BOOK REVIEW: Star Wars: The High Republic - Into The Dark, by Claudia Gray; The Crossover Paradox, by Rob Edwards; Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon, by Brent A Harris; Hell Divers, by Nicholas Sainsbury Smith; The Silver Archive: Dark Skies, by Matthew Kresal; Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After The Rise of the Elders Gods anthology; The Fall, by Alan Baxter

 It's been a while since I did a review round - for reasons I'm hoping to blog about in the very near future - but time to catch up on what I've been reading, starting by picking up a lightsaber... 

Star Wars: The High Republic - Into The Dark, by Claudia Gray

Star Wars blew my mind when I was a kid. I remember getting my parents to walk me backwards out of the cinema so I could see the credits rolling up the screen for as long as I could. 

After that, I devoured the pages of the Star Wars Weekly comic, with stories about the Starkiller Kid or Valance the Bounty Hunter and more. 

And yet, I've been away from reading Star Wars for a while.

I picked up this book in the High Republic series after a recommendation - and the appeal of it for me was new characters on new adventures rather than being too closely hooked into movies or TV shows. 

In it, a padawan, Reath Silas, is travelling on board a transport ship in a group of Jedi when a disaster hits. Some kind of explosion rips through hyperspace, throwing ships violently into normal space. Silas and his allies find themselves near an ancient space station, and pull together with other survivors to get on board. 

Once on board, they start to explore - and the station is not quite as empty as it first seemed, with a sinister presence making it felt at the edge of their senses. 

So far, so good - and with the prospect of an alien menace to top it all. 

I probably enjoyed about half the book - but I'll confess it frustrated me. The trouble was, the Jedi themselves are regarded as wise and powerful, but it's mostly their decisions that mess everything up. 

The central plot events simply don't happen if the Jedi aren't there to cause the problem. It's like that whole debate about Indiana Jones and the Ark of the Covenant, where the Nazis don't get it without Indy's involvement. 

That and there are some moments where it beggars belief that the lead characters could be quite so dim or give up so easily. 

So, while the setting is great, and the characters draw you in... in the end, the book just annoyed me. 

I'll dive back in to another Star Wars book before long, but this was the wrong one to pick for me. 

AI Rating: 2/5

Star Wars: The High Republic - Into The Dark is available on Amazon.

The Crossover Paradox, by Rob Edwards

It's sequel time! The Crossover Paradox is the sequel to The Ascension Machine, a tale of alien superheroes learning to handle their powers and... well, life itself, at a futuristic academy. 

I loved the first book, in which the lead character, Grey, finds himself masquerading as someone else and unexpectedly making friends along the way. 

The sequel brings the characters back for a new term at the academy - but there have been some unexpected shifts along the way. There's a distance between Grey and some of his closest friends, which leaves Grey feeling a little out of place again. Which would be fine if it wasn't for the murder. 

Oh yes, there's a murder. And after a year of lying about who he really is, Grey becomes a suspect. There's only one person who knows he is innocent - Grey himself, and so he sets about investigating who the real killer is. 

What he uncovers won't just impact his own future at the academy, but perhaps even the academy itself. 

It's full of twists and turns, without getting too slowed down by the mystery - there's plenty of action along the way too. 

Most of all, I love the personal touches, the way in which Grey questions the friendships he has unexpectedly come to rely on, and the way those friends prove their worth as the mystery deepens. 

It's a fun read, a warm, witty, clever read, and I loved it. 

AI Rating: 5/5

The Crossover Paradox is available on Amazon.

Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon, by Brent A Harris

Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon is a short story collection from Brent A Harris - and I'll freely confess I'd read most of these in different publications over time, but it's lovely to have them all collected together. 

Let's start with the headliner - Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon was nominated for a Sidewise Award, and deservedly so. A collaboration with Ricardo Victoria, it told of time travelling space dinosaurs trying to save their future. I'll say that again: Time. Travelling. Space. Dinosaurs. 

C'mon, a hook like that, how can you not want more? And more you get, because this collection has a new story in the same setting, a prequel. 

There are a lot more stories in here to discover - with hardly any other dinosaurs in sight. Ok, maybe a couple more dinosaur stories. I loved The Terrible Lizard of Holborn Hill, for example, or the story Dust of the Earth, which imagines a world where Jurassic Park was never written. 

Personally, perhaps my two favourite stories are Lost Treasure, about time pirates, and The Ellian Convergence, which is as sweet a literary love letter to Star Trek as you could wish for. 

The nicest thing of all about the collection, however, is you can never tell where each story will take you - the world is not the limit when there are different worlds, different universes, different dimensions to go and explore. 

Dive in. Have fun. Don't get bitten by a dinosaur. 

AI Rating: 5/5

Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon and other Time Travel Twists is available on Amazon.

Hell Divers, by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Never mind the logic, look at how freaking cool everything is!

Hell Divers reads like a computer game shoot-em-up turned into a book. The lead characters are Hell Divers - big, brave heroes doomed to die parachuting from the huge flying airships housing the last of humanity to retrieve precious supplies from the ravaged Earth below. 

It's a turn-the-brain-off kind of book. There are two airships left, each of which holds around 500 people, and yet somehow people don't recognise one another within these ships that has been their only home for their entire lives. Then there's the supplies down below, somehow still usable a couple hundred years after global war torched the Earth, and somehow packed nicely into what seem like loot boxes ready to attach a hot air balloon too and lift back to the airship. 

