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Mary Robinette Kowal, Valour and Vanity (Tor 978-0-7653-3416-9, $25.99, 397pp, hc) June 2014. Cover by Larry Rostant.
Jane and Vincent’s trip to early 19th-century Venice takes an uncomfortable turn when their ship is attacked by pirates in this adventure-filled fourth novel in the delightful Glamourist Histories series. Ending up in Venice without funds, accused of fraud, forbidden to leave the area, and friendless – they were to meet up with the notorious Lord Byron, but he’s out of town pursuing a lady – the couple struggles to get by, finding little market for their magical art in this foreign land. This is a distressing come-down for the duo, used to acclaim and royal patronage back in England. Worse, when they manage to continue their secret work on putting magic into glass, their latest efforts are stolen, and the techniques used have potential military applications. The two decide it’s time to turn things around, coming up with a convoluted plan to con the con artists – a definite relief after the Vincents acted quite stupid in the beginning. I also had a little trouble with the portrayal of Byron (once he shows up) as hopelessly erratic, if brilliant, but there’s plenty of excitement along the way, and a thrilling chain of events at the end as the Vincents finally pull off their convoluted plan, complete with chase scenes. I found myself wishing I could see it in a movie.
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Martha Wells, Emilie & the Sky World (Strange Chemistry 978-1-90884-452-1, $9.99, 313pp, tp) March 2014. Cover by Amazing15.
I somehow missed the first book in this YA steampunk SF series, Emilie & the Hollow World, in which Miss Emilie Esperton runs away from her home with an abhorrent uncle and ends up on a scientific expedition to the Hollow World. This is a steampunk world where skyships travel on aetheric currents, and new scientific discoveries and fantastic wonders abound. In this second novel, Emilie’s back in town for a quick visit, but after letting her relatives know she’s all right, a new crisis looms. A local scientist has spotted a large aetheric disturbance in the sky, heading straight for Earth, and Emilie’s employers, Professor Marlende and his daughter, decide to take their airship up to investigate – and Emilie’s more than happy to leave her uncle behind and head out on a new adventure full of strange places and creatures and a very strange new friend. It’s a delightful mix of very old-fashioned scientific romance with a refreshing modern sensibility, great fun for readers of all ages.
–Carolyn Cushman
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REVIEWS BY MIKE ASHLEY
The Shadow of Mr. Vivian, Peter Berresford Ellis (PS Publishing 978-1-848637-83-2, £30.00, xviii+180pp, hc) June 2014. [Order from PS Publishing Grosvenor House, 1 New Road, Hornsea, East Yorkshire HU18 1PG, England;
I doubt that the name of E. Charles Vivian (1882-1947) means much to many readers today, though that of his alter ego Jack Mann may ring a bell, but to readers a lifetime ago his name conjured up visions of wonder, of lost races and exotic adventures. Vivian’s name was often spoken in the same sentence as H. Rider Haggard and Talbot Mundy. For years, many did not know that Vivian was also Jack Mann, the author of a series of occult detective novels featuring Gregory George Gordon Green, known as Gees. Those novels have recently been reprinted by Ramble House so are the most readily available of Vivian’s ninety-four books. Back in the 1940s, Vivian’s two best known lost-race adventures, City of Wonder (1922) and The Valley of Silent Men (1923 as Fields of Sleep) were reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries as was one of the Gees novels (another was reprinted in the companion A. Merritt’s Fantasy Magazine) and two of the Gees novels had originally been serialised in Argosy, so Vivian/Mann has long been associated with the pulp magazines. But until now precious little has been known about him and what was known only raised more questions than answers.
Peter Berresford Ellis – who has also written biographies of H. Rider Haggard and Talbot Mundy and so with Vivian completes a rather pleasing trilogy – set out to find answers to those questions and others in the hope of discovering the real man behind the name E. Charles Vivian – who wasn’t E. Charles Vivian at all but Charles Henry Cannell. The more research Ellis did, the more the truth remained hidden, smothered in shadow – hence the title of this biography, because wherever Ellis shone a light, more shadows appeared.
