Aliens: Infiltrator by Weston Ochse - Book Review

 

'The official prequel to the huge new Alien video game from Cold Iron Studios, as a Weyland-Yutani scientist arrives at Pala Station and finds the researchers there courting disaster... of the Xenomorph kind.

'Dr. Timothy Hoenikker arrives on Pala Station, a Weyland-Yutani facility. Lured there by the promise of alien artefacts, instead he finds a warped bureaucracy and staff of misfits testing the effects of Xenomorph bio-materials on living creatures. Unbeknownst to the personnel, however, there is an infiltrator among them whose actions could spell disaster. Also on staff is Victor Rawlings, a former marine who gathers together other veterans to prepare for the worst. As the personnel receive a delivery of alien eggs, the experiments spin out of control, and only the former Colonial Marines can stand between the humans and certain death.'

Aliens: Infiltrator is billed as the prequel novel to the upcoming video game Aliens: Fire Team, but it's still very much a stand-alone adventure that's sure to satisfy any fan of the Alien franchise.

The story follows a few characters, but the main lead is Dr. Timothy Hoenikker, a xeno archaeologist for Weyland-Yutani, who's just been assigned to the remote Pala Station. Having been promised the opportunity to work with alien artefacts he's surprised to find that no such research is actually taking place on Pala, and is assigned to assist some of the other scientist with their biological experiments.

The other scientists at Pala Station are working with different alien organisms to try and create new defensive technology for the Colonial Marines; injecting this mutagenic black goo into various creatures to enhance their natural abilities. Already a dangerous enough, these experiments become even more hazardous when the station receives a shipment of Xenomorph eggs, and prisoners that are to be hosts to their deadly embryo's. Now Hoenikker faces the moral dilemma of having to engage in experiments that will result in the deaths of people, despite being for the greater good. Unfortunately, the deadly new versions of the Xenomorphs they create prove to be too hard to contain, and soon everyone of Pala Station finds themselves fighting for their lives.

Like many of the other entries in the Alien saga Aliens: Infiltrator sees the duplicitous Weyland-Yutani corporation wanting to use the Xenomorphs for their own ends. However, unlike most of the other stories that involves facilities where the Xeno's eventually break out, this book actually sees the scientists achieving some of their goals, and developing some pretty useful technology from the creatures. It makes the book feel different from similar stories, mainly because most of the times when the Xeno's are being experimented on they break out and cause chaos before anything can really be done with them.

In this book we actually see a somewhat competent lab, one where the scientists seem to understand the deadly nature of the alien creatures, and aren't trying to weaponize them. Instead of turning the Xenomorphs into biological weapons to be unleashed upon the battlefield they're trying to find ways to combat them; to protect people from them. These are things that I wouldn't be surprised to see appear in the upcoming game, things such as acid resistant armour, or pheromones that hide you from the creatures for a while. They're the kinds of things that work well in this story, and that I can also see being used as items in a game, allowing players to survive a bit longer, or going on frightening stealth missions. I'm not sure how much of the book is going to be tying into the game, but I hope that the things developed on Pala make an appearance.

Unfortunately, not everything developed on Pala Station is something that can be used for good. Using the strange mutagen (which is heavily hinted at to be the black goo from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant) the scientists at Pala are able to create some shocking new lifeforms; and not just Xenomorphs. This means that when things inevitably go wrong the people on Pala not only have to deal with enhanced versions of the Xenos, but other strange new creatures too. There's a degree of body horror involved in these new creatures too, which is no surprise given how closely the franchise is connected with body horror, but it's used in ways that feel new and more twisted than we've seen in other entries in the Titan Alien books.

The book isn't all about new alien creatures though, as there's a collection of really compelling characters for readers to get invested in. I've already mentioned Dr. Hoenikker, who we go through some interesting moral ups and downs with, but there's a lot more on offer too. There's Cruz, one of the scientists on Pala who used to be in the Colonial Marines. At first he's presented as a cold, almost sadistic man who enjoys hurting the creatures he's experimenting on; but over the course of the book we get to discover that he's a very damaged man, dealing with a lot of PTSD from his time in combat, and becomes a character who you're never sure how to feel about.

Similarly, there's also Rawling, another former Colonial Marine who's become something of 'friend' to everyone on Pala, making connections with people and doing little favours. This has led him into a position where he's able to go most everywhere on the station, able to chat with anyone and accrue good will and hidden items of contraband. He very much seems to be something of a future version of one of those people who collects weapons and supplies for what they see as an inveitable disaster, drawing up plans for what to do when the shit hits the fan. Whilst in most situations these kinds of people prove to be wrong, it makes Rawlings one of the people on Pala that you definitely want around when the Xenomorphs escape.

There are other interesting characters, who like those already mentioned tend to be quite complex, with evolving motivations and slowly revealed backstories. People such as Fairbanks, a man being blackmailed into corporate espionage, Dr. Kash, a medical scientist with some skeletons in her closet, and Etienne, a man who becomes so obsessed with his work that it seems to wear away at his mind. None of the human characters in Alien: Infiltrator ever felt dull. Everyone seemed to have complex motivations, and the central characters would have you questioning how you felt about them, and changing your opinions on them more than once. For a franchise that can sometimes fail to create compelling human characters this book really excelled.

