line, over at The Guardian by clicking here.

My All Hallow's Read by Steve Feasey (author of the Changeling series)

2011-10-30T18:45:00.000Z

At the beginning of the month I blogged about Neil Gaiman's fantastic All Hallow's Read idea. Judging by the number of times it is getting mentioned on Twitter it sounds as if the 'tradition' is really taking off this year, especially over in the US. My All Hallow's Reads gifts have been dispatched to various households around the UK, and I know that many others have been doing the same. Perhaps we can make this just as big on this side of the Atlantic over the next few years.

What would you All Hallow's Read be? Changeling author Steve Feasey has kindly joined us here on The Book Zone to tell us about his choice.

~~~

The book that I’m going to recommend for All Hallow’s Read is Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg. I read this book while on a caravanning holiday with my family when I was about 14. I was reading a mixture of books at the time, and I thought this would be the perfect thing to bridge the gap between my love of horror and my newly blossoming liking for crime thrillers.

During the holiday, my family would often go to the club on the caravan site, and having seen my mother do the Birdy Song dance once was enough to make this teenage boy decide to boycott the place for the remainder of the stay. I found myself alone in the caravan with Hjortsberg’s book. To say the experience of reading it alone there, with the sea wind rocking the entire structure back and forth, added to the fear the book instilled in me would be the understatement of the century!

It’s a brilliantly written novel, and having seen the film adaptation, Angel Heart, since reading it, I was extremely glad that the book came to me before the film. Written in a Chandleresque, hard-boiled detective novel style, the basic premise is that a private eye is hired by an enigmatic and sinister client to find a missing person. The investigation quickly turns into a living nightmare as our hero, Harold Angel, gets drawn into a world of dark forces that he can’t even begin to understand.

The twist at the end is, for those who haven’t seen the film, simply brilliant.

Not an easy read, but well worth the effort for lovers of dark fiction.

~~~

Spooky Reads For Hallowe'en

2011-10-30T15:11:00.000Z

'Tis Hallowe'en tomorrow and I thought it would be a little remiss of me if I didn't highlight some of the great spooky reads that I have had the pleasure of reading over the past year or so. Naturally, the books I discussed this time last year are still must-reads for all young horror fans, and you can read about them here. And if you're not a horror fan, or have read them already, why not give one as an All Hallow's Read.

Department 19 by Will Hill

In a secret supernatural battle that's been raging for over a century, the stakes have just been raised – and they're not wooden anymore.

When Jamie Carpenter's mother is kidnapped by strange creatures, he finds himself dragged into Department 19, the government's most secret agency.

Fortunately for Jamie, Department 19 can provide the tools he needs to find his mother, and to kill the vampires who want him dead. But unfortunately for everyone, something much older is stirring, something even Department 19 can't stand up against…

I do not think I will ever get tired of shouting about just how brilliant this action horror story is. If you have not yet discovered it then where have you been hiding since April? The sequel, The Rising, is out next March - I wonder how many times I will have re-read this by then?

Dancing Jax by Robin Jarvis

At the end of a track, on the outskirts of an ordinary coastal town, lies a dilapidated house. Once, a group of amateur ghost hunters spent the night there. Two of them don’t like to speak about the experience. The third can’t speak about it. He went into the basement, you see, and afterwards he screamed so hard and so long he tore his vocal cords.

Now, a group of teenagers have decided to hang out in the old haunted house. Dismissing the fears of the others, their leader Jezza goes down into the basement… and comes back up with a children’s book, full of strange and colourful tales of a playing-card world, a fairytale world, full of Jacks, Queens and Kings, unicorns and wolves.

But the book is no fairytale. Written by Austerly Fellows, a mysterious turn-of-the-century occultist, it just might be the gateway to something terrifying…and awfully final. As the children and teenagers of the town are swept up by its terrible power, swept into its seductive world, something has begun that could usher in hell on earth. Soon, the only people standing in its way are a young boy with a sci-fi obsession, and his dad – an unassuming maths teacher called Martin…

Robin Jarvis is a legend and this is just the latest in a long line of outstanding books by him. He doesn't really see his writing as horror but Dancing Jax will hit you on a psychological level and haunt your thoughts for weeks afterwards. I had the pleasure of meeting Robin at a HarperCollins bloggers' tea last week and it is hard to believe that such a nice man could write such scary books. If you have not yet read his Tales from the Wyrd Museum trilogy then make that a priority as well - the books are in the process of being re-released and every one of them is a great scary read.

Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough

When Cora and her little sister Mimi are sent to stay with their elderly aunt in the isolated village of Bryers Guerdon, they receive a less than warm welcome, and are desperate to go back to London. But Auntie Ida's life was devastated the last time two young girls were at Guerdon Hall, and now her nieces' arrival has reawoken an evil that has lain waiting for years.

A haunting voice in an empty room ... A strange, scarred man lurking in the graveyard ... A mysterious warning, scrawled on the walls of the abandoned church . . . Along with Roger and Peter, two young village boys, Cora must uncover the horrifying truth that has held Bryers Guerdon in its dark grip for centuries - before it is too late for Mimi.

An old-school ghost story that is guaranteed to scare your socks off. I know a number of other bloggers who have struggled to sleep after making the mistake of reading this one at night.

CRYPT: The Gallows Curse by Andrew Hammond

Meet Jud Lester: Star agent with CRYPT, the Covert Response Youth Paranormal Team.

When a crime is committed and the police are at a loss, CRYPT is called in to figure out whether something paranormal is at work. Jud is their star agent.
Jud, unwillingly paired with new recruit Bex, has just landed his biggest case yet ... people have been disappearing in mysterious circumstances while others are viciously attacked - yet there are no suspects and a complete lack of hard evidence. The only thing that links each attack is the fact that survivors all claim that the culprits were 17th century highwaymen.

Can Jud and Bex work out what has caused the spirits of these dangerous men to return to the streets of London before they wreak more death and destruction?

This is the first in a series from debut YA author Andrew Hammond and comes packed with some great action scenes as well as enough gore and horror to keep fans of the genre salivating for more.

The Shadowing: Hunted by Adam Slater

Its head was a mass of wet, gleaming veins and cartilage, muscle and teeth - a face without skin or form. The creature held Callum's gaze with its unblinking eyes. And then the hideous face changed. Every hundred years the gateway opens between their world and ours. The hunt is on. No one is safe. The Shadowing is coming . . .

Another 'first in a series' book and I loved it. What's more, the sequel, Skinned, has already been released and is even better and scarier than the first book.

Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

Nearly fourteen years ago a freak virus swept across the world turning those infected from the living into the undead. Benny Imura has grown-up never knowing anything different; his last memories of his parents tainted by the image of them becoming zombies. Now Benny is fifteen, and his brother Tom wants him to join the "family business" and train as a zombie killer. The last thing Benny wants is to work with Tom --- but at least the job should be an easy ride. Then the brothers head into the Rot and Ruin, an area full of wandering zombies, and Benny realises that being a bounty hunter isn't just about whacking zombies. As he's confronted with the truths about the world around him, Benny finds his beliefs challenged and makes the most terrifying discovery of all, that sometimes the worst monsters you can imagine, are human...

If you like zombie stories then this is a must buy for you. If you don't like zombie stories then this is still a must buy - yes it has some gory moments, and the occasional swear word, but it is much more than a horror story - it is a tale about two brothers working together to overcome a great evil, and a fantastic study in what makes us human in a world gone crazy. I have not yet read the sequel, Dust and Decay, but I can see it on my shelf screaming "read me or else....".

Blood Ninja by Nick Lake

Taro is a boy from a coastal village in rural Japan, fated to become a fisherman like his father. But in just one night, Taro's world is turned upside down - and his destiny is changed forever. Skilled in the art of silent and deadly combat, ninjas are the agents of powerful nobles who rule sixteenth-century Japan. So why did a group of these highly trained assassins creep into a peasant's hut and kill Taro's father? And why did one ninja rescue Taro from their clutches, saving his life at enormous cost? Now on the run with this mysterious saviour and his best friend Hiro, Taro is determined to learn the way of the ninja to avenge his father's death. But if they are to complete their perilous journey, Taro must first evade the wrath of the warring Lords, decipher an ancient curse, resist forbidden love - and come to terms with the blood-soaked secrets of a life lived in moonlight.

