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Thursday, 26 March 2020

Prophet's Journey by Matthew S. Cox - Book Review

'Althea struggles to adapt to an unexpected twist in her life—not being kidnapped in six whole months. The strange police from the faraway city claim the abilities she thought of as magic are really ‘psionics,’ and say she is far stronger than anyone they have ever seen. Despite their curiosity, they let her remain in the Badlands to protect her from an evil they call corporations.

'Of course, Althea knows all too well how powerful her healing gift is. For most of her life, she’d been a prize taken in raids. Tribes have killed to own her, and she let them. But the Prophet is done being passive. Having a family changes everything. No longer afraid to use her powers to protect herself, Althea refuses to be taken again… even when corporate mercenaries find her.'

Prophet's Journey was something of a difficult book for me to review. When I was offered it it was marketed as the first book in a series, one set in a post-apocalyptic future. It all sounded interesting, and I thought that I was set to delve into this new world. The thing that I found tripping me up several times whilst reading the book, however, was the fact that whilst this is the first of a new series, it's a series that spins out of an existing six book set.

I'm not sure how much of The Awakened series you have to read to get to know Althea and her history, from what I gather the series has multiple protagonists so it's possible that she is only one small part of that series. The biggest issue I found wasn't not knowing about Althea's past or the set-up to her world, as much of this is easily explained during the book; no, what kept drawing me out of the story was when she mentions specific events or people. These were often in relation to something that was happening their and then in the book, something simple, but something that reminded her of a past event. Whilst this kind of thing isn't usually an issue for me, Althea was coming out with names of characters I didn't know so often I felt like I was a little ill-equipped to be reading Prophet's Journey.

Now, I want to make this clear that this isn't a criticism of the book or Matthew S. Cox and his style of writing, but was something that I personally had trouble with. If you've read the other books of his set in this world then I'm sure these references and callbacks would not only be fine, but probably enjoyable. And even if you haven't read the previous books, you might not have the same trouble that I did. I think this is purely down to me. That aside, the book is really good, and tells a good story about a super powered young girl in something of a nightmare future well.

The book begins with Althea living with an adoptive family in a relatively peaceful settlement, and the troubles of her past seemingly over. She's no longer being hunted by various tribal groups or gangs who want to worship her or keep her prisoner for her powers, and in some cases both. She's still getting used to this new way of life, and it very quickly becomes clear how much she's missed out on because of her troubled past when you see how innocent and simple she is. She's not had the education that a lot of people have, and struggles to understand reading and writing, and whilst she's been exposed to some awful things, seems to be completely lost with simple, basic life.

This makes Althea something of an innocent and sheltered narrator, and we see several times over the course of the book that this can lead to some strange results. She can appear naive and dare i say 'stupid' to some people who think that they know better than her simply because they understand the world a bit better, whilst other times her wide eyed innocence can help to melt the hearts of some who wouldn't usually want much to do with her. There are even a few moments where her way of being adds some small humour into what could otherwise be a quite dark and depressing world.

Along her journey Althea meets several interesting characters, some of whom stay with her for longer than others. These include former bandits, subway dwellers who worship old companies and their logos, synthetic people, and even a ghost. Each of these people brings something new into the mix, and helps Althea learn a little more about not just the world around her, but what it means to be a person.

Despite this being a story about a girl trying to get back to her family it's also a story about growth. It shows a young girl who's barely more than a child, and exposes her to new dangers and new ways of thinking. It shows her how other people live and survive in this big, frightening world and helps to inform her own way of thinking, without needing her to give up on her innocence and willingness to try and help people.

Prophet's Journey is an interesting post-apocalypse world, one that seems to merge science fiction and fantasy well, and gives readers a fun and lovable protagonist to show it to us through.

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Wednesday, 25 March 2020

Resident Evil 3 Remake – First Impressions

Originally published on Set The Tape

I’m a fan of the Resident Evil series, have been since the very first game on the original Playstation. I’ve got multiple copies of some of the games spread across various different platforms (thank you Nintendo Switch for making me rebuy all my games so I can play them on the go). Resident Evil 3 has always been something of a favourite of mine, and is probably the one I like the most on the Playstation, so when it was announced that a remake was coming I was more than excited.

