In Space No One Can Hear You Howl

Book Review: PLANET OF THE APES
Written by: Pierre Boulle
Translated from the French by: Xan Fielding
Originally published in: 1963
Vintage Classics Edition published in: 2011
200pages
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The problem with going back to the slightly obscure source material after watching the well known film it inspired is you will always draw comparisons; it's inevitable. It only becomes something of an issue, however, when the film is a highly-regarded cult classic which kick-started a considerable decades-spanning box office, television and print franchise which you've recently feasted upon in excess to great delight: disappointment ensues because what you're reading is not what you've come to know and love.

While Pierre Boulle's allegorical Planet of the Apes (or Monkey Planet, as the French title was initially translated as) does undeniably lay the skeletal groundwork for the 1968 Charlton Heston-starring sci-fi (which I reviewed HERE) – humans travel through space and land on a world where man is a primitive and enslaved species at the mercy of their anthropomorphised primate masters – there are many differences which jar when you've come to accept the films as canon.

Woof Justice

Book Review: THE SEARCH
Written by: Nora Roberts
Published by: Piatkus, 2010
521pages
www.nora-roberts.co.uk
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[SPOILERS] I envy Nora Roberts. That may seem like a peculiar claim – she's over twice my age, of the opposite sex (obviously) and lives half the world away – but let me explain: Whilst some of us creative writers hope and dream that one day we will be able to call ourselves published authors, this prolific American romance/thriller novelist has just chalked up success story #209 (yes, that’s two hundred and nine published novels to date!!) – and she only started writing because she was bored and housebound with her two children in a blizzard! Where does the unstoppable 61 year old keep finding the inspiration?!

Published in hardback last summer and now seeing a UK paperback release, The Search is a chunky 500+ page read. The effusive and intricate knowledge of dog training and Search and Rescue units which weigh down this story of murder, survival, sex and romance give the impression that it’s a heavily researched work which demanded the author’s complete attention for a considerable period of time. While undoubtedly it did, at least for a spell, it’s astonishing to learn that it was one of five novels Roberts published in 2010 alone.

Same Time, Next Year

Cine Review: ONE DAY
12A – 107mins – 2011
Screenplay by: David Nicholls
Adapted from his 2009 novel of the same name
Directed by: Lone Scherfig
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess, Romola Garai, Rafe Spall, Ken Stott, Patricia Clarkson, Jodie Whittaker, Jamie Sives, Georgina King, Matt Berry, Matthew Beard
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Oxford students Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) meet – and very nearly have a one night stand – on the night of their university graduation in 1988. Emma is a quiet but sincere Yorkshire lass whilst Dexter is an ostentatious cad with an eye for the fairer sex, and yet, against all odds, a lifelong friendship is formed on that July night, one which we revisit on the same date every year for the next two decades.

As the years roll by, fashions change, fortunes deviate, jobs, lovers and acquaintances come and go, but Emma and Dex endeavour to remain in contact. Alas, sometimes life gets in the way of even the strongest bonds, and we come to fill in the gaps of the tumultuous, tragic and touching rollercoaster that is their “will they/won’t they?” relationship by way of our snapshot glimpses into these growing – but not necessarily maturing – young adults.

The fact that Danish director Lone An Education Scherfig begins her filmic conversion of David Nicholl’s bestselling novel with a seemingly innocuous bike ride in 2006 before spooling back to the catalytic first encounter, clues us in to the palpable significance of this year, so we are consciously counting down until its return with a pervading sense of expectant foreboding. Of course, if you’ve read the book you’re already prepared, but the on-screen impact is still heart-wrenching to behold.

Much criticism has been flung at Hathaway for her attempt at a northern accent, and while it does vary in its strength – occasionally even making her sound like she is imitating an upper class stereotype – it was never so inexcusably painful as to distract from the engaging love story unravelling before us. Jim Sturgess, who I had little prior awareness of, was a revelation as Dexter, a man who has a brush with small-time fame before dive-bombing into the depths of despair.