I can't believe I didn't include this is last year's list of Hallowe'en recommended reads. Ninjas + Vampires + Samurai = lots of bloodsplattering win! I have just read the sequel, Lord Oda's Revenge, and it is just as good, and even more gory, then the first book. Watch this space for my review.

~~~

If you love your horror then I hope there is something there that appeals to you. Have a great Hallowe'en!

Scream Street Blog Tour

2011-10-29T08:00:00.002+01:00

Scream Street author and all round top bloke Tommy Donbavand has written an exclusive Scream Street short story that is being serialised across a number of blogs as part of his celebrating the release of the thirteenth and final Scream Street book, Flame of the Dragon. If this is news to you then head on over to the Scream Street website to read the first chapter, and then follow the link given to find chapter two.

Chapter Eleven

The Pet

Henry reappeared through the fence piece by piece, looking like a child’s rubber toy that had been overstretched to the point of breaking.

“How was that?” he asked.

Luke, Resus and Cleo stared at the phantom in horror. His face sagged dramatically to one side, his stomach bulged over the waistband of his trousers and his arms were now so long that they dragged on the ground as he walked.

“Yikes!” exclaimed Resus. “It might be an idea to stick to open doors for the time being.”

A pale shadow fell over the group as they grabbed bits of Henry and tried to reshape him. “When you’ve all finished mucking around,” snarled Mr Aspin, “it’s time for Henry’s first test!”

“Yes, sir,” croaked Henry, finally looking more or less like himself again. “Whatever you say, sir.”

The phantom president consulted his clipboard. “The first challenge is for Harper to Petrify a Pet...”

“Well, that shouldn’t be too hard,” said Cleo. “Cats and dogs have a sixth sense about ghosts. They frequently see things that people can’t.”

“The problem is,” said Luke, “that I haven’t seen Shan the witch’s cat around for ages, and the only dogs in Scream Street are Sir Otto’s hellhounds.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere near them.” Henry quivered. “They scare me!”

“Wait,” said Resus. “The rule is that Henry has to scare a pet, right?”

“That’s right,” said Aspin.

“Then it doesn’t have to be cat or a dog.” The vampire beamed. “Follow me...”

They found Fifi Crudley in her garden, playing with her pet mouse. The young bog monster was encouraging the mouse to run from left to right by offering it lumps of cheese.

“There you go,” said Resus.

“A mouse?” scoffed Aspin, flicking through his notes.

“It’s still a pet,” Resus pointed out. “And Henry shouldn’t have to blow too hard in order to give it a scare.”

Mr Aspin, unable to find anything in the rules that forbade a phantom from scaring a mouse, produced a pen and got ready to make notes. “Get on with it,” he growled.

“OK, Henry,” said Cleo. “This is it... Just do your best.”

The phantom nodded nervously and crouched down in front of the mouse. Fifi, unable to see him, continued to make the animal dash back and forth. Frowning in concentration, Henry blew gently.

The mouse stopped, mid-scamper, and turned to face Henry, whiskers twitching.

“It’s working!” hissed Resus. “Blow harder, Henry!”

Henry sucked in a deep lungful of air and blew as hard as he could. The mouse stared at him, blinking in the breeze, then was suddenly lifted off its feet. It flew straight at Fifi, sinking into her gooey stomach with a sickening schlop!

“Squeaker!” screamed Fifi, plunging a fist into the muddy folds of her belly and fishing around for her tiny friend.

The trio were dragging Henry towards the garden gate by the time she pulled the mouse free.

~~~

The story will continue tomorrow over at Trapped By Monsters.

Attention Grabber #3: Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

2011-10-28T08:00:00.002+01:00

Attention Grabber is my new weekly feature where I post what I think is a great opening paragraph to a book, the sort of opening that pulls young readers in and hooks them from the start.