Weston Ochse isn't just a writer who's able to create interesting characters though, he's also able to write some tense action and creepy horror. Considering that he's written military action horror in the past I can see why he was allowed to play in the Aliens sandbox, as he feels like a perfect fit for this kind of story. What could have been uninteresting or lacklustre scenes of people sneaking through dark hallways in the hands of another writer became tense moments where the reader is left constantly on the edge of their seat. There was never a moment where you feel bored, or where things seem to just be going through the motions. Ochse was able to take a formula we've seen before in this franchise and make it tense ans frightening and exciting all at the same time. 

Aliens: Infiltrator might get overlooked by some because of it's connection to the upcoming game; there may be some readers who might be reluctant to pick it up because they're not gamers, or because they're worried that the book won't satisfy on it's own. But this is a book that very much can. It stands on its own as a compelling read, one filled with interesting characters and nail-biting horror. If you've read any of the Alien books before, or watched any of the films and enjoyed them this book will definitely be one that you'll want to check out. A great addition to the franchise.

Buy Amy A Coffee

Go to Amy's Blog

Follow Amy on Twitter

Add Amy on Instagram

The Reckoning – Film Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The Reckoning is the latest film from writer/director Neil Marshall, who shot to fame with his first feature length film, Dog Soldiers, in 2002 and has been a staple of British horror ever since, having gone on to work on big name projects like Hellboy, Lost In Space, and Game of Thrones.

The Reckoning sees Marshall returning to his horror roots after his work on the recent Hellboy remake, and it definitely feels like this is the place where he’s at his strongest. The story, set during the Great Plague of 1665, follows Grace Haverstock (Charlotte Kirk), a woman whose husband takes his own life after contracting the plague so as to not infect his wife and baby daughter.

Unfortunately, this puts Grace in conflict with Squire Pendleton (Steven Waddington), who tries to exert his position as the landowner to force Grace into his bed. When Grace refuses Pendleton he begins to lay the seeds of doubt about her in the local population, and Grace is quickly accused of witchcraft. This brings the Witchfinder John Moorcroft (Sean Pertwee) to town, and pits him against Grace in a battle of wills.

Those expecting overt horror from The Reckoning might be in for a bit of a surprise, as it’s not an exploration of historical supernatural and magic like The Witch or Hagazussa. Despite having veteran suit actor Ian Whyte in the cast as Lucifer, the film steers pretty clear of the supernatural and witchcraft, with the main ‘horror’ elements being in Grace’s dreams and hallucinations as torture and sleep deprivation begin to play with her mind.

What the film is really about, however, is the evil that men do. It doesn’t shy away from the level of hate that women of this time and place had to live with, and shows how abused they were. It’s about the horror of being in a situation where the fervent belief of a man gave him the right to torture innocent women, and how helpless those victims were to do anything about it.

The film focuses on Grace, and the amount of strength and belief in herself that helps her to overcome the brutal things she’s going through. Whilst this does mean that there is a sense of female power at times, especially when those who have been abusing the women in their lives finally get what’s coming to them, it sometimes feels a little off, mainly due to how well Grace is able to hold herself together after extreme torture. At times she’s able to run around and fight back, even after we’ve just seen her experience some pretty brutal and debilitating torture.

Despite these flaws, the film manages to be entertaining for a number of reasons. The level of discomfort you feel as Grace is trapped in this hopeless situation, of watching her being tortured over and over is pretty effective. It’s not in-your-face horror, it doesn’t rely on jump scares, but it builds a constant sense of dread that becomes almost oppressive. This also benefits from the knowledge that the things we see here happened to real people, innocent women who were tortured and killed simply for being different. It makes it a pretty hard film to watch at times, though this does go a long way towards the feeling of fun when Grace finally starts to fight back and get her revenge (I found myself cheering a few times as her torturers got their comeuppance).

The film looks very good too, and you can see why Marshall was picked to direct some key episodes of Game of Thrones. Marshall is able to make the setting feel well lived in, and whilst the film doesn’t have a massive budget the sets and the costumes have a look and feel to them that makes them seem authentic.

The best part though, has to be Sean Pertwee, someone who’s been in a number of Marshall’s films. Pertwee brings the character of Moorcroft to life, and takes what could have been a one-dimensional character and gives him a lot of depth. This religious fanatic who tortures and kills women is utterly disgusting, and you hate him, but Pertwee also makes him feel kind and earnest in some moments. You believe him when he’s telling Grace he’ll grant her mercy if she confesses. You doubt he gets any gratification from what he does when he’s so believable saying it brings him no pleasure to torture people. He makes Moorcroft into a character I wanted to see more of; which was something I wasn’t expecting.

Thanks to an interesting script, some great visual moments, and absolutely brilliant acting from the principal cast, The Reckoning is a film that, whilst it might not reach the levels of love that Marshall’s other works do, is one that is definitely worth watching.

Buy Amy A Coffee

Go to Amy's Blog

Follow Amy on Twitter

Add Amy on Instagram

The Cottingley Cuckoo by A.J. Elwood – Book Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

'Captivated by books and stories, Rose dreams of a life away from the confines of the Sunnyside Care Home she works in, until elderly resident Charlotte Favell offers an unexpected glimpse of enchantment. She keeps an aged stack of letters about the Cottingley Fairies, the photographs made famous by Arthur Conan Doyle, but later dismissed as a hoax. The letters insist there is proof that the fairies existed. Rose is eager to learn more, but Charlotte allows her to read only a piece at a time, drawing Rose into her web.

