Archives: Book Reviews

by Keith Stevenson

This is the online version of the SF and Horror Review Column appearing in Aurealis Magazine #42

I’m looking at a stack of books beside the laptop — the review books for this issue — and I’m pondering the authors’ intention in writing these works. What did they hope to achieve, and how did that mould the authorial voice between the pages? Did they make the right choice: did they succeed or crash and burn? And in some cases, what were the publishers thinking?

The Daughters of Moab (HarperCollins)

Kim Westwood

I thoroughly believe that Kim intended everything she achieved with The Daughters of Moab — and achieved it with aplomb. This is the best debut novel I have seen in many years, which comes as no surprise to those of us who have followed Kim’s short story writing career. Here is a novel where the worldbuilding has been so completely developed, the often startling plot twists are supported effortlessly within its web. It also contains the most beautiful and precise use of language, phrases that are creative in the true sense of the word.

In a near future Australia, the world has gone to hell, the earth’s crust spewing forth the poisons mankind has pumped beneath it for decades, creating a hellish environment where the remnants of society cling to the frayed edges of the coast. And yet the landscape of Daughters is not trapped in its final entropic throes: there is unknown potential there. The very genes of those left behind seem to be infinitely malleable and, in some cases, cry out memories of the times before, and of what is to come.

Daughters is peppered with beautifully complex characters, some all too human, others all too something else. Like Eustace Crane II, disgusting, scheming, vain and secret founder of the Followers of Nathaniel, a sect based on a nasty treatise he wrote while working as a disgruntled teacher (let that be a lesson to us) where he predicted the end of the world. The fact that he got it flukily right raised his stocks amongst those reeling from disaster, and as a result he lords it over a pathetic enclave of increasingly sick humans. His strong right arm is Assumpta Viali, and she has a secret of her own but not one Eustace really wants to find out because there’s something strange about her genes and her reasons for demanding a blood-fee for her talents. Then there’s the captive Daughters of Moab, suppliers of this strange blood and children of a ‘misguided’ group of genetic scientists who grew female children through parthenogenesis, or even the genetic material of two or three women, with a little extra something thrown in. Easter is one such captive of the Nathans, weakened by continual blood collections as her captors try to alchemically change the liquid into a life giving elixir. And then there’s Oliver, who gets rather too much of a taste for cockroaches with unsettling results. This is a rich world and a magical tale that unfolds on its own terms. It’s not an easy read, you have to consciously engage with the text, but your effort will be well-rewarded.

Incandescence (Gollancz)

Quarantine (Gollancz)

Greg Egan

Greg’s intention with Incandescence seems to be to educate, but in doing so missed on what I believe is a fundamental of writing in this genre: that SF — hard, soft or somewhere in between — has to entertain as well as amaze.

The sentient species of the Amalgam have colonised the galaxy and some are even crossing the void as information packets travelling to other galaxies ready to be re-embodied when they arrive. Luckily for Rakesh, a jaded young man of only 1000 years of age, there is still one part of his galaxy that is ‘off limits’. The galactic centre is controlled by The Aloof, who — as their name suggests — don’t like visitors and rebuff any attempts at dialogue. Until now. Rakesh meets Lahl who was waylaid by the Aloof while taking a short cut and given a puzzle to solve: a meteor discovered deep in Aloof territory contains DNA that is similar to Amalgam precursor DNA. The meteor hints at a violent event in its past and the question remains whether the life that it held is still somewhere in the galactic centre. The Aloof are willing to allow entry into their domain in order to mount a rescue mission. This is just the sort of mission Rakesh has been waiting for and he quickly agrees to play interstellar detective.

Meanwhile Roi, one of the beings Rakesh seeks, is living on the Splinter, a piece of rock circling a neutron star deep in the centre of the galaxy. Happy with her life, she meets Zak who opens up her mind to new thoughts and ideas about the world she lives inside. And not a moment too soon, because the Splinter is in danger of being ripped apart again by tidal forces if the inhabitants can’t figure out a way to understand and then control its orbit.

Rakesh’s situation is very familiar to anyone who’s read The New Space Opera or any number of recent SF novels. The trouble it seems with the far future is that it is very boring. It’s a real problem facing today’s writers, but it has its antecedents. One example of this from — ohmigod — forty years ago is the old Star Trek ‘starship conundrum’, in which Captain Kirk’s ship was so all-powerful the writers had to resort to frequent plot devices (transporter malfunction, dilithium crystal with a hairline crack on the bottom etc.) to maroon our hero so he’d have to bare-knuckle slug it out with the local chieftain/ despot/ super-intelligent shade of the colour blue. Today’s fiction doesn’t allow for such relatively easy workarounds, because with an instrumentality that is by definition perfect, that’s no longer an option and it’s the machines that get to do all the cool stuff while the augmented humans hang around in the virtual equivalent of an airport lounge gazing at their navels. Luckily for Greg, his universe has the Aloof — omnipotent, uncommunicative and not necessarily nice — to set up engaging final frontiers for protagonists like Rakesh to cross.

