Glitter and Mayhem - Book Review

Glitter and Mayhem
Edited by John Klima, Lynne M. Thomas, and Michael Damian Thomas

Welcome to Glitter & Mayhem, the most glamorous party in the multiverse.

Step behind the velvet rope of these fabulous Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror tales of roller rinks, nightclubs, glam aliens, party monsters, drugs, sex, glitter, and debauchery.

Dance through nightclubs, roller derby with cryptids and aliens, be seduced by otherworldly creatures, and ingest cocktails that will alter your existence forever. Your hosts are the Hugo Award-winning editors John Klima (Electric Velocipede) and Lynne M. Thomas (Apex Magazine), and the Hugo-nominated editor Michael Damian Thomas (Apex Magazine). (Synopsis from Goodreads)

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Glitter and Mayhem is a short story anthology with the theme of glamour, parties, nightclubs, drugs, sex and rollerskating, all with a science fiction or fantasy element. The stories are all odd, some more so than others, and there’s a wonderful mix of fun, tongue-in-cheek, scary, thoughtful and sad. An anthology with this kind of theme could have suffered from stories that are all too similar in style and feel, but here this is not the case at all; the editors have managed to collect a really interesting mix.

This collection is a huge amount of fun, but it’s also refreshingly diverse in the characters, lifestyles, relationships and sex it explores. The most obvious theme of the anthology might be glamour and parties, but I think its strongest themes are acceptance, identity, and loving yourself for who you are.

As always with anthologies, there were some stories that didn’t grab me as much as others, but overall it’s a really strong collection. There are funny stories and straightforward stories and some with very clever twists. There are fairytale themes, aliens, the supernatural, the fae, and plenty of rollerskating!

Some of my favourite stories were:

Sooner Than Gold, by Cory Skerry, in which a door could lead to anywhere, but you might not like what’s on the other side.

Subterraneans, by William Shunn and Laura Chavoen, an interesting take on body-swapping.

Such & Such Said to So & So, by Maria Dahvana Headley, which plays with language in a clever little story about drinking and addiction.

Bess, the Landlord’s Daughter, Goes for Drinks with the Green Girl, by Sofia Samatar, a very weird and well-written story.

Blood and Sequins, by Diana Rowland, an unconventional approach to the cops-take-out-the-bad-guys story.

Inside Hides the Monster, by Damien Walters Grintalis, which explores how a siren might have difficulty adapting to modern music tastes.

Bad Dream Girl, by Seanan McGuire, a really fun story about roller derby teams with some unusual members.

A Hollow Play, by Amal El-Mohtar, which asks what people might be willing to give up for what they love, and how much they really value those things.

A really enjoyable anthology with a good variety of stories and styles!


Thank you to Apex Publications for providing a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Revisiting The Witches - A Guest Post from James Everington

Today I'm welcoming author James Everington to the blog, to tell us a little about what inspires his writing. James writes dark, supernatural fiction, and is the author of four short story collections, as well as one of the creators of the Penny Dreadnought anthologies. His latest collection, Falling Over, is out now from Infinity Plus.

Over to James!

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So.

This was meant to be a simple blog post about inspiration; specifically, one in a series of guest blog posts about the key inspirations behind the stories in my new collection of short stories, Falling Over. This was meant to be about The Witches by Roald Dahl. (That was how I originally pitched the piece to Vicky, anyway – sorry Vicky!)

But instead I found myself writing something different, something about childhood, and memory, and time… but still about inspiration, hopefully.

I’d not read Roald Dahl’s The Witches for over twenty-years, but nevertheless I found that some of the scenes from it were constantly in my head whilst I was writing a story called The Time Of Their Lives. I guess anyone reading the story will see the same obvious similarities just as I did – it’s a story from the point of view of a child who is spending a holiday bored in a creepy hotel. Like The Witches, the story is about a child’s fear of adults, and what those adults might really look like, in certain lights…

Because here’s the thing: I decided to reread The Witches before writing this blog post and… it was nothing like I’d remembered. It was nothing like the scenes in my head that had somehow inspired me.