That's before you even get to the inexplicable mutant monsters, but hey, if you can accept the rest, go all in. 

It all plays out in as macho a fashion as you would expect, with thinly painted characters about to get into life and death situations that some of them aren't going to get out of intact. 

But you know what? Sometimes, you need something to clean the palate. It's a speedy read. It goes exactly the way you'd expect it to. And if that's what you need? It scratches that itch. 

It makes no sense. But it's fun. 

AI Rating: 3/5

Hell Divers is available on Amazon.

The Silver Archive: Dark Skies, by Matthew Kresal

OK, this is a very, veeeery niche product, so I gotta give you some homework. Stop reading this, and go and watch every episode of the 1996 one-season wonder that was Dark Skies, and sadly never got a second season, then come back. It's probably on YouTube these days. Go ahead. I'll wait. 

Ok, you probably didn't go do all that, and if you're reading this still, you're probably aware of the show, perhaps even a keen fan. It was a conspiracy show, weaving a story of alien invasion around particular moments of American history. 

Matthew Kresal delves behind the scenes of the show in this book, and discovers all kinds of interesting nuggets. Think of it as a DVD commentary on the show, if you will. 

There is, for example, the very weird interactions the showmakers had with shady people who claimed the show was closer to "the truth" than they realised. I laughed out loud at the moment where one showmaker declared he wasn't going to go and meet someone at midnight in a cemetery for anything. 

Then there are the details of the show itself, and the resolution it found its way to when they got word that it was being cancelled. 

Dark Skies was a great little moment in US TV, and this book adds depth to the experience for those who have fond memories of the show. It's really absolutely not for someone who doesn't know the show - and more than 25 years on from the show, there's not many newcomers finding it now. But if the series still tickles an itch in your brain, this is a delight. 

AI Rating: 5/5

The Silver Archive: Dark Skies is available from Obverse Books.

Apotheosis: Stories of Survival After The Rise of the Elder Gods

What if the bad guys win?

That's the premise at the bleeding heart of this cosmic horror anthology - and the bad guys here are the elder gods of Lovecraftian mythology. 

It starts with a belter of a story. The Smiling People, by Andrew Peregrine, follows the last survivors of our world, going about their daily business in a city surrounded by a wall made of the dead bodies of their loved ones. As they struggle to exist, they are followed by the Smiling Ones, strange entities who watch, and provide packages of food, and follow, and destroy whoever they wish. And they smile. 

It follows one character as he hides his remaining secret, as he tries to talk to a woman he works with, as he perhaps hopes of escape. Brilliantly written, and utterly terrifying. My first work I've read by this author, I look forward to more. 

I also thoroughly enjoyed The Pestilence of Pandora Peaslee, in which partisan resistance fighters take on Ythians who have occupied the world, but might just open the door to worse. 

Some of the other stories aren't as strong, and a couple are a little muddled - but The Smiling People makes the anthology worth reading alone. 

AI Rating: 4/5

Apotheosis: Stories of Survival After The Rise of the Elder Gods is available on Amazon.

The Fall, by Alan Baxter

This is a return to the world of The Gulp, the five-story collection of interwoven stories from Alan Baxter that tells of the bad town of Gulpepper, where reality warps and twists so hard it will choke the life out of an unwary visitor. 

The first book introduced us to the world, and this visit again sees stories bumping into one another's locations as Bad Things begin to happen. 

This time round, the greater evil at the heart of the town starts to show itself. But not so quickly. Baxter takes his time to show his hand. First we have a curio shop that ensnares an outsider with its weird magic. Then there's the fishing boat that takes us to a place even local residents are afraid of. Then there's the disintegration of a farmer's life and the extent he goes to in order to cover up a crime he has committed. And a group of scouts who find themselves pursued by horror and forced to seek refuge in the one town they shouldn't set foot in. All that before the grand finale itself. 

Think of it as a series of Twilight Zone one-shots that wind together in the end, but with an Australian accent and a satisfying squelch as a shotgun blasts a whole in something that used to be flesh. 

Warped. Twisted. Fabulous. 

AI Rating: 5/5

The Fall is available on Amazon.

NEW BOOK: The Crossover Paradox, by Rob Edwards

Today on the blog, I'm giving a shout out for a new book out by my buddy, Rob Edwards. 

It's a sequel to his 2020 book The Ascension Machine, which I loved. That book saw a... well... morally uncertain fellow by the name of Grey finding himself with a spot at a superhero academy for aliens. And he shouldn't be there. 

As the plot thickens, so do the bonds of friendship between Grey and his fellow students, except he's lying to them all along and that doesn't bode well for when the truth comes out. 

I don't want to spoil the first book, but book two sees us back at the academy for a second year for more shenanigans. I've started reading it already and one thing I love about Rob is his smooth, easy style, often with a simmering undercurrent of wit. 

Grey reminds me very much of the Stainless Steel Rat, though more looking for a place in the world than looking for way to come out on top like Slippery Jim DiGriz. The outcome in the first book was thoughtful, warm and delightful - so I have no hesitation in recommending you join me in reading book two.

With cover art by Ian Bristow, The Crossover Paradox is available now at mybook.to/crossoverparadox as both an ebook and in print. 

I'll have a full review coming up soon on the blog too. Why not join me as I read it? 