In the scenes within the Splinter, however, things come slightly off the rails. Roi is a quick study and the Null Line chamber deep inside the rock, where gravity is effectively cancelled out, is an excellent place to observe directly what Newton could only theorise. The experiments to discover the nature of the Splinter and its place in the galaxy begin slowly, and there’s a great deal of pleasure derived from tracking how simple maths and science concepts are inferred by Roi and Zak from observation and experimentation. I suspect, as the two attract more and more group members to work on their problems, that Greg is portraying and celebrating that collegiate scientific community of practice that is behind so many startling breakthroughs. But as the experiments progress and they move from first principles through Newtonian physics into Einsteinian space-time I got a bit lost, started feeling stupid and consequently my enjoyment of these sections faded and I began wanting to skip forward to the next Rakesh scenes. A few more diagrams might have helped, but if I wanted to understand space-time to that degree, I’d buy a textbook not read a novel.

Interestingly, the Rakesh narrative deals with far more exotic science and here Greg flexes his descriptive muscles very nicely to conjure up the wonder of travel in a region of space where the stars are too close together while explaining just enough of the physical effects of such a place, and the technology required to conduct a search there, to drop our collective jaws without confusing us. I think the difference had to do with the degree of detail Greg uses. With Rakesh we get just enough information to infer and understand (at a macro level) the ‘wow’ factor. With Roi and Zak we get swamped in too much detail.

Once you fight through the classroom physics however, there are some very effective breaks as the plot develops. At one point a scale-shift relating to the Splinter caught me on the hop and opened up a whole new load of possibilities. And at another, an unexpected explanation of Roi and Zak’s genetic heritage called to mind James Blish’s excellent ‘Pantropy’ stories, collected together in The Seedling Stars.

As the story neared its climax I wondered how the two narratives were going to link up. I knew there was a timing difference but as Rakesh began to draw closer to his quarry, I imagined all kinds of causes and effects. I thought I had it pegged, but whether or not I did, I became increasingly excited about what Greg was going to throw at me. And then the narrative ended before any possible interaction properly begins. This was a big let down. I wasn’t expecting a five course banquet, but hardly to be tossed a bone was deeply disappointing. As I said at the beginning, entertainment value didn’t seem to be a major focus for writing the novel, but it was certainly a major focus in reading the novel and it wasn’t properly fulfilled. 

While we’re on the works of Greg Egan, Gollancz have reissued all his earlier novels, beautifully repackaged to match Incandescence. So having reviewed his latest novel, I thought I’d review his first, Quarantine, which was published in 1992.

The quarantine referred to is a curious one. It seems that in 2034 a strange phenomenon slowly swallowed the stars and enveloped the entire solar system in a bubble which rebuffed any attempts to cross its boundary. No reason for the phenomenon was forthcoming, natural or otherwise, but most people believed that Earth had been quarantined, either to protect us from something nasty, or to protect the rest of creation from us. Unsettling as this event was, life went on pretty much as usual for most people.

Greg has been criticised in the past for lack of attention to characterisation in his novels, but Nick, the protagonist in Quarantine, is fully rounded: in fact we spend a lot of time inside his head, not least because as an ex-policeman now private detective, it’s tricked up with all kinds of mods that allow him to switch off his emotions, judge spatial relationships accurately and so on. Of course it may be that Greg’s focus on character here is more to do with understanding how the mods affect the human mind rather than anything else, and as the plot takes some particularly weird quantum turns the inner workings of Nick’s mind become more and more important. But it’s also true to say that Quarantine proves why Greg’s career took off in such phenomenal fashion. The story is full of incident, the ideas are wildly scientific, but he manages to keep us both in the narrative and up with the quantum and other effects that are so central to it and the survival of his characters. If, like me, you haven’t taken time to enjoy Greg’s longer works, Quarantine is a good place to start.

The Host (Sphere)

Stephenie Meyer

With The Host Stephanie Meyer intended to write a nice love story. And that is the grounds upon which the book should be judged rather than as a piece of fiction that could add something new to the ongoing Science Fiction dialogue.

