Synopsis:

Exiled from the court of Queen Elizabeth for accusing a powerful nobleman of treason, swordsman-turned-spy Mal Catlyn has been living in France with his young valet Coby Hendricks for the past year.

But Mal harbours a darker secret: he and his twin brother share a soul that once belonged to a skrayling, one of the mystical creatures from the New World.

When Mal’s dream about a skrayling shipwreck in the Mediterranean proves reality, it sets him on a path to the beautiful, treacherous city of Venice – and a conflict of loyalties that will place him and his friends in greater danger than ever.

I really enjoyed Anne Lyle’s first novel, Alchemist of Souls, so I was very much looking forward to reading the sequel, Merchant of Dreams.

The plot continues from the first, and with the same characters – excepting that this time, the focus for the setting moves from London to Venice.

Every author has a particular strong point, and for me Anne’s is setting: when her characters walk the dirty streets of Elizabethan London, they feel authentic; when they sail the mediterranean, you feel the salt in the waves and the hot sun in the sky; when they explore the plazas and canals of Venice, you are there.

Now that the characters have been introduced in the first book, it’s easier to settle into them here – they’ve grown, feel more defined, and the antagonisms introduced previously have increased.

The relationship between Mal and Sandy develops further, Ned is a much more sympathetic character, and Coby is still torn between material and spiritual desires.

Add to this the complex relationships of the Skraylings: Kiiren, Erishen, and various Guisers and the result is plenty of character tensions.

Very enjoyable though Merchant of Dreams was, I am a very exacting reader – and as with any book I read, there were a couple of niggles.

There are a lot of background tensions set up at the start. However, after defining these early on, they seem to be of little concern towards the end. Admittedly, the characters have more immediate issues to deal with by then, but it would have been nice to see more internal conflict on these issues regardless.

The strong points really stand out, though. The settings are wonderful, the characters are growing and changing in a way beyond many authors, and the tensions between the English and Skraylings become increasingly complex the more you learn about them.

There’s also the added bonus of a delightful characterisation of Sir Francis Drake.

This makes it feel as though everything about the story continues to grow and change and develop that in a way we don’t normally see in other novels.

Personally, I think we’ve recently seen a small but significant number of “New Wave Fantasy” authors published in recent years: Joe Abercrombie, Douglas Hullick, Scott Lynch – and Anne Lyle.

They seek to write new and interesting stories, that have a greater feeling of realism without sacrificing a sense of mystery, and keep away from those terrible Role Playing Game tropes that infect much of the genre .

That doesn’t mean to say that Merchant of Dreams is “grimdark” or otherwise edgy – at its heart is a fun adventure story – but it still feels like it’s expanding on what the fantasy genre can achieve.

That’s not just because of the way in that it addresses issue of sexuality – which actually feels somewhat quite muted in Merchant of Dreams – but because we simply do not see those cardboard stereotypes that are the staple of pulp fiction writing.

Merchant of Dreams demonstrates Anne Lyle’s growing importance in the genre, and I sincerely hope the third and final book in this trilogy will underline this. In the meantime, here’s waiting patiently for Prince of Lies.

Discuss Anne Lyle’s writing in the Anne Lyle forum

Chronicles Member: bilhafan

How to begin?

The most important thing is to say that there is plenty of good to be said about this book. I would hate to know how much time Gee spent researching things for his novel, but it has really paid off. The detail from Government to technical specification, be it gun types or aircraft and beyond is close to phenomenal. Obviously I have no way of knowing how accurate it all is, but it does not matter: it feels real, the writer sells it well, and even if it is all fictional it makes it feel real to me. Better yet it is something that is consistent throughout the novel, and that is something to note and to be proud of.

The story itself is the germ of a great idea; the word potential certainly applies but for me at least, just beyond this is where the trouble begins.

Firstly editing: The book has been proof read, and edited and probably to a better degree than anything I could do, but I kept spotting mistakes. This is something I don’t normally do, so for me to keep seeing them, especially clumsy one ‘there’s’ instead of ‘theirs’ that kind of thing, all missed. Lines not indented, all simple and easy to miss, but distracting when you keep noticing them.

Parts of the story, were, for me, derivative. Drawing upon legends and inserting them into a story might seem like a good and dramatic idea at the time, but for me at least, when I learned the old man’s identity – something I had guessed and was begging to find myself wrong – I just groaned. I think what made it worse, almost feeling like a betrayal was the fact that there was a strong central idea here, with so much potential and yet it was brushed aside for the sake of including recognisable characters from Earth history. Original characters might have added something.