'As the letters’ content grows more menacing, Rose discovers she is unexpectedly pregnant, and feels another door to the future has slammed. Her obsession with what really happened in Cottingley all those years ago spirals; as inexplicable events begin to occur inside her home, she begins to entertain dark thoughts about her baby and its origins.'

The Cottingley Cuckoo is the latest novel from Alison Littlewood, writing here under the pen-name A.J. Elwood, and much like some of her previous works it deals with fairies, and the events that occurred in the village of Cottingley in the early 1900s.

The story takes place in the modern day, where we follow Rose, a young woman who’s just started working at the Sunnyside residential home as a carer. Rose describes herself as a ‘believer’ and through her narration we learn that care work isn’t really a calling for her, and is simply a job to help her on her way to bigger and better things. She’s had to put some of her ambitions on hold due to the loss of her mother, and supporting her unemployed boyfriend as the sole earner, but is determined that Sunnyside is going to be nothing more than a stop along the way for her.

On her first day there she’s sent to attend to Mrs Favell, one of the residents at the home. Unlike the others, Mrs Favell seems incredibly independent; she’s in apparently good health and doesn’t seem to have any mental health issues. She’s definitely out of place. She’s also cold, stern, and incredibly incisive. She very quickly gets under Rose’s skin, especially when she reveals a stack of old letters that seem to hint that the famous fairy hoax might have had some truth to it.

Rose is slowly drip fed the letters by the older woman, who seemingly starts to manipulate Rose. When Rose discovers she’s pregnant her dreams of being able to move on from her work as a carer begin to evaporate before her eyes, especially when her partner is unable to find work. The letters that Rose lets her read begin to convince Rose that there may be more going on that she first suspects, and when strange things start to happen around her baby she comes to believe that not only might the fairy world be real, but that it has her family in its sights.

I had a lot of fun reading The Cottingley Cuckoo, due in large part to how the story was teased out. The two narratives, the one of Rose in the modern day and the letters regarding a fairy encounter in the 1920s, intertwined really well, and the old letters always impact Rose’s story whenever they appear. The content of the letters could have easily been a story themselves, and it’s a narrative that’s at times more intriguing than the rest of the book. This was in part down to Rose.

I liked Rose, she seemed like a nice person, though one who never really felt truly in control. She seems content to go through her life allowing things to happen to her, despite having desires to go on to do other things with her life. She wants to leave care work, but she never makes it clear what she’d prefer to do instead. She doesn’t want to live in her town all her life, yet never really makes a point of where she’d want to be instead. She had vague ambitions, but does nothing to achieve them, and this is made even worse by her seeming willingness to allow others to push her around.

There are times in the book where Rose very much feels like a victim. Her colleagues at work don’t show any interest in her, and some are even hostile towards her. She doesn’t seem to have much say in her home life either, and after her child is born she quickly caves into her partner’s desire for her to go back to work and be the sole wage earner whilst he gets to be a stay at home father, simply because he doesn’t seem to want to try finding work. That in itself isn’t a bad thing, but when she’s coming home from a long day’s work and having to clear up his mess from the day because he hasn’t done anything, or is having the baby left with her because he wants to go to the pub it does become quite irritating. I wanted Rose to stand up for herself, to take charge of her life, but she never seemed to have the self respect to do that.

Mrs Favell proved to be a much more interesting character by far, and there were times during the book that I wanted to spend longer with her, to see how she interacted with people. I wanted to know if she was the way she was with everyone, or if she was making a thing of tormenting this one woman. Unfortunately, you don’t get a lot of answers, but coming to your own conclusions is a big part of the fun of this book.

The Cottingley Cuckoo isn’t perfect, but there are a lot of good things in this book, a lot of mystery and atmosphere, and a lot of possibility. If you’re a fan of fairies and their world it’s definitely a story you should give a try.

Buy Amy A Coffee

Go to Amy's Blog

Follow Amy on Twitter

Add Amy on Instagram

Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #3 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The third issue of Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures makes it pretty clear from early on that it’s going to be spending its time showing the contrast between the Jedi and the Nihil, putting Zeen Mrala and Krix Kamerat front and centre.

We’re told that it’s been a week since the events of the last issue, and during that time the two young friends have found themselves on very different paths. Zeen has been taken to the Starlight Beacon along with the young Jedi who came to protect her home. The Starlight Beacon is making its first appearance in Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures, but has been previously shown as a literal beacon of hope in the Outer Rim; a place where Jedi are able to come and spread their light into the darker parts of the galaxy.

Zeen finds herself making a lot of new friends on Starlight, whilst Krix is very much isolated on board the Nihil ship Gave Electric. Zeen is made to feel like one of the Padawans, is accepted as part of their group, whilst Krix is pushed around and abused by the Nihil. Despite being treated badly by them we get to see how the Nihil are able to get inside Krix’s head, to turn him even more against his friend, whilst the Jedi try to encourage Zeen not to give up on Krix.

There’s definitely a dark mirror thing going on here, as we see the two kids being put on very similar paths, though one is filled with hope whilst the other with hate. We see that the two of them are going to be heading towards some kind of conflict eventually, something that was set up in the first issue but is even more obvious here. I honestly don’t know if Krix is going to be a character that can be saved or redeemed (and after something he does in this issue he will need a bit of redeeming) but I do know that Zeen is the kind of character that isn’t going to give up on him, and that she seems to be a good fit for the Jedi, even if they think she’s too old to begin the training (where have I heard that before?).