In a CR@B Shell: As a sharply-focused but far-reaching character-driven drama, One Day’s potency lies in its full-bodied and relatable individual arcs. David Nicholls incorporates the full spectrum of life, love and loss into a compassionate and authentic romance which gives you faith in love conquering all even when time pulls you in divergent directions.
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Sliders: The Next Generation

Book Review: TIMERIDERS
Written by: Alex Scarrow
Published by: Puffin Books
Released: February 2010
425pages
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[SPOILERS] Three teenagers from three disparate periods of time – one from the past, one from the present day and one from the near-future – are plucked from their plains of existence in the moments before their untimely deaths and recruited by a shadow agency to become TimeRiders; “fixers” of broken history, if you will, who right the wrongs that less well-meaning time travellers from the future disrupt for their own avaricious and diabolical gain.

In this opening volume in a proposed nine novel arc from thriller writer (and Norwich resident) Alex Scarrow, Titanic deckhand Liam O’Connor, techno-nut Maddy Carter and fire victim Sal Vikram must adjust to their new raison d'être; before being thrown in at the deep-end pre-completion of their training when desirous physicist Paul Krammer travels back from the 206o's to dethrone Adolf Hitler and see Nazi Germany to victory over the Allied Forces who, in our correct time line (as you all should know) did win the war.

It is up to appointed “field agent” Liam – accompanied by an AI “meat robot” christened Bob (think Arnie in Terminator, only on the good guys' team) – to travel back to the source of the blip and erase Krammer's threat, or face living in a world which was never meant to be; a shell of a world brought to the very brink of destruction after the ripples of the butterfly effect see power – and paranoia – go to Herr Krammer's head; with catastrophic results...

For Scarrow to rely upon the Second World War for his first historical destination screamed to me of lazy cliché (much like the JFK assassination – which, surprise, surprise, the author exploits as well – it's been done to death), but my opinion mellowed when I considered that it was probably wise to ease his young adult readership into his newborn vision via a period today's teenagers would relate to having learnt so much about it at school. Whether it's tasteful to play around with such horrendous true events is another matter entirely. Which brings me conveniently onto my most major qualm with this work...

Living outside the realms of reality, the TimeRiders exist undisturbed in a continually resetting 48hour “time bubble” located in a disused warehouse in New York City on – wait for it – the 10th and 11th of September 2001. Yep, you read that correctly. Am I wrong to think that less than a decade on it's a mite insensitive to use 9/11 as a plot-point in a sci-fi fantasy? Scarrow's reasoning is that in this period of almighty tragedy for the modern world, everybody will be too otherwise concerned to notice three teens and their trainer wandering the streets looking for ripples in the fabric of space/time. But still...

Questionable moral decision aside, TimeRiders is otherwise a fairly entertaining read (if not quite as “mindblowing” as the cover blurb promised). Scarrow may not rewrite the rules on time travel here, but he has clearly done his research, and he has fun with some quite horrific alternate visions of our world. The revised 2001 which Maddy, Sal and agency headhunter Foster find themselves trapped in following Krammer's “amendments” was a shockingly graphic apocalyptic nightmare, and Scarrow often doesn't hold back in his gory descriptions; clearly a beneficial hold-over from his adult thriller works.


In a CR@B Shell: With the entirety of history at his fingertips, Alex Scarrow's all-too predictable primary destination bordered on self-destructive, but it soon opened up a more exhilarating and engrossingly ghastly bag of worms for the sub-team of teen heroes – and knowing where (and when) book two takes them, I'm prepared to stick around for a another trip with the charismatic TimeRiders.
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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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Doggone Murder

Book Review: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME
Written by: Mark Haddon
Originally released in: 2004
Published by: Vintage
272pages
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Children’s author and screenwriter Mark Haddon’s first foray into adult literature, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, is a remarkably absorbing and dedicatedly thorough account of how coping with a child with Asperger’s Syndrome can tear a family apart.

Written from the perspective of savant teenage narrator Christopher Francis Boone’s logically methodical yet emotionally distant point of view, The Curious Incident is in equal turns a wonderful, courageous and frustrating character piece masquerading as a murder mystery novel.

The deserved winner of multiple esteemed literary awards upon its release six years ago, I can’t quite justify exactly why it has taken me this darn long to catch up with the book – especially considering how much I enjoyed Haddon’s sophomore dip into adult fiction: 2006’s A Spot of Bother.

