The Alcatraz Series by Brandon Sanderson

On his thirteenth birthday, Alcatraz - a foster child - gets a bag of sand in the mail which purports to be his 'inheritance' sent from his father and mother. The Librarians, of course, immediately steal the bag of sand from him.

This sparks a chain of events which leads Alcatraz to realize that his family is part of a group of freedom fighters who resist the Evil Librarians - the secret cult who actually rule the world. Alcatraz's grandfather shows up and tows him off to infiltrate the downtown library to steal back the mystical bag of sand. The ensuing story involves talking dinosaurs, sentient romance novels, and a dungeon-like labyrinth hiding beneath the innocent-looking downtown library.

Under 14s Only Month was great fun, but due to work (yes, same old excuse again) I didn't manage to review anywhere near as many books as I had planned. I have therefore decided to extend it a little into December, and at least get close to clearing the pile of books in front of me that require reviews.

Back in 2012 the lovely people from Gollancz emailed me asking if I would be interested in reading The Complete Alcatraz by Brandon Sanderson. A quick scan of the publicity material showed this to be a single volume collection of a quadrilogy of stories that had been published in the US between 2007 and 2010. However, that same scan also mentioned that there were 750+ pages in said collection, and as ever my TBR pile was already close to critical mass and I had to decline the offer. Fast forward to the beginning of 2013 and those fab people at Orion sent me a copy of Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians, with a great new cover design and with plans to release the three sequels as separate volumes, and I was hooked.

Alcatraz is a walking disaster. He has moved from foster parent to foster parent, often leaving havoc in his wake as he has a habit of breaking things purely by accident. Unfortunately for Alcatraz no one ever believes these accidents are accidents and so he gets labelled as a problem child. On his 13th birthday he receives an unusual package - a less than exciting bag of sand, supposedly an inheritance left to him by his biological parents. The next morning his grandfather, who he has no recollection of ever meeting, suddenly appears on the scene, and before he knows it Alcatraz is drawn into an ancient battle of good versus evil librarians. 

It would appear that everything Alcatraz thinks he knows about his world is actually a huge pile of lies and misinformation, fabricated by the forces of the evil Librarians of the book's title. Grandpa Smedry also informs Alcatraz that his innate ability for accidental destruction is not a curse, but is in fact his Smedry talent, and a very rare one at that. All of the Smedrys have similarly bizarre talents, including always being late, getting lost and falling over, to name but a few.

I'm sure you've guessed by now that this is not your normal, run-of-the-mill fantasy story, and this is made very clear from the opening 'author's' foreword. The story is told by Alcatraz himself, and he does so with a heavy dose of sarcasm, a liberal sprinkling of jocularity, a soupçon of cynicism and an undercurrent of dry wit throughout. He also has a habit of playing storytelling 'tricks' on his readers, keeping them on their toes, and interspersing plot developments with (at the time) seemingly irrelevant rants on whatever subject takes his fancy. I found all of this quite unique, entertaining and I found myself regularly chuckling away. However, at the same time I was fully aware that some people might find the humor and style of narration more than a little irritating, and I have to say that these books are definitely not for everyone. I reckon they are a little like marmite - most adults will either love them or hate them, but these books were written for younger readers, and with this in mind I feel they are likely to be very popular with aged 11-14 kids who love off-the-wall comedy. Not only are they very funny, but they are well paced, full of great action and some cracking magical fight scenes, and the world-building is as accomplished as you would expect from a writer who has made his name writing adult fantasy.

Review: Jack Glass by Adam Roberts (adult book)

Please click on the link below and head on over to my adult book blog - The Book Zone (For Boys) Big Brother - to read my review of Jack Glass by Adam Roberts.

http://bookzonebigbrother.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/review-jack-glass-by-adam-roberts.html

Review: Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch (adult book)

Please click on the link below and head on over to my adult book blog - The Book Zone (For Boys) Big Brother - to read my review of Whispers Under Ground, the third book in Ben Aaronovitch's brilliant fantasy series set in London.

http://bookzonebigbrother.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/review-whispers-under-ground-by-ben.html

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

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!

