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Author: Bill Ward

Mark Rigney Reviews The Holler

Mark Rigney Reviews The Holler

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the-hollerThe Holler
Marge Fulton
BlackWyrm Press (87pp, $11.95, 2010; kindle edition $2.99)
Reviewed by Mark Rigney

Brevity, observed Shakespeare in the ghost story known as Hamlet, is the soul of wit. Does it follow that it is also the soul of horror fiction? Writers as diverse as Shirley Jackson (“The Lottery”) and Jeffrey Ford (“The Night Whiskey”) rise at once to make the case for the sharp, jabbing effects of short-form terrors. Now enter Marge Fulton with The Holler: Tales of horror from Appalachia. Fulton’s arsenal starts with brevity in the extreme. The book’s eighty-seven pages pack twenty-four separate stories.

“Black Santa” opens the set with a deaf dreamer trying to regain the toy she lost as a child, getting it, and discovering that once you have Santa for a toy, the gifts just keep on giving. Hardly a horrific opener, except for the tawdry semi-Southern Gothic feel, and the next in line, “Preying Hands,” turns out to be science fiction (of the murderous fat camp variety). A haywire ATM spurts blood in “Blood Bank,” for reasons as yet undivulged, but we know this is Appalachia because leading lady Bree frequents the Boone Ridge Mini-Mart and the Nearly New Shop while, in another tale, a character slurps Mountain Dew.

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Matthew David Surridge Reviews The Last Page

Matthew David Surridge Reviews The Last Page

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the-last-page-husoThe Last Page
Anthony Huso
Tor (431 pp, $25.99, 2010)
Reviewed by Matthew David Surridge

Anthony Huso’s debut novel The Last Page is something of a problem. It’s not that it is a bad book; in many ways, it is quite a good one. In fact, it is good enough, creative enough, smart enough, that it raises expectations. You want it to be great. And that is the problem, because I don’t think it is.

The Last Page is a high-fantasy steampunk novel, and a love story. We follow the sexually charged relationship between the improbably named Caliph Howl, heir to the throne of the northern country of Stonehold, and a witch named Sena. The two of them meet at university, go their own ways, and then come together again after Caliph has become king and Sena has acquired a vastly powerful magical tome. Unfortunately, Caliph is facing a civil war against a national hero, and Sena’s book has a lock which can only be opened at a fearsome emotional cost.

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Thomas M. MacKay Reviews The Spirit Thief

Thomas M. MacKay Reviews The Spirit Thief

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the-spirit-thiefThe Spirit Thief
Rachel Aaron
Orbit Books (327 pp, $7.99, October 2010)
Reviewed by Thomas M. MacKay

Eli Monpress is a thief, and he would be the first to tell you that he is a pretty good one. That is not the reason the wizards of the Spirit Court have put a bounty on his head and sent one of their top troubleshooters to hunt him. Eli Monpress is also a wizard, and he is giving the wizards a bad name. He is deuced hard to catch, though. He travels with a swordsman who carries a magical sword he refuses to use, a demon-possessed girl who refuses to succumb to her demon, and the voices of all the spirits that live in every tumbled rock and growing tree. And Eli Monpress has a goal – it may not be his only goal, it may not even be his most important goal, but Eli Monpress intends to have the bounty on his head grow to be the largest there has ever been.

Of course, in order to do that he is going to have to give a lot of people pretty significant reasons to dedicate their gold to his capture. And since he is a thief, that means stealing things – and he travels to the little country of Mellinor to do just that. Mellior’s perfect because, by law, no wizards are allowed to live there. But Mellinor doesn’t have any great treasures in its treasure room worth doubling the bounty on Eli’s head, so he will have to steal something else. Something they would notice; something they would want back. Something that usually sits on the throne. Or perhaps that should be someone…

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Josh Wimmer Reviews The Darkslayer

Josh Wimmer Reviews The Darkslayer

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the-darkslayerThe Darkslayer: An Epic Fantasy, Volume One
Craig Halloran
Two-Ten Book Press (278 pp, $15, November 2009, kindle edition currently free)
Reviewed by Josh Wimmer

In the city of Bone, on the world of Bish, the warrior Venir and his friend Melegal the thief incur the mortal wrath of a royal family. The adventurers quickly get out of town, but not out of danger: the wicked nobles join forces with the most evil race on Bish, the underlings, to track the duo down and kill them.

Actually, mostly the bad guys are interested in Venir. Which would be cause for concern on his part if the big blond fighter weren’t secretly the underlings’ legendary foe, the Darkslayer.