Despite being aimed at younger readers Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures is doing a good job at expanding the High Republic era, and I think a large part of that is due to them focusing on a younger viewpoint. Writer Daniel Jose Older isn’t putting older Jedi like Avar Kriss or Yoda at the centre of things, where it might feel like a story is being ‘dumbed down’ or tailored towards children in a way that alters the story. Instead it’s a story being told by children, by people who are the same age as the target audience. As such the book does feel like it’s for a younger reader, but not at the expense of any kind of quality, and it certainly doesn’t feel like anyone’s out of character like in some of the other ‘kid’ versions of Star Wars stories.

The story of Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures continues to build in interesting ways, and puts its characters at the forefront. It’s managed to give readers a good insight into the inner workings of the Nihil, and I’ve already become enamoured with Zeen, and I’m hoping she might end up becoming a favourite character or mine as she keeps growing.

Buy Amy A Coffee

Go to Amy's Blog

Follow Amy on Twitter

Add Amy on Instagram

Godzilla Vs. Kong: The Official Movie Novelisation by Greg Keyes - Book Review

 

'The official novelisation of the biggest battle in movie history: Godzilla vs Kong, the latest film in the Monsterverse franchise, starring Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Kyle Chandler and Zhang Ziyi.

'Humanity fights for its future as Godzilla and Kong embark on a path of destruction that will see the two most powerful forces of nature on the planet collide in an all-out war!

'Writer Greg Keyes returns once again to the Monsterverse and takes readers deeper into the worlds of Monarch, the Titans, and so much more.'

One of the best things about movie novelisations is being able to expand upon big screen stories in ways that the filmmakers weren't able to, often including concepts from earlier stages in production, or scenes that end up on the cutting room floor. Whilst Godzilla Vs. Kong doesn't have a huge amount of removed scenes in the book, it does add a lot of background information that explains a lot of the inner workings of the film; and answers some of the questions I've seen people asking online.

The plot is largely the same as the movie. When Godzilla reappears after a three year absence and attacks a tech facility in Florida the world fears that their giant protector may have finally turned against humanity. As such, the tech company in question, Apex, joins forces with the Titan research and containment group Monarch to find a way of combating Godzilla.

Picking up on research and theories that were hinted at in Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla: King of the Monsters Apex finds a way to map out the Hollow Earth, the vast caverns and tunnels that exist below the surface of the planet that may have been the origin point for all of the Titans. They discover that there's an energy source deep inside the Earth that matches the radiation that Godzilla puts out, and they set out to get hold of it. To this end they recruit scientist Nathan Lind, who previously tried to enter the Hollow Earth in an expedition that cost the life of his brother.

Nathan believes that Kong may possess the genetic memory of how to get to Hollow Earth safely, and the location of this power source, so recruits Ilene Andrews, the woman looking after Kong, to join him. Together with Jia, the last surviving member of the Iwi people, they set out to take Kong deep into the Hollow Earth; a mission that puts Kong on Godzilla's radar, and brings the two alpha Titans into conflict.

The biggest differences between the book and the film that eagle eyed fans will notice is that we get a lot more about Lind and the Hollow Earth than the film provided, and we actually get to see the failed expedition that cost the life of his brother. Whilst the film did talk about this event we actually get to see it here, and it definitely makes the entire expedition feel more dangerous than the film did, and it lets readers get into Lind's head and see why his failure haunts him so much.

We also get to learn more about Skull Island, and how it went from the lush paradise we saw in Kong's film to the storm wracked place it becomes in Godzilla Vs. Kong. We get none of these answers in the film, but Greg Keyes makes a point of explaining it here, and we actually discover that the island's entire ecosystem has been destroyed following the appearance of the giant bat Titan Camazotz. Camazotz, and his battle with Kong, was the main plot of the comic series Kingdom Kong, which also featured the first appearance of Jia, so it's good to see that whilst the films may not be acknowledging everything the books are trying to bring all the parts of the Monsterverse together into one coheive whole.

This is something we see a few times across the book as Keyes will also make mention of Godzilla fighting other creatures such a Scylla, an event that happened in the comic Godzilla Dominion. It not only makes everything feel bigger, and widens the universe, but adds a cohesion that sometimes feels lacking in the movies. We have mentions of human characters that don't appear in every film, learn what they're up to, and get to know what's been going on between the films.

It's not just background information that Keyes expands upon, however, as he goes into more detail in key moments in the film, offering insight that is never clearly stated in the film and are things that viewers are left to try and figure out on their own. Things such as the huge temple Kong finding in the Hollow Earth having been built by his ancestors rather than humans, or that Apex has not just one but two of the Ghidora skulls, and that one is inside Mechagodzilla itself. It's hinted at in the film that Mechagodzilla goes out of control because of the latent personality of King Ghidora, but the book explicitly confirms it. It also makes the story feel somewhat closer to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla from 2002, in which Mechagodzilla was also built using organic components from defeated monsters.

The expansions the book makes really make it a good read, and it's stuff that I wished was in the film. Tell me more about the inner workings of Mechagodzilla, explain why Ren Serizawa wants to kill Godzilla, tell me why Skull Island is wrecked. Greg Keyes gave me all the action of the film but also all of the background info I wanted to, making it more than just a film adaptation, but an expansion that made it just as entertaining.