This week's Attention Grabber comes from Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. It was suggested by a couple of other bloggers, but it is so great that I already had it on my list for this feature anyway. It is possibly one of the shortest Attention Grabbers that will appear on The Book Zone, but when I first read it I had one of those almost sit-com-like double takes just to check that I had read it correctly. How could anyone not read on after this first sentence?

It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.

Guest Post by Alexander Gordon Smith (author of the Escape From Furnace books)

2011-10-27T14:11:00.001+01:00

One of my favourite horror authors that I have discovered since starting The Book Zone is Alexander Gordon Smith. I love his Escape From Furnace series and I am constantly recommending them to horror-loving students at school. Some time ago I asked Gordon if he would be interested in writing a guest post about horror for The Book Zone, and what I received is possibly one of the best guest posts I have ever featured here. I asked Gordon at the time if he would be happy for it to be posted nearer Hallowe'en and he thought that this would be a great idea.

H is for Horror

Alexander Gordon Smith

I openly and proudly admit that I am a horror writer. I love horror, for so many reasons. For a start, it is the most unrestrictive genre because there are no rules – literally anything can happen in a horror story. I don’t think any other genre of writing gives you the same unlimited scope, the same opportunity to push your imagination right to the edge, and then over. I love that sense of freedom!

But I mainly love horror because to me it is the most human of genres. That may sound a little weird, considering that horror stories often involve things that have fur or fangs or tentacles (or worse), but let me start with a complaint. I do events in schools all year round, and quite often (maybe ten times a year) a teacher or parent will come up to me, looking very stern, and say something along the lines of “I really don’t think horror is appropriate for teenagers.” Some reel off the things in my books that they disapprove of (gun fights, explosions, riots, stabbings, sinister experiments, monsters ripping limbs off people, mutant killer dogs, freaks in gas masks dragging prisoners off to their doom in the blood drenched tunnels of Furnace, etc). Some even go on to suggest I write “nice” books that won’t put ideas into children’s heads or make them go off and do horrible things.

In such cases I explain to these people that they have totally missed the point.

Furnace is a book where bad things happen, yes. Terrible things. Gallons of blood is spilled, limbs and lives are lost with alarming frequency, terrifying creatures stalk the cells at night and, later on in the series, millions of innocent people perish in gruesome fashion. But nowhere in the books is this violence and terror glamourized. In fact, as with almost all stories in this genre, the purpose of it is to bring out the best in your characters – because with horror comes humanity.

At its heart, the Furnace series is a story about friendship and courage, about heroism and hope, and about love too – not the smoochy “love” of certain popular YA books, but the love you have for a brother, a best friend, the love that keeps you standing shoulder to shoulder with someone even when the battle looks lost. At the start of the story Alex is a criminal and a bully. And inside Furnace he has to commit much worse crimes to stay alive. But the horror of what happens makes him a better person because he comes to understand that without courage, without friendship, without hope, he will lose himself to the nightmare of the prison and the warden’s devastating plans.

In short, when things are at their very worst we see people at their very best. That’s why horror is such a powerful genre, because it reveals the hero inside all of us, even when that hero is buried so deep we think it doesn’t exist – just like with Alex at the start of the book. When characters are threatened with violence they show tolerance and perseverance and forgiveness (as well as kick-assedness), when they are face to face with their nightmares they show boundless courage, when they are confronted by evil – whether it is age-old and world-ending or simply human cruelty – they show goodness, the inhumanity of their world brings out their humanity, and at the very end of things, when all seems lost, they have hope. These things don’t come easily, of course, the characters have to fight for them and they don’t always win. But essentially it is the horror of their story that saves them.

And as to whether or not horror is suitable for children and teenagers, I would argue that reading a good horror story is an essential part of growing up! Fear as an emotion is older than we are as a species, we once needed it for our very survival because the hormonal rush it gave us turned us into superhumans. Nowadays we spend less time running away from lions, but fear – and the knowledge that we can overcome it – is still an important part of growing up. Reading horror stories gives us a taste of what it is like to face up to danger, to be challenged and victorious, tested and triumphant. This is why I was so addicted to horror as a teenager, I think, because I needed to know that I could face the challenges of growing up. I needed to know that I had the strength to survive. Horror stories give us the confidence to live life the way we want to, the same way fairy tales implant vital lessons in the unconscious minds of young children. They let us know that we have what it takes to be our own heroes.

