Review: Metawars 2: The Dead Are Rising by Jeff Norton

The Changsphere offers a safe haven for the Uploaded, and with more processing power than the Southern Corner could ever offer, the Uploaded begin to grow, develop, and yearn to be alive again. With the Changsphere offering competition to the Metasphere, more and more avatars take up residency in it. But the Uploaded begin to prey on live avatars, infecting them, and their users, with their personalities and becoming reborn in the real world. The dead are rising. 

Now reborn into the real world, the once dead avatars will not let anyone shut down the Changsphere - the source of their rebirth. Meanwhile, Jonah, Sam, and Axel struggle to keep the Metasphere safe from Granger's assault on the Western Corner, which is housed in the old subway lines under New York City. But Jonah struggles with whether they are doing the right thing: in fighting Granger, they face a more dangerous virtual world, where millions of Uploaded now roam freely, stalking users for their virtual avatars and their real bodies.

Why does the phrase 'more of the same' seem to sound more negative than positive. In my review, I described Fight For The Future, the first book in Jeff Norton's Metawars series, as a "super fast-paced and well plotted story that sucks readers in from the very first chapter" and the sequel is, to coin a phrase, more of the same. So I put it to you that in this case, 'more of the same' is far from negative and is in fact high praise indeed.

The story picks up very soon after the climactic finale of the first book, with Jonah and Sam still in Australia. Jonah is spending a huge amount of time inside the newly formed Changsphere, enjoying the company of his father, who, like the rest of the Uploaded, has somehow recovered most of his memories. However, Jonah very quickly discovers that there is something not quite right with the Uploaded, and at Gamescon, now newly relocated from the Metasphere to the Changsphere, everything hits the fan. The Uploaded, with their newly regained faculties, now realise that they are dead in the real world, and they are hungry for life. And the only way to get it is to consume the avatar of a living person, and in doing so usurp that person's body in real life.

Whilst all this is going on, Matthew Granger is up to his old tricks, and this time he is out for revenge. Having escaped from the Guardians as the end of Fight For The Future, he has managed to make his way to Manhattan Island, now an independent republic, and a safe-haven for anyone who has enough money to be able to afford to live there. His solution to the Changsphere is an extreme one, with little care for the avatars that have moved over to the rival virtual world, and it isn't long before Jonah and Sam find themselves heading for Manhattan to attempt an invasion of the Western Corner, although the real world journey from Australia, via Hong Kong, is fraught with danger.

As with the previous instalment, The Dead Are Rising, is much more than just a science fiction action adventure story. It raises a number of question regarding identity, and Jonah continues to find his conscience twisted and torn as he struggles with the various moral dilemmas that come his way. These books are ideal for book groups as they would encourage young people to debate on a number of issues related to technology, virtual worlds, global corporations and eco-terrorism.

Metawars: The Dead Are Rising is already available in book stores, and the good news is that the third in the series, Battle of the Immortal, is less than six months away, with a provisional release date of 2nd May. My thanks go to Orchard Books for sending me a copy to read and review.

Review: Snake Bite by Andrew Lane (Young Sherlock Holmes)

Kidnapped and taken to China, Sherlock finds himself plunged into adventure. How can three men be bitten by the same poisonous snake in different parts of Shanghai? Who wants them dead, and why? The answer seems to lie in a message hidden in a diagram like a spider’s web. But solving it leads to an even more urgent question: what has all this got to do with a plot to blow up an American warship? Sherlock is about to brave terrors greater than any he has faced before . . .

Five books in and Andrew Lane's Young Sherlock Holmes books just seem to get better and better. I raced through the latest, Snake Bite, in a single sitting, and yet again I was left wanting more and more, and this may even be my favourite of the series so far.

Snake Bite is very different from the previous books in the series in that it hardly features any of the characters that have appeared in previous books. In fact, the only two that do make an appearance are Sherlock's brother Mycroft and his tutor Amyus Crowe, and this only in the book's prologue as they agonise over the disappearance of Sherlock. It would appear that he has been kidnapped, most likely by The Paradol Chamber, but for what reason we are left to speculate along with Mycroft and Crowe.

The first chapter proper opens with Sherlock at sea, on board the Gloria Scott, just off the southernmost tip of Africa. He still has little idea as to how he came to be on board the ship - he can remember falling asleep in his uncle's library, and the next thing he knew he was at sea, initially being treated as a stowaway. However, through hard work he has become accepted by the crew as almost one of them, and so begins his greatest adventure so far. An adventure that sees him travelling all the way to China, facing pirates along the way, and making new friends and, of course, new enemies along the way.

