INDIE EBOOK – Review of Time Sniffers – Shadow World series by C.S. Lakin

I have not been reading or writing about self-published books, because when I first acquired a Kindle a couple of years ago, the dross I had to wade through convinced me that Life was too short to bother. However, with the market share of self-published books steadily increasing and a number of writers I respect making the decision to publish their own work, this stance was no longer possible if I wanted to keep up with events in the publishing world. So, here is my first review of self-published author C.S. Lakin’s offering.

This ebook is a YA science fiction adventure, very much aimed at the early/mid-teen market. Bria Harrison, brilliant teenage daughter of two prominent scientists, searches for her mother, whom she insists is alive, despite the devastating explosion at the National Laboratory. While re-creating her mother’s last experiment in her basement, Bria, her autistic brother Dylan, and four friends cause a rip in time-space – and out of the resultant black hole tumbles K-Six, a time sniffer who has come to get them.

The blurb chatters on for a few more lines, but as it contains a number of spoilers I have decided to leave it there. The intriguing title and well-written sample convinced me to download this book. But would the subsequent story hold me?

Written in Bria’s viewpoint in first person, the start of this novel is emotional as she and her family grapple with the death of her brilliant mother. The trauma and grief caused by the bereavement is well depicted and I also found Dylan’s autism believable. But Bria becomes convinced her mother isn’t dead, the pace starts to pick up and the adventure shifts into top gear.

Lakin set herself a hard task – Bria and Dylan are accompanied by a veritable posse of friends and companions. So, in addition to narrating a fairly complex time-travelling story where the party of youngsters visit a variety of very different worlds, Lakin also has to ensure that we learn about each of the group’s personal journey and what impact all the danger and adventure is having. Writing science fiction is a technically demanding task – which is why there are so many mediocre efforts out there. But, Lakin manages to braid the unfolding action, the changing backdrops and the various personal crises besetting the group very deftly. There is even a spot of romance…

I found Bria’s character and narration convincing and the story compelling – I certainly wanted to know what was going to happen next. Lakin manages to produce a clear story arc for each character and in addition to providing a satisfying conclusion to all the excitement, she also has a twist that sets the team off on their next adventure. Altogether, an entertaining, engrossing read with some interesting ideas about Time and our conception of the universe. I shall certainly be looking for more books by this author.
8/10

Review of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon

This book was on my ‘To Read’ was a looong time – and finally I got around to it…

Christopher Boone is fifteen and has Asperger’s Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour’s dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.

This short book caused a huge fuss when it first came out in 2003 – and having finally read it, I now know why. Haddon has managed to masterfully inhabit the skin of a teenager who cannot cope with human emotions, suffers from sensory overload and compensates by retreating into mathematical formulae and logical list-making. As a result, when confronted by major events – like being told of the death of his mother, for instance – Christopher tells us what he had to eat that evening and that he went to bed and fell fast asleep.

This doesn’t mean that Christopher is incapable of loving – but that he finds it difficult to understand or relate to his feelings. So when he discovers Wellington, the standard poodle who lives next door, skewered by a garden fork to the lawn, he resolves to find out who murdered it – even when told repeatedly by his father that he mustn’t interfere. He even overcomes his reluctance to engage with strangers in order to ask if anyone has seen anything suspicious – trouble is, he cannot process the heavy hints that a well-meaning neighbour gives him about his own domestic set-up.  His inability to process information that the reader clearly understands gives us greater insights into Christopher’s capacity to engage with the world, while also providing some comedy, albeit the darker, lump-in-your-throat variety. Books that make me both want to weep and laugh hold a special place in my heart – and this one joins that select few.