I mean obviously, it is set in a creepy hotel and it is from a kid’s point of view; that was all the same. And some of the delightfully horrible details were just as I remembered – particularly the different ways to recognise witches: the toeless feet, the hairless heads, the blue spit. (This part of the book, incidentally, seemed a brilliant refutation of that hoary old “Show Don’t Tell” rule. Dahl tells us things about witches, and because what he has to tell us is so repulsively interesting, we love it. “Show Don’t Tell” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and never trust a rule about writing that isn’t even obeying itself. But anyway, that’s a whooooole other blog post.)

But the feel of the book, the tone and texture of it, was completely different. It was lighter and fluffier and more whimsical. Although there are some creepy moments (and Dahl’s witches themselves are typically inspired and grotesque creations) I found myself smiling my way through it. And really, what was I expecting – it’s a kid’s book, right?

So what happened? How come what I remembered, and so blithely claimed was an influence in the story notes at the back of Falling Over, didn’t actually seem to exist?

I guess growing up happened.

I read it as a kid, at an age when obviously I wouldn’t have been able to handle the horrors of a Stephen King or a Clive Barker. Dahl has pitched the fear at the exact level that a kid of my age, and upbringing, and sensibility, could take without being so completely petrified that I’d never sleep (or buy a Roald Dahl book) again. So I remembered it being a book that was as creepy as it was possible to be, and because I never reread it, a buried and younger part of me still believed that to be the case all these years later. And good as it was, there was no way The Witches was going to match my memory of it. It’s like if you ever revisit your school as an adult – how small it seems!

I don’t regret rereading The Witches - it is a brilliant book, full of flashes and humour and childhood fears perfectly realised. But I can’t help but feel it’s replaced something else that was there, something more unexamined and personal, that I’d built up in my head over the years, every time my thoughts turned to The Witches. What’s replaced it is a newfound respect for an author who must surely be one of the greatest children’s authors ever - what a lucky generation we were. But I don’t know if it would be much use to me if I was writing The Time Of Their Lives now; despite being from the point of view of a child it really isn’t a children’s story.

Of course, I might be being overly pessimistic. It wouldn't be the first time. After all, who really understands inspiration? One thing that has become clear from writing this piece is that it's certainly not me. Maybe The Witches just needs to find its own place, its own level amongst all the other stories in my head, and maybe one day the real, Roald Dahl version of The Witches will be a jumping off point for another creepy tale for me to tell.

And if that ever happens, I promise I'll come back and write the blog post for Vicky that she originally signed up for!

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Falling Over is published by Infinity Plus and is out now. Ten stories of unease, fear and the weird.

"Good writing gives off fumes, the sort that induce dark visions, and Everington’s elegant, sophisticated prose is a potent brew. Imbibe at your own risk." - Robert Dunbar, author of The Pines and Martyrs & Monsters.

Find out more at Scattershot Writing.

Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane - Book Review

Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane
edited by Jonathan Oliver

Amazon (UK) (USA)

They gather in darkness, sharing ancient and arcane knowledge as they manipulate the very matter of reality itself. Spells and conjuration; legerdemain and prestidigitation – these are the mistresses and masters of the esoteric arts. Magic comes alive in their hands. British Fantasy Award nominee, Jonathan Oliver, gathers together sixteen stories of magic, featuring some of today’s finest practitioners, including Audrey Niffenegger, Christopher Fowler, Gemma Files, Thana Niveau, Robert Shearman, Will Hill, Sarah Lotz, Storm Constantine, Dan Abnett, Sophia McDougall, Alison Littlewood, Lou Morgan, Gail Z. Martin and others. (Synopsis from Goodreads)

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Magic is my absolute favourite subject matter in fiction, and so a whole anthology of stories based on this theme definitely grabbed my attention. Most of the stories in the collection lean towards the darker side of the subject, exploring more sinister uses and sources of magic. There are stories about demons, magic used to kill and hurt others, dark energy, obsession, curses and more. The cover really does a great job of capturing the mood of the collection; it’s definitely dark fantasy, and many of the images and atmosphere of the stories will linger with you.

As with all short story collections, there are going to be some stories that are a hit and some that are a miss, and this is likely to be very subjective. Personally, I found this quite a strong anthology, with plenty of stories that kept me interested, and I think there will certainly be something here for everyone. The majority of stories were enjoyable, many very gripping or moving, a few forgettable ones (and one I would really like to forget), and some that I would happily read if they were to be turned into longer novels or series. In general the stories are quite short and well paced. I found myself reading through the whole collection very quickly.