Oh, and you can follow Rob on Twitter too. 

 

Five books I read in 2020 that I loved

 It's been, to say the least, a strange year. Between work and supervising the kids as they studied at home, there's been precious little time to sit down and read. Still, to my surprise, I hit my Goodreads reading challenge goal - and there really were some gems that I enjoyed through the year. And goodness knows, if these were able to transport me away from the world of 2020, then they might just bring you joy too. So without further ado, here's five books I loved this year, starting - as it happens - with my latest read. 

A Christmas Twist, by Brent A Harris

Do you ever read something and think to yourself gosh, I wish I was as clever as this? That's how I felt reading A Christmas Twist. It's a sequel to A Twist In Time, in which Brent A Harris took the character of Oliver Twist and reinvented him as a steampunk hero in his adult years, travelling through time with the aid of a mysterious pocket watch. With this sequel, he bounds into Scrooge territory, as the secrets of the watch and the nature of those ghosts of Christmas past, present and future - time traveller themselves of a fashion - are revealed to be intertwined. 

Layer after layer of the story unfolds as Oliver travels through time alongside Scrooge to meet those spirits - discovering alternate forms of Oliver himself, from a suave swordsman to a clockwork cowboy. Whose journey is this? Scrooge's, or Oliver's? And what will it mean for him in the end?

At every turn, just when you think you know where things are going, things take another... well, Twist. Then it all comes together at the end so neatly and delicately it seems like a finely-honed watch mechanism. Perhaps that one in Oliver's hand, tick-tick-ticking time away. 

There are surprises, there are punch-the-air moments, and there is a reminder, in this year of all years, that while we cannot control all things in our world, we must never stop trying to find the best outcome. 

AI Rating: 5/5

A Christmas Twist is available on Amazon

Beneath The Rising, by Premee Mohamed

Who knew Lovecraftian horror could be such a joy?

Premee Mohamed has gleefully snatched up two fistfuls of Cthulhu Mythos, dropped it into the modern day and proceeded to ruin the lives of her two lead characters with it. Possibly while giggling manically.

But while she creates a canvas from that mythos, it's the story of those characters that will draw you in. Johnny and Nick are two survivors of a childhood tragedy that bound them together. Johnny is the superstar, a genius inventor with money and talent. Nick is her devoted friend, trailing in her wake, struggling to manage work shifts and helping his family while she soars ahead like a shooting star.

Things change, though, when Johnny needs help. A door has opened, and she might be to blame, and things that should not be are creeping through it.

The real delight of this book is the relationship between the two lead characters. Johnny is a star, and Nick is locked in her orbit, drawn to her and in love with her in so many ways, but more than that a friend. The two have their shorthand ways of talking, the banter that goes with people who have been friends forever, even as they struggle to deal with things at the heart of their relationship that they cannot tell one another. They are broken in so many ways, and lean on one another to get through because trying to fix things would hurt even more.

All this continues as the world starts to unravel - and it turns out that two people who have nothing in the world except one another might be the world's only hope for survival. There are secrets revealed, bad bargains, and the kind of regrets that leave the taste of ashes in the mouth.

A fantastic book. I heartily recommend it. 

AI Rating: 5/5

Beneath The Rising is available on Amazon

The Ascension Machine, by Rob Edwards

This has been a real joy to read. Take a hero in the vein of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat, give him a Scooby gang in the vein of Joss Whedon's Buffy or Firefly crews - and give it all a superhero spin.
This is a really fun adventure - starting off with a drifter, thief and misfit who comes to be known as Grey, our hero. He gets a most unusual offer to impersonate a rich man who doesn't want to take up the place at a superhero academy his connected family has arranged for him - and so Grey finds himself heading to a school full of aliens, with only the thinnest of lies to protect him.
All this makes for some soaring space adventure - but there's also a depth here. Grey, a loner for so long, unexpectedly finds friendship. One of the things about the academy is that people find their perfectly ordinary abilities on their own worlds might just make them superheroes elsewhere - even if their ability is as mundane as the ability to be a good farmer. For Grey, he suddenly finds himself unexpectedly with a home - and, perhaps, with the chance to be a hero himself.
Until it all comes crashing down.
By turns witty and thoughtful, Rob Edwards creates a universe that's a delight to visit, and to which I hope we shall return. 