Gee definitely has talent as a writer, but he has a tendency to overwrite in places, taking a few sentences to say what could be told in one. It might well be that he is trying to add depth and detail to his world, but it slows the story and detracts from the enjoyment of the novel. Again this is something that may well have been taken care of if the book had been edited to a higher degree.

Perhaps though the biggest fault was the central character, Chris. We get the traditional and perhaps iconic set up of a young man with next to nothing finding out that he is in fact something special, and he falls into the role far too easily, accepting all that he is told and becoming something truly exceptional with ease. But this could well be acceptable if it were not how powerful he actually becomes. Maybe a little too powerful. It detracts from the climax and makes you wonder just where the sequel can go in order to deliver a threat the feels palpable.

The scope of the book is huge, epic suits it perfectly, but this is again something that is lost generally down to the ease with which the characters progress through the story. World leaders just seem to jump and fall into place around them, without really questioning what is going on, when told stories that seem preposterous. And when they do fall into line, it is not a rational disbelief of what they are being told, but a sense of personal overriding ambition and greed. This does give the book some of it’s best characters though, and no matter how fortuitous some moments are, there is nothing so rewarding as seeing a character you want to thump get his just desserts.

In summation there are the bones of a good, if not excellent book here, and I would happily argue that Gee is someone worth watching. This is a first, self-published novel after all, and I’m sure he will learn and improve as he goes on. Maybe once he has moved onto other things I can come back and have a look. I would not be surprised at all to see myself well rewarded.

The Whole Man by John Brunner (1964)

This novel tells the life story of a telepath, from birth to maturity. Gerald Howson is born a cripple, the illegitimate child of a terrorist and a woman who became pregnant only in a failed attempt to get the man to marry her. The setting, although not given explicitly, would seem to be London in the near future, when some sort of serious political crisis has caused the United Kingdom to be occupied by United Nations peacekeepers. Among the UN forces are the very rare telepaths, who are vital to keeping order.

Howson grows up with a stunted body, in poverty and without love. It is only after a risky attempt to make himself important by acting as an informer for a local crime boss than he realizes that he has developed powerful telepathy. On the run from the police, he finds a companion in the form of a girl born deaf and dumb, with whom he is able to communicate mentally.

Howson’s powerful mental output is detected immediately by the UN, who enlist him in their telepath training program. He eventually becomes a healer of damaged minds. Despite this success, his life feels incomplete. He returns to London in an attempt to become a “whole man.”

This is a fine novel, despite a few minor flaws. The story is episodic, probably because parts of it are based on stories published in the late 1950′s. One major plot point is the fact that Howson’s body cannot be healed surgically, because the part of his brain which controls his healing and body image has been damaged by the extensive growth of the part of his brain which makes him a telepath. Even accepting the premise of telepathy, I found this hard to believe. Overall, however, this is one of the best novels about ESP that I have ever read.

I’d like to start by offering a brief introduction, to both myself and what it is that I am hoping to do, here on the front page of the SFFChronicles.

To start with I have been a member of this esteemed community for nearly ten years now, and I am know around the walls as The Perpetual Man, or by those who have known me longest Perp (or the really special ones call me Pep). However, as this is a little more up front as it were, and a little more, I don’t know, official, I think I should put my name out in the open, so Tim James is the real identity behind the Perpetual mask.

I am a sometimes writer, a few short stories have been published, and a lot of material hasn’t, but my hope here is to be writing reviews. But not just any reviews. The Chrons (as we call it affectionately) is home to an incredible and diverse community, many of which try their hands at writing. Some of them are professional, some self-publish and others just take part in the regular writing challenges. A few years ago, acting as a kind of cheerleader I started writing comments on every challenge entry, with the sole intention of seeing only the positive in what I read, an attempt to boost everyone’s confidence, make everyone feel good about what they wrote.

The toward the end of last year it struck me, why not try and do something similar with the books that are put out by the Chrons members, both traditionally and self published. And so I did.

The threads I started concerning this still exist in the forums, but now the reviews are going to be up front as well, but I feel this means a slight change in the reviews. I’m going to be a little more, I guess the word is professional. I’m still going to find and mention the positive side of the books, but I’m going to mention those parts I feel are not so good as well. In the case of self published work it means that editing and presentation will play a part.