Although I really enjoyed the collection, I did feel like it might have been nicer to have a bit more variety in the settings and type of magic used. The majority were set in modern day or more recent past, and the magic tied to the supernatural, giving the collection an urban fantasy feel. I would have liked to see a little more mysterious, unfamiliar, traditional fantasy, and fairytale magic explored as well, and it would have been interesting to see how the authors might have given that a dark twist and their own original spin.

My favourites in the collection were The Wrong Fairy, by Audrey Niffenegger, a wonderfully atmospheric story involving fairies, addiction and madness; Do As Thou Wilt, by Storm Constantine, a unique and clever look at modern witches and the power people have, with some very subtle magic; MailerDaemon, by Sophia McDougall, a very creepy, and at the same time surprisingly beautiful story; Buttons, by Gail Z. Martin, a great little urban fantasy; The Art of Escapology, by Alison Littlewood, another creepy story in a very different way, well told; and Shuffle, by Will Hill, which managed to tell a lot of story with so little revealed, as if the story itself is a magic trick.

I enjoyed this collection, and I think those who like stories about magic, urban fantasy, or dark fantasy involving the supernatural, will easily find something to like here.

A Taste of Blood Wine - Blog Tour & Short Story Extract

Have you heard that Titan Books are re-releasing Freda Warrington's vampire series, the wonderful Blood Books, beginning with A Taste of Blood Wine and leading up to a brand new book in the series? Today I'm really excited to be a host in the “Gorgeous Grave-throbber” Tour, with the second part of one of Freda's related short stories!

From award-winning British fantasy author Freda Warrington, A Taste of Blood Wine (Titan Books, May 2013) is the first novel of a gothic vampire melodrama.

To celebrate the return of the critically acclaimed Blood Books in collectable paperback and e-book edition, Titan Books and Freda Warrington are serialising two rare and risqué stories set within the universe of the Blood Books across a series of websites and blogs.

This is part two of And Their Blood Will Be Prescient to Fire, and you can read the rest of the tale here. Hope you enjoy it!

 

 

 

And Their Blood Will Be Prescient to Fire: Part 2

by Freda Warrington

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Robyn. Seventy years lost. Violette, who thought she couldn’t love, had loved her. Perhaps she’d come close with others since, but Robyn was the ruby set in her heart. A glorious courtesan defying Boston’s high society; a wounded soul, beautiful, warm and funny. The miracle was that Robyn had wanted her too. But Violette had turned her away. Robyn, if I let you come with me… I will destroy you.

It had seemed the right decision at the time.

Violette was hardly aware of her surroundings. She could only see Robyn’s face, smell her hair. Charlotte’s voice startled her.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To speak to her.’

Charlotte’s hand shot out and circled her upper arm. ‘Don’t.’

‘Do you think a day goes by that I haven’t longed to find her again?’ Violette hissed. ‘Let me go.’

Too much liquid swam in Charlotte’s eyes. Fear, jealousy. ‘Violette, it isn’t Robyn.’

The dancer plucked Charlotte’s hand off her arm and pushed it away. ‘Let me go. Whoever she is, at least let me look at her face again for a few minutes.’

The main lobby of the hotel was bright, sparkling with huge chandeliers. From the marshmallow comfort of a sofa, Violette watched the woman pacing, talking into a mobile phone, high heels clicking on the marble floor. At last she ended the conversation, turned and saw Violette.

‘Hi again,’ she said, about to walk straight past. Violette sat forward and made brazen eye contact, her posture demanding conversation. With those brilliant kohl-ringed eyes she could convey emotion to the back of the stalls. The effect on the woman was virtually physical. She halted, bemused as if Violette had tripped her.

‘Hi,’ said Violette. ‘Is your evening going as well as mine?’

‘Oh, my dinner date stood me up. Migraine, sure; too many brandies at lunch is more like it.’

‘Same here,’ said Violette. ‘That is, my friend was called away. Ordered this bottle, and now no one to drink it with.’ She indicated Stefan’s demon-brew, which she’d seized and brought with her. The thick green glass of the bottle glistened. There were two fresh glasses beside it. ‘I’d love it if you’d help me out.’