I have a friend who once complained that writing horror was cheating, that all we do is say “boo” and expect the reader to spend the whole book running away screaming. But he got it wrong too, because horror isn’t about running away. It is never about running away. It is about standing up to your fears, it is about how to confront and triumph and survive and grow. We do say “boo”, but what we really want is for the reader to say “boo” back, because that’s what horror does (for characters and readers alike) – it scares us, but in doing so it makes us stronger.

And that’s what I always try to tell people who moan that horror is simply violence, terror and rampant gore. H is for Horror, yes, but is also stands for Heroism, Humanity and Hope.

~~~

Huge, huge thanks to Alexander Gordon Smith for taking the time to write this post. I am often questioned by friends as to why I like reading horror books and watching horror films and Gordon has said it far more eloquently than I ever could. If you are a fan of the Furnace books then the Furnace novella that I blogged about a while ago is now available to read online (but sadly not to buy for kindle over here in the UK). To read The Night Children click here.

Review: This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel

2011-10-25T21:42:00.000+01:00

The purest intentions can stir up the darkest obsessions.

In this prequel to Mary Shelley's gothic classic, Frankenstein, 16-year-old Victor Frankenstein begins a dark journey that will change his life forever. Victor's twin, Konrad, has fallen ill, and no doctor is able to cure him. Unwilling to give up on his brother, Victor enlists his beautiful cousin Elizabeth and best friend Henry on a treacherous search for the ingredients to create the forbidden Elixir of Life. Impossible odds, dangerous alchemy and a bitter love triangle threaten their quest at every turn.

Victor knows he must not fail. But his success depends on how far he is willing to push the boundaries of nature, science, and love - and how much he is willing to sacrifice.

Back in July I was one of a number of bloggers invited to a bloggers' brunch held by the nice people at Random House Children's Books. During their presentation about their forthcoming titles there was one book that really stood out for me: This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel. I first stumbled across Mr Oppel's work through his brilliant Airborn (and sequels), and with his writing talent now being focused on a prequel to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein how could I be anything but very excited?

This excitement was not misplaced. I had expected a dark, gothic horror-based story but instead I got so much more. The horror element is more psychological than most stories of this genre written for teens these days - rather than gore it relies on steadily building tension through some pretty dark scenes, interwoven between scenes of pure action and adventure, with a smattering of romance thrown in for good measure. However, for those of you who hate the 'R' word it is an essential part of the story, and anyway it is certainly not the sort of romance that will have boys throwing the book across the room in despair.

This Dark Endeavour tells the story of young Victor Frankenstein and his twin brother, Konrad. Just as with many twins, the two boys differ in personality quite considerably: Konrad is the laid-back, confident one who seems to be good at everything he lends his hand to, whilst Victor often feels in his shadow. This feeling of inadequacy grows even more in Victor's mind when he discovers that his growing love for his cousin Elizabeth is not reciprocated, and instead she and Konrad are fast becoming an item. Despite their differences though, Victor and Konrad and very close and when Konrad falls dangerously ill with some mysterious condition Victor will do anything to try to make in better.

I am not an expert on the period in which the story is set so I am not able to comment on the accuracy of the author's historical detailing. However, accurate or not, the quality of his prose gave me a very real sense of being there in eighteenth century Switzerland. It was a time when science, religion and superstition were 'battling it out' for supremacy in the minds of many of the inhabitants of Europe, and despite the massive leaps that were being made in the various fields of science there was still a belief by some in the ancient study of alchemy. Early on in the story Victor stumbles across a hidden 'Dark Library' within the family home, a room lined with shelves full of mysterious, heretical and potentially dangerous books. When it seems that no doctor is able to cure his brother, it is to one of these such books that he turns, and from this moment the story starts to be engulfed by a sinister darkness.