Haddon not only manages to give us an idea of what it must be like to experience the world while coping with Asperger’s – he also provides us with the daily challenges facing Christopher’s carers. I found myself wondering how you’d survive when the strong-willed, highly intelligent individual in your life retreats into black silence when he encounters a series of the wrong coloured cars on his morning bus ride…

But don’t go away with the notion that this is some worthy, high-mindedly literary attempt to give the rest of us an appreciation of what being born with Asperger’s can entail – the story that powers Christopher’s narration is a mystery. And while we learn who did do it, we also learn what the strains were that led up to the deed and Christopher’s unwitting role in the whole affair. It will be a book that will stay with me for a very long time – and if you want an outstanding example of character-led fiction, then this is a must-read book. Come to think of it – this is a must-read book, anyway.
10/10

Review of Cosmic Crash – Book 2 of The Space Penguins series by L.A. Courtney

Any publication that encourages primary-age children to read and enjoy science fiction is going to get a thumbs-up by me. My granddaughter and I acquired the first two books at the school’s Book Fair, where I was dismayed to see the welter of sugar-pink and purple covers covered with sparkling stars about pets, dolls and fairies intended for girls.

A friendly Year 5 girl nudged Frankie. ‘Look in the Boys section. There’s some cool adventure books there.’

She was right. That was where we found the Space Penguins books, which Frankie scooped up, flicking through the pages. She immediately decided she wanted to take these home because of the enjoyably madcap illustrations.

What’s black and white, and flies faster than the speed of light? The Space Penguins! They’re the ice-cool crew of the spaceship Tunafish. With their pioneering flying skills and resistance to the deep freeze, these intergalactic avians are going where no fin has gone before. Captain T Krill, Rocky Waddle, Fuzz Allgrin and Splash Gordon are on a mission to explore new planets, rescue alien life, and battle their former comrade-in-wings: Dark Wader. Alert! Alert! In Cosmic Crash! the penguins splash-land on a watery planet, they find themselves in the tentacles of a monstrous sea creature. Can they escape with their ship in one piece or are they well and truly sunk?

As you can tell by the blurb, the books are delivered with a stream of puns, shamelessly plugging into science fiction classics with the wordplay around the names of the characters – and using non-stop adventure to keep young readers and listeners hooked. Each of the penguins has well-defined characteristics, and the dialogue had both of us laughing aloud at times – though there were a number of jokes only I got. Though I’m quite comfortable with that as the best children’s books recognise that adults can spend significant chunks of their lives reading stories aloud and reward us accordingly.

I like the premise that NASA decided penguins were better suited to space travel than humans as they can swim through zero gravity without losing control and are far better acclimatised to the cold of deep space. Their ship, the Tunafish is equipped with an extensive supply of frozen fish and a cool onboard computer – and they are ready for the next daft adventure. Is the story believable? Not really – but it features one emergency after another to test the space penguins’ courage and ingenuity. Needless to say, they all emerge with credit – however, they still haven’t managed to evade their nemesis, former crew member Dark Wader, which sets up the team for the next adventure in Galaxy Race!, the next book in the series. I don’t think Frankie and I will be waiting for the school book fair before we get hold of it, though…
8/10

Review of A Conspiracy of Alchemists – Book 1 of The Chronicles of Light and Shadow by Liesel Schwarz

This book is something of a genre mashup – it certainly has strong steampunk elements in it, and the early descriptions of the airship are especially enjoyable. But it is also part romance and part Fantasy, with a strong and well-designed world in which the failing warlocks are desperately trying to rally their fading forces against the powerful, well organised alchemists.

When dirigible pilot Elle Chance accepts an unusual cargo in Paris, she finds herself in the middle of a deadly war between the Alchemists and Warlocks. The Alchemists will stop at nothing to acquire the coveted carmot stone and its key, and Elle must do everything in her power to thwart their diabolical plans.

I felt Schwarz managed to achieve a strong sense of the Edwardian era in her writing, without unduly holding up the action. The period details and customs were well depicted and, particularly the scenes in Constantinople which were full of colour and a number of interesting characters. Schwarz’s lively and pacey writing style is well suited to keeping the tension going in a variety of settings, without losing a sense of place.

Elle is also an engaging heroine – a suitably plucky gel, with plenty of the intrepid drive that finally won women the vote. Her determination to break away from the boring, narrow life of a married woman of the time was both appealing and convincing. However, I was less persuaded by the romantic thread running through the story. Mr Marsh is an interesting character in his own right – and his views on women and their role in society certainly is of the time. The trouble was, this part of the story suddenly seemed to fall into a clichéd dance that didn’t happen in the rest of the narrative. So I found I was slightly skimming the scenes between the two protagonists in order to get to the more interesting plotlines. Fortunately, there is plenty going on that is great fun, so that this was a minor disappointment rather than a big deal.