Amongst the many hurdles that Ellis had to cross, three were particularly challenging. During the Second World War, Vivian’s London home was bombed and all of his personal papers were destroyed, as were the offices of Vivian’s literary agent and those of his main publishers, so access to primary documents was severely restricted. Ellis therefore had to undertake considerable research and had to rely heavily on Vivian’s only child, his daughter Katharine, although Katharine was reluctant to talk. It turned out that Vivian had had an affair which had led to a particularly nasty blackmail case and a surprising decision in the courts that blackened Vivian’s name. The daughter did not want to reopen these old wounds. In fact, it was not until after her death in 2010 that Ellis was able to proceed further, thanks to Vivian’s granddaughter, and at last bring the book to a conclusion. It’s little surprise, therefore, that it has taken 20 years for this book to at last see print.
I mentioned a third challenge and this is the most surprising of them all. When Cannell changed his name (twice!), he settled on Evelyn Charles Vivian and usually signed himself as E. Charles Vivian. But there was a real Charles Vivian who not only contributed to the same magazine, Pearson’s, and who also wrote poetry, but both were magazine editors at almost the same time. E.C. Vivian edited the two legendary Hutchinson magazines Adventure-Story and Mystery-Story whilst Charles Vivian edited The Novel Magazine. Trying to unravel the real Charles Vivian from the pseudonymous one was worse than trying to untie the Gordian Knot – and Ellis had no simple Alexandrian solution at hand.
With all these problems, it is surprising that Ellis has been able to complete a biography at all, and it is true that throughout the book Ellis highlights problems that have still to be resolved, but that makes it all the more fascinating. Ellis, whose own alter ego, Peter Tremayne, is no stranger to solving mysteries with his long running Sister Fidelma series of historical whodunits, draws his own conclusions in many cases, but at times simply shines his torch and lets the shadows dance.
What emerges from all of this is a writer who has been unjustly forgotten, unjust not just because his lost-race novels are still superb adventures, but because he wrote so much else. His detective novels, especially those featuring Inspector Head, were highly praised in their day – both C. Day Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers were fans. A few of his non-genre books are seemingly autobiographical, possibly casting some light into those shadows, but perhaps not always truthfully. Vivian was also involved in military action in the final days of the Boer War and Ellis takes us through some of the nightmarish incidents he encountered. The result is a book that shows us much more about a man who for almost a century has been little more than a name (well, three or four names or more – there are revelations about other aliases) and tells us enough to want to look further and rediscover his works. It’s a fascinating read and you’ll find yourself wondering just what more there might be to the shadowy Mr. Vivian.
–Mike Ashley
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AUDIOBOOK REVIEWS BY AMY GOLDSCHLAGER
The End Is Nigh: The Apocalpse Triptych, John Joseph Adams & Hugh Howey, eds.
Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction 2008-2012, Anon., ed.
Runner, Patrick Lee
Cress, Mariss Meyer
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North
Raising Steam, Terry Pratchet
Grasshopper Jungle, Andrew Smith
Influx, Daniel Suarez
Dreams of Gods & Monsters, Laini Taylor
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
The End Is Nigh: The Apocalypse Triptych, John Joseph Adams & Hugh Howey, eds.; Mur Lafferty, Rajan Khanna, Kate Baker, Lex Wilson, Ralph Walters, Jack Kin
kaid, and Norm Sherman, narrators (Broad Reach Publishing, digital download, $21.95, 15 hr., unabridged) April 2014.
This is the first in a self-published anthology triptych – this one features stories leading up to an apocalypse (the next two will concern themselves with the actual apocalypse and then the post-apocalypse). Having so many stories on such a narrow topic unfortunately does the authors a disservice; although several of them are quite fine individually (I particularly liked the contributions from Hugh Howey, Tananarive Due, and Will McIntosh), collectively, they all melt into one another. If there’s an overarching theme, it’s that enduring the apocalypse alone seems to be a more terrible fate than the destruction itself: whether facing aliens, God, an asteroid, nanomachines, zombies, plague, or a supervolcano threatening civilization as we know it, apparently everyone needs a hand to hold at the end.
For a self-produced work, I thought that the audio production was quite professional, with a nicely handled, subtle use of special effects; the narrators included SF writers (e.g., Mur Lafferty and Rajan Khanna) who weren’t even in the collection, doing excellent service reading others’ works. However, the narrator who introduced each story needs to do some serious research next time; he mispronounced the title Android Karenina and the island of Grenada, among other gaffes.