Despite the cool poise of her exterior, Violette was trembling inwardly like a teenager. Her approach felt inane and desperate. The desire to keep this gorgeous, distracted stranger beside her was turning her into a fool.

‘Oh, sure, why not.’ The woman flopped down, stretching stockinged calves. She took out a palmtop computer and began tapping at it, at the same time trying to keep the folder from sliding off her knee. Violette, hypnotised, watched Robyn’s warm face with its mischievous dark eyes, Robyn’s unruly thick hair falling forward and being pushed back. ‘It’s such a damn nuisance… hope the guy’s okay for a working breakfast… Oh, and my sister’s picking me up at nine… Damn, I need to email Mark; that’s my husband…’

Violette had a vision of breaking into a strange house and sucking the life from a faceless man. No more husband. She poured syrupy straw-gold plasma into the woman’s glass.

‘What do you do?’ she asked softly.

‘What? Oh, pharmaceutical company. Really dull.’ The woman flipped the palmtop shut and into her purse. ‘Sorry, I’m not normally this rude. You so don’t look part of the convention, and you’ll turn out to be head of some huge corporation and I’ll have blown a billion-dollar deal.’

‘Relax. I’m not.’

‘I’m Ruth Sarandon.’ She reached out and shook hands, her fingers warm in Violette’s cold ones.

‘I read the name tag.’

‘You’re not wearing one,’ said Ruth. She took the glass. There was no sign of Robyn’s calm, sensual personality beneath the brittle energy.

‘I’m Violette.’ She didn’t think to offer a false name.

‘Well, cheers, Violette.’ The dancer watched as Ruth-Robyn took a mouthful of blood plasma. She swallowed hard, eyes watering. ‘Wow, that’s different. Kind of bitter, like an aperitif. Not bad.’ She turned the bottle, holding it by the neck. ‘No label. That’s scary.’

‘It peeled off. Condensation.’ Usually Violette dealt in the truth. Tonight it felt all too easy to spill one lie after another. The spiked blood made her unguarded and she was floating in a dream where all that mattered was what she wanted.

‘So, what brings you to Boston?’ Ruth asked. She took large mouthfuls of her drink, shuddering a little with each one. Violette looked at the chestnut hair lying against her throat.

‘Oh… working trip,’ she began, but Ruth sat forward, speaking over her.

‘You know, you look incredibly familiar. Did you say your name was Violette? Are you a ballet dancer?’

Violette bit her lip, cursing inwardly. She felt the magic bleeding away. The chatter of people in the lobby became deafening. She shrugged, gave a self-effacing smile. ‘I’m off-duty.’

‘You’re the Violette Lenoir, right?’ Ruth put down her drink and clapped her hands. ‘Oh, my God, my little sister worships you. She will die if she knows I met you.’

Violette’s eyes widened. She had an image of a small girl, like a child in an Edward Gorey cartoon, literally expiring in the face of her big sister’s news. Meanwhile Ruth’s chatter went on: ‘I say little; Sarah’s twenty-three. Oh, her room’s a shrine, she has every one of your ballets on DVD, she truly spends every cent of her wages on you…’ and Violette sat transfixed by dismay. This was the last thing she wanted. She wanted Robyn, the wordless bliss of finding each other again. Not the inane flutter of a stranger. She wanted Robyn so badly the feeling pushed tears into her eyes.

She drank down the herb-fragrant blood. It gelled inside her like disappointment. She let the words wash over her until she couldn’t hear them any more. The world was buzzing madly around her, speeded up in time while she sat utterly still. No longer seeing the babbling woman there, only seeing Robyn.

She became aware that Ruth had stopped and was staring uneasily at her. ‘So – I guess an autograph’s out of the question? For Sarah, not me.’

‘Forgive me.’ Violette’s attempt at graciousness sounded wooden. ‘It’s wonderful that your sister… To know my work’s not in vain.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Ruth. ‘You must get this all the time. Another gushing idiot, and here you are trying to relax. I’ll stop.’

Her voice had an edge suggesting disapproval of stars who weren’t meltingly grateful to their fans. Violette didn’t care. She leaned into the sofa, her body turned towards Ruth’s, one hand supporting her head and the other resting lightly on her hip.