Despite being widely disparate in characters and premise, both novels demonstrate an astonishingly acute insight into the obsessions and sufferings – major and minor – which contribute to “normal” human behaviour, whether inflicted or not, and it is a shame Haddon hasn’t written more for this demographic.

Written in Christopher’s frank unflourished style (there are many uses of the phrase “and then this happened…”), The Curious Incident’s narrative body is mottled with illustrated depictions of complex mathematical equations, street maps, road signs and visual identitifiers which assist Christopher in manoeuvring that which so terrifies him (the world at large) and aids his selfish mindset in understanding the needs and emotions of those close to him. It also aids us in associating with his naïve outlook.

Ignorant to his own inconsiderate actions, the novel can at times be eye-openingly exasperating – people who care for this boy must repeatedly forfeit their own pride and freedom for the good of a person who fails to appreciate their sacrifices or reciprocate their affection (Christopher hates to be touched, often screaming, raging or wetting himself if he is handled) – and they are driven to making difficult, heartbreaking and controversial decisions for the good of their own livelihood.

Doggedly determined to solve the mystery of who murdered his neighbour’s canine pet, Wellington, with a pitch fork, Christopher meticulously documents his amateur sleuthing as if solving a maths problem; an investigation which is hindered by his antisocial condition, an understandably over-protective father and Christopher’s restricted concept of acceptable behaviour.

Ultimately, the investigation leads Christopher to make a startlingly life-changing discovery – one which I felt every bit as much as our narrator simply because the tunnel-visioned perspective offers us no information outside what Christopher chooses to share. That Mark Haddon was still able to craft a fully realised diegesis from this bold restriction simply adds to my admiration for this committedly crafted testament to the human spirit.


In a CR@B Shell: Despite its naïve authorial voice, The Curious Incident is hardly lightweight reading. Nevertheless, this is an outstandingly rewarding novel which truly opens your eyes to the day-to-day struggles of those suffering from autism – and those who love them. As Christopher would exemplify :-)
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And Then There Was Aslan

Book Review: THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW
Written by: C. S. Lewis
Originally published in: 1955
HarperCollins edition printed in: 1995
171 pages
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It has become so engrained in our cultural heritage over the last 60 years that it's fair to assume that everyone knows the story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, whether because of the original C. S. Lewis novel, the new Disney film adaptation (reviewed HERE), or even (as is the case for this CR@B) the late 80's BBC serialisation (such nostalgia!).

For reasons unknown, however, the other (less celebrated) volumes which comprise the seven strong “The Chronicles of Narnia” completely alluded me until viewing the recent big screen reimaginings of Prince Caspian (reviewed HERE) and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (reviewed HERE). Upon hearing that Fox/Walden are next planning to eschew both the publication order and chronological order of the prose series by filming prequel The Magician's Nephew, I set about familiarising myself with the children's novella so I won't go in cold when the film eventually hits cinemas in 2014.

Written last but set before Lion..., The Magician's Nephew literally goes back to the very beginning by depicting the mythical creation of Narnia and its myriad of fantastical folk and talking animals. We are present at the very dawn of this new world, reading in awe as the great lion Aslan's song brings light then life to a void of nothingness. Lewis's renowned Christian allegory is pretty hard to miss: this is Genesis in all but name – with Aslan (God) even setting a “son of Adam” the task of plucking (but not eating) an apple from a sacred garden (Eden).

The slippery serpent's role is here taken by a familiar figure to the Narnia-verse: Jadis the White Witch, who is accidentally transported to Narnia and immediately sets herself up as Aslan's immortal foe. No catalytic cause is specified for the ensuing rivalry between the paradoxic pair, merely the corrupt Queen's malevolent lust to control everything.

Other welcome correlations to the classic series are provided by the reasoning given for the iconic lamp-post coming to be positioned in the middle of a Narnian forest, and the story's young human protagonist, Diggory Kirke, who will grow into the knowingly sympathetic Professor with the labyrinthine country mansion and magical Wardrobe.

Exploring the rafters of their semi-detached London homes one wet Summer, young Diggory and next door neighbour Polly happen upon the lad's eccentric Uncle Andrew's secret study, wherein the disagreeable old man fools the children into donning magical rings which transport them to a mystical woodland realm which allows them access to any number of universes.