As the story romped to the climax, I stayed up reading until the small hours to find out what happens – and Schwarz manages to bring this slice of the story to a satisfying conclusion, while leaving some interesting plotlines dangling for the next instalment. Patrice, in particular, is an intriguing villain who kept popping up throughout the book and promises to figure prominently in the next slice of this adventure. Which I shall definitely be looking forward to with interest and anticipation. Steampunk can only benefit with a series like this to add to the genre.
8/10

Review of Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

This book, published in 2011, was recommended to me by my son when he came to stay for Christmas. I’ll give you due warning – if you are looking for an easy, lightweight read then leave this one on the pile and come back to it when you are ready to give your grey matter a thorough workout.

Experimental psychologist Daniel Kahneman has won a Nobel prize for his work on Prospect theory – but that is only part of the work he has done in a long career examining how the human mind operates. I found the font downright unfriendly as it’s far fainter and close packed than my middle-aged eyes want to tackle, but I soon discovered that this was a deliberate ploy. Kahneman has noticed that we respond to problem solving in largely two ways that he calls System 1 and System 2. Our System 1 is the normal default setting that mostly responds to the multitude of decisions that confronts us in our daily lives – it is quick, often providing an answer in less than a second; instinctive – System 1 will take clues, often inappropriately, from our surroundings and is also influenced by our emotional state. While Kahneman is at pains to emphasise System 1 works very well in a large number of situations, every single one of us make some major mistakes that can have life-changing consequences by relying too much on our System 1 reflexes.

System 2 is the type of thinking we employ when we come up against a problem that we identify as too difficult for our System 1 to process. System 2 is slower, more measured and less prone to be affected emotionally, although we should all be aware that our surroundings have far greater impact on our mindset than we realise. Kahneman discusses a set of experiments where the participants sat in a room and answered questions about how willing they were to help friends and/or people they didn’t know. When dollar signs were displayed across the screensavers on the computers, participants were noticeably less generous – even though they didn’t consciously notice the screensavers. But Kahneman also characterises our System 2 mental processing as being lazy – it is reluctant to engage. One of the things that nudges it to work is when the font is difficult to read…

Much of his most productive experiments were conducted with his collaborator and friend, Amos Tversky, now dead. Kahneman is more than generous with attributing a great deal of the credit for his achievements to his partner – and you get the sense that this book is, in part, a tribute to Tversky.

Kahneman’s prose, is very clear and if he uses any kind of jargon connected with his studies, he is at pains to fully explain exactly what he means. And the unfriendly font and measured writing style delivers some head-swivelling discoveries. For instance, when questioning patients who had just undergone a painful medical procedure, their recollection didn’t hinge on the duration of the procedure at all. Patients judged their experience on the peak pain levels (which they were asked to evaluate on a scale 1-10 every 60 seconds) and how much they were suffering when the procedure came to an end. So one patient who endured the procedure for twenty-five minutes felt more positive than another whose surgery lasted eight minutes, because that patient’s pain level right at the end was still significant. Ah, you’re thinking – that was because the second patient was in greater pain during the shorter operation. No – both patients reported the same pain levels… And this isn’t a one off finding – when recalling similar episodes, the duration is something that most people don’t recall effectively and so don’t factor in when recalling their experiences. Although, I’m hoping that particular experiment won’t be repeated any time soon, as those patients enduring the longer procedure had their operation deliberately extended.

So does the book measure up to the back cover hype? The answer is – yes it does. And if you are thinking of dabbling in the stock market, making any large purchases, or have a crucial decision to make regarding your health, then read this book first. In fact, I think I’m going to have to get my own copy, just in case…
9/10

Review of Leviathan Wakes – Book 1 of The Expanse by James A. Cory

I’ll be honest – although I’d heard a lot of good things about this book, I did approach it with some scepticism. All too often, I’ve picked up a recommended space opera that is supposed to be character-led, with plenty of action and a sharp, well-rounded world, only to find that it isn’t. Because writing a really good space opera takes a lot of skill. Although I did have some hope about this particular offering – James A. Cory is the pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who wrote this together. And Leviathan Wakes was also shortlisted for both the Hugo and Locus Awards last year.