Review: Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding

Frey is the captain of the Ketty Jay, leader of a small and highly dysfunctional band of layabouts. An inveterate womaniser and rogue, he and his gang make a living on the wrong side of the law, avoiding the heavily armed flying frigates of the Coalition Navy. With their trio of ragged fighter craft, they run contraband, rob airships and generally make a nuisance of themselves. So a hot tip on a cargo freighter loaded with valuables seems like a great prospect for an easy heist and a fast buck. Until the heist goes wrong, and the freighter explodes. Suddenly Frey isn't just a nuisance anymore - he's public enemy number one, with the Coalition Navy on his tail and contractors hired to take him down. But Frey knows something they don't. That freighter was rigged to blow, and Frey has been framed to take the fall. If he wants to prove it, he's going to have to catch the real culprit. He must face liars and lovers, dogfights and gunfights, Dukes and daemons. It's going to take all his criminal talents to prove he's not the criminal they think he is . . .

Back in July I went to a blogger event held by Orion to promote their new YA imprint, Indigo. At this event we were informed that Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding was going to be reissued under the Indigo banner in January 2012, and this reminded me that I had a copy of the Gollancz edition sitting patiently on one of my shelves waiting to be read. At that moment I promised myself that no matter how big my To Be Read pile was I would read it over the school summer holidays. I bought it some time ago after having read the publisher's blurb on Amazon, and several glowing reviews that suggested it might appeal to my somewhat simple tastes in stories: lots of action, swashbuckling adventure, sky pirates, and so on.

Why it has sat there so long unread I do not know, especially as Chris Wooding wrote the totally brilliant The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray. Perhaps it is down to the F-word that it has been categorised under. yes, I am talking about Fantasy. You may have seen me say in the past that I am not a fan of fantasy novels for adults; some that I have tried in the dim and distant past seemed overlong, far too wordy, and worst of all, they took themselves far too seriously. And so this is a genre that has tended to get overlooked when I have chosen books in the past, for fear that I would pick up a dull, tedious tome rather than a glittering gem. Fortunately, Retribution Falls is one of the latter and I loved it form the very first page.

The reason Indigo are re-releasing it as a YA book is that their research has suggested that it has already become popular with fantasy-loving teens, and I am not surprised. As I have mentioned before, my experience at school tends to suggest that confident reader boys quite often skip the whole Young Adult thing, expecting it to be aimed more at girls, and instead jump straight to adult books, be they by the likes of Andy McNab, Dan Brown, Stephen King and so on. In the case of fantasy, they often dabble with Terry Pratchett along the way, before moving onwards and upwards. Retribution Falls fits perfectly into that middle ground of is it a YA book or is it an adult book, and can be enjoyed equally by both in my opinion.

What I loved most about this book is that it never takes itself too seriously. There are no lengthy drawn-out passages about the flora and fauna of the world that Chris Wooding has created; nor do we have to sit through page after page explaining the political history of the world and its various factions; in fact, world building in this case is not a particularly strong point of the book and I was surprised to find myself wanting to find out a little more the setting of the story at times. However, I gather there is a sequel, and a third book due out soon, so I hope that Chris Wooding expands a little on some of his creations in these. However, if I am perfectly honest, if he doesn't my disappointment will probably be very short-lived as long as he delivers a similarly action-packed, fast-paced adventure story. Like I said before, I have simple tastes.

At the beginning of the story we are introduced to Captain Darian Frey, owner of the Ketty Jay, a rather ugly looking skyship, but it is the thing he loves most in the world. In fact, think Han Solo (minus Chewbacca) and his feelings for the Millennium Falcon and you have a pretty good picture. Except that Frey is much harder to like as he is so self-centred he would desert his crew in a moment if it was worth his while. The best way to describe his crew is as a mixed bag of stereotypes, characters we have seen or read about before, whether it be in science fiction, fantasy or even westerns, but despite this occasional feeling of "see it all before" these characters work very well together. I think this is because every one of them is carrying (and hiding) some pretty hefty baggage, some of which is so nasty that they fear telling others will lead to them being jettisoned from the Ketty Jay at the next port, or something even worse. These secrets are gradually revealed throughout the story, and although some of them are pretty simple to guess there are enough elements in their histories to keep readers turning pages to find out more. There are so many cool characters in this book that to start naming them all would take forever; not only do they have cool names (e.g. Samandra Bree), but they have cool sounding 'jobs' (e.g. the Century Knights) and they fly around in cool sounding skyships (e.g. Delirium Trigger).