Friday April 3rd sees the release of the Resident Evil 3 remake. Thanks to the Resident Evil 2 remake hitting homes a year ago, and some impressive trailers, fans had a pretty good idea of what to expect. However, those expectations have shifted somewhat with the release of the demo last week.

Dropping you some way into the game, the demo has lead hero Jill Valentine meeting up with some members of the UBCS (the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service) who are trying to restore power to the subway to get survivors to safety.

It’s already clear from the first few minutes that this is going to be a very different game to the original. The characters are already quite different, with Jill being much more assertive and sure of herself than in the original. She doesn’t take crap from the guys in the UBCS, and it’s great. Jill’s always been one of my favourite Resident Evil characters, and I love whenever you get the chance to play as her, but she never really had much of a personality during her early appearances. This looks to be the first time that she’s really given the spotlight and the chance to shine.

Outside of this brief look at the characters, players get to experience a small part of the apocalyptic Raccoon City. One of the best things about the Resident Evil 2 remake was how it updated the environments and made them new and dynamic, but other than the police station you really didn’t get a chance to see much of the city, with large sections of the game set in the sewers and underground labs. This seems to have changed with this game, with the streets and shops.

The demo really surprised me by how it expanded Raccoon City. It’s not just the fact that you can run around the streets, but that you can enter almost every building you come across. Raided shops, ruined pharmacies, and abandoned cafes litter the broken and ruined city. Some of these places have important items you need, like a fire hose that you’ll use to get past a burning alley, but some just hold a few supplies and zombies.

You’ll also find that there’s a lot more zombies littering the streets too. This means that action is more of a focus than last year’s remake. Whilst there are more enemies around, and more ammo to fight them, as well as Resident Evil 3‘s ammo creation system, it’s not a gun heavy game by any means. The enemies are tough, and can move and sway in a way that often makes hitting them harder than you think. Combat is definitely going to be something of a challenge in the game, one that will require you to think through your tactics.

The biggest thing in the demo, however, is Nemesis. Arguably the second biggest star in the game after Jill, he’s one of the most memorable boss monsters in the entire franchise. What always made him great was his ability to show up at unexpected times, and his near invulnerability made fighting him a hell of a challenge. Well, old Nemesis was a joy compared to this one.

This version is fast, really fast. He can run what looks like three times your speed. He can jump around the environment, landing in front of you and blocking your escape. He’s tough as hell and can knock you to the ground with one hit. He’s got tentacles that can grab you and trip you up. And it looks like he can change zombies into even worse enemies. Seeing Nemesis was both the best and worst part of the demo. It was great to see him in action, but made me seriously worried about having to fight him multiple times in the actual game.

The demo was short, basically getting you down one street and past one obstacle, but it gives you a good taste of what the game is about. It highlights how Capcom have taken what was in the last remake and really built on it. Just from first impressions Resident Evil 3‘s remake is set to be one of the biggest and best Resident Evil games in years.

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The Horusian Wars: Divination by John French - Book Review

'Myriad are the cohorts of the Inquisitor Covenant. As he struggles to unpick the plans of the mysterious and deadly 'Triumvirate', he must use every weapon in his arsenal and every resource at his disposal. These are the men and women who follow his iron example, his closest agents, psykers and killers. Every tool is necessary in the war against Chaos and herein are eleven tales of such gifted, devout and sometimes terrifying individuals. Heed their stories, their origins, their bleakest moments and their greatest triumphs. What destiny has in store in the end none can say for sure, all we can do is turn the card and see what fate decrees...

'A truly awesome collection of short stories featuring Inquisitor Covenant. Read about the allies – rogues, agents, psykers and killers – who aid him in his battle against the darkness.'

I still remember one of the first times I came across Inquisitor Covenant, it was when his model was released for the old Inquisitor game. Whilst I only briefly delved into that game he was at the time sadly outshone for me by the Eisenhorn model as I'd fallen in love with that character through the books. However, thanks to some of the amazing novels released from Black Library since then I've come to have a new respect for Covenant and his band of warirors.

Hoursian Wars: Divination is the latest entry into the Horusian Wars series, a set of books that sees Inquisitor Covenant fighting against a faction within the Empire that wants to recreate Horus, a figure invested with the power of the Warp, but that will unite mankind rather than enslaving it to Chaos. Whilst the main series addressed these issues, this new book sets aside the big picture to spend time looking at each of Covenants main allies, giving a short story over to several of them.