Humanity has colonised the solar system – Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond – but the stars are still out of our reach. Jim Holden is an officer on an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for. War is brewing in the system, unless Jim can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathiser Holden, he realises that this girl may hold the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations – and the odds are againstem. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

This whole tale – that spans the Solar system – is told through Holden and Miller’s viewpoints. Both characters are complex and convincing, with dislikeable traits as well as their evident strengths that get them through the repeated danger they find themselves running towards. There are also solid reasons why they are busy putting themselves in harm’s way, which I liked. I do get a tad fed up when the plucky heroes keep muscling their way to the danger zone, as everyone else is busy fleeing. During the book, the characters go through a variety of adventures which completely yank them out of their previous lives and take them on a journey that changes their viewpoint about most things. Miller, in particular, is extremely poignant near the end.

The world is detailed, layered with awkward corners and believable factions that are busy blaming each other for the unfolding terror unfurling in their midst. And all this comes to us filtered through the protagonists’ viewpoint – this isn’t a book where the author sees fit to jump out of the characters’ heads and serve up chunks of omniscient point of view. The result is that the narrative tension doesn’t ever let up. The storyline powers this long book from beginning to end – all 561 pages of it. So I was locked into the plot for every single page and would have happily gone on reading another 500…

That doesn’t happen very often. Though I’m a sucker for a really tight, well-written space opera, they aren’t all that thick on the ground. Certainly not one with the readability, tight plotting and strong characterisation that Leviathan Wakes offers. I’m going to give myself a late Easter present and buy the next instalment - Caliban’s War – stories of this quality don’t come along every day of the week.
10/10

Review of The Reindeer People – Book 1 of The Reindeer People Saga by Megan Lindholm

For those of you who are interested in such things, Megan Lindholm also writes under the name of Robin Hobb, one of the most successful and accomplished Fantasy writers of her generation. Her impressive output includes The Farseer Trilogy, Liveship Traders Trilogy, The Tawny Man Trilogy and The Soldier’s Son Trilogy. This novel is a significant departure to her other work – it is set in the distant past and there isn’t very much magic, other than that provided by the overbearing shaman.

Living on the outskirts of the tribe, Tillu is happy spending her time tending her strange, slow, dreamy child Kerlew and communing with the land to heal the sick and bring blessing on new births. However Carp, the Shaman, an ugly wizened old man whose magic smells foul to Tillu knows that Carp’s magic will steal her son and her soul. So begins a harrowing and desperate pursuit across the winter-ravaged lands, as Tillu’s flight leads them into an uncertain, and deadly, new future.

This tale pulls you in immediately as we follow Tillu in her efforts to keep her son safe in a period where Life is tough – particularly for a lone woman with a child who is oblivious of the social conventions surrounding him. Where the weather and any number of illnesses or accidents can wipe out a life and those depending upon it in a matter of hours, Lindholm manages to depict the time and place with pinsharp attention to detail, without giving us any long-winded exposition. We are not only confronted with Tillu’s dilemma – we also learn of Heckram’s struggle to secure himself a reasonable future, after the untimely death of his father. He feels a strong sense of sympathy for the fey Kerlew and desires to help him. But he has other calls on his loyalty and energy, as Elsa, his childhood sweetheart is clearly in trouble and looks to him for help…

Lindholm manages to give a wholly convincing slice of life in a reindeer herder’s village and the scene when a young couple are setting up home together is a particularly fine example of how deftly this author crafts a technically demanding scene. I don’t know whether Lindholm has much immediate experience of the sort of landscape she uses in this story – but it certainly reads as if she has.

