Urban fantasy has long-reaching roots, but it is only in the last twenty years or so that writers and readers have begun using the term in an effort to describe and define a subgenre of fantasy. A subgenre in which the city defines the setting as well as itself as a character. The theme of Paper Cities, an Anthology of Urban Fantasy is to illustrate how cities are like living entities in themselves, and how they affect and influence the lives of those that dwell within them.

Some of the stories emphasized the physical aspects of the city creating distinctive images and atmospheres like Jay Lake's Promises: A Tale of the City Imperishable,

On the roof---a roof, rather, for the Sudgate was ramified and ramparted like some palace of dream---the moonlight was almost violet. The heavy grease-and-shit scent of the Sudgate Districts moiled below them somewhere, miscegenating with night humors off the Saltus and whatever flowed down from Heliograph Hill and the Limerock Palace. Sister Nurse set Girl down so that they stood on a narrow ledge, looking back across the City Imperishable to the north and east as a curious, abrasive wind plucked at them both.

and The Funeral, Ruined by Ben Peek,

Lately, the twin ovens had a tendency to blur around the edges for Linette, but even with the beginning of her deteriorating eyesight due to her thirty-eighth year, the immense girth and height of the creations meant that they were unable to be passed over when she looked at Issuer’s skyline. In contrast, the hundreds of long, bronze windmills that rose out of the city could---and did--- fade from her awareness. The Ovens, however, lurked on the horizon like a pair of dark, hunched watchers outside the city, covered in a layer of soot as a disguise. If you managed to forget them (and Linette doubted she ever could), then you would be reminded each Friday when they belched tart smelling ash, and plumes rose out of each to signal the burning of the weekly dead.

Others showed how peoples lives were re-shaped, adapted to, or otherwise forced to conform to their environment like in the absurdly strange Godivy by Vylar Kaftan where office managers mate with copiers to produce...copies of themselves, and in the sobering story Taser by Jenn Reese in which a gang of human boys is led by a ruthless husky-mixed dog with telepathic abilities. In Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest, the city makes its mark on the inhabitants literally,

I caught a glimpse in my mirror as I turned to catch a loose thread in my skirt---behind my knee, a dark network of lines and angles, and, I thought I could see, tiny words scrawled above them, names and numbers, snaking over the grid.

After that, I began to look for them.

There were the fantastically adventurous stories like Alex and the Toyceivers by Paul Meloy. This short story is actually the first chapter of a novel in which demented toy-like beasts are after Alex. A sudden, violent confrontation and narrow escape left me wanting to know more about the Toyceivers and why they were after Alex. The Somnambulist by David J. Schwartz tells of a woman who awakens most mornings exhausted and aching because …

She dreamed that she carried a fire-tipped lance astride an eight-legged horse, that she excavated bones from the floors of ancient cathedrals, that she climbed the inner walls of ruined fortresses long since given over to tourists and pulled amulets from behind loose bricks. Sometimes she killed faceless things that crawled through wind or flew upon currents of sand. She developed calluses on her hands, woke up sore after sleeping on silk sheets. Her nails never needed to be clipped.

The Tower of Morning’s Bones by Hal Duncan is an exaltation of language that spans time and space to revel in the most ancient of myths and more modern technologies in a single bound. Its tone and prose are reminiscent of his duology, The Book of All Hours,

Over the grey memory of his dream and over the grey reality of the world outside, he sings out loud and long the lines that weave the world around him, music and mosaic, a shape of songlines. This modern muezzin sings from his minaret to wake the mourning city up, and as he sings, a tower of hours arises out of swamp, vines climbing shaft to glassy dome. The songliner laughs---the city’s morning glory. Somewhere a weathervane cockcrows.

Although they all share a common theme, the diversity of the stories and imaginations of the authors make this collection an interesting and compelling read. In Paper Cities, the city is not a mere background against which authors prop their characters to tell a story. The city is a character: an incredibly viable, evolving, and influential one at that.

My first experience with Tad Williams was when I picked up his novel, "City of Golden Shadow." I found the book's opening, in which one of the main characters experiences scenes from World War I, to be marvelously descriptive and quite riveting. Though I found the culmination of that book series to be rather disappointing, I moved on to more of Williams' books. I read his "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" saga, which I found more enjoyable, but was once again disappointed by the ending. I then tackled "Shadowmarch," which was so bogged down I could hardly finish it. After all of these lengthy works, I wanted to try something that would give me more of what I liked about Tad Williams without the sheer weight of pages. That led me to try, "The War of the Flowers."

In this standalone novel, I was soon rewarded with exactly what I had hoped for. Williams' gift for wonderful descriptive scenes was again present as I began reading. The scenes and events involving Theo and his mother stand out as some of the most poignant I've ever read.

The premise of the book is interesting, if not completely new to fantasy readers. Theo, the main character, finds himself transported to the land of Faerie and encounters danger and adventure as he is caught up in the affairs of the ruling houses, named for flowers. I found the title misleading, as actual war in the sense of pitched battles and combat heroics is not a major element of the plot.