Buy Amy A Coffee

Go to Amy's Blog

Follow Amy on Twitter

Add Amy on Instagram

The Safe Return by Ashley Wheelock and Arwen Evans - Blog Tour

 

'★ Face masks on or off? This book flips to be read either way. It's two books in one. ★

'It’s a topsy-turvy world that children live in today, but the adventures must safely return. Face masks on or face masks off, this fast-paced, two-sided book takes kids through the ups and downs of a balance bike ride with friends. A stuffed bunny is temporarily lost, but a community is found.

'No matter which way you read it, the book reinforces the joys and freedoms of childhood and advocates for a safe return to fun. Perfect for Covid-19 and to normalise the wearing of masks. Yet, this book will remain in your collection when the crisis has ended.'

The world is a weird place right now, especially for kids. Some have grown up knowing the pre-Covid world and have found their entire life thrown out of whack, whilst for some this is the only thing they've know. Whilst adults are suffering, I think it's fair to say that the kids are hurting too, and as such books that try to normalise some of what's going on right now are definitely going to help children navigate the world.

The Safe Return is trying to do this, but isn't just relying on the Covid world to do so. The book tells the story of a group of friends who head out for a bike ride, accompanied by one of their father's, who's jogging along with them. On the trip one of the kids loses his stuffed rabbit toy, and so the kids set out to find it for him and reunite the two of them.

The story doesn't rely on anything Covid related in it's story, and is a fairly normal tale of a group of friends just being together. What makes it stand out as being set during this time is that everyone is wearing masks. But that's it, there's no mention of the virus, and the kids still get to be together and enjoy themselves. 

This is one of the best ways to go about setting a story during Covid, to show it as part of everyday life, but also that it isn't defining everything. It's important that kids see that you can take precautions, such as wearing a mask, but you can still live your life. I think it's taking something really big and really scary and taking some of that fear out of things.

However, like I said before, this book isn't relying on being a Covid related book to get noticed; and clearly wants to exist after the pandemic. So, you can flip the book over and you get the same experience without the masks. The artwork is of mask-less people going about their lives and not having to worry. It means that once this has passed, once things are better, kids can still read and enjoy this book without having to be reminded of what could potentially be a very frightening period.

It's clear that the creators put some thought into this, and wanted to create something that felt relevant and more than just a story, something that children could look at and find something hopeful and good in; but at the same time didn't want that to define the book. so, whether you read it during the pandemic or not, this seems like a book that kids will be able to carry with them.

Buy Amy A Coffee

Go to Amy's Blog

Follow Amy on Twitter

Add Amy on Instagram

Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders - Book Review

 

'Tina never worries about being ‘ordinary’—she doesn’t have to, since she’s known practically forever that she’s not just Tina Mains, average teenager and beloved daughter. She’s also the keeper of an interplanetary rescue beacon, and one day soon, it’s going to activate, and then her dreams of saving all the worlds and adventuring among the stars will finally be possible. Tina’s legacy, after all, is intergalactic—she is the hidden clone of a famed alien hero, left on Earth disguised as a human to give the universe another chance to defeat a terrible evil.

'But when the beacon activates, it turns out that Tina’s destiny isn’t quite what she expected. Things are far more dangerous than she ever assumed. Luckily, Tina is surrounded by a crew she can trust, and her best friend Rachel, and she is still determined to save all the worlds. But first she’ll have to save herself.'

Victories Greater Than Death is a science fiction story that embraces the weirder and more outlandish areas of the genre, a book that isn't afraid to throw readers into huge interplanetary conflict between dozens of species with little to no context, and allows the fast moving pace to sweep you up into things.

The story is centred on Tina, a teenage girl who has grown up knowing a huge secret, that aliens are real, and she's one of them. Tina has been raised with the knowledge that she's the clone of an important captain from some huge interstellar alliance, and that one day something inside her is going to activate and call the aliens down to take her away. Despite this, Tina seems to have grown into a pretty well rounded and adjusted young woman. She doesn't have many friends, but one few she does have she cares for deeply, and she's always driven to try and do good and call out injustice where she sees it.

Instead of having fears of being an impostor, or worrying that her life is just some kind of cover for another person she's looking forward to eventually being taken off into space, and the first few chapters deal with her trying to get the beacon inside her to activate. Once it does, however, she finds herself being swept up in an adventure she never anticipated.

Much like Tina, the readers are dropped into things with very little knowledge, and are having to play a little bit of catch up to begin with. We learn that there is a peacekeeping group, the Royal Fleet, and that Tina is a part of this, thanks to the woman she was cloned from being a captain in it. Unfortunately, there are bad guys out there too. The Compassion are a group of former Royal Fleet members and various villains who've come together to impose their twisted order on the galaxy.

When the Royal Fleet picks up Tina, and her best friend Rachel, she expects Captain Argentian's memories to be unlocked, but things don't go according to plan and Tina gains access to some information but no memories, making her a walking space Wiki. Now she's stuck in the middle of a war where she's struggling to catch up. To try and help out the Royal Fleet recruits a handful of the best and brightest teens from Earth before they have to leave the planet and set out on their mission to stop the Compassion, leaving Tina and her new friends joining the fight as cadets.

Victories Greater Than Death has a lot of cool stuff going on, and there's a lot to discover over the course of this book. Charlie Jane Anders really populated this galaxy, and there are dozens of strange aliens to encounter. Some, like those of the species Tina belongs to, are very human-like, whilst others are odd and interesting humanoids, and others are so different and so alien that they're almost impossible to describe.