If, unlike me, you prefer your fantasy books to be deep and meaningful, with the world detailed down to the smallest of minutiae, then this isn't the book for you. However, if as a child you dreamt of being a pirate, or you idolised the roguish Han Solo because he was the bad boy that all the women wanted, or the idea of sword fights and massive sky battles between skyships (not space ships) makes you salivate, then this is a book you really should try. On the rear of the dustwrapper on the edition I have there is a quote from author Peter F. Hamilton which starts: 'Retribution Falls in the kind of old fashioned adventure I didn't think we were allowed to write anymore,' and I think this sums up the story perfectly. I think some people (the ones I said that take things too seriously) forget that reading for some is all about escapism and having fun, it is not always about exploring the depths of one's emotions, or expanding one's knowledge. I am happy to admit that I have never read a Booker Prize winner, and I doubt that will change in a hurry as I would much rather read books like Retribution Falls and now need to get my hands on a copy of the sequel, The Black Lung Captain; I think we have a copy in the school library.

News: Mega-exciting Announcement From Gollancz For Science Fiction Fans

There has been a growing buzz on Twitter today as Jon Weir, Senior Publicity Manager at Gollancz, took great pleasure in building up a frenzy amongst Gollancz's fans as the day progressed. Gollancz is the Science Fiction and Fantasy imprint of the Orion Publishing Group and readers of The Book Zone will know that these are genres that I occasionally read, but I am not necessarily fanatical about. However, and this is the important part, I know a good number of boys at school who love Science Fiction and Fantasy, and when I told my sixth form group that there was a big announcement coming from Gollancz this afternoon a number of the boys in the group (self-proclaimed geeks and proud of it) were demanding more information. The announcement finally came through on Twitter just after their lesson finished, and several of them actually cheered, and one announced that he was now definitely going to get a Kindle! I don;t think I have ever seen them so animated about reading (except possibly when I told them about the DC Reboot).

For Gollancz has today announced the SF Gateway, a project that will bring many out of print classics of the genre into the hands of these boys in digital format. This on a day when a fellow reviewer was asking on Twitter whether there is any good YA science fiction around at the moment, and specifically more space orientated than near future/dystopian. Sadly I wasn't able to recommend many titles, and this is something I have lamented before on The Book Zone, so although we are now talking adult titles, this announcement by Gollancz can only be a good thing for teenage fans of the SFF genres, and they should be applauded for this.

This is the official press release:

Gollancz, the SF and Fantasy imprint of the Orion Publishing Group, announces the launch of the world’s largest digital SFF library, the SF Gateway, which will make thousands of out-of-print titles by classic genre authors available as eBooks. Building on the remarkable success of Gollancz’s Masterworks series, the SF Gateway will launch this Autumn with more than a thousand titles by close to a hundred authors.

It will build to 3,000 titles by the end of 2012, and 5,000 or more by 2014. Gollancz’s Digital Publisher Darren Nash, who joined the company in September 2010 to spearhead the project said, “The Masterworks series has been extraordinarily successful in republishing one or two key titles by a wide range of authors, but most of those authors had long careers in which they wrote dozens of novels which had fallen out of print. It seemed to us that eBooks would offer the ideal way to make them available again. This realization was the starting point for the SF Gateway.” Wherever possible, the SF Gateway will offer the complete backlist of the authors included.

The SF Gateway will be closely integrated with the recently announced new online edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, which provides an independent and definitive reference source of information on the authors and books included. Direct links between the Encyclopedia and the Gateway will provide easy access to eBook editions, for sale through all major online retailers.

The Gateway site will also act as a major community hub and social network for SF readers across the world, allowing them to interact with each other and recommend titles and authors. The site is planned to include forums, blogs, regular promotions, and is envisaged to become the natural home on the net for anyone with an interest in classic SFF.

Authors featured in the launch include such names as Marion Zimmer Bradley, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert, Alice B. Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr), Robert Silverberg, Kate Wilhelm and Connie Willis.