The book is not so much about fantastic elements, though these are certainly present, as it is about interaction between its well-developed characters. Many are dark, with sinister aspects hinted at and revealed slowly by the author. Theo begins as a sympathetic loser, but grows as the story progresses. Love interests abound throughout and feature prominently in his fate. There are some aspects of "Romeo and Juliet" here, in fact, though with a less tragic outcome.

There is some social commentary as well, though I perceived it to be understated, perhaps even underdeveloped. The inhabitants of Faerie, in an interesting twist for a fantasy novel, are discovering all the problems of industrialized society, class inequality, exploitation, and greed.

Unfortunately, the excellence of the early parts of the book begins to wane by the middle to late chapters. This is a common problem with many of Williams' books, in my opinion. The mysterious elements in the plot begin to be explained -- but the details seem overly contrived. I was disappointed with some of the plot twists, and others I found predictable. In a few cases, I felt as though I was left hanging with no explanation at all.

These complaints would have been forgivable but for the end of the story. It almost seemed as though the author had lost interest in the book chapters ago, and just needed to get it wrapped up so it would be finished.

In fairness, I enjoyed reading this book, flaws and all. Tad Williams once again succeeds in creating another world for the reader to explore, though at times the writing is frustrating. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a short -- if 700 pages may be called short – introduction to the style of Tad Williams. His best and worst are both present in this novel.

it’s a big night on the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation -- the grand opening of the multimillion-dollar Crazy Horse Casino.

And for ONE of them, it will be their last night on Earth.

One of the interesting things about Casino Boogie is how it changes things up from Indian Country. In Indian Country we are introduced to Bad Horse as our main protagonist and through 5 issues the plot follows him through a linear path in which we get to know some of the other main characters and a bit of the workings of The Rez. But if Indian Country is a story told linearly then Casino Boogie spreads out and is told laterally. This manifests itself in a few ways.

Issue #6 acts as a good transition between these two different story telling styles because it follows a similar pattern to the previous 5 issues allowing us to shadow Bad Horse before imparting on us the important textual lesson that he is not the only character. In this volume we will start to see the broader canvass of characters, their fractured personal histories and the intricately plotted connections that inform their depths.

Red Crow becomes further a Shakespearean figure carrying the weight on his shoulders, the weight of identity, the weight of history and the weight of power. He is compelling, interesting and dare I say that he is a tragic figure; I do have to wonder if his days are numbered. Gina Bad Horse decade’s later still carries the wounds of one moment in time, when two federal agents were killed, and still can't reconcile the embodiment of 'the end justifies the means' that everyone and everything around her has become. She will be a catalyst for explosive change. For Catcher, the alcoholic medicine man, it remains to be seen if he is strong enough to handle what he sees, and more importantly, what he will do. He is the wildcard. Interestingly it’s in Diesel, a white man who claims a 1/16th Kickapoo heritage and self identifies as an Indian, that we get an interesting study in identity politics. He is fervent in his belief of the purity of his heritage but revels in the stereotypical trappings of the race. He is a caricature but a dangerous and violent one. He is a steam roller plowing through everything so his role remains unclear. Dino Poor Bear, who we saw in the first volume, comes from a once powerful family, and is ambitious but a dreamer. His story will be an interesting one, to see if he becomes a pawn moved by greater forces or accumulates some power and changes the configuration of the board. His is a character to watch.

One other way that Casino Boogie spreads out laterally is that it approaches a near-Ulyssean portrait of one single day. Though each section will focus on just one character of this diverse cast the larger exploration of the nuances and facets of the day from every direction possible won't be lost. It’s an exercise in precise plotting to weave together this tapestry of characters and events and Aaron's skills are improving with each book.

This touches on something that is demonstrable here; that each issue functions as a complete story arc but progresses the larger narrative arc forward. This can be a hard balance to strike sometimes, especially in this age of graphic novels, but Aaron never forgets those readers who are purchasing each individual issue on a monthly basis.

Sometime the punch you dont see coming is the one that just hit you. That’s how I felt a couple of times while reading Casino Boogie. Aaron is such a skilled writer that he literally repeats and recycles not one but two reveals from the first volume. But the damdest thing is that you just don't see it coming. It's a deft trick that I would imagine is a tough one to pull off but yet again Aaron nails it.

Casino Boogie capitalizes on the strengths that were shown in Indian Country and improves at every level to tell a compelling and interesting story. It will take us from the top of the power structure all the way down to the kid who mops the floor of the casino and everyone in between. We will go from fifty-five years ago to the present. We will go to the spirit world and come back changed. What’s next? Dunno but I can’t wait.