‘Actually, I’m trying to pick you up,’ Violette said coolly, not blinking. ‘Can we please go to your room before everyone in this bloody hotel recognises me?’

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Read the rest of the short story, And Their Blood Will Be Prescient to Fire, here. And don't forget to hop over to The Curiosity of a Social Misfit for part 3!

Thanks Freda Warrington and Titan Books. I'm so looking forward to reading the book! :-)

The first book in Freda Warrington’s Blood Books series, A Taste of Blood Wine, is out now from Titan Books, £7.99. 

What Makes You Die - Book Review

What Makes You Die
by Tom Piccirilli

To see more is to find oblivion...

Tommy Pic’s hallucinations come and go and leave sticky notes for him during his bipolar swings. Coming out of a blackout in an unfamiliar psychiatric ward, Tommy Pic awakes to his missing childhood love, his dead brother, his alive family, and a message from his agent that his latest screenplay may yet be his ticket back to Hollywood fame and fortune. If only he could remember writing it.

Searching out the hallucinations that will write Acts 2 and 3 of the screenplay that will oust Zypho as his best-known work, Tommy goes chasing his kidnapped childhood love, a witch from the magic shop, the komodo dragon he tried to cut out of his gut on Christmas Eve.

...This is what makes you die. (Synopsis from Goodreads)

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What Makes You Die is a strange book. It’s one of those stories that’s hard to say what it’s actually about. It’s about ghosts, witches, a prehistoric monster living inside a person, and a mysterious self-writing script. It’s about loss, the disappearance of a young girl, mental illness, and a failing writing career. It’s about all those things and yet it’s not really about any of them.

Tommy Pic is a desperate character who seems to be drifting in and out of sanity on the edge of nervous breakdown. He sees the ghosts of his dead family members and friends everywhere, and there is a pre-historic komodo dragon living in his intestines. At points it is very hard to tell just what is part of his extreme paranoia and what might be a real vision, or whether everything is completely in his head. Reality and the fantastical are blurred so much in the story that symbols and metaphor have a very real life of their own, and trying to decide exactly what’s real and what isn’t would probably be missing the point.

Tommy is coping with depression, with a hole that the loss of his father has left inside him, with feelings of inadequacy and despair brought on by a failing writing career, and with the ongoing mystery of what really happened to a girl – a friend he loved – who disappeared in his childhood. When he stumbles across a Wicca shop next to his agent’s office, he becomes involved with a young witch. She sees his ghosts, and the dragon in his gut, and is determined to help him. What ensues is very odd, but leads Tommy through a path of recovery and self-discovery, or perhaps re-self-discovery, to gain a sense of purpose again. It’s clever and entertaining, and will certainly leave you with a lot to think about at the end.

The book is very well written, with a poetic and almost noir-like style, and Tommy’s character is completely honest, right down to the obviously self-destructive behaviour. He can be frustrating at points, and extremely self-obsessed at others, but his story is always compelling. He’s spiralling into insanity but at the same time is capable of some sharp observations about the world and the people in it, making him a fascinating character to see through the eyes of. I also really enjoyed the humour in the book; it was knowing and sometimes a little dark, and it complemented the plot very well. There were some points where the pacing seemed slightly off to me, and occasional sections where the plot seemed to wander off to the side a little unnecessarily, which I thought could have been tightened up a bit. These were only small niggles, however.

Nothing is ever really quite what it seems in the story, leaving the reader to interpret much of what happens according to their own reading. I found what I thought was quite a glaring inconsistency in Tommy’s mother’s account of Kathy Lark’s disappearance (she says that Tommy was with her when she vanished but later seems to contradict herself when Tommy makes an unwelcome accusation). What exactly did happen there? Suggestions of Tommy’s loose grip on reality, a disturbing cover-up, a missed plot hole, or something else? I think I’m leaning towards the first, but with this kind of book it’s very hard to tell, and the story actually benefits from its unanswered questions anyway.

It would be very hard to pin this into a specific genre. Its supernatural elements are clearly metaphors – in fact, the whole story and the concept of the mysteriously written script can be seen as one larger metaphor – but it would be far too simplistic to say that this is all it is. I think it’s enjoyable on several levels, with a strong central character and interesting themes. It reminded me more of short stories than novels that I have read, having that short story quality of feeling like being part of something larger, of being about more than itself, of strong character-focus, and of defying traditional story structure as well as genre. It’s also a very short book, a novella really, and I think it was exactly the right length for the story being told.