Despite being understandably outdated (there are even a couple of instances of what we today would consider flagrant sexism towards women), Lewis's prose is so easy to read and so tantalisingly magical that it's hard to put down or find issue with. I was entranced from page one.

The fantasy does unfortunately get bogged down in unsubtle religious motifs; the Narnia-shaping centre-piece is so vivid in grandiose detail that it brings the book's pacing to an almighty halt. Nevertheless, uncovering the mysteries to this otherworldly realm keeps you engaged. In particular, the explanation behind Professor Kirke's mysterious wooden coat cupboard providing a gateway to Narnia is an acute retro-fit addition; the strawberry atop this already sweet cake.


In a CR@B Shell: Atmosphere and wonder take precedence over plot in this slimline children's fantasy, but The Magician's Nephew is nevertheless a charming and enchanting tale which succeeds in making Narnia all the more tangible but no less miraculous.
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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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Graveyard Slot

Book Review: THE NEWS WHERE YOU ARE
Written by: Catherine O’Flynn
309 pages
Published by: Penguin Books
Released: 2010
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Never judge a book by its cover; perhaps the most well known piece of advice, and yet one which I never fail to ignore. Looking at the bright colours and twee portrait of a man and his daughter walking hand-in-hand through a blossoming park as a city spreads out in the distance, I was convinced The News Where You Are would be a light-hearted novel from an “awesomely talented” (so writes Tatler) “comic genius” (Daily Mail) I would enjoy. Indeed, Scotland on Sunday was positively gushing in their grab line:

“Seriously uplifting, hilarious. A funny, moving, acutely observed story about
family and loss. A pleasurable, satisfying gem of a novel”

Of course I’m not so easily swayed that I didn’t read the synopsis, too. The quirky blurb – outlining how a pun-machine of a regional TV news presenter becomes something of an amateur detective, investigating the mysterious hit-and-run death of his predecessor – reminded me of Mark Haddon’s A Spot of Bother (in tone more than plot, I must elucidate). A funny and moving study of mortality, family and friendship? I’m in!

O’Flynn’s prose is enrapturing in its precision, her dialogue free-flowing and naturalistic, but what quickly struck me about her sophomore release was how achingly depressing it is. Granted, there are flashes of comedy, particularly from protagonist Frank’s eight year old daughter Mo, but her aside every other character is so weighed down by melancholy worries that you wonder how any of the applauding publications could focus so narrow-mindedly on the “laugh-out-loud satire” (Independent on Sunday).

Frank’s aforementioned predecessor, Phil – his story gradually unfolded through intermittent flashbacks prior to his death – is a celebrity who is adored by his public and promoted to nationwide entertainments shows, but he is so consumed with vanity and his public appearance that he never seemed happy with his lot. Phil’s lifelong best friend, Michael Church, a lonely near-hermitised old man who fell out of contact with the local celeb for many years, has also recently passed, and Frank is saddened by the lack of fanfare for this passing life.

Closer to home, Frank’s female co-host is apathetic to the frivolous nature of their show, “Heart of England Reports”, while Frank’s mother is lonely and bitter and refuses to acknowledge any hint of joy to her loyal son, even when a care home friendship with a man called Walter flourishes, while Frank and his wife Andrea spend time educating Mo in the quickly disappearing legacy of Frank’s deceased architect father, who’s creations are being knocked down faster than anyone had hoped.

O’Flynn’s short, sharp chapters feel so contained that it is over halfway through the novel that the various character strands start to feel like they are leading somewhere climatic. Car journeys to destinations we never progress to and walks down corridors to rooms we never enter form fleeting venues for discussion but can’t disguise a random sensation when the following chapter jumps to another location, character or even year entirely.

For all of my criticisms, the book’s gloomy outlook does lend the motivating murder/mystery element an insightful and reflective edge. Should we mourn loss and fear progression or should we become obsessed with leaving a concrete mark of our existence? Does it matter? Will we be missed? However, such profound questions obscure any wit in a sentimental mist, leaving a bittersweet feeling which doesn’t prohibit me appreciating the prose, but does hinder me taking pleasure from it.