I’ll stick with the common rating system of 1-5 or * – ***** with five being the best and one being worst, but I have to emphasise before anything goes up, that this is my personal opinion, and any book I love or hate, someone else might feel quite the opposite. In most cases it is the words that are going to be important.

I’m also going to name names. So the authors names will appear alongside their Chrons username, if anyone does not want this, PM me.

Bear with me. I’m busy and have a hectic family life at the moment, so my reading is slower than I’d like.

I read one book at a time and choose them at random from the existing pile.

At the time of writing, in addition to books by Chronicles members there will always be one book by a favourite author outside of the Chrons sphere of influence (at the moment it is Robin Hobb) and I will also be including publications by small press publisher Spectral Press. These will be reviewed as well.

Below are links to the the threads that concern the reading list as it stands, and the few reviews of those read already.

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/538969-perps-new-year-reading-project.html

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/539259-perps-2013-chronicles-reading-list-the-reviews.html

A simplified version of these reviews will also appear on Goodreads and Amazon (if applicable).

The threads also contain a list of all authors involved and the books I will be reading.

If I’m missing anyone and they want in, please PM me. (in order to qualify you must be a member of SFFChronicles so you’ll be able to do that!)

And I think that is it.

Any questions PM me, and the first review will be up very soon.

What makes a story vivid?   Sensory appeal.  A good writer often goes beyond visual images, as important as they are, and makes use of the other senses as well. 

Make us hear the roar of thunder, or the whisper of a soft breeze.  Let us feel the caress of silk, or sharp icy rocks under our feet.  Offer us the perfume of roses, or the stench of offal.  Share the subtle sweetness of fine wine, or the bitter sting of seawater in our mouths.

Sensory details can mean the difference between words on the page and a world which comes alive.

Congratulations to writer Jo Zebedee (known on the sffchronicles forums as springs), winner of our April 300 Word Challenge. Each quarter, we challenge our members to write a story of 300 words or less, inspired by an image chosen by our moderators. The prize is a £10 voucher to be spent at Amazon. The above image served as our inspiration for April, and Jo’s winning story appears below.

LIBERATION

The ships came from the north. Alone, I stood, shivering in my shift, as their oars slapped against the waves. The soldiers disembarked and crossed the beach to me, the sunset’s dying light casting angels’ halos around them.

Their leader — a captain by his uniform — stopped, and took in my rope-raw wrists and bare feet. He crouched before me. “Child, you’re safe, we’re here to stop the sacrifice. Can you lead us to the church?”

I nodded and skipped over the sand until I reached the furzed dunes beyond. His heavy breaths and the curses of his men followed me. I waited for him to reach me. He leaned forward, his hands on his knees, and puffed out a breath.

“What are you?” He glanced through a sweat-laden fringe and gave a crooked smile. “A girl or goat?”

I smiled and turned. I ran across Gannet’s Head and down the path onto All-Souls’ Beach. The soldiers followed, making scree tinkle past my feet as they skidded. I stopped at the bottom and pointed. There, framed in the rising darkness, was Montchelli Church, candlelight flickering from its windows. The captain put his hand on my shoulder. “Thank you.”

I ran across the beach, my feet sure.

“Goat-girl!”

I stopped and turned. The captain was ankle-deep in sand. His crooked smile was gone.

“Help me,” he said. He sank some more, the mud tendrils up to his knees. “Please! We’re here to help!”

I joined the islanders gathering on the sand bar and listened as the soldiers’ screams cast through the darkness. When they ended, I dipped my head and gave thanks. My beguilement was complete — the gods would demand no sacrifice of me this year.

_____

Map by Teresa Edgerton

Chris Beckett’s Dark Eden has been garnering many accolades. Having been the 2012 Sunday Times SF novel of the year, it was then shortlisted for the 2012 BSFA award, and now has won the Clarke Award.

It tells the story of the Family, over five hundred descendants of Tommy and Angela, two people who were stranded on an inhospitable, sunless planet 163 years previously. Six generations of inbreeding has resulted in numerous physical deformities and an average IQ heading in only one direction. Innovation and curiosity are stifled by the dictum that they must stay where they are until Earth comes to rescue them. Confined to a small forest of warmth, their growing population means resources have become stretched and hunger is a regular occurrence.

All this changes when one boy, John Redlantern, challenges the status quo. Realising they must move to survive, he shatters the Family’s traditions, leading to division and inevitable violence.