This is a very interesting book that blurs supernatural elements, metaphor and reality, creating a surreal and engaging character-focussed tale about a man emerging from depression to find a sense of purpose and belonging once again. Incorporating elements of fantasy, horror, crime and noir, I think it could appeal to fans of many different genres. It might leave the reader with a lot of questions at the end, so for those who like straight, non-confusing narratives, this is probably best avoided. For others, there is a lot to think about and to love in this unique, well-written and surprising book.


Thank you to Apex Book Company for providing a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Fragile Things - Book Review

Neil Gaiman’s second collection of short fiction, a dazzling book of short stories from one of modern fiction's greatest and most imaginative writers. These stories will dazzle your senses, haunt your imagination and move you to the very depths of your soul. This extraordinary book reveals one of the world's most gifted storytellers at the height of his powers. (From Amazon UK. Click here for Fragile Things on Goodreads.)

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If you’re looking for somewhere to start with short stories, or if you already love short stories and are searching for something new to read, this is a fantastic choice. It’s fair to say that Neil Gaiman is an incredibly popular author, but I’ve actually found his longer books a bit hit-and-miss for me. Some are wonderful (The Graveyard Book is a must read), while others I wasn’t so keen on. Neil Gaiman’s shorts, however, I love. I should clarify... I love his short stories, though I’m sure he has very nice summer wear. I’m betting they’re knee-length and black, featuring a pattern of whimsical dancing skeletons in top-hats. Which, oddly, is not that far off being a description of his short stories as well.

There are all kinds of stories and poems in Fragile Things, ranging in atmosphere and subject matter. Identity, love and loss, storytelling, and, as you might expect, fragility, are all themes running through the collection. There are stories and poems about magic, ghosts, monsters, aliens, vampires, curses, zombies, and fairies, to name only a few, and many of these take turns and approaches that you might not expect. Most of the stories and poems in the book can also be read on several levels; they are very rarely just about what is literally happening on the page. They are all very clever, and some demand more than one reading. For fans of American Gods, there is also a longer story featuring Shadow, the main character of that novel.

Most of the content leans towards dark fantasy or horror, though there is nothing that I found really gruesome or too frightening. Instead, many of the stories are creepy or enchanting, sometimes both, in a way that lingers long after the telling has finished. All of them have that signature Gaiman subtlety in dealing with magic; the supernatural and the fantastical are shown to exist alongside our modern world, sometimes in the most mundane places, and in several of the stories the supernatural is also used as a metaphor for aspects of the human condition. This is particularly the case with the zombie story ‘Bitter Grounds’, which was one of my favourites in the collection. If the book carries one message throughout all the stories and poems, it is of the power and importance of telling stories, how stories can affect people, and how creating them and passing them down is a large part of what makes us human.

Stories and poems that really stood out for me included ‘October in the Chair’, ‘Closing Time’, ‘Bitter Grounds’, ‘Locks’, ‘The Problem of Susan’, ‘How to Talk to Girls at Parties’ and ‘Sunbird’. ‘A Study in Emerald’ is also a great concept for a story, but I wish that it had been longer and developed further. This also goes for a few other stories, and there were one or two that I found a bit dull. But really, most of the pieces in this collection are very good, and all worth reading, and because they are so open to interpretation in different ways, I think every reader’s favourites are likely to be different.

Fragile Things is an extremely strong collection that can be enjoyed by both new readers and long-standing fans of Neil Gaiman’s work.

Black Feathers - Book Review

Black Feathers is a modern fantasy set in two epochs: the Black Dawn, a time of environmental apocalypse, and generations into the future in its aftermath, the Bright Day.