AI Rating 5/5

The Ascension Machine is available on Amazon

Becoming Superman, by J Michael Straczynski

Joe Straczynski is the creator of Babylon 5. I mean, you may know him from many other things. You may know him as the pen behind Sense8 on Netflix. You might know him from The Changeling, the Angelina Jolie movie directed by Clint Eastwood. Or Jeremiah. Or Spider-Man comics. Or... well, you get the idea. He's been involved in writing for TV and movies for far longer than many writers manage to stay in the ring. This is his autobiography - and while you might think it's a happy trip through the successes he's had over the years, it's far from that. Indeed, it's far more intimate and personal than that. This is the story of the young boy Joseph, and his abusive father, who tormented his whole family. It is a story that tells of Nazi sympathising. Of murder. Of a boy trying to grow up sane with a family life that was far from stable, moving from town to town and skipping out whenever people showed up to collect money. Sure, it tells how he went through the early cycle of writing stories that turned out to be not so great, then writing more, and more, and banging his head against the door of rejection. There's the glimmers of encouragement, such as when the stranger who read his work at a school event and said there was promise in there turned out to be Rod Serling. But this is a story of a boy who fought to be a man free of his father, of a man who fought to get his stories accepted, and a TV writer who fought against the restraints imposed by executives all too often - to the point of his agent's exasperation. He describes one moment in his youth - in which he gets the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of kids only to stand up and taunt them so they came back and did it again as, in retrospect, being the perfect preparation for becoming a TV writer. There's a great deal of insight in here to the projects he worked on - from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon, to Murder She Wrote. As a Babylon 5 fan, I particularly hung on the material to do with the show - even the saddest notes with the death of some of the cast members over the year. I listened to the audiobook version, narrated by Peter Jurasik from the show, and the poignancy of those moments came across in two voices mourning old friends, the writer and the narrator. More than anything, though, this book tells the story of Mr Straczynski's relationship with his father. So determined was he not to be like his father, his life in some ways seem to have been defined by purposely choosing to be the thing his father was not, the shape of his life being dictated by non-conformity to the monster he grew up with. It's a brutal story to tell. There are no end of truly shocking moments. And yet, despite what he had to endure, he ultimately defined himself, who he would be, and rose to the success his father said he wouldn't reach. Is it inspirational? I'm not sure that's the word. That's like those moments when you see what people have gone through and pat them on the head and call them an inspiration. That's not quite right. No, but it is admirable. With a stubborn streak a mile wide, he managed to achieve things that had never been done before. And he did it with a sharp wit and a ready pen. This book has been nominated for a Hugo Award. It certainly deserves it.  AI Rating: 5/5 Becoming Superman is available on Amazon The Books of Earthsea, by Ursula K Le Guin I'll freely admit this is a re-read rather than a new read - but in such a wonderful new edition. Illustrated throughout by Charles Vess, this is a magical book to open.  I remember reading an article by Ursula K Le Guin about how unhappy she had been over the years with the covers to her Earthsea books. I owned one cover she particularly hated with its pale, white version of Ged, who is anything but that in her books.  So it is a treat to see the world conjured up anew through the art of Mr Vess. A single image from him would be a joy, but this is a book full of his work.  I have loved the Earthsea saga since I was a kid. And now, with this book, I have a version of it that my own kids can fall in love with. It is, quite simply, magnificent.  AI Rating: 5/5 The Books of Earthsea can be be bought on Amazon Oh, and while you're here... let me give you a gift. The first two books of Tales From Alternate Earths are FREE until December 20. Pick them up at the links below:  mybook.to/alternate mybook.to/alternateearths

BOOK REVIEW: The Ascension Machine, by Rob Edwards; Magen, by Edward Buatois; Firefly: Big Damn Hero, by James Lovegrove; Dark Rite, by Alan Baxter and David Wood; Alien: River of Pain, by Christopher Golden; Emoto's Promise, by Shel Calopa

It's been a funny old year for reviews - between working from home and the kids learning from home, there's been precious little time for reading. Still, I'm delighted to say that the books I have squeezed in recently - including some audiobooks - have certainly brought a smile at the end of the day. My latest review round-up starts here. 

 

The Ascension Machine, by Rob Edwards

This has been a real joy to read. Take a hero in the vein of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat, give him a Scooby gang in the vein of Joss Whedon's Buffy or Firefly crews - and give it all a superhero spin. 

This is a really fun adventure - starting off with a drifter, thief and misfit who comes to be known as Grey, our hero. He gets a most unusual offer to impersonate a rich man who doesn't want to take up the place at a superhero academy his connected family has arranged for him - and so Grey finds himself heading to a school full of aliens, with only the thinnest of lies to protect him. 

All this makes for some soaring space adventure - but there's also a depth here. Grey, a loner for so long, unexpectedly finds friendship. One of the things about the academy is that people find their perfectly ordinary abilities on their own worlds might just make them superheroes elsewhere - even if their ability is as mundane as the ability to be a good farmer. For Grey, he suddenly finds himself unexpectedly with a home - and, perhaps, with the chance to be a hero himself. 

Until it all comes crashing down.

By turns witty and thoughtful, Rob Edwards creates a universe that's a delight to visit, and to which I hope we shall return. 

AI Rating: 5/5

The Ascension Machine is available on Amazon.

Magen, by Edward Buatois

When a teenage boy wields the magic handed down to him by his family, he inadvertently opens a portal to another world - and puts his own sister's life at risk. 

This urban fantasy sees a young man trying to put right the problem he caused - with the help of a beautiful and really quite deadly elf. 

Being a novella, it gets right on with the action, as the boy, Rylan, and his elf companion set off on a road trip to save his sister. Along the way, the elf learns the ways of our modern world - and Rylan learns a bit more about how to stand up for himself. Will that be enough? 

I do wish this had been longer - which is a good sign. Always leave them wanting more, right? But I would have loved there to be more time for the relationship to build between our heroes, and to let the stakes build even higher. Still, for those who want a quick shot of fantasy, romance and a tale of siblings who would do anything for one another, it's a pleasant find. Charming. 

AI Rating: 4/5

Magen is available on Amazon.

Alien: River of Pain, by Christopher Golden and directed by Dirk Maggs

Dirk Maggs really is a king of audio productions. Here, he takes on the Alien franchise for a second time, adapting the book by Christopher Golden. 

The story slots into the Alien series in between the first two movies - it takes us to the colony from Aliens before the xenomorphs began to run riot. 