More than a story of a society in flux, this is a character study of a complex individual. The clever use of multiple first person points of view paints a colourful picture of John. A visionary and an agitator, his restlessness and innovation drive the narrative. But we also see his ambition and his need for acclaim, which almost propel him into antihero territory, particularly when imagining his own legend. Pulled along in his slipstream are his supporters: Gerry, the cousin who hero-worships him; Jeff, a “clawfoot” boy whose intellect rivals John’s, but who lacks his ambition; and Tina, his on-off partner, who recognises his potential early on but feels powerless to avoid the path John has started them on.

Their society is forced to change, or if it can’t change, split. And it’s a society which prides itself on honouring its origins, even if it hasn’t lived up to its own expectations. The number of descendants gives lie to the original prohibition of incest; a subject handled in such a matter-of-fact way that it doesn’t evoke the unease it could. In fact, the whole issue of sex – there are no monogamous relationships and nobody knows who their father is – is presented as is, without any judgement, until John suggests there may be another way.

The narrative suffers a little from a sense of inevitability, not helped by the blurb on the inside cover which mentions a critical late event. Once the Biblical parallels become clear – Adam and Eve analogues, a garden of relative plenty – the introduction of original sin and woe upon woe has to follow. Yet, there is so much else going on to occupy the reader, from the progression of the origin story, to the alien ecosystem, that it’s easy to forget the parallels and become engrossed in this version of Genesis.

It is clearly no space opera. The scale is small, the viewpoint limited. It’s science fiction in a stone age environment, with futuristic technology barely mentioned, save a reference to a ship using wormhole generating technology. But despite a stunted vocabulary (the characters double up on adjectives for emphasis, for instance reminding us that the mountain is “cold cold”) Eden is a beautifully-described and intimate world where the only warmth comes from geothermal trees and the only light from isolated flora and fauna. Even Snowy Dark – the lightless, freezing barrier that John believes he must conquer – is vividly brought to life in a horrifying scene where the protagonists are trapped and hunted by predators.

Many reviewers have praised Dark Eden’s literary qualities. If that appeals to you, it will prove a satisfying read. If “literary” is something that might put you off, don’t allow it to. It’s tightly written with a clear storyline, lean, understandable prose, and empathetic characters who act as well as contemplate.

The sequel, Gela’s Ring, is being published as a serial throughout 2013 with the whole book to be released in 2014, and there are also plans for a third book. If it continues as strongly as it started, this series has the potential to be remembered as one of the classics.

The Daylight War is the third in Peter V Brett’s Demon Cycle, detailing humanity’s struggle against demons that rise in the night to prey on them. Two powerful protagonists have been named as the Deliverer – the one who will unite the whole world in war against the demons – and Arlen Bales, the Painted Man, denies it, claiming all men can be Deliverers if they fight against the evil that threatens to overwhelm them. Ahmann Jardir however, embraces the title and has begun the daylight war to conquer the known world, which he believes must do, if mankind is to prevail. But as human resistance has grown, so the demons have become more formidable.

The book opens with a long prologue that tells the backstory of Inevera’s initiation as a nine-year-old into the dama’ting, the selected few that become Holy Priestesses, who have the ability to cast dice made from demon bones to see the future. Further chapters show how she rose to become Jardir’s first wife and advisor, but the main narrative picks up exactly where The Desert Spear finished: Arlen and Renna surrounded by dead corelings and the body of the shape-shifting demon, which nearly killed them. Arlen learned from the mind of the coreling prince that the next attack will come in thirty days, and needs to get to Deliverer’s Hollow to prepare. But the roads are often clogged with refugees fleeing Jardir’s invasion, and Arlen feels compelled to help them. Renna works to become a worthy companion to him, and secretly begins to eat demon meat, when she learns it is the source of his magical power, hoping to become like him

In Everam’s Bounty, Leesha and her party are preparing to leave to return to Deliverer’s Hollow. Jardir and she have become lovers and he continually presses her to become one of his wives, hoping to gain political advantage over Northern Territories in doing so. But her mission in Everam’s Bounty was to discover what his forces were capable of, and she knows she will try to make Deliverer’s Hollow resist his armies if she can. Rojer marries Jardir’s daughter and niece and his fiddle playing, combined with their singing, is shown to be an awesome weapon against demons, killing them by sound alone. They head back North in a Caravan with Jardir’s warriors accompanying them as protection, and the story moves towards climactic battles as the new moon approaches, and the inevitable confrontation between Arlen and Jardir.