In previous books Andrew Lane has already done a considerable amount of fleshing out of his young Holmes, gradually giving him the skills, character traits and morals that Sherlockians the world over know and love. We have seen Sherlock learn to play the violin, we have seen the birth of his deductive powers and his desire to question, and we have seen Sherlock's very obvious sense of what is right and what is wrong. In this book Andrew Lane continues to give us the glimpses into how the adult Sherlock was 'made', as we see the young version learning Chinese, and also his first introduction to the martial arts of the Far East (and very useful these skills prove to be as well). We also see how Sherlock developed the ability to converse naturally with people who in those days would have seemed a long way below his station - a skill he puts to great use in Conan Doyle's stories.

Without wanting to spoil things for readers I will also mention that the ending of this book is not so cut-and-dried as in the previous stories. There were elements of it I was not so happy with (a certain letter rings a little false in my mind, but I am no historian and it may be very typical of society at that time, and it does explain a significant aspect of the adult Sherlock's character), but the author's note about the return of The Paradol Chamber in the next book was very welcome news.

I want to leave you with one short excerpt from the book that put a huge smile on my face. As in previous books, Andrew Lane likes to drop in the occasional huge nudge and a wink towards the future Holmes, and this is one I loved. Sherlock is on board the Gloria Scott, and is thinking to himself that Mycroft's policy of staying at home and therefore keeping safe might actually be a wise philosophy as working on board such a ship is a very dangerous occupation. However, he quickly dismisses this as it would mean missing out on all kinds of adventures. At this, he smiles to himself and thinks: "Maybe the thing to do was to make friends with a doctor - that way you could always ave treatment close at hand."

My thanks go to the wonderful people at Macmillan for sending me a copy of Snake Bite to review.

Review: Constable & Toop by Gareth P. Jones

Sam Toop lives in a funeral parlour, blessed (or cursed) with an unusual gift. While his father buries the dead, Sam is haunted by their constant demands for attention. Trouble is afoot on the 'other side' - there is a horrible disease that is mysteriously imprisoning ghosts into empty houses in the world of the living. And Sam is caught in the middle - will he be able to bring himself to help?

One of my favourite horror films is Peter Jackson's The Frighteners. In my opinion, it has the perfect blend of horror and comedy, and it so deserves to be more widely acclaimed than it is. Released in 1996, and therefore some years before Jackson achieved god-like status with his The Lord of the Rings trilogy, it tells the story of Frank, a guy who develops psychic powers following a car accident. These psychic powers allow him to see and communicate with ghosts, and he uses this power to con people into thinking their houses are haunted, so that he can charge them for an exorcism. However, everything starts to go wrong when a Grim Reaper style ghost starts killing off the town's residents and it is down to Frank and his merry band of ghosts to save the day.

Why am I telling you this? Because Constable & Toop, the latest book from award winning writer Gareth P Jones, reminded me so much of that film, but in a Victorian setting. It is funny, scary, occasionally gruesome and has a great cast of characters, in both main and supporting roles. Oh yes, and it is beautifully written as well. I don't give starred reviews on this blog, but I gave this one five stars on Goodreads after I finished reading it.

The 'Frank' character is Constable & Toop is Sam Toop, a young boy who can see ghosts. And he sees a great deal of them - partly due to living and working in the funeral parlour where his father is a partner. Sometimes ghosts come looking for him, as they need closure in order to move on and he is a nice boy who will give up his time to help them. However, one fateful night his estranged uncle, a career criminal and murderer, comes crashing into his life. All of a sudden Sam finds his beliefs and his relationship with his father challenged, as dark secrets from the past gradually come to light.

In addition to Sam's story, there is also that of Lapsewood, a ghost who has for many years worked meekly as a ghostly civil servant. Finding himself suddenly transferred to another department and out of his comfort zone, Lapsewood stumbles across a dark and dangerous mystery - ghosts are going missing and houses that have previously been harmlesley haunted are becoming deadly for the ghostly entities that inhabit them. Lapsewood's and Sam's stories begin to intertwine and soon they find themselves racing to save both of their worlds, thwarted along the way by a pretty nasty piece of work in the form of an exorcist (and as villains go, this one is brilliant!).

Constable & Toop is brilliant from beginning to end, as Gareth P Jones skilfully weaves a fantastic and well plotted story of mystery, thrills and chills. Everything about the story is spot on - the characters, the descriptions of the Victorian setting and its inhabitants, the ghosts and their lives in their world, and the attention to detail. I would not be surprised if the author wins more awards with this book to add to those he has received for his previous works.

My thanks go to the lovely people at Hot Key Books for sending me a copy to review. This is a great book to give to horror loving kids as a stocking filler for Christmas - not too gory, not too scary, just the right amount of funny, and beautifully written.

Before you go please check out the following two videos. The first is Gareth singing his Constable & Toop song (I gather he writes a song to accompany each of his books and this one will totally get stuck in your head for weeks), and the second video is Gareth's fab trailer for the book.