Craig Halloran gets the macro structure of this self-published novel right. He ably juggles a cast of about two dozen characters, both good and evil, switching between their story lines with the appropriate rhythm. He shows us a good chunk of Bish, too, and delves into its history as well as his protagonist’s. Not only do we see Bone, its more multicultural neighbor Two-Ten City, two forests, and a battle-scarred wasteland, we also follow the escapades of the immortal who created the world out of boredom. And it all comes together comprehensibly and sensibly, and sets up its heroes for future outings. All of that takes work.

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David Soyka Reviews Prospero in Hell

David Soyka Reviews Prospero in Hell

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prospero-in-hellProspero in Hell
L. Jagi Lamplighter
Tor (347 pp, $25.99, August 2010)
Reviewed by David Soyka

As you might expect, L. Jagi Lamplighter’s Prospero in Hell, the second volume of her Propsero’s Daughter trilogy and follow up to Prospero Lost, is loosely based (very loosely) on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In Lamplighter’s retelling, Miranda, daughter of the magician Prospero, does not marry Ferdinand but instead becomes the virgin devotee of the Greek goddess Eurynome, which qualifies her for a life extension and youth preserving elixir she can share with her father and eight siblings, the results of various Prospero marriages over the centuries. Until Miranda becomes a full-fledged “Sybil” of the Eurynome cult, however, there is insufficient quantity of the elixir available to share beyond her immediate family members. Consequently, the Prospero offspring who marry and have children are doomed to watch them live out their mortal lives. Except, of course, Miranda who must of necessity remain unattached as a condition to continue to receive her elixir allotment.

Flash forward to the present day and Miranda is still not a Sybil, with little idea how she is supposed to be deemed worthy. In the meantime, Miranda runs Prospero, Inc., a multinational corporation that maintains business contracts among magical entities designed to avoid “natural disasters” such as hurricanes and earthquakes these sprites would normally unleash, thus allowing human existence to continue and perfect its technological progress.
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A Look at The Tears of Ishtar

A Look at The Tears of Ishtar

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the-tears-of-ishtarThe Tears of Ishtar
Michael Ehart
Ancient Tomes Press (284 pp, $16.95, March 2010)
Reviewed by Bill Ward

Fans of Michael Ehart’s 2007 release The Servant of the Manthycore (Double-Edged Publishing) will find a lot of familiar ground in The Tears of Ishtar – in fact the later book contains all of the stories collected in the former, some of which have been enlarged or altered, alongside new material. While I will admit to feeling a slight twinge of disappointment upon discovering that I had already read most of the stories in this book (and, when one factors in those stories appearing in other anthologies such as Rogue Blades Entertainment’s Rage of the Behemoth, I think I may have read nearly all of these tales at one time or another), that feeling quickly dissipated. These are, after all, good stories in the tradition of classic sword & sorcery, and this new collection-cum-fix-up-novel showcases Ehart’s Ninshi stories in a more complete and ultimately satisfying way than the previous book.

The Tears of Ishtar spans something like 3,000 years in the life of the cursed, nearly immortal warrior woman Ninshi, the Servant of the Manthycore. Beholden to this legendary, man-eating beast, Ninshi spends long centuries luring men into murderous ambush to satisfy the Manthycore’s appetite – and in exchange is rewarded with brief glimpses of her imprisoned lover, a man ensnared by the Manthycore’s magic and used as leverage against her. But these grim transactions do not comprise the main action of The Tears of Ishtar, as Ninshi finds herself confronting all manner of gods and spirits as she wanders the lands of the ancient Near East. Set against the backdrop of the rise and fall of empires, Ehart’s stories, which move relentlessly forward and often skip centuries of intervening time, capture the sweep and almost unimaginable chronological depth of a time and culture too-often merely abstracted as ‘Ancient Mesopotamia.’ It is that familiarity with the nuances of history, the inclusion of solid details of material culture and belief, and frequent biblical and historical allusions, which elevate the setting of The Tears of Ishtar in a memorable and compelling way.

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Mark Rigney Reviews Ivy’s Ever After

Mark Rigney Reviews Ivy’s Ever After

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ivys-ever-afterIvy’s Ever After
Dawn Lairamore
Holiday House, Inc., (311 pp, $16.95, 2010)
Reviewed by Mark Rigney

There is a land where children go, to fill their minds with castles and kings and queens and rescues and, well, you know. All that stuff. For some, that land comes equipped with polyhedron dice. For seasoned readers ready to dispense with their dice, one can always fall back on Tolkien, Sir Walter Scott, or Le Morte d’Arthur. But what if you happen to be, say, nine years old, and a veteran of second-hand My Pretty Ponies and half-remembered episodes of TV’s greatest fantasia, Sesame Street? The Babysitter’s Club won’t be for you, no, and Swallows and Amazons might be a little dated. Time, then, to sample the gentle charms of Ivy’s Ever After.