Whilst I had a lot of fun discovering much of this there is a lot thrown at the readers, and we get alien names, alien species, alien food, the names of planets, and alien greetings that differ every time and have very specific meanings and responses. This led to me feeling a bit lost at times, and there was more than one occasion where I'd wished I'd made notes of who characters were as I got them confused every now and then. I'd definitely be making a spreadsheet the next time I read through this.

Despite this small issue, the book was really entertaining, and had a lot of very cool things going for it. The aliens that Anders comes up with, and their respective worlds, are all really fascinating, and I always wanted to learn more about everything the characters came across. Not only that, but the human characters were a really interesting an varied group too. There were people of colour, queer people, trans people, people from rich backgrounds and poor ones, people who'd been victims of bullying and abuse. The six human characters (if you count Tina) were a great cross section of diversity and experience, and whilst I'm sure there'll be people complaining about the amount of diversity it was something that I thought made the book a much more enjoyable read.

The book's been described as a Young Adult book, and whilst I can certainly see where that's true I thought the type of YA audience it was being aimed at seemed to vary from time to time. There were moments where the book felt like it was aimed at a younger audience, possibly even getting close to being a Middle Grade book, whilst there were other times it dealt with some quite adult themes. As such, I think it's one of those YA books that's going to appeal to a lot of different people, and will find a wide audience. 

Victories Greater Than Death is a big space opera, a book that takes big, wild concepts and allows them to play out, not necessarily worrying that the audience is going to keep up. It moves with a brisk pace and goes to some interesting and intense places. A book that will definitely appeal to sci-fi fans, but wider audiences too. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next book has in store.

Buy Amy A Coffee

Go to Amy's Blog

Follow Amy on Twitter

Add Amy on Instagram

Birds of Paradise - Oliver K. Langmead Interview

 

After reading the new novel Birds of Paradise I spoke to author Oliver K. Langmead and asked him a few questions about the project. The full review for Birds of Paradise can be found here.

Birds of Paradise could probably fall into the Urban Fantasy genre, as it sees readers discovering a world of magic or the fantastical inserted into our own, but it feels very different to that, as it seems to be a story where these immortal beings who have had to deal with humanity taking over their world. Did it ever feel like you were creating something unique when you were writing it, that you were going to be challenging expectations and conventions?

A few folk have described Birds of Paradise as “mythical fantasy”, and I think it would probably be intrusive fantasy under Mendelsohn's classifications, as well – but I always feel as if genre is more for publishers, critics and readers than writers. There are genre conventions to play with, certainly – but more often than not, I think that writers just want to be able to tell the stories they want to tell without worrying about where it fits into the broader literary world.

Still - no book is written in a vacuum, and all books are written in conversation with other books, which is probably where the emergence of genre comes from. I think Birds is in conversation with the likes of American Gods, and The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Vorrh trilogy – and if there's anything in it that challenges genre, then it comes from the way that it thinks about the themes those books address.

The book chiefly follows Adam, the First Man, a character that has been depicted a lot in various incarnations. Despite this your Adam felt incredibly fresh and original. I felt this was in part down to the way that he seemed to walk a fine line between incredibly violent and destructive and deeply sensitive and caring. Was this a difficult character to balance?

That's very kind of you! Adam was difficult to write because he is the sum of his experiences – all the things he must have seen and done over thousands of years of existence. He's effectively lived hundreds of different lives, through so many different eras in so many different cultures. If he succeeds at all, it's because I wrote him largely at the scene level – making sure that the character felt right in each interaction he had – instead of thinking about him from a broad perspective (which would, I think, have been overwhelming and unworkable).

Most depictions of Adam and Eve are shaped by Western Christianity, and they’re often portrayed as white, yet you chose to have them be Black people, a decision that I thought was the most realistic way for the characters to be depicted. What was your reasoning for breaking from conventional depictions of them, and have you experienced any pushback on that?

Birds of Paradise is an exercise in literalising a myth. As a part of that process, I had to address the fact that white skin only became a dominant feature in Europe at around 3000B.C. Obviously, there were thousands upon thousands of years of human history before then, which Adam will have been a part of. It felt absolutely right to give him dark skin, and I like that it challenges conventional ideas about what the first man should look like, especially when those conventions come from institutions that have a history of racial oppression. So far, I haven't experienced any pushback.

Oliver's Dark Star was amongst the Guardian’s
Best Books of 2015

The book features several characters other than Adam and Eve who were present in Eden, as you’ve given human form to the various animals that lived there. Were there any of these animal beings you were interesting in using who didn’t quite make the cut, or ideas of interesting character that you never got to use?

Absolutely! In early drafts, Butterfly had a sister – gentle, near-sighted Moth. And I did, at one point, script a spin-off comic about Barracuda – sharp, quick and cold. I had a lot of fun with Barracuda. The script was called Barracuda Smile, and it was about his poor attempts at setting up a private detective agency (with the help of Rook, of course). It's something I hope to revisit some day. There's something really fun about the idea of an immortal fish private investigator.

You’ve mentioned in the past, with your work like Dark Star and Metronome, that you like writing broken people, was it always your intention to make Adam such a broken man or was it something that happened naturally as you were developing things?