Unquiet Dreams takes fans of Urban Fantasy back to what the subgenre could and should be. Urban Fantasy has long been relegated to the slow simmering back burner reserved for the thick, sloppy cheese that is comforting, unsurprising, and coagulates into a lumpy mess far too easily. There are perfectly good Urban Fantasy books and perfectly horrible ones. Fortunately, "Unquiet Dreams" is one of the very good ones.

This is the second book in the series, after "Unshapely Things".This volume stands alone quite well, with enough recapping incorporated into the story to help new readers understand what Connor Grey is talking about without bogging down the pace. Connor Grey used to be part of the Guild, a magical police force that takes care of problems within the magical community, but after a nasty encounter with a powerful elf robbed him of his powers, he does freelance work with the human police. A teenaged human boy dies in the street and when Connor is called into the investigation, things spiral into a much larger and much more dangerous case. Clever readers will be able to figure out who the culprit is in advance, but the journey to the revelation is still well worth the read. Del Franco's Boston is a city that has been changed by the emergence of magical creatures but still retains most of its character. The city is populated with a variety of beings, many of whom are represented in any number of other fantasy novels. What sets this book apart is that no single class of characters is bad or good, rather they run a spectrum, though they've been subjected to stereotypes, much like their human counterparts.

The book keeps its crime scenes quite descriptive without delving too much into horrifically graphic tableaus. It's both more entertaining and far less stomach-turning than the average episode of "CSI." It's paced well, with little drag and little lacking in plot development. The characters could easily have disintegrated into a mush of stock and cardboard, but they rise to the story almost effortlessly without seeming contrived. The whole book carries an air of careful plotting without ham-handed manuevering. None of the breaks in the case seem contrived and there aren't any deus ex machina moments.

Connor Grey isn't a perfect character. He's a fallen hero who's still scraping himself together. The reader can feel sympathy for his struggles, but also see that he's one of those characters who most likely led himself to his plight. He's a very readable and compelling character.

This book was highly enjoyable, and I will definitely be seeking out the rest of the series. I'll also be buying copies of the first book for friends who enjoyed books like "War for the Oaks" by Emma Bull and Terri Windling's "Bordertown" series. I will also be holding out hope that more readers and publishers will take notice and start publishing more Urban Fantasy titles. The subgenre just faltered a little, like Connor Grey, and it doesn't deserve to be either forgotten or ignored.

Procession of the Dead comes from the Incan word Ayuamarca, which literally translated gives the book its title. It is also the Incan name for the month of November, and the title of the novel’s 11th chapter. In fact all of the chapter titles are taken from the Incan names for the months. It is a clever hook that Shan bases his narrative on, were the reader so inclined; they could research and dissect the minutia that Shan has layered into what was in 1999 his first novel. Sadly, I was not so inclined.

Capac Raimi arrives in the city (it is always just referred to as “the city”) to be a gangster with his Uncle Theo. Uncle Theo was a big deal in his youth, when he ran with “The Pacinos”, but has since faded to doing smalltime protection rackets. Capac’s arrival quickly changes things. Before long, they have attracted the attention of The Cardinal. The Cardinal is the near mythic crime lord who rules the city, and his attention is not rarely a good thing. Those who displease him disappear so thoroughly that their own families never remember they existed.

As Capac works his way up into the good graces of The Cardinal’s family, he comes to understand how little he knows of himself. But it quickly becomes apparent that there is more to The Cardinal and his city than Capac initially realized. His master isn’t satisfied with ruling the city, or an empire. The Cardinal wishes to be God, and Capac is tangled in the plot to bring this mad dream to fruition. Capac Raimi finds himself last on a list of names marking the Ayuamarcans, those vital to The Cardinal’s plans. Most have been crossed off, but not Capac, and Capac Raimi is Incan for December. He is the last Ayuamarcan, if only he knew what it meant.

This story could have made a great crime novel with supernatural overtones, rather than a mediocre fantasy with horror and crime elements. While I am all for having the reader experience the magic as the protagonist does, it just takes too long for Procession of the Dead to feel like a fantasy novel. Having not read the original printing, I cannot speak to the “thorough revision” Procession has undergone at the author’s hands since its first publication. It also feels like a novel strangely out of time. Capac Raimi makes cultural references to Trading Places, Dallas, Bjorn Borg, The Graduate, all of which seem a bit dated for a character of Capac’s twenty seven or “thereabouts” years.

It is hard to say if the fault lies with the author here, or with how his publishers chose to market the book. Shan certainly has talent. That fact is undeniable. He has a real gift for turning a phrase, such as with the book’s opening: “If The Cardinal pinched the cheeks of his arse, the walls of the city bruised. They were that close, Siamese twins, joined by a wretched, twisted soul.” Procession of the Dead is proclaimed as a gritty urban fantasy, Shan is even likened to Neil Gaiman. Gritty it certainly is, but this is no Neverwhere. While Shan and Procession of the Dead held my interest well enough to see me to the novel’s end, I was left with little desire to read the next books in The City Trilogy.