'The Mistress of Threads' centres on Viola von Castellan, sister to Covenant's other ally Cleander (who also has a story to himself), and second in line to the von Castellan legacy. Her story immediately stands out as different from the others in the book as it' told through communication logs rather than regular prose, using the Warhammer 40,000 equivalent of letters to tell its tale. Contacted by a cousin of hers, Cressida Syr Morio, she is asked for help to get out of a tricky situation. Cressida and her husband have recently fallen on hard times, and their entire trading operation was on the verge of collapse before a shadowy group called the Cyctos Cartel stepped in to help them.

As can be expected from a shadowy group that comes in to help you without wanting any obvious reward other than 'friendship', there are hidden string attached. My first thought here was that it was going to end up being some kind of criminal organisation that was wanting to use Cressida's company to do something dodgy; and I was right, just not in the way that I was imagining. Over the course of the communications it begins to become clear that the Cytos Cartel are actually a front for a Genestealer cult. Obviously, such a group can't be allowed to stick around, so Cressida uses Covenant's resources to step in and wipe them out. But even this action is told in the form of after-action reports and logs.

The story is a fun little tale where the mystery becomes obvious to anyone familiar with the Warhammer 40,000 universe even before Viola says the dreaded G word, but it's still really fun to see how things unfold. It's also fairly unique as it's one of the few times that I've seen big actions scenes written as dull reports that still come across as exciting.

'Spirit of Cogs' turns attention to Glavius-4-Rho, the former Martian Tech Priest. In this tale Glavius tells a story to Severita, the former Sister of Battle. He recounts a story from his early life, long before he met Covenant and joined his team. Having been summoned to the planet Zhao-Arkkad for his experitise in plasma reactors, Glavius discovers a secret mission by a group of Tech Priests to restore a huge, hitherto unknown kind of titan, to life.

The story is written as part mystery, and part slow burn horror, as Glavius descends deep beneath the surface of the planet to the dig site far below, where the sleeping machine awaits. The secrecy surrounding this project already makes it creepy enough, with the way the chief Tech Priest acts being weird enough to raise questions, but when you discover that the Titan is somehow drawing all sources of energy to it, including simple things like light from candles, it makes the whole place a very disturbing location.

There's no confirmed answers given in the story as to what this Titan is, or why these strange things are happening within it, though the small detail that it's painted purple and has golden metal seems to be a heavy hint that it's tainted by Chaos as it immediately made me think of Slaanesh and the Emperor's Children. The fact that you don't get these answers, however, helps to increase the level of discomfort you get from the story, and makes it one of the creepiest entries to the collection.

'The Father of Faith' might be one of my favourite stories in the collection. It focuses on Josef Khoriv, a former gang member turned Preacher. We get to see some of his past in this story, showing readers the violent and bloody upbringing he had living in a hive city before being seized by a Navy press-gang. It's here that he meets Abernath, a preacher who gives Josef an opportunity to make something more of himself and get him out of the violent and dangerous lower levels of the ship.

Abernath proves to be someone who shows Josef that there's the possibility of more for him than the life he currently knows, and meeting that man would completely change the course of his life forever. So when Covenant learns that Abernath has been arrested for heresy and blasphemy, Joesf is given the chance to try and help him.

The reason why this story stood out to me amongst the others in the book, why it's the one story I thought about most after finishing, is the end. So if you don't want it spoilt for you turn away now as I have to talk about the final pages of this story. Having accepted his crimes and confessed there is nothing that Josef or Covenant can do to save him, and he is punished accordingly. The two characters discuss this, and Josef makes a request of Covenant regarding Abernath after his punishment. Now, I was expecting this to be Abernath being executed and they request his body so that they can give him a proper burial; but I forgot how horrible the 41st millennium is. Instead, Abernath is butchered, and transformed into a horrifying Arco-flagellant. The scene where Josef goes to collect his former friend and mentor, finding a mindless monstrosity in his place was genuinely heartbreaking, and left me close to crying. It was a stark reminder that there are no 'heroes' in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and that the humanity of the future is a horrific, and often brutal regime.

These are just a few of the stories on offer in The Horusian Wars: Divinations, and the collection is packed with tales that are of equally high quality. There are stories that are full of action and adventure, deep dives into character's psyche's, mystery and intrigue, and enough exploration into characters pasts that proves that whilst Covenant might be the central figure of the series, each one of his team are well crafted and amazing characters who would be more than capable of headlining a story of their own.