The production is fantastic - with a great cast including the likes of Anna Friel, Colin Salmon and Alexander Siddig. 

For purists, there are gripes - for example, Colin Salmon is the leader of the colony's marine unit, a unit which didn't exist in the movie. That throws some continuity wrenches - you would think the marines in Aliens would have taken the whole thing a bit more seriously if they knew a whole bunch of colonial marines had already lost contact. That being the case, Vazquez might need to know a little more about the aliens than just where they are. 

There's also the curse of a prequel - you know what's going to happen if you've seen the movie (and if you haven't you probably aren't listening to this). So we get to meet a lot of people and then wait for the aliens to start dismembering them. The sequences retreading bits featuring Ripley don't really add much to this part of the story - but are nice Easter eggs for fans. 

In the end, this feels like a story we didn't really need as part of the franchise - though it does leave a strand or two open to exploring in future. One for the completist Alien fan. But gosh, what a good production. Hats off to the actors and Dirk Maggs for really making the most of the story.

AI Rating: 4/5

Alien: River of Pain is available on Audible.

Firefly: Big Damn Hero, by James Lovegrove

Writing a book that fits in and around a popular series must be such a challenge - and even more so I would think with the world of Firefly, which got such a brief run in the sun before its cancellation. 

James Lovegrove does a good job, showing us one of the side adventures that the crew of the Firefly got up to, without treading too heavily on the established canon of the universe. 

We see a story that has just enough nods to moments in the TV series - fans will note bits from one episode here, bits from another there, some familiar characters... and some new ones. 

The new is where it gets really interesting as we discover a story that grows right out of the youth of Captain Mal Reynolds, a story that reveals his first love, and the path that led him to putting on that brown coat. 

Of course, it remains a side adventure, but a good one nonetheless. 

A special shout out to the narrator, James Anderson Foster, who is quite brilliant. With just tone and inflection, he catches the feel of well established characters without ever seeming like just a mimic. He adds a real flair, and really makes this a delight to listen to. 

AI Rating: 4/5

Firefly: Big Damn Hero is available on Audible.

Dark Rite, by David Wood and Alan Baxter

This is a love letter to horror stories of old. Take a dash of Wicker Man, take a pinch of Hammer Horror, throw in a sprinkling of Lovecraft and what have you got? This tale of a young man, Grant Shipman, returning to the town he had left long behind finds him getting embroiled in a web of cultist intrigue. 

Strange things start to happen, and suddenly Grant finds there might be no one he can trust. 

Bloody, sexy, scary, it's a fast-moving horror that really hits the spot. 

One note I would say, get the novel version rather than the audiobook - the audio recording really needed editing, with the narrator stopping and repeating phrases on a number of occasions rather than lopping out the mistakes. Don't let that put you off, though - just grab the book instead. 

AI Rating: 4/5

Dark Rite is available on Amazon.

Emoto's Promise, by Shel Calopa

Years ago, I was blown away by a mindtwister of a novel - This Is The Way The World Ends, by James Morrow, in which the survivors of the end of the world are put on trial by the spirits of the dead. There's something of a resonance here, with a strange city and its occupants trying to hold off the risen seas of a drowned Earth. 

It's a strange city too, with humans serving as workers alongside numans, a modified race that undergoes perpetual upgrades in service of the city's ruler and locked in thrall to an online world called the BigDry. There's shades of Sam Miller's Blackfish City in this too, with the survival of the city given more importance than the lives of those within it and elements of the past told in fragments of text from diaries.

It's a dystopian set-up - but I do wish it had taken more time to tell its story. There's a poetic feel to the writing, but I wanted to see Macie, the lead character, explore this world a little more. Some elements appear quite quickly and don't really get fully developed. 

In the end, it's a story that left me thinking - but which I wanted the book to have resolved more. That said, the promise here is all in the writer, whose ideas are tantalising. 

AI Rating: 3/5

Emoto's Promise is available on Amazon.

Superheroes, aliens and more - Rob Edwards talks about his new book, The Ascension Machine

I'd like to welcome Rob Edwards back to the blog - and this is a very, very special occasion. Let me throw a couple more verys on that too. Rob's debut novel publishes in the coming week - The Ascension Machine. It's a novel of heroes. More to the point, superheroes. So I'm delighted he's here to talk about it. 

Hi Rob, and congratulations on your debut novel! We’ll get to the meat of the book soon – but we know it’s got science fiction, aliens and most importantly superheroes! So, let’s start with caped crusaders – what’s your first love when it comes to comic books and what is it that hooked you about those characters?

Thank you, sir. Exciting times.

The first comic book I remember reading was issue two of the comic adaptation of the very first Star Wars movie. My dad thought these silly space comics (this was before Star Wars was, you know, Star Wars) were missing the point, so he bought me the latest Green Lantern and Justice League of America to show me what comic books should really be like. Now I think, this blend of sci fi and superheroes has been with me a long time now.

And I guess that also informs my first love for comic books, DC’s Legion of Superheroes, a title which has been goofy, weird, fascinating, dark, light, popular, forgotten, epic and personal. That’s comic books, always something new, always something fresh and creative just around the corner.

You and I got to know each other across the gaming table playing Heroclix – that’s a superhero tabletop strategy game for those who don’t know – but what was your favourite team you used to play?