The SF Gateway was conceived by Orion Deputy CEO and Publisher Malcolm Edwards, who commented: “It’s clear that publishers need to show that they can respond to the challenges and opportunities of the digital revolution imaginatively, particularly when it comes to backlist. The SF Gateway is just such a response, creating what we hope will become a destination website which will promote the books and authors it features in an active way. We hope it will not only be a success in its own right, but that it will provide a model for future developments in backlist publishing.”

Built to the latest standards of HTML5 and CSS3, the SF Gateway site will use responsive web design to ensure a rewarding user experience across a range of mobile and desktop platforms and operating systems. Both the SF Gateway and the previously announced Encyclopedia of Science Fiction are being developed by STEEL, a Londonbased full service digital agency with over 15 years experience, whose clients include AOL, BBC Worldwide, Debenhams, FT.com, Greggs and TalkTalk.

The project has been praised by authors for connecting new generations of readers with classic stories they may not, until now, have been able to enjoy.

British Science Fiction Award-winner Alastair Reynolds said: “When I first started reading SF seriously, as a teenager growing up in Wales, one of the first walls I hit was the realisation that many classic and influential works of the field were either out of print or so hard to obtain that they may as well have been. SF is a forward-looking genre but its past has always been as fascinating as its future, and for that reason the SF Gateway is an exciting and groundbreaking venture, which should prove an enormous asset to the field.”

Double Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner Pat Cadigan added: “This is exactly what I've been hoping for now that the digital book is becoming more widespread. I have always said that the eBook will not be the death of the physical book – the eBook will save so many wonderful books from being lost. We have to remember that what we read is the book – what we read it on, whether ink and paper or pixels on a screen, is just the interface. I'm honestly thrilled about this new project and delighted to be on the list.”

The SF Gateway will be officially launched by Gollancz in September as part of the celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of its SF list.

For more information, please go to www.sfgateway.com, where updates on the project will also appear.

SF Gateway is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SFGateway and on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/pages/SF-Gateway/171262786268228

Review: Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

I was my dad's vinyl-wallah: I changed his records while he lounged around drinking tea, and that's how I know my Argo from my Tempo. And it's why, when Dr Walid called me to the morgue to listen to a corpse, I recognised the tune it was playing. Something violently supernatural had happened to the victim, strong enough to leave its imprint like a wax cylinder recording. Cyrus Wilkinson, part-time jazz saxophonist and full-time accountant, had apparently dropped dead of a heart attack just after finishing a gig in a Soho jazz club. He wasn't the first. No one was going to let me exhume corpses to see if they were playing my tune, so it was back to old-fashioned legwork, starting in Soho, the heart of the scene. I didn't trust the lovely Simone, Cyrus' ex-lover, professional jazz kitten and as inviting as a Rubens' portrait, but I needed her help: there were monsters stalking Soho, creatures feeding off that special gift that separates the great musician from someone who can raise a decent tune. What they take is beauty. What they leave behind is sickness, failure and broken lives. And as I hunted them, my investigation got tangled up in another story: a brilliant trumpet player, Richard 'Lord' Grant - my father - who managed to destroy his own career, twice. That's the thing about policing: most of the time you're doing it to maintain public order. Occasionally you're doing it for justice. And maybe once in a career, you're doing it for revenge.

My To Be Read pile is so tall at the moment that it is not often I make time to read a book written for adults these days, although this is a state of affairs that I am working hard to remedy. However, when Moon Over Soho arrived, sent by the ever generous Jon Weir at Gollancz, it was as if that TBR pile no longer existed, and I dropped everything to read it. I loved Rivers of London, the first book in Ben Aaronovitch's urban fantasy trilogy (please, please let this become a series of more than three books), when I read it back in January and I have been waiting eagerly for this sequel ever since, just as I am now piing to read book three, Whispers Under Ground, due to be published in November. Ben Aaronovitch and Gollancz really know how to spoil their readers!

With three books scheduled for publishing in the same year, a small part of me was concerned as to whether the author would be able to maintain the quality he had so skilfully delivered in Rivers of London. I had absolutely nothing to fear at all - Moon Over Soho is easily as good as its predecessor, but with added jazz. I can't claim to be any kind of jazz officiando, but my love of music is second only to my love of books, and I find jazz to be one of the most magical of genres. For me it therefore made the perfect accompaniment to the magic that permeates through London in this story.