"Darkling" is the third book in the Otherworld Series by Yasmine Galenorn. While this book is in the middle of the series, it's possible to pick up this volume and start reading without feeling too lost. The recaps are brief but relevant and they're incorported into the story well so it doesn't interrupt the flow of the plot at all.

Readers are immediately introdcued to Menolly D'Artigo, a no-nonsence tough bar-owning member of the former Otherworld Intelligence Agency, otherwise known as the OIA. The OIA is defunct, since the administration collapsed, but some of its members remain active in order to keep humans safe from nasty supernatural creatures taht would try to kill them. Menolly is also a vampire. She has two sisters, one who's a shapeshifter and one who's a witch, who not only live with her but also act as OIA agents. When a renegade vampire starts making more of its kind, the D'Artigo sisters are called in to put an end to the nest and its sire. They recieve help from sources that are trusted and others that are dubious at best.

The book is a hodgepodge of mystery, urban fantasy, thriller, and romance with a cast that's highly attractive and a style that is fast-paced and entertaining. The strong female characters are nice to have in the book, though they're balanced out with plenty of men to help them. This book feels a little like it wants to be paranormal chick lit but can't quite bring itself to go there.

It isn't entirely light and frothy, there are some fairly graphic scenes of torture as well as some explicit gore. The D'Artigo sisters are hardly perfect though sometimes the exibition of those flaws seems like it really ought to have gotten them killed at least twice in this book alone.
It was a fun book to read. I certainly found myself looking forward to reading it and will probably seek out the previous two volumes as well as the subsequent ones in the series. There are friends that I would certainly recommend it to, especially those that like vampires and angst, though I would want to be sure I considered the age-appropriateness for some of them.

Fans of Asimov will recognize the bare bones of later works in Pebble in the Sky, his first published fiction novel. This story takes place many years before the Foundation series and contains some hints of these stories yet to come. The Galactic Empire has spread and continues to grow in all directions. Trantor is the capital and central world of the Empire, operating a massive bureaucracy from its political hub. At this time, however, Earthlings are still living on the surface of the planet and are isolated from the rest of the human population. Planetary prejudice and political unrest have reinforced this separatist notion, making Earth a backwater assignment no imperial servant wants.

Life on Earth is hard. There are limited resources and the suspicion of radiation poisoning colors everything. Society is run by a quasi-religious order that enforces the life limitation of sixty years, ostensibly to make room for others who are being born. Many seem content to live only sixty years, but others are always on the lookout for ways to avoid the mandated euthanasia.

Into this world drops (literally) Joseph Schwartz. Due to an unfortunate accident in a nuclear lab in 1949, Mr. Schwartz is thrown forward in time by millennia and finds himself living in an ultra-modern Earth. Not as easy as it seems, as language has continued to evolve and he can’t understand anything. In addition, humanity itself has physically evolved which makes Schwartz an ancient version of unknown homo sapiens. Even worse, Schwartz is 62 - two years past the enforced Sixty rule and destined to die.

This is not a dark, dystopic story, however, and is infused with Asimov’s usual intelligent humor. Political maneuvering and scientific discoveries go hand-in-hand as Schwartz makes new friends and struggles to survive. The Empire is forced to recognize Earth as a power to be reckoned with, but this may or may not be good for the Earthlings in general and Schwartz in particular.

Asimov was truly a master, delineating the scope of science fiction as a genre. He breathed intelligence and real science into his fiction, making his writing one of the best examples of what true science fiction is. His characters are believable, some likeable and others not, and somehow he always works a twist into the plot where the reader least expects it. Even more, Asimov pushes the readers to examine both self and society. He seems to want readers to acknowledge the negatives of humanity and then celebrate the positives. That which makes us as humans great can also be that which causes us to destroy ourselves.

If you are a fan of Asimov, you should read his first scifi book Pebble in the Sky. If you have never dabbled into Asimov, or any science fiction for that matter, dip a toe into this book. I think you might find the water is just to your liking!

When Rudd, a troubled Morman teenager, runs across a series of articles chronicling a vicious murder committed by the grandson of Brigham Young, he becomes swept up in the psychological and atavistic aftereffects of the religion's shrouded rituals of love and retribution. Together with Lael, his newly discovered half-brother, and Lyndi, the sole survivor of a slain family, Rudd is soon caught up in a web of secrecy and obsession that casts a veil upon the present as it plunges them all deeper into the violent past.


Sometimes you read a novel so original and forceful that it stuns you into silence when finished. You find that its hard to choose the right words to describe the experience because those words would fail. The Open Curtain is one of those books. I've read Evenson's short fiction over the years and as stunning as it is it does nothing to prepare you for this novel length assault.

This novel is part of the larger Battletech series, though it's not necessary to have played the game to appreciate the book. In fact, this book worked quite well as a stand-alone novel. There was just enough background information mixed in with the text to be helpful without bringing the story to a screeching halt.