With so many miniatures to play with (so very very many), I tried to vary my teams as much as possible, playing Marvel teams, DC teams, Lord of the Rings teams and Star Trek teams pretty regularly (and mixing it up to enjoy things like Gandalf driving the Batmobile). But eventually I’d always come back to Legion of Superheroes or Birds of Prey.

I think I need pictures of Gandalf driving the Batmobile! OK, so tell us a little about the novel – what was the hook that drew you into writing about superheroes?

They do say “write what you know”! I’ve been consuming superhero media for decades now; if you cut me, do I not bleed four colour inks? The kernel of this story, though, comes from a question of identity. Everyone in the book is going through some kind of identity adjustment, either because they’re trying to get out from their parents’ influence, or habitually lying about who they are, or they are superheroes, for whom the secret identity thing is baked into the concept.

It’s set in an academy for superheroes – where did your inspiration come from there?

It was a function of the theme, really. For many, college is where they begin to find out the kind of people they will be as adults. It’s all back to that question of identity. The working title of the book was “So you want to be a space alien superhero?”, I changed it for several reasons, but it’s still the core of what the academy is about.

Plus, I just loved the idea of taking some of the sillier elements of the superhero genre and making them into college courses. If you want to study Grapnel Gun Maintenance, Costume Design and Rescueology, the Justice Academy is the place for it.

Tell us about Grey, your hero – a person out of place, it must be said, living a bit of a fraud!

At the start of the book he would (and does!) tell you that he has an awesome life, drifting from one space station to another, seeing the whole galaxy, earning his way with odd jobs, petty crime and grifting. He gets into a lot of trouble and has a knack for lying. But he has nothing to ground him. At seventeen he has no friends, no past, no future. He’s a little lost and doesn’t realise it until chance (and a scam) find him enrolled at the Academy under false pretenses.

The book reminds me a bit of Harry Harrison – but what would you say your influences are?

I’ve not read any Harrison since I was a teenager, but yes, I see the comparison to the Stainless Steel Rat. I wrote a post on Altered Instinct a few years ago about the books I carry with me, and you’ll find most of my influences there! Erik Frank Russell’s Wasp, Bujold’s Vorkosigan books are both in the DNA of The Ascension Machine, stir in a little Dumas, a hint of Rowling and top it off with some great comic book storytellers like Keith Giffen, Gail Simone and Mark Waid.

The artwork for the cover is fab – was that a custom commission?

It’s the work of the talented Ian Bristow, a scifi writer in his own right. I love what he did with the cover, and he was very professional when it came to handling my fussy last-minute changes.

What was your favourite part of the writing? (Without too many spoilers!)

Dialogue always flows the easiest for me, so my favourite part is the banter between Grey and the people he meets and friends he makes. I particularly enjoy writing for the characters Seventhirtyfour and Gadget Dude.

You’ve published quite a few short stories, but this is your first full-length novel, how did you find the difference in the different formats as a writer?

What I found with novels, I mean the essential difference in my approach, is that when writing novels you have to come up with so many more words. The biggest issue, aside from that, is that for most short stories I can keep it all in my head. I know what I’m doing and where I’m going, and consistency flows from that, but I couldn’t do that with the novel, so I had to be a little more rigorous with note taking so that Seventhirtyfour’s height didn’t change, for example.

What’s cooking next in your literary kitchen?

No rest for the wicked, I’ve gone straight on to the sequel for The Ascension Machine. This book will be called The Crossover Paradox and Grey and his friends must deal with the changes that happened in the first book, plus a murder on campus.

Where’s the book available?

All the usual places. Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the like. Kindle and paperback.

Traditional last question here – what are you reading at the moment, and what’s your favourite book you’ve read in the past year?

I’ve just started on Brandon Sanderson’s Skyward. I’ve not read any of his stuff before, other than when he stepped in to help with the end of The Wheel of Time, but I know he has quite a following. Looking forwards to finding out if he lives up to the hype.

What have I read this year? I confess that the whole lockdown thing, I’ve found it difficult to sit and read during it, I’ve not read half as much as normal (not helped by needing new reading glasses since before the lockdown started! I’ve actually managed to get a new pair now, so that will help). Oh, of course, I must mention Brent’s A Twist in Time, steampunk meets Dickens, and with a hint of the superhero to it too.  And of course, Tales from the Pirate’s Cove, Inklings Press’s latest. Seems a bit self-indulgent, but eleven of the stories in there aren’t mine, so I don’t feel bad about plugging it.

Thank you very much for calling by, Rob. I'm looking forward to reading the book. It's pre-ordered, so that'll be my reading for the week ahead! Good luck with the launch! 

• Pick up The Ascension Machine at mybook.to/ascensionmachine

It's new book day! Tales of Magic & Destiny is out now

It's new book day! Tales of Magic & Destiny is out now - including my story Out of the Dust.

The book's filled with some great stories, really you need to discover it for yourself to read all the splendid fantasy stories inside.

That said, I thought I'd take a moment to talk about my story - Out of the Dust, which features a returning character from one of my previous tales.

Back when Inklings Press first started out, our first anthology was Tales From The Tavern, a fistful of fantasy stories that included my story A Taste For Battle.

As we were returning to fantasy, I wanted to come back to one of the characters from that tale, at a time earlier in his life, before we even knew who he was. He's also not the main character of Out of the Dust, but rather something of a loaded gun. He's there ready to go off at a moment's notice. 

