Vampirate

Book Review: OCEAN OF BLOOD
Written by: Darren Shan
Published by: HarperCollins
Released: April 2011
231pages
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Buoyed by a courteous comment from Darren Shan himself posted beneath my review of the first novel in his latest vampiric series, Birth of a Killer (see HERE – I was well chuffed!), wherein he promised more carnage to come in the saga’s forthcoming instalments, I persisted through a rather weak opening to this recently released second adventure charting the (comparatively) early years in the afterlife of Larten Crepsley before I hit the juicy stuff.

As the orange-haired sunlight-dodger wades half-heartedly through his second “life” like a directionless graduate who isn’t sure what the future holds, drinking himself into oblivion while partying with as many of the opposite sex as he can, I couldn’t help but feel like the opening clutch of chapters in Ocean of Blood were meandering filler; taking a looooong time to say not very much at all. By the sixty-page mark years had passed and I was deep into the hardly mammoth read, yet it felt like the ground covered could have been summed up in a single killer chapter.

That said, it isn’t as if Shan’s nimble prose style is a struggle to read. Granted it isn’t as wickedly poetic as Chris Priestley’s similarly macabre delights (see my reviews HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE and prepare to be hooked), but Shan’s chapters are brisk and punchy and the content easily digestible, so I never considered it a chore to read, just lacking any substantial meat to sink my teeth (or should that be fangs?) into.

For personal reasons, I felt blurring reality and fiction with the inclusion of a cameo from a certain Abraham Stoker, a scribe researching a certain novel on the undead inspired by Vlad the Impaler, was a cheesy misstep. Less cringeworthy than Elvis – sorry, “Bub” – in Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series, but far too reminiscent of The Undead, the dire twenty-first century “official” Dracula sequel penned by Stocker’s descendant Dacre, which also utilizes the iconic author as a character inspired by “real” bloodsuckers.

Returning to the big picture, and mirroring my thoughts on Book 1 (which opened with a horrifyingly brutal punch which would forever shape young Larten’s afterlife), Ocean of Blood – which is rather tame in the horror department for the bulk of its length – accumulated all its firepower for a staggeringly ferocious climatic 30 pages aboard the high seas.

Prior to the finale I was beginning to question what relevance the book’s title had to the land-based narrative, but then Larten and his lovestruck apprentice Malora board the Pearly Tornado bound for Greenland with Larten sick with vampire flu, delirious and desperate for a feed… Much to my morbid delight, the voyage doesn’t end happily for the suspicious passengers or crew, but it certainly convinced me to stick around for book three, Palace of the Damned, set for release in September: There will be blood...


In a CR@B Shell: Still a flitting and narratively insubstantial beast which fails to remedy Birth of a Killer’s flaws, but much like its protagonist, Larten Crepsley’s sophomore adventure is flamboyant and gushing confidence; wearing its scars with pride. Reach the gruesome climax and your jaw will hit the floor; your perseverance justified.
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To the Manor Dead

Book Review: THE DEAD OF WINTER
Written by: Chris Priestley
Released in: 2010
Published by: Bloomsbury
217pages
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In an attempt to temperate my ravenous consumption of the marvellous “Tales of Terror” series from Cambridge’s own young adult horror author Chris Priestley (click the links for my reviews of Uncle Montague and Black Ship), I decided to jump forward to his latest release; once again a ghost story with a young protagonist, but this time a singular extended story rather than an anthology of quick-fire yarns.

Newly orphaned Michael Vyner is this tale’s diminutive narrator, recalling the “heartbeat hastening” events of the last Christmas, where he was obligated to leave behind the life he knew to spend the holidays in the desolate and shadowy Hawton Mere, an ancient East Anglian abode which is home to his enigmatic and aloof guardian – the sickly Sir Stephen Clarendon – and a solitary woman in white who wanders the snow-covered fens…

The Dead of Winter could quite easily have been reduced to a 20/30 page short story from a “Tales of Terror” compilation, which is not to say it is an agonisingly drawn-out or humdrum affair when spread over a novel’s length, only that a lot of the time is spent accumulating a chilling ambience – shadows in the darkness, knocking behind walls, ghosts in the mist, etcetera – while the plot is never thick or complex. But then this is horror aimed at a teen audience.

Priestley’s descriptive prose is his greatest creative strength – he has great fun with his graphic and evocative imagery and metaphors, conjuring up a truly fearful vibe from the slightest of actions or most sensitive of sentiments. Par exemple:

“As I recoiled in horror, her face shone with a light of pure evil. Her eyes
that had been so bright in life were now white marbles, as if the fire had
licked all colour from them. She was like some spider who had waited for this
moment, and now the moment came…”

While the climatic clarification of the ghoulish goings-on did fall a little short of Uncle Montague’s extreme depravity (a wonderfully creepy faceless boy with just a mouth for shrieking in agony and the supernatural ability to morph into a giant arachno-lizard creature was sadly underused) and the solution to the overriding mystery of how Sir Stephen’s beloved wife died was all too predictable, what did impress me about The Dead of Winter was how well Priestley handled the increasing cast of supporting characters.