I understand that the enthusiasm for apocalyptic stories remains high, but I’ve read or listened to so many over the past few months, I’m feeling a bit burnt out on the topic, and I think this anthology was my last straw. So many authors are enthusiastically mapping out our doom; I sometimes wonder whether it’s even worth it to get up in the morning.
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Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction 2008–2012, Anonymous, ed.; Luke Daniels, R.C. Bray, Amy McFadden, MacLeod Andrews, Kathleen Gati, Cassandra Campbell, Jill Redfield, and Gideon Emory, narrators (Brilliance Audio 978-1-4805-7561-5, 9 CDs, $19.99, 10.25 hr., unabridged [also available on MP3 disc and as a digital download]) January 2014.
The website Tor.com has published many, many fine stories, and the original e-book collection from which this audio anthology was drawn contains dozens of well-known writers, so I’m mystified as to why this considerably more limited anthology includes double contributions from Charles Stross and John Scalzi, while not including so many other Tor.com stories. Why aren’t Ken Scholes, Jay Lake, James Patrick Kelly, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Nnedi Okorafor, or Andy Duncan (to name the merest few) represented here? I do love Stross’s Laundry series, and I definitely appreciated that Brilliance used Gordon Emery, the narrator for the Laundry Files novels, for both Laundry stories (‘‘Overtime’’ and ‘‘Down on the Farm’’). In contrast, a story (‘‘After the Coup’’) featuring the characters from Scalzi’s The Human Division used a different narrator than the one employed for the original The Human Division episodes and distractingly used an alternate pronunciation of one of the characters’ names. The other stories in the collection, from Brandon Sanderson, Brit Mandelo, Ken MacLeod, Rachel Swirsky, Megan McCarron, and Sylvia Day, are all solid, and the multiple narrators (one per story) deliver, but I still felt underwhelmed here.
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Runner, Patrick Lee; Raúl Esparza, narrator (Macmillan Audio 978-1-4272-3607-4, 7 CDs, $29.99, 15.75 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital download]) February 2014.
Ex-Special Forces and black ops agent Sam Dryden has unaccountably started running in the evenings, which puts him in the right place to collide with Rachel, a 12-year-old fugitive telepath with drug-induced amnesia. Thankfully, Dryden has just the right skills to counter the pursuing forces of the US government and two powerful defense contractors as the unlikely duo seek the dangerous secrets lurking in Rachel’s past. Narrator Raúl Esparza negotiates the plot’s hairpin turns, narrow escapes, and shocking moments of betrayal with the intensity of a tightly coiled spring. And as a bonus, he manages a plausible voice for Rachel, expressing her charm and vulnerability without ever becoming too precious. This is everything you want from a thriller audiobook.
Audiobook Reviews by Amy Goldschlager continue after ad.
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Cress, Marissa Meyer; Rebecca Soler, narrator (Macmillan Audio 978-1-4272-3627-2, 13 CDs, $39.99, 15.75 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital download]) February 2014.
Cress is the Rapunzel story in this third of four fairy tale-inspired SF novels in which Cinder(ella), the true heir of Luna, seeks to wrest the throne from the evil Queen Levana. Cress (short for ‘‘Crescent’’ and a clever nickname, as both cress and rapunzel are salad greens) is a long-haired hacker imprisoned on a satellite, forced to use all of her considerable skills to serve the Lunar thaumaturge Sybil…which includes trying to locate Cinder and her friends. When our heroes offer their apparent nemesis a chance at freedom, it sends all of them into even greater danger.
Narrator Rebecca Soler does some great work in this one, particularly when voicing people in extremis: a pleading Cress, a frightened Cinder, and a despairing, dying Dr. Erland are all incredibly effective and affecting. Characters in these books do absurd things like walk into obvious traps, and escape when it should be impossible, and there is no rational explanation as to why characters from Europe have distinct accents while characters from Asia mostly sound American, but I’ve realized that I… just don’t care, or at least, don’t care enough to stop following along. These books are great candy, and I can’t wait for the final installment.