To outline the adventures that Victor embarks upon in search of the ingredients he requires in order that a potion can be made would be to spoil the story for you. There are moments where you would be hiding behind a cushion if this were a film or TV drama, but where another author may have created a little more blood splatter, Oppel relies purely on his ability to get into the minds of his readers, much as Mary Shelley did with her original story. In fact, on finishing this I immediately re-read her story (yet again), and with this as a comparison I felt that Mr Oppel had done a great job of protraying the voice of the young Victor Frankenstein.

If you want something a little more challenging and psychologically scary than the likes of Higson and Shan for your Hallowe'en reading (or for that matter at any time of the year) then you really should give this book a try. I believe it is the first book in a pair of stories, and I for one am really looking forward to seeing where Mr Oppel takes us next. My thanks go to the good people at David Fickling Books for sending me this book to review.

Second Blogoversary (with Bumper Hallowe'en Book Giveaway to Celebrate)

2011-10-22T10:59:00.003+01:00

The Book Zone (For Boys) is two years old today. It has been another year with some incredible highs, but also one or two lows where I have almost packed the whole thing in due to the pressures of work. I look back over the past year and I am still disappointed when I see months where I couldn't write as many reviews as I wanted to, and I feel like I have let down some of the incredibly generous publishers who sent me books around that time. I guess this is a feeling I will have to get used to though as writing this blog has become almost like an addiction and I'm not sure I could pack it in for good. maybe it is time to find someone else to give me a hand?

As ever, my huge thanks go to the authors and publishers that have made this past year so enjoyable again by keeping my supplied with books and taking the time to answer my interview questions, as well as to the other bloggers out there who have been a constant source of inspiration and guidance. However, (and please forgive me for repeating the words I used twelve months ago) my greatest thanks go to the readers of this blog, whether you are boys, girls, parents, teachers, librarians, book lovers, or a combination of the above - thanks you for reading and I hope you will stay around for another year at least.

As a special birthday celebration I have a fantastic prize up for grabs, and as it is nearly Hallowe'en it just had to be horror related. I have been sorting through my books and seem to have a number of double copies, and so one lucky reader of The Book Zone could win the following:

Department 19 by Will Hill (signed copy)

Dancing Jax by Robin Jarvis (signed copy)

The Dead Ways by Christopher Edge

CRYPT: The Gallows Curse by Andrew Hammond

Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough

White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick

The Dead of Winter by Chris Priestley

Crawlers by Sam Enthoven
Birth of a Killer by Darren Shan

and possibly more. I am going to continue adding to the list as I sort out more books from the piles around the house.

To be in with a chance of winning all of these books just fill in the form below by the competition deadline of 8pm GMT Friday 28th October 2011.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Loading...&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

Contest open to UK residents only.
Neither the author or I will not be held responsible for items lost in the mail.
I hold the right to end a contest before its original deadline without any prior notice.
I hold the right to disqualify any entry as I see fit.
I will contact winning entrants for their postal address following the close of the competition. Winners have 48 hours to reply. Failure to do so in this time will result in another winner being randomly selected.

Attention Grabber #2: Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide by William Hussey

2011-10-21T08:00:00.001+01:00

Attention Grabber is my new weekly feature where I post what I think is a great opening paragraph to a book, the sort of opening that pulls young readers in and hooks them from the start.

This week's Attention Grabber is the one I had originally intended to launch this feature with, and it comes from Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide by William Hussey. If any of my students start a story with "It was a dark, stormy night" I immediately direct them towards this:

‘HELP! Someone – anyone –please, help me!’

A roar of thunder drowned out Luke’s cries. Step by stumbled step, the strangers dragged him across the bay. The boy’s pyjamas dripped with rain and his bare toes squelched in the wet sand. A rope had been tied around his wrists and, with every tug, he looked up at the figures that held his leash. Robed and hooded, the strangers appeared ghostly in the moonlight.

‘Who are you? Where are you taking me?’

No answer – just the rumble of the sea, the screech of the wind and the whip-crack of lightning.

Review: The Isle of Blood by Rick Yancey (The Monstrumologist Book 3)

2011-10-18T08:00:00.002+01:00

