Review: The New World

The New World by Patrick Ness

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Shamefully enough, I've never read the Chaos Walking series. It's on the list - very high up the list - so I will get to it, but that means that this is my first taste of this story.

Other reviews have complained that this is too short a glimpse of Viola's world prior to The Knife Of Never Letting Go. That may be the case - it certainly is a very short story - but personally, having never been exposed to these characters or this world, this worked perfectly as a prologue for me. I can understand perhaps being upset if you had paid for this story, but as it's free I don't see anything to complain about.

It's only a very, very short story, so there isn't much I can say without going in to specifics that might give things away. The characterisation is strong, though, and the world-building is enough that I want to know more about what's going on here. The Chaos Walking series has been on my To Read list for a long time, but after reading this it's just been bumped to the top.



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Review: Carrie

Carrie by Stephen King

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I honestly have no idea why it's taken me so long to get around to reading this being, seeing how big a King fan I am. Still, at least I got to it in the end, right?

This won't stand up there as one of my favourite King books, not by a long shot, but I still enjoyed it. What I enjoyed more than the book itself, though, was seeing where King started. It's raw, and it's obviously early King, but it's still King through and through even if he hadn't fully realised his potential at this point. In particular it was really interesting to see him trying techniques

(what kind of techniques I know you're asking aren't you)

that he uses to such great effect later in his career with sometimes limited success.

For me, the real strength of King's writing lies in his characters - how vividly they're realised, how real they seem - and I think that's where Carrie falls down. The story is there, but the characters don't quite spring off the page in the same way I've come to expect from his later work, and without those characters driving the story along it all falls a little flat.

It's a good book, and I'd read it again in a heartbeat - but, as I said earlier in the review, it's King but *not*. Not quite yet.



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Review: Closure, Limited

Closure, Limited by Max Brooks

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This collection of four stories from World War Z author Max Brooks is good fun, and a nice addition to his growing body of WWZ-related works.

The book opens and closes with stories told in the same style as World War Z - that is, interviews with survivors of the war. It's a style that works well for Brooks, and I love getting a glimpse into the minds of the different characters that he has populated his world with. Opening story 'Closure, Limitied' (the title story of the collection) is the best of these two, in my opinion; it's an interesting look at one of the ways people might seek to profit from the fall-out of WWZ, and it's just an intriguing idea in general. The final story, 'Great Wall' looks at how China dealt with the war; it's nice to see Brooks moving away from Western-centric writing, though the story still feels very American despite taking place in China.

The second story in the collection is titled 'Steve and Fred', and it's easily the weakest story in the book. I'd go so far as to say that the book would be stronger as a whole without this story being included. It's little more than two vignettes that don't seem to be linked in any way at all. The first is ridiculously gung-ho and over top (which is fine, and fun, but in this case pointless) and the second has the potential to be an interesting little character study but never develops and never pays off.

By far the strongest story in this book is the longer piece 'The Extinction Parade', in which Brooks has a go at writing a vampire story set in the world of WWZ. It makes for gripping reading, and I certainly had never considered that the zombie apocalypse would be a catastrophe for creatures other than humans.

All in all this is a good little collection that adds nicely to World War Z, though it is by no means required reading.



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Review: Zom-B

Zom-B by Darren Shan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This is the first Darren Shan book I've read, so I can't compare it to his others; hopefully, though, this isn'this best.

The writing is decent and the story rattles along at a good clip (I read it in just over an hour) but it's quite clear that Shan wrote this with a raft of sequels in mind. Nothing is explained (like B's C-shaped scar, or who the Owl Man is) and ultimately this just ends up being a long build up to a zombie survival horror that doesn't really bring anything new to the genre.

In Shan's introduction to the proof edition (which is the version I read - I'm not sure if this introduction is contained in the finished copy) he asks that readers find a way to talk about the book without giving away what he calls a large, important twist. I saw it coming from quite early on, and I'm not convinced it is that big a twist, though I can certainly appreciate what Shan has tried to do. I won't discuss it, but I also can't find a way to write the next part of this review without giving the game away. So, with that said, spoilers ahead...