The plot of Rivers of London picks up not long after the close of the first book in the series. Peter Grant magical abilities are slowly improving, thanks to the hours of practice he his forced to do by his superior, Inspector Nightingale, whist the latter is forced to take things easy following the injuries he sustained in their previous case. PC Lesley May is also currently on long-term leave, living with her parents in Brightlingsea, as she begins to recover and come to terms with the disfigurement she suffered in that same book. Without his mentor and his closest colleague around to keep an eye on him it was only going to be a matter of time before Peter found himself in some kind of trouble, and before too long he finds himself up to his neck in it.... racing a stolen ambulance through London at night; getting romantically involved with a potential witness; to name but a couple of incidents that would so many young officers booted off the force.

Rivers of London was quite heavy on the details of police procedure, an element that I know some readers felt got in the way of the story, although I found it a really interesting aspect of the story. Moon Over Soho is far more story driven, with the nitty gritty of police work taking more of a back seat, although the author does instead treat us to a plethora of facts about jazz music (no bad thing in my mind) as Peter is drawn into a case where he deduces that someone is killing off the city's jazz musicians by draining the life out of them, a killer he christens the "jazz vampire".

Moon Over Soho is a truly fun read, although it is somewhat darker than its predecessor, and it is also very much an adult book. There are are number of sexual scenes in the story that make it unsuitable for younger teens, and there is also a handful of particularly gory moments. However, older teens who love fantasy and are already moving onto adult books will love it.

Review: Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (aka Midnight Riot in USA)

My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit - we do paperwork so real coppers don't have to - and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from someone who was dead but disturbingly voluable, and that brought me to the attention of Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England. 

Now I'm a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden . . . and there's something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair. 

The spirit of riot and rebellion has awakened in the city, and it's falling to me to bring order out of chaos - or die trying.

During 2010 I read less adult novels than in any year before that since about 1985. With the launch of The Book Zone I wanted to devote a lot of time to the books that I wanted to be the primary focus of the blog, and as such I have shelves bulging with adult novel waiting to be read. At the start of 2011 I resolved to read more adult novels, and also feature some of them on The Book Zone wherever I deemed it appropriate. Boys do, after all, grow up and my experience as a teacher suggests that many of them make a very sudden leap from kids and YA fiction, straight onto the adult stuff, and especially where fantasy and science fiction are concerned. Long time readers of The Book Zone will already know that I have a passion for London, and I totally love good urban fantasy set in this city, with Neverwhere ranking high in my list of all time favourites. I have also greatly enjoyed Kate Griffin's Matthew Swift books and one of my favourite reads of last year was Sarah Silverwood's brilliant The Double-Edged Sword (although admittedly that was written for the YA market), both set in London. Now I have a new favourite to add to the list: Rivers of London, the first book in Ben Aaronovitch's new urban fantasy trilogy (please let it become a series).

Before I go any further let me reiterate: this is an adult book, and as such contains themes, language and scenes that may not be deemed appropriate for the younger market. However, confident reader mid-teens who feel they have grown out of the fantasy stories written for their market will have no problem 'jumping' to this, and loving every moment of it. This is the kind of book I would have loved as an intelligent 15 year old (that sounds a little immodest, but my parents kept telling me I was intelligent so I'll run with it).

Rivers of London is your standard, everyday police procedural novel, and an outstanding example of the genre. Well it would be standard and everyday except for one huge thing - magic is very much alive and well; so much so that the government know about it, the police know about it, and there is even a Chief Inspector who is also a wizard. OK, so he is the only remaining wizard living in the UK, but that just means his role is even more important. Of course, probationary constable Peter Grant is not aware of any of this until very early one Tuesday morning when he is left as the lone guard at the scene of a murder, and a shift looking character calls him over claiming: "I saw the whole thing, squire". Out comes PC Grant's notebook, questions are asked and minutes later Peter finds that this witness is certainly not your average passer-by as he states the reason he cannot accompany Peter to the station to give a statement is: "That would be a bit of a problem, seeing as I'm dead". Yup - he's a ghost, and not the last one that PC Grant is going to come across in this story. Notebook still in hand Peter takes all this in his stride, reasoning that "...just because you've gone mad doesn't mean you should stop acting like a policeman", and it is this attitude that soon has him under the protective wing of Chief Inspector Nightingale, working out of The Folly, a five storey Georgian house in Russell Square.