When Dr. Warthrop goes hunting the “Holy Grail of Monstrumology” with his eager new assistant, Arkwright, he leaves Will Henry in New York. Finally, Will can enjoy something that always seemed out of reach: a normal life with a real family. But part of Will can’t let go of Dr. Warthrop, and when Arkwright returns claiming that the doctor is dead, Will is devastated–and not convinced.

Determined to discover the truth, Will travels to London, knowing that if he succeeds, he will be plunging into depths of horror worse than anything he has experienced so far. His journey will take him to Socotra, the Isle of Blood, where human beings are used to make nests and blood rains from the sky–and will put Will Henry’s loyalty to the ultimate test.

Like many fans of Rick Yancey's Monstrumologist series I was truly gutted when I read that his publisher had decided not to extend his contract beyond three books. From what I could make out, this decision came quite late, after Mr Yancey had completed the third book, thus not giving him the opportunity to finish telling the story of Will Henry. Of course, this rather low moment was followed several weeks later by a massive high when it was announced that Simon and Schuster had decided to extend the author's contract to a fourth and final book in this most fantastic of horror series. With my objective hat on I can sort of understand why the series has not sold as well as the author and publisher had hoped: it is simply too good. It would appear that there is more money in selling a multitude of Twilight wannabes, rather than truly literate, complex horror stories that have more in common with Shelley's Frankenstein and Stoker's Dracula than most of the mass-market (but top selling) rubbish that has saturated the market in recent years, especially in the US.

The Isle of Blood is nothing short of being a masterpiece of horror literature, and is definitely my favourite in an already outstanding series. It is the kind of book that takes over all of your waking thoughts, and then invades your dreams, turning them into the most horrific of nightmares. And I had thought the first two books in the series were pretty damn scary! I think what makes this book stand out as my favourite is that this now really is Will's story. Despite Will being the narrator, the first two books were very much about his mentor, Pellinore Warthrop. This is a man who is incredibly driven, but also tragically haunted, a man whose personality is so complex it almost puts the likes of Sherlock Holmes in the shade as a literary character. In The Isle of Blood Will is abandoned by his mentor, and with him taken out of Warthrop's sphere of influence for the first time we start to see what makes him tick as a person in his own right. However, when given the opportunity to live a normal life, with an adopted family and a proper education, what will he choose? Has he already spent too long with Warthrop?

Anybody who has read the first two books in this series will already know that Will has been to some pretty dark places so far. However, they are as nothing compared with the darkness that faces him in The Isle of Blood, and the life-changing decisions he is forced to make. The horror in this book is not just about monsters as the events that seem to unfurl like a tsunami, carrying Will along with an unstoppable force, had a huge impact on my emotions and scared me more than some of the more horror-laden scenes. Perhaps this was the teacher part of me, witnessing a first hand the tragic loss of innocence that this eager and bright young man experiences.

Rick Yancey has so far provided us with two incredibly nasty monsters: the anthropophagi of the first book and the wendigo of the second. Both of these pale into insignificance in comparison with the magnificum of this book. Without giving too much away this is an organism that could have devastating consequences on a global scale, simply by the briefest of contact with a tiny amount of fluid known as pwdre ser (even typing that simple phrase is enough to send shivers down my spine now - google it and be even more afraid). To say any more would be to spoil the story as you really need to read this in its entirety to fully experience the impact this creature will have on your thoughts.

Before I sign off I wanted to bring you a moment of humour from this book that made me chuckle out loud. Will Henry's narration is laced with a number of dry, and very dark, bon mots, and this is a perfect example of such. When asked by Warthrop whether he should "cut the torso in half, at the seventh thoracic vertebra", Will Henry narrates:

"I confessed I did not have an opinion; I was only thirteen, and this was my very first dismemberment".

I have no doubt in my mind at all that if the publisher had rebranded this as a series of adult books, with a high profile marketing campaign, then they would have been begging Mr Yancey to write far beyond his contracted first three books. My thanks go to the good people at Simon and Schuster for sending me a copy to review. If you love horror, and feel that other books do not challenge you enough, then please give this series a go before you leave YA behind and move on to books aimed at the adult market.