A Taste For Battle also saw me introduce the Reavers, a race of insectoid beings which fed on the memories of those they defeated in battle. So I had to have a monster to match this time - and it takes the shape of a Sand Wyvern. 

The Sand Wyvern is a huge beast that lives within the sand of the desert itself. Not content with its massive, brutish frame, it also has razor-sharp tentacles that whip around it - ideal for clearing its path as it moves or, more dangerously, shredding its enemies.

That's not the only enemy the characters of Out of the Dust face. Indeed the worst enemy is simply this: thirst. 

Life in the desert can be pretty hard. It's even worse when the source you depend on for your water is gone. 

All of these things I tell you without spoilers. This is the backdrop against which our heroes have to survive. Will they all make it? Well, what do you think...

You can pick up Tales of Magic & Destiny on Amazon as an ebook or paperback. The link is mybook.to/MagicDestiny.

Oh, and you can also check out fellow author Rob Edwards as he chats on his YouTube channel about his story - a splendid piece in which traits are embodied as godly beings. 

You can hear him chat about that below. 

I hope you enjoy the book - I'm really honoured to be alongside some great writers in there.

Welcome to the Weird West - and a Kickstarter to explore

Last year, as readers of the blog may know, I had my first Weird West tale published - The Clockwork Cowboy in the Hideous Progeny anthology from Writerpunk Press. It was my first step into a Wild West frontier remade into a world where anything was possible - and it's a world which Diane Morrison has been exploring for some time. She stops by the blog to chat about the genre - just as she is closing in on the finishing line for a Kickstarter for an anthology in the genre, Gunsmoke & Dragonfire. 

Welcome, Diane! So the anthology is a Weird West fistful of tales – so what is Weird West?

Weird West is what you call it when Westerns meet the supernatural. TV Tropes has an excellent definition and explanation on their website, and Cat Rambo and I discussed it in an interview I did for my last Kickstarter. More often than not, this will be a horrific element, like zombie cowboys, or ghosts, or Lovecraftian monsters. But it could also be in the form of traditional high fantasy elements – like, say, replacing horses with unicorns. That’s much less common though; people are surprised when I tell them this is what I write.

What’s the thing you love most about the genre? What is it that fires your imagination when reading through all the stories?

That’s a good question. I don’t think I can answer it in a single paragraph.

I have always loved places where genre boxes break down. Life never fits in boxes; why should fiction?

Westerns tend to be gritty. They’re nasty, violent, depend heavily on unreliable narrators, and are often morally ambiguous. Even when they weren’t intended to be, they nevertheless end up being so in a modern context – nobody thinks “Cowboy and Indian” stories are heroic anymore, and they never were.

Fantasy – at least, classic high fantasy – is often criticized because it tends to be whimsical and hopeful, with clearly-defined paths of right and wrong. I’m not saying any of that is a bad thing, even if it were entirely true (which it isn’t.) What’s wrong with a hopeful tale of people trying to do good in the world once in a while? What’s wrong with a little escapism, where anything might happen and anything is possible?

But the place where the two meet… now, that’s interesting. The Fantasy uplifts the Western, and the Western grounds the Fantasy.

We think we know Westerns. We think we know the rules. But suppose that instead of slinging guns, people sling spells? Or perhaps the menace that controls the town isn’t Black Bart and his gang; it’s something much more ancient and alien? Or maybe the cowboys are herding giant bugs instead of cattle? Now, anything at all can happen, and all the rules go right out the window!

The best stories don’t just contain elements of both genres; they successfully combine thematic elements of both genres. There are natural places where they meld. Tales of wandering gunmen have a lot in common with tales of knights errant or ronin stories. Tales of “taming the wilderness” gain even greater weight when applied to alternate dimensions or other planets. I wrote a bit about that in the Foreword for this book.

Regular blog visitors Ricardo Victoria and Brent A. Harris are both part of the anthology - and you can see their chat with Diane Morrison above.

Is this a new genre or have writers of the past sauntered their way through these valleys before?

Oh no, it’s not new. It’s just uncommon for some reason. Maybe people hear the idea and are skeptical, so they don’t give it a chance? Arguably, Robert E. Howard might be considered the founder of the genre, with his 1932 story “The Horror from the Mound,” although I’m sure ghost stories that took place in Western settings must have predated him. That’s why I chose to include a Howard story in the anthology, although only a few were available to the public domain. I had to settle on a Solomon Kane story, as opposed to one of the more obvious Weird Westerns that he wrote, but it works!

What drew you into writing in the genre?

Okay, true story? I wanted to write about a D&D paladin who wasn’t a traditional knight-in-shining-armour. I thought about how such a character might manifest in different time periods. How would their weapons change with the technology? How would the code that they live and die to defend change?

Then I read Wizard and Glass, the fourth book in Stephen King’s Dark Tower saga, and the first one in which we got to see the protagonist in his youth, when the crumbling mythical kingdom of Gilead still stood. And I thought: What was it like to be a gunslinger in Gilead before it began to crumble? What would have happened if Camelot had survived into the early Industrial Age?

My world is a very different one now, but those were the thoughts that formed the seed of the idea. I didn’t even discover the term “Weird West” until my first story was already out. But the more I read, the more I loved it, and the more I wanted to share the genre and get others interested in it too!

Check out the trailer for the book above! 