When I start writing a book, I begin by writing a keystone scene – a scene that will inform the rest of the book with its style and form and pacing and character. It's always a scene I can return to when I'm feeling a bit lost, to tell me what the book should be. For Birds of Paradise, that scene is the opening to the first chapter, and it took a couple of months to emerge. But as soon as it did, I knew that that was what I wanted the book to be – I knew that that was what I wanted Adam to be. In that scene, Adam has trouble connecting with the world he finds himself in, and he's clearly disconnected from his descendants. I wanted to explore that disconnection, discover the reasons behind it, and find out what Adam was still connected to.

Metronome is available from
Unsung Stories.

Adam goes through a journey of healing over the course of the book, after going through some incredibly traumatic and harmful things. Do you see this as the beginning of a happy ending for him, or do you think he would end up going through similar cycles of apathy and the finding of small comforts in the rest of his life?

I'm not sure that a happy ending would ever have worked for Birds of Paradise. I like a good happy ending – don't get me wrong – but I'm not sure that happy endings are quite reflective of the reality we live in, and it was important to me that Adam feels as if he lives in our world. I think that a core part of the human experience is the way that everything is fleeting – the good and bad both – and it's easy to imagine Adam continuing much along the same lines. Good days and bad days, good months and bad months, good years and bad years, just like his descendants.

At the end of the book you say that it took you a decade to write it, what was it about this story that kept you going on it for so long, that you felt you needed to come back to over such a long period and finish?

The book comes from a short story I wrote in about 2005, about a man who sells his soul to the devil for a flower from Eden. Since then, the idea stuck with me and developed, producing some really wonderful characters. The problem, since I started writing the first version of Birds back in 2009, was that I just wasn't doing justice to the idea behind the book. The idea was great – what if the first man was still alive today? What if pieces of Eden were scattered all across the world? How far would Adam go to recover them? But it would take another decade before I was skilled enough to produce a book worthy of it. The Birds of Paradise out today was a labour of love, and I can tell you that it was worth every second of work I put into it – I am proud of what it is.

The book has a strong message about environmentalism in it, as you depict a Britain where massive floods and extreme weather affect the country. I know you’ve studied terraforming and ecological philosophy in the past, as well as working with the European Space Agency. Is environmentalism and the preservation of the planet something that you feel informs your work?

Birds of Paradise was definitely written in part to express how I've been feeling about the climate crisis. We're at the point, as a species, where we really need be rethinking our place in the world. My villains may feel a little bold in their assertions of dominion and dominance over non-humans, but this is exactly how we're still acting as a species; as if all the world is ours to plunder, instead of care for. Anthropocentrism is ruining our planet, and destroying so many beautiful things, and it is rooted in religious ideas about the world being created for us to rule over. It felt good to have Adam, the first man, summarily reject that notion.

Buy Amy A Coffee

Go to Amy's Blog

Follow Amy on Twitter

Add Amy on Instagram

Such Pretty Things by Lisa Heathfield - Book Review

 

'A terrifying story of ghosts and grief, perfect for fans of Shirley Jackon's The Haunting of Hill House and Henry James The Turn of the Screw, in award-winning author Lisa Heathfield s first adult novel.

'Clara and her younger brother Stephen are taken by their father to stay with their aunt and uncle in a remote house in the hills as their mother recovers from an accident. At first, they see it as a summer to explore. There's the train set in the basement, the walled garden with its secret graves and beyond it all the silent loch, steady and waiting.

'Auntie has wanted them for so long - real children with hair to brush and arms to slip into the clothes made just for them. All those hours washing, polishing, preparing beds and pickling fruit and now Clara and Stephen are here, like a miracle, on her doorstep.

'But the reality of two children their noise, their mess, their casual cruelties begins to overwhelm Auntie. The children begin to uncover things Auntie had thought left buried, and Clara can feel her brother slipping away from her. This hastily created new family finds itself falling apart, with terrifying consequences for them all.'

Such Pretty Things tells the story of two siblings, Clara and Stephen, who are taken to stay in a remote house with their aunt and uncle after their mother becomes hospitalised. Unable to juggle the responsibilities of a sick wife, work, and two children, their father decides that it's best for the two children to spend a few weeks in the country, even though they've never met their mothers sister before.

Straight away there's a sense that there's something wrong in the house as soon as they get there, though this seems to be down to the fact that their aunt is a woman that whilst clearly very loving is very much set in her ways, and doesn't know how to interact with children. And this becomes the primary focus of the book, Clara and Stephen butting heads with their aunt repeatedly.

The blurb for the book book describes it as a story about ghosts, and whilst I don't want to spoil too much about the book I have to tell people that it's not; or at least not in the way that I was expecting. I was waiting for things to start going bump in the night, for strange presences to make themselves known, and otherworldly visions to appear. The book has none of these, and there's never really any involvement with the supernatural in this book at all. Instead, the ghosts of the blurb are definitely referring to the ghosts of the aunt's past, and how her own experiences are haunting her.

The book isn't dealing with spirits or spectres, but is instead a character study about a lonely and troubled woman and the madness that lies within her, caused by years of grief and loss. I would say that the book shows her descent into madness, but looking back at everything it's quite clear that the aunt was never fully sane, and the small 'eccentricities' from the first time we meet her were hinting at bigger things to come. 