A federation of planets known as the Free Worlds League has collapsed under the internal squabbling of its ruling family, the Meriks. Each branch of the family, often denoted by a hyphenated surname, controls a loose alliance of planets. Their fighting escalates to intergalactic scales through the use of the armies of their commonwealths. All of which sounds fairly standard for the average military science fiction novel. Fortunately, this novel does see its way into some more exciting and interesting territory.

Firstly, there aren't any aliens causing problems in this story and there hasn't been a large scale unification of the human race in an attempt to combat a hostile enemy. This is human nature as currently viewed on Earth taken onto an intergalactic scale. In this book, people are people and some fundamental truths about them simply do not change. The people in power are both rich and priviliged. In some cases, those ruling a particular alliance haven't got the slightest clue about what the average citizen in their charge goes through. There are also differing schools of religious thought as well as a death cult involved.

Secondly, this book is just as much a political science fiction novel as it is a military one. There are strategic placements of Merik family members within various factions in order to gain information and power. Some of these mechinations involve covert operations, while others involve overt schemes. There is certainly some very well thought out groundwork involved in this plot and while some of the later developments are hardly a surprise it's still very satisfying to see how the story fits together as the book winds to a close.

One thing that I found very enjoyable was that this book contained very strong female characters. The women are powerful and intelligent and even, in some cases, a little bit threatening but they're still well-constructed believable characters. They're women that chew the scenery rather than create or become part of it. There is a good balance with the male characters. There is no expense of characterization to accomodate either sex.

The novel is fast-paced and is rather like watching a good action movie. If there are parts that don't quite make perfect sense it won't disrupt or derail the rest of the book. In most cases, things are clarified later on. In a very few isolated cases, things were at least resolved even if they weren't really explained. However, pacing is also where the novel does get tripped-up a lot. Towards the end, there are some fairly large, important chunks of information that just simply get glossed over. As a reader, I felt dissatisfied because, while I may not know much about setting up a government, I know enough to know that what I got there at the end was a completely sweetened condensed version of "well, that's kind of boring and I'm ready to write this part now." To be honest, by that point, I'd really started to care about how the actual politics were going to play out and I couldn't help feeling that skipping over them that way, with only a few relevant teaspoonfuls of information, completely robbed me of the statisfying conclusion I really wanted. I wanted to know how the triumph of this colossal undertaking actually happened instead of getting a tidy little epilogue at the end. It almost seemed like the book had been edited for time which, of course, completely defeats the purpose of taking the time to read the book.

Aside from that hop, skip, and jump to the end, it was a good book. The interjections of battle scenes amidst the political maneuvers kept interest up by making sure that the book didn't get too monotonous at any juncture. The characters were interesting, the dialog was nicely written, and overall, it was a book that I was happy to read.

I'd recommend this book to people who aren't sure if they'd really like a military science fiction book. There are enough other things going on that it doesn't get bogged down in incomprehensible jargon or graphic violence and there is a complexity to it that ought to keep most readers happily stimulated.

There are the days: the dappled grounds, the aimless yard work, the hours in the booth giving directions to families in SUVs. And then there are the nights, crisscrossing the South with illicit goods, the shifty deals in dingy trailers, the vague orders from a boss they've never met. Sooner than Kyle and Swin can recognize how close to paradise they are, in this neglected state park in southern Arkansas, the lazy peace is shattered with a shot. Night blends into day. Dead bodies. Crooked superiors. Suspicious associates. It's on-the-job training, with no time for slow learning, bad judgment, or foul luck.


Over the last few years in crime fiction stories, regardless of medium, there has been a trend that has tended towards protagonists/antagonists that aren't at the top of the organization but instead are of the middle-management variety. The position of these characters has illustrated wonderfully the bureaucratic morass of large organizations, and the Willy Loman-esque delusions as they grind away the day taking shit from higher levels that often go unseen. Except where as Loman kept going until the bitter end, unable to escape his rut, the careers of these mid-level men will most likely end abruptly and in death. Arkansas is an interesting, and well written, addition to this trend, without being beholden to it.


One of the more interesting things that Arkansas does is set up an interesting dichotomy in the two leads, Kyle and Swin. One of them brings street smarts to the table and the other brings book smarts. The totally different skill sets that they represent, and how their paths even came to cross, make for an interesting partnership. At different times the application of these two skill sets (sometimes together sometimes apart) ends up being the nucleus in this relationship.


Johanna is a fascinating character that never even for one second casts an eye towards the too many cliches that female characters in crime fiction are often relegated to, in this case the criminal's old lady. She is idiosyncratic and a little maddening. Incorporating some parts of both Kyle and Swin's influence she sometimes makes decisions based on her head and at other times her gut. She is tough and vulnerable without either one being exaggerated.