Cooks, lawyers, coachmen, servants, guardians, sisters; all play a part – for better or worse – in Michael’s sorrowful secluded stay at Hawton Mere, and none are given short shrift in the narrator’s first-person account. Even if they depart for extended periods of time, their presence is always felt by their absence, most notably Sir Stephen’s lawyer, Tristan Jerwood, who Michael gradually warms to and comes to see as a confidant, missing this new-found friend who must leave on business for long periods at a time. Of course this desire for companionship is only natural when your parent’s have died and you are imprisoned in an alien environment.

This kind of continuity may seem insignificant to some, but it is crucial to producing a consistent and relatable chronicle (particularly as Michael is only a child and – no matter how brave – still dependant on support from his elders), and it impressed me as proof that Priestley – an author who I have become acquainted with as a short story scribe – and his compellingly lurid shocks can translate to longer stories. I fervently await Mr Creecher, which is due for hardback release in October.


In a CR@B Shell: While not as vividly distasteful as the gloriously grotesque Uncle Montague, The Dead of Winter still succeeds as an old fashioned gothic yuletide nightmare in the fashion of Dennis Wheatley and Henry James ghost stories; not least because of Priestley’s slow-building tension and disturbingly macabre ambience.
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Magic Soon to be Set Free

Despite being available on UK shores in paperback format since last year, the long awaited soft-bound release of young-adult fantasy author Jaclyn Dolamore's debut novel, Magic Under Glass, is set for US release by Bloomsbury on May 24th 2011 - that's just three weeks away!

As a bonus incentive for her American audience, this new edition will also feature a sneek peak at Ms. Dolamore's sophomore work of fantasy fiction, Between the Sea and Sky, which is due to be published internationally this October. Mermaids, magic and a race of winged humanoids? I'll certainly be checking that out!

Click THIS LINK to read my review of Magic Under Glass, which I posted as part of a trio of taut critiques waaaay back in January (can you believe that was five months ago?!).

US readers, click THIS LINK to reach the Magic Under Glass Amazon.com page to order your copy of the impending paperback release now!

Ghost Writer

Book Review: THE THIRTEENTH TALE
Written by: Diane Setterfield
456pages
Published by: Orion
Released: 2006
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Devouring this novel’s last 250 pages in one mammoth session is probably the fastest I have ever read a book. Faster even than I read The Book Thief or The Girl with the Dagon Tattoo, two works I couldn’t consume fast enough and would unquestionably ordain as modern classics. I cannot proclaim quite the same level of adulation for debut author Diane Setterfield’s fragmented and revelatory gothic mystery, but I had a book club deadline to keep to and was determined to make it.

Of course any novel which holds your attention for that length of uninterrupted time must be doing something right; I was certainly never bored by the valiant tale-within-a-tale structure, with Setterfield building suspense by drip-feeding the story through a strict authorial narrator. The Thirteenth Tale introduces us to bookish amateur biographer Margaret Lea, hired by reclusive and secretive author Vida Winter to write a biography of the novelist’s extraordinary upbringing.

The novel drifts between Miss Winter’s vivid recounting of her family’s past and modern-day research Margaret undertakes to determine whether her storytelling interviewee is actually – finally – telling the truth, or merely spinning her scribe another yarn. The gravely ill Miss Winter has handpicked Margaret for a particular reason, and soon the author’s tale is impacting and intertwining with Margaret’s present.

Miss Winter’s storytelling expertise lends a masterful gloss to her history lesson. She knows when to end each session to tease a future plotline. You find yourself determined to read on to uncover every last detail of her story. But the fact that it is her story is the concept around which the entire novel wobbles: Margaret reacts to what she hears, guiding our reactions, and were Miss Winter more open with Margaret, the skill of the exposure would be lost and the truth too plainly – and painfully – laid bare. Vida Winter understands this because Setterfield understands this, which is why there is a beginning, middle and end to all good stories, even true ones.

This guiding of our reactions is laid on a little thick with a few too many nods and winks towards “ghosts”, “mists”, “twins” and classic novels with analogous themes – it is an attempt to endow the everyday with a supernatural quality which is hardly necessary given the complexity of the plot. We, the reader, can already ascertain that something is amiss (the fact that Vida has countless times previous told reporters a pack of lies about her past; her reluctance to say “I” when referring to herself; etcetera), so any further efforts to mystify the mysterious are completely superfluous.