The horror of Such Pretty Things comes from people, it's horror that takes a look at the evil that people are capable of, even when they think that they're acting in a place of love. The book has some heavy themes of abuse and childhood trauma, and readers who have lived through an abusive childhood may find some of the events of the book upsetting; especially as the aunt unravels more and more over the course of events.

There are things that happen in Such Pretty Things that really put me on edge, and I found myself worried about the children more than once; and I kept urging Clara to try and do something, anything, to get out of the place. I wanted her to strike out, to physically fight back because I just somehow knew that things would get worse for them the longer they went on. I got really invested in these characters, and desperately wanted them to okay by the end.

I've not read any of Lisa Heathfield's other books before, but I'm aware that she normally writes in the Young Adult field, and that Such Pretty Things is her first foray into adult literature, and horror. For a first time writing in this field it's an impressively subtle horror. It's a book that doesn't rely on scares or the spooky to get under your skin, but instead relies on complex human characters to drive the horror. 

Such Pretty Things is a book that creeped me out a lot, one that made me uncomfortable in a lot of ways, and that kept me on the edge of my seat. A very subtle and complex horror story.

Buy Amy A Coffee

Go to Amy's Blog

Follow Amy on Twitter

Add Amy on Instagram

Birds of Paradise by Oliver K. Langmead – Book Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

'American Gods meets The Chronicles of Narnia in this adult fantasy about the Biblical Adam recovering the lost pieces of the Garden of Eden.

'Many millennia after the fall of Eden, Adam, the first man in creation, still walks the Earth - exhausted by the endless death and destruction, he is a shadow of his former hope and glory. And he is not the only one. The Garden was deconstructed, its pieces scattered across the world and its inhabitants condemned to live out immortal lives, hiding in plain sight from generations of mankind.

'But now pieces of the Garden are turning up on the Earth. After centuries of loneliness, Adam, haunted by the golden time at the beginning of Creation, is determined to save the pieces of his long lost home. With the help of Eden's undying exiles, he must stop Eden becoming the plaything of mankind.

'Adam journeys across America and the British Isles with Magpie, Owl, and other animals, gathering the scattered pieces of Paradise. As the country floods once more, Adam must risk it all to rescue his friends and his home - because rebuilding the Garden might be the key to rebuilding his life.'

Birds of Paradise introduces readers to Adam, the first human ever created, made long ago in the Garden of Eden. Having been alive for so long Adam is not the figure as depicted in the Bible, and seems to be coasting through life, living through one identity after another with no real aim or focus. This all changes, however, when Adam seems to snap one day and beats a film writer to death. Facing prison, Adam is approached by Raven, the first raven to ever exist; who like Adam was thrown out of Eden and now faces an immortal existence, able to change from animal to human at will.

Raven is able to arrange for Adam to avoid prison, but in return Adam will have to travel across the Atlantic to Scotland to help track down Raven’s elusive brother, Magpie, who’s been spending millions of his brothers money. Adam has to find Magpie and discover what he’s been doing with Raven’s money. Along the way Adam will meet up with some of the other former inhabitants of Eden, and discover a secret that will change things for them all forever.

The blurb on the back of Birds of Paradise compares the book to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and whilst I’ve yet to read it (I know, I really should) from what I know of the book it’s a really good comparison. The story feels strangely timeless, full of history and age, yet so steeped in the modern world. It feels like myth meeting everyday life, where the fantastical and wondrous can be hiding behind any corner, where any person could be something ancient and powerful.

Whilst there have been a lot of Adam and Eve re-tellings or re-imaginings over the years this is one really stands out because it gives life to the entirety of Eden, not just the human inhabitants. The story is as much about the animals, the beings that have existed through all of time and become part of the human world. It’s them who really drive the story forward, who make things happen; Adam feels less of a protagonist, and more of a reactor, simply going along and seeing what happens.

But this isn’t a bad thing, and certainly not a weakness for the book. Readers very quickly learn that Adam has lived so long, seen so much, loved and lost time and time again that he’s almost given up. Nothing much really surprises him any more. He hardly feels passion, he struggles to make connections with the humans that populate the world, and sees little reason to. The book is as much about Adam learning to recapture some of his old life, the things that gave him purpose and joy before, as much as it is about unravelling the mystery of what Magpie is up to.

Birds of Paradise doesn’t take a kind view of immortality. It presents the idea of living forever as as much a curse as anything else. The inhabitants of Eden don’t age, they don’t get sick, but they can be killed. If someone hurts them enough, uses such brutal force, they can be killed. The only way for them to find an end to their long existence is to go through a brutal death. So we have characters who are seeking out little joys in life, things that can give them happiness, but it doesn’t always seem to work. There are characters who are barely holding on to their humanity, existing as almost feral creatures, because they just don’t know what else to do with themselves.

Because of this the book has a kind of melencholy feel to it at times, it has such beauty and wonder, yet can leave you feeling like you’ve witnessed something awful and heartbreaking too. The characters in this book might be immortal, might be god-like to us, but they can hurt and suffer as much as anyone; and that, like them, can last forever.

Birds of Paradise is a book that I was very interested in, but wasn’t expecting to grab me as much as this one did. It had so much depth to it, so much heart. Oliver K. Langmead talks about how the book took over a decade to write, and I can believe that, I can believe that a story this complex, layered, and beautiful took so long to create, and was such a passion project that he refused to give up on it for so long. A truly amazing piece of writing.

Buy Amy A Coffee

Go to Amy's Blog

Follow Amy on Twitter

Add Amy on Instagram