In a CR@B Shell: An acutely written polemic on existence with a host of well-rounded folks all contributing to the melancholic discussion, but O’Flynn’s satire will leave you unsure whether to laugh or cry. The News Where You Are simply wasn’t the “uplifting, hilarious” book I was lead to expect.
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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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Unhenged Fanatics

Book Review: THE STONEHENGE LEGACY
Written by: Sam Christer
481pages
Published by: Sphere
Released: 11th January 2011
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“A colourful male pheasant struts the lawn, cued by the first light on the
dew-soaked grass. Dull females follow in the bird’s wake, then feign disinterest
and peck at fat-filled coconut shells strung out by Chase’s gardener”

[SPOILERS] With such highfalutin and unnecessarily verbose prose just paragraphs from the narrative’s commencement, I was concerned that debut author Sam Christer’s Dan Brown-alike conspiracy thriller would be an uphill struggle of lofty and pretentious try-hard poetics. However, once the London-based writer had made his ostentatious mark upon the printed page and the story-proper revs up to full speed, I found myself becoming totally immersed in this horrible history murder mystery.

Set in the days leading up to the much-celebrated summer solstice, The Stonehenge Legacy presents to us a shady secret underworld of modern day druids who take their admiration of one of the worlds most mystical and mysterious ancient archaeological attractions to murderous heights. Following the suicide of his estranged father, archaeologist Gideon Chase uncovers a hidden library of coded diaries which lead him to disclosure shocking revelations about the clandestine group of Followers – and his own family history.

To imply that Megan Baker, the detective inspector assigned to the Chase suicide, “teams up” with the cult-uncovering protagonist (as the paperback’s cover blurb states) is something of a fallacy. Naturally, their paths do frequently cross during the on-going enquiry and she does gradually begin to acknowledge Gideon’s wild claims of blood sacrifices to the Gods, but they never collaborate to the extent Sophie Neveu and Robert Langdon do in The Da Vinci Code. Consider Blomqvist and Salander in the Millennium trilogy – minus the sex and unrequited love – and you’ll be closer to this pair’s relationship, so often are they separate and following their own leads.

The short chapters and even shorter sentences (sometimes full-stops are used where commas would have sufficed) keep the prospectively ludicrous plot at a relentlessly blistering pace, and the introduction of glamorous young American reality TV star Caitlyn Lock and her new Casanova boyfriend Jake Timberland spice up the conventional genre elements with a touch of lustful romance and open up the Wiltshire-based police investigation to an international scale.

Christer does a great job of fattening out his intrepid characters with comprehensive back stories, while the enigmatic nature of the robed and astronomically-monikered Followers allows for many a shock twist in exposing the true identities of the stone worshippers. However, I couldn’t help but feel like the earth-shattering revelations surrounding the sacred (curative?) landmark we were promised (“It is time for the truth” so teases the tagline) took a back seat to the climatic escape scenario, and DI Baker’s significance to the far-too-swiftly-resolved conclusion severely lessened once Gideon acquiesces to a rather dangerous invitation.


In a CR@B Shell: A fine and fast-paced debut, The Stonehenge Legacy is an appealing modern addition to the abundant post-Brown conspiracy thriller genre, if somewhat less of an eye-opening revelation than expected come the rather blunt crime-focused culmination.
aaaaa

Getting Blood from a Shan

Book Review: BIRTH OF A KILLER
Written by: Darren Shan
252 pages – HarperCollins – 2010
www.darrenshan.com
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[SPOILERS] As I declared in my review of 2009's Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant film, the colourful big-screen adaptation was my first (surrogate) taste of the works of teen horror author Darren Shan. So while reading the serial saga-ist’s newest published work may seem like an odd aperture into his considerable canon, let it be known that Birth of a Killer is the first chapter in a new chronicle: The Saga of Larten Crepsley.

If that name sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Larten Crepsley is the vampire to whom (the fictional protagonist) Darren Shan becomes beholden in the opening book of (the author) Darren Shan’s most popular series: The Saga of Darren Shan, and given how the aforementioned filmic reworking was based upon the opening trio of books from that saga, I, too, was aware of Larten Crepsley. But Birth of a Killer (and, I would assume, the forthcoming volumes in this new collection) is a prequel to the events already told, which is why I had no quarms in diving in at the end of the beginning.