If you enjoy reading historical tales that have the characters and their particular problems jumping off the page and into your head, then go looking for this book – and one of my main priorities is to get hold of the sequel, Wolf’s Brother.
10/10

Review of The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts – A Him Qwilleran Feline Whodunit by Lilian Jackson Braun

This author has an interesting history. She died in 2011 at the age of 97, but back in the 1960’s, she published the first three of her The Cat Who… series to universal acclaim. In 1966 the New York Times called her latest offering ‘the new detective of the year’. And then nothing for eighteen years. But in 1986 her first book, The Cat Who Saw Red was republished and once more featured in the best-seller charts and this time, Lilian Jackson Braun followed it up with more in the series.

By her death, she had produced 29 books and three short story collections – The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts is the 10th in the series. So, after picking up the book convinced it was a fantasy whodunit – did I still enjoy this unusual crime novel?

Relaxing to the sound of Verdi’s ‘Ortello’ late one Sunday night, Jim Qwilleran is disturbed by the shrill demands of the telephone. His erstwhile landlady, Iris Cobb, now resident manager of the Goodwinter Farm Museum, is distraught. Knowing her frail state of health Qwilleran is concerned and becomes even more so when a piercing scream severs their connection. Arriving at the museum he finds Iris slumped on the kitchen floor, a glass of milk abandoned on the counter. But what at first looks like a natural, if sadly premature, demise from heart disease proves to be much more sinister. Once again the detective talents of Koko and Yum Yum, Qwilleran’s sleuthing Siamese companions, are in demand in sleepy Pickaxe.

And there you have it. A constantly curious man who is convinced his Siamese cats’ antics can help him uncover this nasty crime. I was immediately drawn in, despite very quickly realising that what I’d picked up wasn’t what I thought it was. The writing is slick and Jim Qwilleran’s character instantly appealed. He is slightly curmudgeonly and very comfortable with his own company – and those of his cats. He has a girlfriend, but I got the feeling that though they are fond of each other, passion doesn’t keep him awake at nights… A refreshing change after all the angst-ridden YA I tend to read. And the interlude where she acquires a Siamese kitten of her own had me laughing aloud. It isn’t often that a novelist is brave enough to poke fun at her hero and sleuth – but Jackson Braun does exactly that as Qwilleran fumes to himself over the ridiculous fuss Polly makes over her kitten. Because while he also calls his cats ‘sweetie’, he isn’t so  irritatinglycloying or simpering – so he tells himself.

Meantime we also get a slice of daily life in amongst the darker goings-on in Pickaxe, with a generous array of characters who both entertain and provide plenty of suspects. While I was aware that there was a fairly substantial back story that I’d missed – Iris Cobb features in several of the earlier books, for instance, so that I think if I’d read those I would have been more upset at her death – at no time was I left floundering because I had come in at number 10 in this long-running series. And as for the plot that had poor Iris done to death – did it work? Absolutely. The denouement was highly satisfying and surprising. I won’t claim that I am particularly good at guessing who did what in this genre, but there were some genuine surprises at the conclusion that had me flipping back through the pages to see when the clues were first seeded throughout the book.

I can see exactly why this series first became popular – and was republished nearly twenty years later. Jackson Braun’s writing is both accomplished and different. If you come across The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts, don’t pass up the opportunity to read it. Even if – like me – you prefer dogs…
9/10

Review of Babylon Steel by Gaie Sebold

I wasn’t totally convinced that I was going to enjoy this Fantastic romp. A female brothel owner cum ex-mercenary isn’t generally my sort of go-to character, but I’d fleetingly met Gaie at Fantasycon and was impressed with her friendly, solid advice, so gave the book a go. I’m mighty glad I did. It certainly brightened up a really dreary week in March.

Babylon Steel, ex-sword for hire, ex… other things, runs The Red Lantern, the best brothel in the city. She’s got elves using sex magic upstairs, S & M in the basement and a large green troll cooking breakfast in the kitchen, and she’d love you to visit, except… She’s not having a good week. The Vessels of Purity are protesting against brothels, girls are disappearing, and if she can’t pay her taxes, Babylon’s going to lose the Lantern. She’d given up the mercenary life, but when the mysterious Darask Fain pays her to find a missing heiress, she has to take the job. And then her past starts to catch up with her in other, more dangerous ways.