Given the span of time covered by Miss Winter’s life story, there are a depressing number of deaths and disappearances in and around the catalytic Angelfield/March homestead (March being Vida’s christened name). Nobody is introduced who doesn’t have an impact upon the story, so their spirits may linger long after their corporeal shell expires, but the shadow of death does lend the novel a cheerless and morbid edge when practically every character you are introduced to grows old, loses their mind and dies – in astonishingly swift succession.

On the subject of death, Margaret’s deceased twin – a source of much uneasiness between herself and her selfish, absent mother – feels like an unnecessary addition. Sure, it gives Miss Winter – herself a twin – a connection with her “amputee” (as Margaret refers to herself; incomplete since losing her other “half”) transcriber, but it feels bolted on and never really embeds itself completely into the narrative, standing on the periphery until a flimsy and implausible post-script resolution undermines the previous 450 pages in a page and a half.

The same can also be said about the mystery surrounding the title: The Thirteenth Tale – a missing story from one of Vida Winter’s most popular publications which randomly gets mentioned throughout the modern day passages as a way of justifying the novel’s title. It enforces an importance on what would otherwise be little more than a fleeting query, so you expect its exposure to be monumental. When, many years later, Margaret finally reads the lost tale, its autobiographical nature seems to be the only reason for its omission, which is something of an anticlimax; all of the juicy revelations exposed many chapters prior.


In a CR@B Shell: Never stagnant, The Thirteenth Tale is easy to read but hard to love, given the austere and transitory nature of its ever-changing cast. But Setterfield certainly knows how to hook you in by tantalising many clues and half-truths throughout Vida Winter’s florid account of life as a twin, making for a curious and absorbing gothic unravelling.
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The Sky's the Limit... For Now

Book Review: AQUILA 2
Written by: Andrew Norriss
121 pages
Published by: Puffin Books
Released: September 2010
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Be they in book or on film, it is common practise for successive instalments in ongoing children’s series’ to mature parallel to their readers, so as to not divest the interest of their ever-growing fanbase. Hence you constantly hear how the Harry Potter and Twilight sagas are getting progressively darker in tone as their (non-vampire) protagonists creep towards adulthood.

Andrew Norriss, however, has decided to buck this trend with his high-flying follow-up Aquila 2, delivering a story with congruous tone and writing style to his popular 1997 fantasy (review HERE). But then, after 13 years, it is fair to assume that he is no longer writing for the same audience, as anyone (excluding yours truly, obviously) who was interested in the sci-fi flavoured adventures of best mates Tom and Geoff upon first release has long since moved on to adult fiction.

13 years to us, perhaps, but in the in-prose universe it has been mere weeks since the inquisitive school pals first discovered the remarkable alien spacecraft hidden underground, and they are still steadily learning more and more about its near limitless power as they venture around the globe in their stealthy ship. As I began reading of their trip to New York in this sequel's opening chapters, I feared Norriss may be resting on his laurels with an identi-kit novel which would neither progress his young characters nor push the unimaginable capabilities of the eponymous extraterrestrial engine.

While Aquila 2 does not take such a status quo-rupturing risk as sending the 12 year-olds into outer space to hunt out the Denebian mothership from which their pod was launched (a tantalising tease in the final chapter, however, does hint that their next trip may be to the moon and back), I was delighted to discover that Norriss was not afraid to expand his character palette to tell a new, albeit earthbound, story.

And so we are introduced to drainage worker Alan – who Geoff takes an instant dislike to, because he is dating the lad’s agoraphobia-cured mother – and his clever son Dunstan, as well as to Tom’s American (girl) friend Paige – who jealous Geoff also has reservations about, because Tom lets her in on their little secret. Much like in the first tale, the plot is slender and perceptibly tailored towards providing a moral lesson to its reader via its growing heroes; this time around we are warned against making snap judgements, because people can surprise you.

It felt like a bit of a stretch for Norriss to even rope the lad’s schoolteacher’s (who have a far reduced role here) into his neat proverbial bow, but I can’t fault him for trying, while the climatic amalgamation of the Alan/Dunstan and Paige storylines did make me smile, even if the “get out of jail free” explanation was over-elucidated for his pre-teen audience. But I can hardly blame the author for not writing this for someone in their mid-twenties… What can I say; I’m a nostalgic old fool!


In a CR@B Shell: Norriss sticks to his favoured formula with a terse moral-driven plot which delivers a life lesson alongside wondrous adventure. Aquila 2 is a cute enough follow-up, but any future instalments will have to push the lifepod out a little further to not become predictable.
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