Set at the dawn of the nineteenth century and beginning when Larten is a human child on the cusp of his teenage years, Birth of a Killer wastes no time in hitting the reader hard: within the first four chapters you have already borne witness to two vividly brutal murders and a sickening display of child cruelty. Now, I understand that life back then was a world away from the unionised comfort of a twenty-first century factory – from an early age children were effectively slaves toiling twelve hour days in the most pitiful workplace conditions – but quite how suitable this kind of brutality is within the pages of a vampire fantasy novel aimed at teen readers, I’m not sure.

The book’s extreme opening certainly shocked me – and I’m 26 – but it is also important to point out that these scenes take place before any supernatural activity is even suggested; it is set in the real world and leaves more of an impact for that very reason. Soon though, as young Larten meets the vampire Seba Nile and – in a mirroring of the events in Cirque Du Freak – becomes his assistant, the novel settles down into more recognisably conventional genre territory.

Alas, conventional territory is where Birth of a Killer lingers, and even with my hardly vast knowledge of Darren Shan’s universe I couldn’t help but think that the author was playing things a little too safe. A shame, after the ultra-violent risk of the opening, but too many previously established properties – Vampire Mountain, Cirque Du Freak, Mr Tall, Murlough – are either visited or turn up along the way. An occasional reference or tip of his hat to his faithful audience I could accept, but Shan seems mired in the familiar and his latest work suffers for this lack of innovation.

Despite a large typeface and even larger spacing between the lines, Shan manages to span a good few decades of Larten’s afterlife in the lean 252 page novel. He achieves this by splitting his narrative into four parts and using the pauses in the story as an excuse to catapult forward a great wealth of time. This never becomes confusing (the story quickly catches up with the intervening months or years) but it does begin to feel increasingly bare-boned; if Larten’s rebirth is so uneventful that great chunks can be ignored, then why bother to tell his story in the first place? Let’s hope the subsequent releases in this unfledged saga will justify their creation.


In a CR@B Shell: Quarms with the predictable plot aside, Birth of a Killer is unlikely to disappoint Shan’s clan, and it’s an enjoyable if insubstantial time-filler which doesn’t ostracise newcomers. Just don’t expect a radical or revolutionary read.
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Hair of the Dog

Book Review: MY TALKS WITH DEAN SPANLEY
Written by Lord Dunsany
First published in 1936 by William Heinemann Ltd.
Film tie-in edition released in 2008 by HarperCollins
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Playwright, poet and novelist Edward Plunkett (published under his official title of Lord Dunsany) was most well renowned for his fantasy fiction, into which genre it is fair to say My Talks with Dean Spanley falls, for it truly is an utterly bizarre tail- I mean, tale. Over the course of the 14 chapter novella, the eponymous dean divulges a deluge of details of his supposed past life... as a dog named Wag (!) to a fame-hungry scientific writer, who dupes the religious leader into spilling the beans on his transmigratory secrets – by getting him drunk on Tokay at dinner parties.

The novella comprises of the dean's ridiculous rambles recorded verbatim (this is all in the name of science, after all), mixed with the writer's agenda-driven observational notes, making him a character in his own right. The formal and outdated prose style takes some getting used to, but it does help characterise the nameless writer – by highlighting his immoral (and surely unscientific?) ways. He readily admits to not having the Dean's wealthfare at heart; his goal being to “rob” the man of his regressive memories and publish them in a report on his “Investigations into the Origins of the Mentality of Certain Serious Persons”, therefore making him famous across Europe.

The Dean's irritatingly twee canine callbacks – including burying food to add to the taste, being beaten by his “Masters” and hunting with fellow mutt “Lion-hunter” – soon become increasingly repetitive, not only to us (indeed, only the shortness of the work convinced me to stick with it), but also to the author, who complains in his notes of the “common” and “ordinary experiences” the Dean details, in lieu of the “strange beliefs” of a “spiritual traveller.... from a past age”. In desperation, the writer invites more guests to his devious dinner parties, in the hope more Tokay will be drunk and more revolutionary secrets unveiled.