Brett’s continued inventiveness within his world is solidly shown. The Daylight War is book three of a proposed total of five, and he manages to wield the story-telling between the characters in a way that never distracts. In the acknowledgments of The Desert Spear Brett spoke of the difficulties of weaving eight pov characters into a cohesive story, and that practice stands him in good stead in this book. Information is given from the differing points of view, and whilst some of it we already know, and it can become repetitive, the added perspective of a different character adds a dimension to it that is obviously going to be important in the coming books. The increasing ingenuity of the demons gives some surprises that the reader won’t see coming, and the simultaneous demon battles  in Deliverer’s  Hollow and Everam’s Bounty are extremely well-worked, and the hopelessness and the triumphs stay fresh in the mind long after finishing the book.

Perhaps one of the weaknesses of the book is Leesha. In the first two books she was drawn as a strong, forceful character whose knowledge grew along with her abilities, and she was someone people respected and listened to, who achieved a great deal. In The Daylight War she achieves little – if anything her character diminishes because Brett allows her character to regress and she adds almost nothing to the grand picture. It’s as though she’s reduced to sniping at characters around her, rather than actually contributing knowledge, or showing she is still a force to be reckoned with; one whose interests aren’t selfish. Allowing her to become pregnant, when she is probably the most skilful Herb Gatherer in her world, (and would know how to take precautions) seems a very lazy trope; the distractions of her mother around her form a storyline that becomes very tiresome in its repetition, and it becomes implausible it would continue this way. Thus far Brett has not allowed any of his major characters to die; Leesha’s mother may be a good place to start.

The confrontation between Arlen and Jardir is over very quickly, and that seems a pity, because we’ve been waiting for it a long time, and it is a literal cliff-hanger ending. And unfortunately, it is an anti-climax, because Arlen has already informed Leesha that the demons have learned all his plans for Jardir, and he ‘needs to do something they won’t expect’, which reveals the lie of outcome of their confrontation.

At 800 pages it is a satisfyingly long story, though the typeface is larger than The Desert Spear. Brett said that the first draft of the Daylight war was 243,000 words, and slightly longer than The Desert Spear, so I imagine the printed version is fairly close to that figure. As part of the ongoing Demon Cycle, I know there are more surprises ahead, and more epic battles to come. I look forward to it.

The winner of our quarterly writing challenge for January is writer E.J. Tett, known on these forums as Mouse. Each quarter, the Challenge is to write a story of 300 words or less, inspired by an image chosen by our moderators. The prize is a £10 voucher to be spent at Amazon. The photograph above served as our inspiration for January, and the winning story appears below.

Live Forever, Die Alone

I go into the chippy and watch the young lad plunge the basket into the boiling fat. My stomach rumbles as the potatoes crisp and, if I imagine hard enough, I can even smell it.

It’s empty now though. There is no lad. No chips. Everything’s covered in dust. Nothing to eat here.

I wander back outside and walk along the promenade. The wind blows papers and bits of rubbish across the street. It’s the only noise I hear.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve forgotten how to speak. I don’t bother trying. What if I have forgotten? Not that it matters. There’s nobody to speak to but myself and I’ve never been a very good conversationalist.

I wish there were zombies. Or vampires. Or some sort of monster you used to see in films. Something I could hunt, or play with or, I don’t know. Shag. Eat.

I’m so hungry I want to cry. There’s nothing left anywhere. Nothing.

God, I wish the sun would blow up. Or an asteroid would strike. I wish aliens would come and take me away.

Please come and take me away.

I clamber over a wall, stumble across the pebbled beach and keep going until I’m waist deep in the sea. The sea is stagnant now, like a pond. The tides have gone. Everything’s gone. Sometimes I remember that it’s weird.

I take a breath and disappear beneath the water, breathing out, watching bubbles rise, and then I breathe in until my lungs fill with water.

I’ve done this before.

I didn’t die then either.

________

Photograph by Charles Knowles

Photo by kneesamo on Flickr.

Writer Dan McQuain, (known on these forums as Grinnel) is the winner of our October 300 Word Challenge. He wins a £10 voucher to spend at Amazon or The Book Depository, our quarterly prize. As always, participants were challenged to write a story of 300 words or less, inspired by an image that our moderators selected. This was the inspiration for October, and Dan’s story appears below.