Froggy's sections are interesting because they are presented in the second person perspective. His character is basically invisible to the other characters, a name only, boogey man that operates his network through underlings to maintain buffer zones and the distance of the second person "you" affords the reader the same level of distance as Swin and Kyle. In other novels we have seen the interspersing of third and first person perspectives as a means to drive up the tension but the effect here is different since he could literally be anyone. The reveal of who he is is handled well and it snaps his sections into clearer focus.

An ancient race of lycanthropes has survived to the present day, and its numbers are growing as the initiated convince L.A.'s down-and-out to join their pack. Paying no heed to moons, full or otherwise , they change from human to canine at will -- and they're bent on domination at any cost.


Caught in the middle are Anthony, a kindhearted, besotted dogcatcher, and the girl he loves, a female werewolf who has abandoned her pack. Anthony has no idea that she's more than she seems, and she wants to keep it that way. But her efforts to protect her secret lead to murderous results.


Sharp Teeth is a novel about werewolves in L.A. told completely in free verse. That condensed summary might scare some off and will excite others. You can randomly turn to any page and immediately see that it's not like most books published in todays market. A fundamental question becomes 'is this a gimmick or a legitimate device that serves the story well'?


Sharp Teeth never for a moment becomes gimmicky, and like the best examples of verse epics, it has a frequency that is easy to tune into. It's got such an easy rhythm to it that you never get pulled out of the story with thoughts of form or layout. So any potential readers who thinks that they might be put off by a free verse novel shouldn't have any worries.


One thing that the free verse form does allow for in its telling of a hardboiled story is an ultra streamlined pace that results in a lean and mean narrative in the best sense. Digging below the surface however what we find are all the elements of a great crime fiction story. There are drugs, murder, betrayal, revenge and gangs. All of these, at times familiar, tropes are married with a new modern, urban werewolf mythos that gives them a fresh face and really stretches the boundaries of what a hard-boiled/noir story can be. A lot of what we know from popular werewolf stories, if not everything, is scrapped so we can't even rely on that. Barlow manages to use our familiarity with crime fiction stories and werewolf stories against us here.

My latest review is for Counting Heads by David Marusek. This is a catchy read. The story pulls up sort of like a shiny new car to whisk you off to an exotic location. It is March 30, 2092. That is announced immediately like a road sign. The technology is exotic and plentiful from the get go, so that serves as an invitation to put the imagination on cruise control, kick the seat back and enjoy the scenery that Marusek supplies along the way. Along the way he throws descriptive zingers out there that are good for a laugh. On the first page we get the line:

“Her eyes peered out at you like eels in coral.”

The use of such similes and metaphors could quickly become annoying or look like the author was stretching too far to attempt to impart wit or charm into the tale, but in the context that they arrived it seemed to me that they came with a cheerful, good natured wink.

In 2092 and 2132 technology can do almost anything. Longevity to the point of virtual immortality is prevalent. Death for the most part is an inconvenience to be managed. The affluent in society can totally manage their lives compliments of extremely complex artificial intelligence called valets or later, mentars. There is virtually nothing that technology cannot provide those who have the access to it. But as our main characters, led by Samson Harger, learn technology can also take away as it gives. There are also some personal voids that no amount of technology can fill.

Such is the nature of life in this world that our story unfolds over a span of 40 years, not over days and months. A high tech “misunderstanding” changes Samson Harger’s life forever just when it seems like he truly does have everything. In a matter of seconds, literally, he has all of that taken away and is irrevocably turned into an outcast and fringe member of society.

That is but the beginning of a conspiracy against his family that takes 40 years to unfold and draws in all of the other characters, who cut a cross section across all social classes in the world. We see the affluents, the chartists, and the cloned workforce, as well as the ghosts and uncertainties that haunt them all even as it seems like they have everything that life could have to offer. We see that there always seems to be some longing that technology cannot fix. So not everything is idyllic in that utopian Star Trek way.

Our plot furthers itself as we follow the events of our characters, and they are varied. We have perhaps the only old man in the world who is near death but desires one final social statement before he dies, and a clone security expert who wonders if there’s more to life than the likes and dislikes, traits, and characteristics of his genetic line, and fears that even thinking about that may be a sign genetic clone fatigue. There is his wife, another clone who fears that the skillset of her genetic line is rapidly becoming obsolete in the current world. There is a retro-boy, who desires all the advantages of willingly remaining in a pre-puberty state even as he sees the disadvantages and missed opportunities. His housemeets in the Kodiak Charter also go about their daily lives as they watch their charter continue to decay from its previous heights. We have a social planner who is caught in the middle of a suspiciously improbable accident and finds himself further drawn into events by an AI entity.