Dawn Lairamore has two things on her mind from the get-go. First, she sets out to tell a quite traditional tale set (of course) in a distant, unknown realm where a crisis of succession will soon vault young Princess Ivy into being the only one in the entire kingdom who can save the kingdom entire. Second, she wants to upend the genre just enough to ensure that Ivy actually will be a heroine worthy of a post-Sigourney Weaver world, a heroine who will rely not at all on the hapless men in her life (including her father, the king), and, indeed, not by any male aside from the rather large, winged exception of the dragon set to guard Ivy’s tower.

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David Soyka Reviews Is Anybody Out There

David Soyka Reviews Is Anybody Out There

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is-anybody-out-thereIs Anybody Out There?
Nick Gevers and Marty Halpern, eds.
DAW (312 pp, $7.99, June 2010)
Reviewed by David Soyka

The $64 question of the modern era is not whether God exists. How you answer that depends on intangibles and inferences based more on faith than the scientific method. What is nearly as imponderable is the empirical evidence of a vast universe (and possibly co-existent multi-verses) within which conditions exist (or once existed) that may give rise to life as we know it (putting aside consideration of life as we don’t know it and are incapable of comprehending). Moreover, given the age of the universe, it is further conceivable that there is, somewhere in some galaxy, more advanced civilizations capable of interstellar travel that, by now, should be aware of our existence. Even if we are in an Einsteinean universe in which speed of light travel cannot be exceeded, seeing as how that we are already capable of mapping distant universes, presumably a more advanced civilization would have the technology to find us and make radio contact, just as we have been launching Elvis recordings out beyond the solar system in hopes of doing the same. With no results.

So, where are they? This is the crux of the famous Fermi Paradox, posed by the Nobel physicist who reasoned that given the mathematical probabilities of the existence of alien civilizations, why hasn’t anyone phoned home? Is it truly possible that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe? Or, more depressing, are “intelligent” beings fated to self-destruct, allowing technology to harness their fate instead of the other way around, before becoming capable of interstellar travel?

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Charlene Brusso Reviews Conspirator (Foreigner #10)

Charlene Brusso Reviews Conspirator (Foreigner #10)

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conspiratorConspirator
C. J. Cherryh
DAW (416pp, $25.95, May 2010)
Reviewed by Charlene Brusso

There is more to communication than mere words. Sure, words have meanings, but they are also, thanks to evolution, tied intimately to the way we think and feel, and the world we live in. Language doesn’t just describe culture or psychology, it is culture and psychology, it’s how we are wired, and assuming that a word can be translated exactly from one culture to another – or, worse yet, from one species to another – is a rookie linguist’s mistake. That is why xenolinguistics is such a challenge. And that is why “first contact” stories are so fascinating – and so difficult to do well.

Nobody does them better than C.J. Cherryh. In novels like Serpent’s Reach and Hunter of Worlds, and series like the Charnur and the Faded Sun books, she has delved deep into the tricky psychological aspects of communication between different, sometimes very alien, species. That challenge to understand lies at the very heart of the Foreigner series, of which Conspirator is the lucky thirteenth volume. Technically, it is the first book of the fourth trilogy in the arc, but don’t be intimidated by that. Cherryh slips in just enough backstory to get you grounded before taking off at full speed into the current situation.

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Matthew David Surridge Reviews Shadow Prowler

Matthew David Surridge Reviews Shadow Prowler

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shadowprowler-coverShadow Prowler
Alexey Pehov, translated by Andrew Bromfield
Tor (412 pp, $7.99, mass market edition February 2011)
Reviewed by Matthew David Surridge

Translation enriches a language, bringing in new styles, new influences, new approaches. The phrasing, the way of thinking, native to a given language can often still be found in a text translated into another tongue. Sometimes, even an ordinary story can gain a touch of originality in translation, a kick from unexpected turns of expression.

I don’t know for sure that this is the case with Alexy Pehov’s Shadow Prowler, not speaking Russian myself, but I wouldn’t be much surprised if it were. Pehov has written a fantasy trilogy, with elves and orcs and dwarves and wizards and a quest. Despite a few self-conscious deviations from the norm – elves have fangs, dwarves don’t grow beards – this first book, at least, feels fundamentally like a game of Dungeons & Dragons. The story is even structured around the exploration of an ancient burial ground, Hrad Spein, the Palaces of Bone, filled with traps, magic, and the undead; a quest, naturally, better undertaken by a small party of highly-skilled adventurers rather than a large army.

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