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The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North; Peter Kenny, narrator (Hachette Audio, digital download, $20.95, 12.25 hr., unabridged) April 2014.
Harry August is a kalachakra, one of a small percentage of people who live their lives over and over, remembering their pasts and what is to come. At first, Harry believes he is alone in his condition, until he meets the members of the Cronus Club, who protect the integrity of the timeline to ensure their continued existence. But even they may not be able to help him when he encounters a rogue kalachakra intent on vastly accelerating the scientific progress of the 20th century, a process which could lead to the ultimate understanding… or end the world for everyone, kalachakra included.
Narrator Peter Kenny is a dab hand at all sorts of English, Irish, and Scottish accents, and can even manage a reasonable Russian accent (although he can’t definitively decide whether or not Harry should assume one when he’s speaking Russian), but bless him, he can’t quite master the American accent. His bluff, too-hearty Midwestern attempt reminded me of ’80s English television, when most actors playing Americans bordered on insulting caricature (in fairness, American approximations of English accents in that era were usually just as bad).
The trope of constantly reliving one’s life, is, of course, not a new one; notably, there was Ken Grimwood’s Replay about 30 years ago, and much more recently, Kate Atkinson’s critically acclaimed Life After Life, but North has her own engaging take on the idea, and her chronicling of Harry’s various lives has a wry, almost Robertson Davies-like feel that was extremely appealing. I will be keeping an eye out for North’s future efforts.
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Raising Steam, Terry Pratchett; Stephen Briggs, narrator (Random House Audio 978-0804164535, 10 CDs, $40.00, 12.5 hr., unabridged [also available as a digital download]) March 2014.
Everyone’s favorite con artist with a heart of gold, Moist von Lipwig, returns to assist an inspired young engineer in developing the Discworld’s first railway system, while a group of dwarf fundamentalists is doing all they can to undermine all technological development. There’s less wackiness and edged humor here, more a fun (if slightly sentimental) visit with Discworld friends and an anti-fundie message that is perhaps a trifle heavy handed. Stephen Briggs provides his usual excellent array of British accents and creature voices (you can almost hear the CAPITAL LETTERS in Death’s somber pronouncements): Briggs is a full cast all by himself. Perhaps this isn’t Pratchett’s greatest effort, but I enjoyed the journey all the same.
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Grasshopper Jungle,
Andrew Smith; Philip Church, narrator (Penguin Audio, digital download, $23.95, 9.25 hr., unabridged) February 2014.
Iowa teen Austin suffers from extreme horniness and the confusions attendant upon being attracted to and in love with both his girlfriend Shannon and his best friend Robbie. These pressing issues occupy much of his attention, even as the three of them prepare to battle a potential army of hungry (and also horny), giant, genetically engineered grasshoppers, after a teenage prank and Robbie’s spilled blood reactivate a long-dormant government project. This was certainly the funniest apocalyptic novel I’ve experienced in quite a while – if Christopher Moore wrote YA, it would be like this. Philip Church’s voice is a bit too deep and resonant to be entirely convincing as a teen, but his rapid, staccato pacing is quite perfect for Austin’s bordering-on-manic narration. Unfortunately, his women’s voices are almost cartoonish, and even Robbie’s voice is too much of a high-pitched caricature, which doesn’t match the textual description of his lovely speaking voice. Overall, though, this is great, dark fun.
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Influx, Daniel Suarez; Jeff Gurner, narrator (Penguin Audio, digital download, $23.95, 13.75 hr., unabridged) February 2014.
Maverick physicist Jon Grady is demonstrating his new ‘‘gravity mirror’’ to investors when his lab is invaded by an apparent anti-tech group. The group is a cover for a highly secret government agency, the Bureau of Technology Control, which seizes all inventions deemed too disruptive to the social order. That too, however, is a cover for the truth: the BTC is actually hoarding and exploiting incredible technology, such as the cure for cancer, quantum computing, AIs, and fusion reactors, while refusing to share with the rest of the world. Grady is given the chance to join the BTC, but when he turns them down, he’s put into isolation and subjected to horribly invasive medical experiments. Can he escape and tell the world about the BTC?
Locus, July 2014 Page 16