Loose connections begin to be made in the plot as all these elements converge, and all road signs pointed to an exciting climax where everything finally came together, all those cherries on the slot machine lined up, and we got our big payout. I was reading eagerly, as the story was original and innovative enough that I didn’t find myself beating the novel to its conclusion. It built up and built up as our character drama reached critical mass. A number of chapters along the way were written with a different style or perspective. They must be there to draw attention to something important or significant, like a flashing hotel sign on the side of an interstate. Things seemed juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust on the verge of all coming together into what I was already anticipating as a big ‘Wow!’ moment. Then just like that the story reached a quick ending. Like the author ran out of words and the story had to stop there. The road ended pretty much exactly where the map for our journey said it would, but the map never said our shiny new car ride would stop at a bridge that was still under construction, with no road ahead left to travel. All those pieces along the way never assembled into a complete explanation. What was the point behind everything that happened? What was the big conspiracy hinted at through the story? You find that you don’t know anymore than what you speculated along the way. Or, like me, perhaps you feel like something of a dense reader, wondering if artfully planted clues and deep interpretations were left out there in plain sight so that all the answers should be self apparent, and that in the end after reading this fine book you managed to entirely miss the point and let it fly over your head.

Perhaps David Marusek wanted to foster conjecture and debate. Maybe somewhere in here he has encoded his secret answer to the meaning of life. Perhaps if I had a Bachelor or Master’s Degree in Literature the message he was conveying would not have slipped beneath my conscious threshold. But maybe he’s already planning for a sequel and wanted to leave them wanting more.

I do want more. I want some concrete answers. So for that I have to drop Counting Heads down a couple notches and give it an 8. I was counting heads but in the end I wasn’t able to report any sort of definitive number..

There is a complex theology at the heart Scar Night, the first book of the series known as the Deepgate Codex. The celestial goddess Ayen banished her son Ulcis to Hell because she wanted to close access to Heaven to mortals, while Ulcis, in a Promethean way, disagrees with her, She cast him down to Hell, which is at the bottom of a seemingly endless abyss. The city of Deepgate is built over the this abyss, hanging from chains. At its center is the Church of Ulcis, where the dead are properly disposed of through its rituals; bodies are flung down in the abyss, where their souls can join Ulcis’ army and storm Heaven. Bodies that are improperly cared for are damned to Iril, a blood-soaked labyrinth even further below the abyss.

The city has two angels. Dill is a temple archon, an winged angel raised to follow the complex and ultimately hollow rituals of the Church. The city is haunted by an immortal mad angel named Carnival. During moonless nights, she hunts the city, and drains hapless victims blood, like a vampire. The city is also involved in an endless war with Ayen’s worshipers, who live in the wasteland surrounding Deepgate.

Devon, a developer of poisons for the war, has grown insane, with the death of his wife being the final straw. He begins a covert war against Deepgate, with a plot to develop deadly angelwine, which grants it’s consumer superhuman power. It does require human blood, and he begins stalking the city for prey, under the nose of the Church, in a Jack the Ripper-like manner. Meanwhile, Mr. Nettle seeks vengeance for the mysterious death of his daughter, which he blames on the evil angel Carnival.

Scar Night’s plot is irresistible. The author fits the sections together neatly, like a puzzle. At no one point does he lose control. It’s a magical thriller full of atmosphere and suspense. The elaborate Dickens-meets-Peake world he’s built is as impressive as it is improbable. One will get whiffs of Mieville’s New Crouzobon, with the gritty texture and grotesque imagery, even if it lacks Mieville’s gloriously baroque language. The twists and turns are generally surprising, and the writing skillfully places the reader in an alien world. The author has history working in video games, and his action sequences reflect that.

The one weakness is the character building. Dill, the hero, is a bit Luke Skywalker as acted by Mark Hamill, callow and a little gee-whiz. The priests of the Church of Ulcis have deus ex machina motivations. While Rachel, his guardian, is given some fleshing out, and some kick-ass Buffy-like scenes against Carnival, she’s a little flat. The villains are more finely drawn—the old saying is ‘The Devil has the best lines’ and this is true. The tormented angel Carnival is vividly described, to the point that you have sympathy for her. And Devon, the Poisoner, is provided with believable nihilism.

Scar Night is a promising first novel. Further adventures in the sequence will hopefully show more nuance and growth as it progresses.

Tad Williams has a knack for creating an atmosphere. His fantasy worlds are fully populated and full of fanciful imagination and realistic character interactions. When you read one of his fantasies you can imagine a whole wide world full of his imaginary people. Shadowplay is no different. The second of his Shadowmarch series, Shadowplay directly follows the events from the first book.

He starts off with the narrow escape of Princess Briony from her home as it is taken over by a treasonous branch of the royal family. The reader first follows Briony and her companion, Shaso, the former Southmarch master of arms and the man she had formerly believed to be a part of the murder of her brother, Prince Kendrick and who had thus been imprisoned for months. Theirs is an uneasy voyage; the princess has never had to fend for herself, has never been hungry and at first has difficulty with the idea of running and hiding.

The next thread for the reader to take up is the story of Prince Barrick, Briony’s twin, who has been given a secret mission for the Twilight People behind the shadowline following the Southmarch army’s defeat at the hands of those same People. Traveling through their lands, into unknown territory with unknown dangers and difficulties; Barrick is accompanied by Ferras Vansen, the former captain of the royal guard who is not only in love with Briony but has been charged by her with the safety of her brother.