And so we reach the hallowed pay-off to these numerable talks with Dean, as the sozzled Spanley lays bare his most remarkable century-old reminiscences, revealing the truth behind canine homing skills, how they are able to sense rabies in other dogs before humans can tell, and much, much more. Except – and herein lies the moral of the story, kids – drinking glass for glass with his guests, the author blanks out and fails to remember anything the Dean has said. The same is true of the other individuals, leaving the scientific writer without any answers to his years-long studies.

Good, I say, for the in-story author was a low and despicable man who didn't deserve fame and fortune for robbing an honest – if decidedly eccentric – man of the cloth of his tipsy blathering. But did this ethical one-note twist* really require 122-pages of squandered preamble? Much like the Dean, I too feel duped into giving up so much of my time to the 'scientific' writer. If only I'd been wasted on Tokay also, the book would have been a far more entertaining read.

CR@B Verdict: So the whole point was My Talks with Dean Spanley was pointless? Wow, what a journey(!) - I'd rather have spent my time chewing on a bone... And no, that is not innuendo. Filthy mongrels.
**
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* It is no wonder screenplay writer Alan Sharp created a new major character (and a more emotional backstory) when he translated Dean Spanley for the screen, as a faithful interpretation would fail to warrant a 90minute running time. A review of the 2008 film will follow, in due course.

Robert Langdon and the House of the Temple of Doom

Book Review: THE LOST SYMBOL
Written by: Dan Brown
Published by Bantam Press
Released: 15th September 2009

Given the grand and exponential scale of commotion, controversy and criticism aimed at Dan Brown's last speculative murder-mystery tome, not to mention the renewal of interest following the release of the Tom Hanks-starring film versions of protagonist Robert Langdon's two prose adventures (the latest of which, Angels & Demons, was released on DVD to coincide with The Lost Symbol's book launch), it is hard to believe it has been over six years since The Da Vinci Code first confounded, enraged and entertained readers and religious leaders the world over. But these things take an excruciating amount of research.

Which is why it's a relief that symbologist and lecturer Robert Langdon is back in The Lost Symbol to process, question and explain all the head-scratching historical facts, fallacies and theories thrown before him, with an abundance of everyday examples (The Abyss, YouTube and Twitter help bring the ancient mystery bang up to date), although even he, at times, seems somewhat overwhelmed, cynical and stumped by the conspiracies he is expected to unravel as the tension mounts and time ticks away.

The conspiracy, this time around, is focused not in Paris , or in Rome , but in the US capital of Washington , and involves startling links between breakthroughs in Noetic science, the human mind, God and the Ancient Mysteries protected over the centuries by the ritualistic Freemasons. The plot is set in motion when Professor Langdon is invited to give a lecture in the US capital by long-time friend and 33rd degree Mason, Peter Solomon, however, upon arrival, Langdon discovers a sight far more unnerving than a restless audience.

The Lost Symbol twists, turns and twists again over the 509 pages and 12 hour period it is set, as the unsuspecting Harvard lecturer is dragged through Washington's ancestry, artwork and architecture in a complex kidnap saga in which the ransom is set at knowledge. Precisely: knowledge of the Ancient Mysteries, hidden in code on a Masonic Pyramid. In truth, the light at the top of the pyramid is nowhere near as earth-shatteringly calamitous as the theoretical secrets held by the Holy Grail or the Illuminati, but this doesn't stop Brown from ramping up the suspense with numerous allusions to the doom and “chaos” which would follow the disclosure of this case of national security.

Regardless, the outrageous plot is wholly gripping and unputdownable. If you liked Brown's previous works, this latest novel is written in the same sharp, blistering style, with the present day story punctuated by facts, flashbacks and a welcome dose of wit. At one point I feared Dan Brown had jumped the metaphorical shark (I won't spoil the scene, but you'll know it when you read it because you'll either groan or tut loudly), but I had faith and my fears were soon allayed by yet another twist in this turbulent if ridiculous tale.

I can't wait for the impending movie interpretation.


CR@B Verdict: As fast-paced, enjoyable and easily-consumable as Brown's other works, albeit far less controversial. The Lost Symbol is an inspiring, if completely over-the-top read which leaves you with a lust for knowledge and a desire to investigate all things Noetic and Masonic.
****