Peter's investigations open up a whole new world to him. It is a world where vampires exist, magic is practised and the various London rivers have a physical human form (he even falls for one of the younger, more attractive members of the 'family'). I hope you are still reading after my mention of the V-word.... you have no need to worry, as they only make a fleeting appearance in the book and they have little in common with the vampires we have been bored rigid by in certain publications in recent years. It is also a world that can be far more deadly than the one he is used to, a world where a person can be possessed by a malevolent spell or spirit, and have their face rearranged to take the form of Mr Punch, only for said face to pretty much fall off as the spell is broken - yes, gore fans, you will be kept entertained as well.

And yet I still haven't mentioned the real strength of this novel, and this is the humour that Ben Aaronovitch puts in his writing. I remember as a teenager I read Ben Elton's Stark, a book that friends had recommended as being the funniest thing ever, but I found ultimately rather disappointing. Since then I tend to steer away from so-called funny books as I rarely ever find them as funny as they have billed to be (and yes, this includes the works of Terry Pratchett, of which I managed to read a grand total of four before I got bored of the humour), and yet there were moments in Rivers of London where I was laughing out loud, and many other scenes where I was reading with some kind of inane grin on my face, as if I too had been possessed by that very same Mr Punch spell. And by the end of the book I wanted even more, and fortunately for me there are two sequels planned for later in 2011. Yes.... two more books this year - Mr A and Gollancz sure know how to make their readers happy.

Last Monday I was entertained by Mr Aaronovitch on Radio 2's Simon Mayo show as I drove home from work. When asked whether his story had to be set in London, his reply was: "I am a Londoner, I've lived here all my life, and I'm what in another place would be called a patriot so yes, for me it has to be London". And this shows throughout the whole book - this is a story written by someone who knows and loves London with a passion. Mr Aaronovitch knows its history and its folklore, and he makes it the sort of work that makes this non-Londoner yearn to pack up everything and move to the capital. It is also the kind of story that, like Neverwhere, will have you thinking twice about every slightly unusual looking character or strange incident that you spot when you are out and about in the capital.

My thanks go to Jon Weir at Gollancz for sending me a copy of Rivers of London, which was released a couple of weeks ago in the UK, and today sees its official publication over in the USA under the title Midnight Riot. According to Amazon the sequel, Moon Over Soho, will be released in April and the third book, Whispers Under Ground, in November. Should we now be christening 2011 the Year of the Aaronovitch?

Review: The Double-Edged Sword by Sarah Silverwood

'Sixteen's an interesting age: not quite a fully grown man, but not a kid anymore neither. Anything is possible when you're sixteen.' Finmere Tingewick Smith was abandoned on the steps of the Old Bailey. Under the guardianship of the austere Judge Harlequin Brown and the elderly gentlemen of Orrery House, Fin has grown up under a very strange set of rules. He spends alternate years at two very different schools and now he's tired of the constant lies to even his best friends, to hide the insanity of his double life. Neither would believe the truth! But on his sixteenth birthday, everything changes. The Judge is killed, stabbed in the chest with a double-edged sword that's disturbingly familiar, and from that moment on, Fin is catapulted into an extraordinary adventure. Through the Doorway in Fin's London, a hole in the boundaries of Existence, lies another London -- and now both are in grave danger. For the Knights of Nowhere have kidnapped the Storyholder, the keeper of the Five Eternal Stories which weave the worlds together. Because of the Knights' actions, a black storm is coming, bringing madness with it. Fin may be just 16, but he has a long, dark journey ahead of him if he is to rescue the Storyholder and save Existence!


Fan of Young Adult fantasy? Heard about Fierce Fiction yet? If you answered yes to the first and no to the second question then you have a little catching up to do. Fierce Fiction is the banner under which Gollancz are promoting their new YA list, and if all the books on this list are as good as Sarah Silverwood's The Double-Edged Sword then YA fantasy fans are going to be in seventh heaven. When I say fantasy, I'm not talking orcs, elves and goblins fantasy - I'm talking high action urban fantasy (at least as far as this book I have read is concerned).