While those are the two main threads of the storyline, Williams weaves into the story a handful of other players. Among these are the imprisoned King Olin, held for ransom by Ludis Drakava, Lord Protector of Hierosol, Qinnitan an acolyte of the Hive in Xis who has escaped and is on the run, Merolanna, the royal twins’ great aunt who is still inside the Southmarch castle, Chert Blue Quartz one of the Funderlings who not only has a very strange adopted child but is helping Chaven, the former royal physician work against the treasonous Tollys, Matthias Tinwright at poet at Southmarch, and Daikonas Vo a Perikalese mercenary sent by the autarch of Xis to return Qinnitan. As you can see from the long laundry list of players above, this is not a simple one act play. The reader is allowed into each of these characters minds and is able to see the world from their point of view as well as the view of the main characters. Some may find this distracting, the moving back and forth among so many characters, but I generally don’t as long as the number of characters that I enjoy reading about outweighs the number of characters whose stories I must wade through. Unfortunately, in my opinion, there are very few characters whose fate I truly wish to follow in this book. Thus I found the story to be very uneven with the characters I was interested in being thrown in like candy amongst a morass of plot and characters that I just did not care about.

While I found the plot itself, at its most basic, to be something I would normally enjoy; Williams’ need to throw in everything but the kitchen sink and to drag out certain storylines till they were dull as ditchwater made me sigh with frustration several times during my reading. With some hefty word count cuts and some judicious flashback and tale-telling use, I feel this could be a stellar book. The characterization is deftly handled, the political plotting and inter-character relations were all finely tuned and the realization of the world itself incredibly imagined. At heart, this is a good story and worth reading, though it certainly would not be harmed by a judicious cut back of about 100 pages.

Captain John "Black Jack" Geary has spent 100 years in cryogenic preservation in an escape pod. In that time, his deeds at the space battle that cost him his ship and crew have gone on to render him a near mythic figure in the eyes of the crew who finds that escape pod. His crew, part of the Alliance, are fighting a near-ceaseless war against the Syndicate, better known as "Syndics" in the book.

What makes this book so interesting is not the detailed space battles, which seem much more vividly described towards the end of the book, perhaps because as the reader continues and gets a feel for lingo and the technology the battles become easier to understand, or the characters, which don't seem all that vivdly fleshed out, not even John Geary himself, but the ways that simple human nature are retained as constants despite all that has changed in Campbell's universe. Sci-fi can fall very easily into the trap of malevolent alien races hell-bent on human destruction, but this book holds very tightly to the idea that humanity's worst enemy is itself. Not only does John Geary have to battle against his own reputation as an infallible commander, he has to battle against the opressive Syndics, and members of his own Alliance Fleet.

There are no high and mighty holier than thou sentiments in this book. Humanity has not suddenly pulled through its turbulent adolscence to become a mature, peace-loving adult that embodies idea character. These are flawed people who experience jelousy, rage, and doubt just like anyone else.

The technology doesn't seem implausible, though it doesn't seem truly innovative either. It is all based on sound principles of physics and certainly makes a very plausible leap of extrapolation into what could be possible. I did really love the names that Campbell used for the ships in the book, names such as Audacious, Revenge, and Leviathan, all of which seem incredibly appropriate for battleships.

I tend to prefer space battles on film, as my imagination lends itself more easily to imagining battles that involve swords or hand-to-hand combat, or, at the very least, people meeting face to face. Later in the book, Campbell does a better job of explaining the movements of the fleet geometrically which certainly helped my visualization process and made those parts of the book more enjoyable, which is definitely important because there are a lot of battles in this volume.

I had not read the first book or the second which I do view as a bit of a liability because the author probably laid much of the necessary groundwork for the character development in those books. The characters didn't seem two-dimensional, it just seemed as if I were attending a dinner party, albeit a fairly non-graphically violent one and no one really bothered to introduce me to any of the other guests. There is enough background given in the book to make sure that new readers aren't completely lost, I certainly wasn't, but I would certainly recommend beginning with the first book, rather than jumping into the middle.

This isn't a particularly bloodthirsty book. The participants have been fighting in a war that has been going on far longer than they've been alive which has become the focus of their society. They have their doubts about how valid their own military policies are and are starting to find some common ground with their supposed enemy as revealed by some captured message transmissions. While many books that involve war stories can get entirely lost in the battles and technology (even histories or contemporary war stories), Campbell never lets the reader forget that they are reading about people, not just strategies and firepower.

It was certainly not a boring book. I feel that I would have enjoyed it more if I had read previous volumes, but I didn't mind reading it in the slightest. I would most definitely recommend it to people whom I know thoroughly enjoy military science fiction and probably some people who would just enjoy a good military story.