Apart from backing the Kickstarter – obviously! – and your own series that there’s a link for below, where’s a great place to start reading?

Thanks for the plug! Also thanks for supporting us!

But okay, seriously: there’s a lot of amazing stuff out there, and you’ve probably already read it or seen it, but you didn’t know what to call it. You asked where to start reading so I’ll limit myself to print. I’ve already mentioned Robert E. Howard’s classic Weird West stories, and many of his Solomon Kane stories also cross into the genre. Stephen King’s Dark Tower series might be the most ambitious Weird Western ever written. H.P. Lovecraft took a stab at it in a ghostwritten story for Zealia Bishop in 1940 called “The Mound.”

Louis L’Amour even tried his hand in his novel The Haunted Mesa. David Gemmell wrote one called Wolf in Shadow that has a post-apocalyptic/magical take, and Joe R. Lansdale wrote Dead in the West. There’s also the multi-authored Deadlands series, including a novel called Deadlands: Boneyard by Nebula winner Seanan McGuire. Nebula-nominee & SFWA President Cat Rambo also writes Weird Westerns, Delilah S. Dawson has written several in the popular Shadow series under the pen name Lila Bowen, and Gemma Files’ Hexslinger series is a lot of fun! And in comics you’ve got Jonah Hex, Solomon Kane, Wild Wild West, and so forth. I’m sure there’s many more I’ve forgotten and will regret having done so later, but that’ll keep you busy for a while.

I’d like to add that I’m not the only writer in this anthology who does Weird West on the regular. Zach Chapman’s story is part of his Spellslinger story series, some of which have been published elsewhere; and Milo James Fowler gave us one of his Coyote Cal stories.

Many thanks for visiting, Diane, glad to have you call by. Good luck with the project, I can't wait to read it. 

Listen to regular blog visitor Rob Edwards narrate one of the stories from the anthology, Lonesome, by Carrie Gessner, at his Storycast podcast here. 

Check out Diane being interviewed by R Daniel Lester about the anthology for more details here.

To back the anthology on Kickstarter, go to its campaign page here.

Authors featured in the anthology

Robert Lee Beers - A hardboiled P.I. and his partner must find their way back to the present from 1906 San Francisco before the Big One hits, dodging gunslingers and the risk of changing history, with only a drunken misanthropic wizard to help them...
James Blakey - A sheriff must question a colourful cast of characters to discover who has stolen a unicorn rancher's herd...
Laurence Raphael Brothers - A barkeep hopes for a chance at revenge against a band of outlaws, but the help he receives may not be natural...
Zach Chapman - A card-cheating Spellslinger must duel a mysterious Green Gunslinger to his damnation or salvation...
Sara Codair - Two Martian sheriffs must stop a gang of outlaws from stealing a settlement's precious water, if they can keep their marriage together long enough to do it...
Eric S. Fomley - A marshal comes to town seeking an outlaw, but neither he nor the outlaw are the ordinary kind...
Milo James Fowler – Heroic Coyote Cal, the witch Donna Jamieson, and his faithful sidekick Big Yap, must stop a monster from ravaging the livestock and people of a town in the western desert...
Ron S. Friedman - A WWI pilot shot down over the Amazon must survive Germans, crazy scientists, the jungle and dinosaurs...
Carrie Gessner - An elven veteran is called back to face her demons when a little girl is snatched to serve the army that destroyed her...
Paul Alex Gray - The heir to the Bourbon Throne must earn coin in America to overthrow the French Republic and reclaim his birthright, so he builds a fantastic contraption to aid him...
Jude-Marie Green - Sorceress Jane Smith knows her partner Donna Quick is quite mad, but she follows her anyway...
Brent A. Harris - Marshal Bass Reeves has been asked for help by a desperate frontier settlement beleaguered by a dragon...
Ethan Hedman - A wandering gunfighter inherits an enchanted weapon, but it's broken...
Joachim Heijndermans - Two outlaws hole up in a quiet town full of terrified townsfolk, but all is not as it seems...
Russell Hemmell - Two investigators must discover why an entire colony in the Kuiper Belt has disappeared, leaving nothing but an anachronistic western frontier town in its place...
Liam Hogan - A young outlaw is hunted by an implacable mechanical foe...
G. Scott Huggins - A blacksmith with ghostly allies receives an unusual, and dangerous, client...
Sean Jones - The last Norse descendant in North America, who swears vengeance on the Comanche for killing his wife and village, is given supernatural aid by the Navajo...
Mackenzie Kincaid - Junior died helping Pa maintain the fence against the Somethings, so now 12-year-old Jane must take his place...
R. Daniel Lester - An old tap-dancing celebrity defaults on the payments for his magical shoes, and a repo agent has come to collect...
Diane Morrison - Two young elven Gunslingers must stop a cannibal spirit before it, or the blizzard it brings, kills everyone they know...
Diana L. Paxson - A painter journeys to the Rockies to paint landscapes, and stumbles upon an ancient mystery...
Claire Ryan - Rollo is going to get her giant slug herd in to market, come hell or high water, monster or no monster...
Ricardo Victoria - An ex-spellslinger has taken up a career as a travelling salesbeing of a newfangled weapon called a "rifle"...
Stanley B. Webb - A U.S. Marshal must stop a notorious outlaw who may or may not be a dragon...

Find out more about Diane's own series, the Wyrd West Chronicles, at her website here.