Well, reading through the reviews of this book, it seems something of a marmite number – folks either love it or hate it. I loved it.  For starters, I thoroughly enjoyed the genre mash-up – the portals to various worlds happily rubbed shoulders with a medieval city/ancient Egyptian backdrop and there was a strong urban fantasy feel in the tone and writing. Great fun. Sebold also has the skill to pull off a dual narrative, one recounting Babylon’s past as an orphan serving girl who moves on to another, wholly different career – and the other plotline giving us the current slew of adventures that are engrossing our heroine. This structure worked perfectly and had me hooked from the first chapter. I also liked the variety of different races Sebold introduces and the quick-fire pace at which the book progresses.

Niggles? Well, I do think it a shame that Solaris saw fit to make Babylon white-skinned on the cover, when she is several times mentioned as being dark/copper skinned.

The world-building was enjoyable and unfolded through Babylon’s eyes with the fluid, pacy style that Sebold quickly established. This may be her debut novel, but she is clearly an experienced, skilful author, whose future work is firmly on my list of books to look out for. The ending had everything satisfyingly resolved – with a shock at who dies during the climactic action. I got to the final page with a real sense of regret that I’d finished the book and still wanting more. And if you are feeling grumpy and jaded with the current atrocious weather, search out this book and dive in.
9/10

Review of The Shadow of the Soul – Book 2 of the Dog-Faced Gods by Sarah Pinborough

Sarah Pinborough is one of the stars of Fantasycon – a bubbly character with sufficient personal charisma to stop the traffic, something that most authors don’t possess. I’d known that she wrote Horror/Dark Fantasy, so when I came across this offering I plucked it off the shelves.

As the world sinks deeper into recession, London is rocked by a major terrorist attack that cripples the city. Detective Inspector Cass Jones is busy investigating a series of apparently linked student suicides when Special Branch calls on him to help in their search for a very unusual suspect. As if that isn’t enough, Cass is given a message from beyond the grave. With three words – ‘They took Luke’ – written by his brother before he was brutally murdered, Cass Jones once again feels the world tilt beneath him. He knows who ‘They’ are – Mr Bright and the shadowy Network – and he knows that his dead brother has given him the task of finding the baby, his nephew, stolen at birth.  As Cass tries to divide his time between his two legitimate investigations and his private one, it’s not long before he discovers links where none should be…

This book plunged right into the action and didn’t let up until the final page, and though at no time was I floundering – Pinborough is far too accomplished a writer for that – I did get the sense that I would have better appreciated exactly what was going on if I’d tracked down the first book, A Matter of Blood, before launching into The Shadow of the Soul. However, it didn’t take long to get drawn into this gritty police procedural tale that felt far more like a Rankin whodunit than your average Dark Fantasy crime story. Cass Jones is a typically overburdened inner-city detective with a dysfunctional family life, rather than the supernatural, angst-driven beings that often inhabit urban fantasy crime novels.

Pinborough has successfully managed to come up with a flavour all of her own in this increasingly popular sub-genre. Second books in a trilogy often lack pace as they simultaneously have to produce a complete story arc, yet leave/produce a series of vital plot points dangling for the final book to solve. But this story whisks along as we get increasing insights into the Network and the strains within the apparently invulnerable organisation, as Cass Jones is still desperately trying to come to terms with what has happened to him and his family during the previous book. All these concerns are woven through the current investigations with deftness and skill that ensure this is a solid page-turner.

So, does the denouement pack sufficient punch? It needs to – Crime/Dark Fantasy genres require a strong ending to be regarded as successful and as Pinborough has braided these ingredients together, she has to pull off a really gripping conclusion that provides genuine shock value. Which she achieves with style. As Cass struggles to cope with the new set of facts he uncovers after investigating the events that have befallen his troubled family – the crimes he has also been following also get tied up in a way that I didn’t see coming.

This second book has been sufficiently gripping that I’m going to hunt down the first and third offerings in this disturbing, compulsive series – and I recommend that you give it a go. But start with A Matter of Blood – writing this good deserves to be read in the correct order.
9/10