In each era, a child undertakes a perilous journey to find a dark messiah known as The Crowman. In their hands lies the fate of the planet as they attempt to discover whether The Crowman is our saviour… or the final incarnation of evil. (Synopsis from Goodreads)

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Black Feathers is the first in a dark fantasy trilogy from horror writer Joseph D’Lacey. It has a very interesting setting, being split between two time periods, neither of which is very common in fantasy, and the combination of the two seemed quite unusual to me. There’s a modern-day pre-apocalyptic Britain. Whereas post-apocalypse is a well-trodden sub-genre, the actual build up and early days of the end times is much less common, perhaps featuring more in the thriller genre than fantasy. This setting in Black Feathers had elements of familiar disaster stories, but the apocalypse here is not sudden and obliterating; it’s much subtler, creeping up on civilisation and killing it slowly. It’s actually quite disturbing in its intensity and realism – more than any other apocalypse in fiction this one felt to me like it really could happen, or is perhaps already happening.

These are the present day sections of the novel, which are actually told in past-tense. The other sections are set in the future in present tense, post apocalypse but far enough ahead that civilisation now lives as normal, albeit in a less numerous and more rural and at-peace-with-the-land state. In this sense, Joseph D’Lacey is telling the story of an apocalypse in a more literal sense of the word – an uncovering and a change, a transition from one state of living to another rather than the end of everything. It’s not just a story of the end of the world as we know it, but its decline – the why, and the effect it has on people – as well as a story of the world that exists beyond it.

I thought both these settings were very interesting, and the inclusion of subtle magic (mainly in the future setting), a well-created sense of folklore, and prophecies of doom all made the world of this book a really memorable one. The author has an amazing ability to evoke a dark, tense and brooding atmosphere, as if there is always someone watching, something waiting, or disaster about to strike. There were points where the tension was so thick it felt like the characters must have trouble breathing. And over everything there’s a strong sense of menace, of some kind of lurking intent.

This feeling ties in well with the mythology of the Crowman in the story. What is this mysterious being – a man, or something else? What does he want, and is he here to save the world or to destroy it? Is he evil or good, or something beyond either? Although the reader sees events through the eyes of two children who are searching for the Crownman, who both have strong reasons to believe that he will help them and the world, it’s still impossible to say whether the Crowman is really something good. The figure is creepy, his folklore is creepy, and events, particularly towards the end of the book, left me questioning whether we are seeing the story of some kind of manipulating devil-creature after all. This was well done, complementing the story and the atmosphere, and leaving a sense of mystery.

The book did have some problems for me, the main one being that there were sections that felt as if they dragged for too long with very little happening. It’s a very slow-moving story, and at points this frustrated me slightly, particularly the more repetitive aspects – Gordon walks for a while and the section ends with him determined to find the Crowman, then in the next section Gordon walks some more and the section ends with him determined to find the Crowman, etc. There were times when all either Megan or Gordon were doing was walking and thinking, which I would have preferred to be cut a bit shorter.

However, having said that, Joseph D’Lacey’s writing style is beautiful and always a joy to read, with the dryer sections lifted by some wonderful imagery. I also found both Megan and Gordon to be very intriguing characters who grow a lot through the course of the novel. The parallels between the two were clever, as if they were mirror images of each other, or driven by fate to repeat the endless cycle of the past. This drew the two storylines together, helping to keep all aspects of the story feeling relevant. I found myself wondering a lot about where each character was heading – at points Gordon seems to be choosing a rather dark path, and there is clearly more to Megan’s story than we have been told.

The book has some strong messages about the way humans interact with their environment and the way we treat the Earth. The apocalypse is not brought on by some kind of freak accident, but through the incessant build-up of human belligerence, selfishness and greed. The author does a great job of showing that it is people who are the true horror – the way they treat both the world and each other – and most of the true danger in the book (particularly to Gordon) comes from other survivors. I’m not sure that returning to such a rural, pre-industrial form of life is necessary to solve our environmental and social issues, but I do think the themes in this story are very important ones, and that they were handled well by the author. This is certainly a relevant book.

In the last stage of the book the pace really speeds up and some major changes begin to happen. An even greater sense of magic and the supernatural comes in, and although it had felt to me like the story was stalling a little by this point, now it really gripped hard and didn’t let go until the end. By now the reader will have a lot of questions and expectations for the next books, and there’s a sense that both Megan’s and Gordon’s stories will move in surprising directions.

With memorable settings, vivid writing and important themes, Black Feathers is an extremely atmospheric and thought-provoking read.


Thank you to Angry Robot and NetGalley for providing a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.