The best thing about this book is the exploration of bigotry and racism that comes through the exploration of how B deals with both her father's racism and her own racist behaviour. It's a little heavy-handed and unbelievable in places - for example, B's converstion with her headmaster would never take place in the real world - but it's certainly interesting to see it in a teen book that isn'texplicitly concerned with race (as oppossed to a book like 'Noughts and Crosses', for example). It makes for uncomfortable reading at times, and in all honesty some of the most horrific parts of this novel stem from the behaviour of B and her father rather than the zombie apocalypse going on in the background.

Overall it's a fun read, but probably not one that I'll go back to - although I do want to find out what the deal with the Owl Man is.



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Review: The Gods and Their Machines

The Gods and Their Machines by Oisin McGann

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



The best thing about this book, by far, is the title. I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters, and as a result I didn't care about anything else. The politics of the war were far too simplistic, everybody was incredibly two-dimensional, and everything that happened felt like an attempt by the author to keep the story moving rather than a natural unfolding of the action. The exploration of racism/cultural prejudice was obvious and heavy-handed, and to add insult to injury the writing is pedestrian at best. I also have no idea why McGann chose to run the chapter numbers in reverse, as it adds nothing to the story but more confusion.

Not recommended.



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A Proposal: The Follow-Up

Back in May '12 I had the idea of producing bespoke, one-off stories in chapbooks for people. I blogged about it here. I honestly didn't expect anything to come of it, and so I was pleasantly surprised to find a few people took me up on the offer. 4, to be exact. Not a huge amount, but 4 more than I'd anticipated.

The experience of writing on demand was a lot more daunting than I'd imagined it being. These stories weren't just being written for anonymous editors (or even for editors who I knew, but who are still editors). These were written for people who liked my writing enough to want something produced just for them, and wanted it enough to have paid for it without knowing what they would get.

Yeah. No pressure, right?

Thankfully the feedback I've been getting has been nothing but wonderful. The last one I did in particular netted me one of the nicest emails I've ever received, for a story I wrote called Homecoming (not a rip-off of the Ray Bradbury story of the same name, I promise).

They do look bloody good, if I say so myself.

The lady who commissioned this one has been following Flash365 since the beginning and has commented on a lot of the stories, so the fact that I got this one right meant a lot to me. And, apparently, to her, which was nice.

So...the point of this post, really, is to say that I think this experiment has been a success, even though I've only done a few of the books. I'm going to keep the offer open; a bespoke story in a one-off chapbook for £30. If you're interested, drop me an email at c.bissette [at] hotmail [dot] co [dot] uk (obviously replacing the [anti-spam] stuff with real symbols).

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In other news, Flash365 has fallen behind somewhat. I'm aware of that, and I'm not happy about it. Life got hectic, and something had to take a back seat. If you've been following the stories, I'm sorry. The same thing happened to my Jukepop Serials story. I'm going to make a concerted effort this month to get them back on track. Watch this space.

And, after all that; Happy new year!

Lit Fests and things

This deserves to be a much longer post but I've left it too long now. I wanted to talk about the Cheltenham Literature Festival, about all the authors I met and the talks I saw and etc. etc., but it was weeks ago and I don't think I can do it justice now.

The short version: I worked the Cheltenham Literature Festival. We set up three bookshops in tents, and I saw Salman Rushdie and Alan Garner give talks about their lives and works and was told fairy tales by Michael Harvey, and met all of the above along with PD James, Helen Dunmore, Rachel Joyce, Scarlett Thomas, Sue Townsend, Michelle Paver, Anthony Horowitz and many, many more. It was wonderful, and I'll definitely be doing it again.

When I got back I worked at Mark Haddon's talk at the Manchester Literature Festival - the second time I've met him now, and he was just as fantastic - and tonight I'm sitting in a cafe in London waiting to go to an evening with Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullan which has now become an evening with Neil Gaiman and Meg Rosoff because Mr. Pullman is, unfortunately, ill. Still, I'm very much looking forward to it.

If you've missed it, my Flash365 stories this month have been chapters of a horror novella called The Bloody Roses. It's coming to a head now, and although it's not the story I set out to tell I'm thoroughly enjoying it. You should read it. The first chapter is here and, although I'm a little behind due to internet issues, there will be 31 chapters and - hopefully - a completed novella come midnight on Halloween. If you do read it, please let me know what you think of it!