The Horusian Wars: Divination is set for release on April 30th, 2020.

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Tuesday, 24 March 2020

The Breach by M. T. Hill - Book Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

'Freya Medlock, a reporter at her local paper, is down on her luck and chasing a break. When she's assigned to cover the death of a young climber named Stephen, she might just have the story she needs. Digging into Stephen's life, Freya uncovers a strange photo uploaded to an urban exploration forum not long before he died. It seems to show a weird nest, yet the caption below suggests there's more to it.

'Freya believes this nest - discovering what it really is and where it's hidden - could be the key to understanding the mysteries surrounding Stephen's death.

'Soon she meets Shep, a trainee steeplejack with his own secret life. When Shep's not working up chimneys, he's also into urban exploration - undertaking dangerous 'missions' into abandoned and restricted sites. As Shep draws Freya deeper into the urbex scene, the circumstances of Stephen s death become increasingly unsettling - and Freya finds herself risking more and more to get the answers she wants. But neither Freya nor Shep realise that some dark corners are better left unlit.'

I wonder if at some point this book had the working title of ‘The Steeplejack and the Journalist’, as I think I’ve read those words more in this one book than anywhere else; definitely when it comes to ‘steeplejack’. Joking aside, however, these two characters are definitely the main focus of the book, with little to no other characters making much of an impact upon the narrative mystery.

The Breach sees Freya, a young journalist working at a small publication looking for her big story, stumbling across the beginnings of a mystery when Stephen, a young climber, dies in an apparent drunken accident. It doesn’t take long for Freya to discover that things don’t quite make sense surrounding Stephen’s death. Getting to the bottom of what happened to him becomes something of an obsession for her, eventually leading her into the illegal, underground world of urban exploration, where she meets Shep, a steeplejack.

Shep leads Freya into the world of urban exploration, and the two of them become exposed to something that may have led to Stephen’s death: a mysterious nest hidden deep inside an abandoned bunker.

There’s definitely a sense of mystery to The Breach, as most of the chapters that follow Freya involve her looking for answers in some form or another. Out of the two leads Freya is definitely the audience vehicle. She has a more recognisable life than Shep, and it’s a lot easier to settle into this not too distant future with her. She’s a young adult trying to make her way in the world, to forge her career, but has fallen on some bad luck and some poor decision making, leading her to have to move back in with her parents and to feel dejected with her job. That’s something a lot of people can identify with.

Shep, on the other hand, is something of an outsider. For starters, his work is something that most people would have no experience of, and even if you’re familiar with the term ‘steeplejack’ you might find yourself struggling to explain what the job actually entails. Even in his job Shep’s a loner, never really being able to make friends with his co-workers, and being treated like the weirdo colleague no one wants to talk to. I don’t think we even see him interact with anyone in his life either, there’s no family or friends, he never goes to his home, he just sleeps in his van and hangs out on his own.

Perhaps it’s because of how much of a loner Shep is, but his segments of the book definitely take on a more surreal feel. Thanks to this mysterious nest that he and Freya are exposed to he seems to be going through a series of physical and psychological changes that read as very trippy. Coupled with his already unusual behaviour in the early parts of the book, these bizarre changes makes him read as a very unreliable narrator, and it is never clear if the things in his chapters were actually happening, or some kind of delusion.

Sadly, the book is very light on the ground when it comes to answers. For the vast majority of the book things are happening with no explanation or even hint as to what or why. Shep is falling to pieces, and Freya is losing her mind, but we don’t know why. Yes, there’s a theory presented in the first few pages but then there’s nothing more for three hundred pages. Even right at the end when we get given some more information there’s no actual answer as to what’s happening or why.

I know that this is a type of storytelling, to subject the characters and readers to a series of bizarre events that destroy them psychologically, and to give no answers so as to maintain a sense of mystery and horror, but if I’m honest I don’t find that kind of storytelling to be very satisfying. Sadly, we’re not given anything more than vague hints, and so I left the book feeling like nothing happened and that there was no conclusion.

This is a personal take however, and I’m sure that some people won’t be bothered by these factors and will enjoy the book. The rest of it is good, it’s well written and the characters are fleshed out and engaging. However, how much you enjoy the book will definitely depend on if you like unanswered questions or not.

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