In a recent blog post for Gollancz Ms Silverwood described her books as being "... about three things that I love - London, friendship and a sense of the magical". Far be it for me, a lowly book blogger, to try to come up with a better description than the author herself - that one line sums up the story brilliantly. Well almost.... it doesn't mention the great characters, the edge-of-your-seat tension, the frenetic action scenes or the wonderful Nowhere - an alternate London that exists in a sort of parallel universe (it's hard to explain - read the book and it becomes clear as crystal).


Main character Fin's life is far from ordinary. He was discovered as a baby, in a cardboard box on the steps of London's Old Bailey. His 'rescuer', a highly respected Judge, became his guardian but along with that there came some rather bizarre decisions regarding Fin's life. Firstly, he attends two different schools, alternating between the two on an annual basis. One is an inner city comprehensive, the other an exclusive private boarding school. Every year he waits at those same steps and meets an old man called Ted, who takes him to visit the elderly gentlemen of Orrery House, the majority of whom are so far gone that they don't even seem to realise he is there. Fin has to keep all of these rules secret from his friends at both schools, and as such as found himself living a lie (or should that be lies?) for most of his life. One friends thinks Fin's father is a spy, the other believe that Fin is the son of a notorious criminal. As with all lies, eventually the truth can come out, but in this case Fin's hand is forced in a way he could never have dreamed.


Fin is a great character - readers will love the element of mystery surrounding his life that they are introduced to right from the very first page. They will question the judge's rules, just as Fin does. They will also very much feel like they are making the journey of discovery with him, every step of the way. At first I found myself frowning to myself and silently questioning a lot of the things that go on in the first third of the book. I felt confused at times, wondering if I was being a little stupid, or whether I had missed something. And then everything all started to come together, and for me this was one of the stand-out aspects of this book. Ms Silverwood does mention things as if the reader should already understand what she is talking about, and as the story progresses the reader finds more questions being unanswered, until suddenly those answers start flooding out of the story. And when these answers and plot explanations came the feeling of revelation was immense. I really felt like I was living the story with Fin and his friends.


The secondary characters are also very well imagined, especially for a book that is first in series. I occasionally find books in this position to be lacking in the development of secondary characters, as the author has to prioritise the development of the main character. However, although we are not necessarily privy to the motivations of all of the characters, we are still given a good picture of what makes them tick. The elderly gentlemen of Orrery House are a great creation - more I will not say as to do so may ruin the scenes they feature in later in the second half of the book. Obviously, the concept of an alternate London brings with it a lot of scope for imaginative and colourful characters and I got the feeling that the author had a lot of fun developing these.


Urban fantasy stories featuring an alternate London, or a London with magical elements, are not uncommon: we have Charlie Fletcher's Stoneheart trilogy; Tom Becker's Darkside series; China Mieville's Un Lun Dun; and Kate Griffin's Matthew Swift series. However, with The Double-Edged Sword Sarah Silverwood brings something new to the party and very welcome it is too. For me London is one of the magical cities in the world and I love stories like this that use it has a setting. Sarah Silverwood does this in a different way to those I have already mentioned - her descriptions of Nowhere are delightful, with city's fabric being a strange mix of a multitude of eras from London past and present, and at the heart of it all the sinister fog-enveloped Thames, almost a living creature itself with the way it can 'call' to unwary passers-by, tempting them into crossing the West Minster Bridge and..........


The Double-Edged Sword is the first book of The Nowhere Chronicles and the author leaves the ending perfectly balanced - events are brought to a satisfying conclusion but we are left with enough burning questions to have us waiting hungrily for the next instalment. According to Amazon the sequel will be entitled The Traitor's Gate and book three The London Stone, to be released in April 2011 and May 2012 respectively - to say I wish it was April 2011 already would be like wishing my life away, but isn't that something we book bloggers seem to do a lot of? My thanks go to the generous people at Gollancz for sending me a copy to review; The Double-Edged Sword is available to buy right in in a hardcover edition, with a stunning dustjacket.