In 1951, Robert Heinlein wrote The Puppet Masters which is surely the classic telling of this familiar SF trope of alien bugs that slowly infiltrate humanity, taking over their bodies one by one until it’s too late for anyone to do anything about it. This is basically the premise for The Host but it is really only a backdrop to explore what the blurb trumpets as, ‘the first love triangle involving only two bodies’. Everything is subservient to the familiar path of boy meets girl, various obstacles are put in their way but love triumphs in the end. There were some nice touches in exploring the weird situation that Melanie Stryder finds herself in — her body taken over by the alien Wanderer, while her mind lives on, captive but refusing to fade away and give up her love for Jared — but nothing too deep. And Meyer, who has proven in her Twilight series (reviewed elsewhere in this column) that she will do anything to avoid even the hint of a sad ending for any of her characters whatsoever, stays true to form. The problem with such a stance is that it robs the climax of The Host of any real weight. No one has to pay the price for their decisions or actions.

But even prior to the end, there were a few other things that threw me out of the narrative, one being the fact that the three points of this love triangle aren’t easily identified with. After a fiery start where she struggles against the ‘soul’ invading her body, Melanie is just a bit wet, moaning over her plight and weeping incessantly for her lost love. Jared, the love interest, is violent, prone to rages, pretty much grumpy whenever he’s not actually shouting and fairly immature. And Wanderer is just too blooming self-effacing and nicey-nice to be true. In fact she is, it seems, representative of her race (with a very few exceptions) which made me wonder how in space they became such a successful invading force and bent so many planets to their will? The remaining ‘rebel humans’ are pathetically ineffectual too. Surrounded by billions of alien invaders they never think to arm up. They have only one shotgun between them and that’s pretty much the case for the whole story. And their plan should they be caught by the souls while out on a food raid: take a cyanide pill. It doesn’t really bode well for the survival of the race, does it? Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I’m more your kind of ‘go out in a blaze of gunfire taking as many of the alien scum with me as I can’ kind of guy. The other thing that bugged me is that, weighing in at over 600 pages, The Host drags things out far longer than it really should. Lots of people will buy The Host on the strength of the Twilight series’s popularity. Meyer has had a dream run publication and publicity wise so far. I’m not sure, this book will help.

Dreaming Again (Harper Voyager)

Jack Dann (editor)

Jack Dann’s intention for Dreaming Again was to capture the best new Australian speculative fiction from established and emerging voices. In short, to capture the lighting of Dreaming Down-Under in the bottle again. It’s ten years since the publication of the World Fantasy Award winning collection edited by Jack and Janeen Webb. As Jack says in his intro, ‘It’s a whole new world or writers working under the southern sun.’ Down-Under had thirty-one stories from a range of authors, some who are with us still and who again grace the pages of this new antho. Again tops that with thirty-five. Seems we still have a lot to say and, for the most part, we say it very well indeed. This is a broad and authoritative overview of the ‘state of the art’ in Australia. And for that reason alone it belongs on your shelf alongside the year’s bests from MirrorDanse and Brimstone. I’ve just looked over the table of contents again and if I were to list the stories that I found really enjoyable, the tales that raised the stakes even from established writers with nothing more to prove, we’d be here for a long time. Suffice to say there is a great deal of impressive work here. If you have been swithering over purchasing a copy, then swither no more.

The Last Theorem (Harper Voyager)

Arthur C Clarke and Frederik Pohl

From the sublime to the not so. And it really pains me to say that. Arthur C Clarke died last year and it was a great loss indeed. It’s hard to imagine a more famous science fiction author and one who had such a prestigious career. So when ‘the final novel from SF grandmaster Arthur C Clarke’, as the shout line went across the cover of The Last Theorem, came through the letterbox, and I saw that Clarke had co-written it with Frederik Pohl, another significant talent, I though, ‘Wow, this is going to be special.’

The fact is that — pretty much from page one — it wasn’t, and as I read further and my hopes of any improvement were dashed I became saddened and really rather annoyed. I was sad because I no longer saw the spark of brilliance, the unique ideas that characterised Clarke’s work. He was always a bit dodgy on characterisation, but it was the development and explanation of the science at the core of his work that drove you on through his novels. The Last Theorem is a rambling tale where not a great deal in the way of science fiction actually happens, and when it does, it certainly isn’t startling or new.

The story concerns Ranjit Subramanian a young student living in Sri Lanka who takes up mathematics at university and goes on to get married, have kids and solve Fermat’s last theorem which makes him rather famous. Meanwhile some aliens who don’t like Earth developing nuclear weapons, let alone using them, send a destruction fleet to do what destruction fleets do best. The whole story is told in what I think was meant to be a light-hearted jokey way which just comes over as a bit condescending and supercilious. It’s also ‘told’ rather than ‘shown’, despite the age old law of Creative Writing 101, which only serves to do what such an approach always does — distances the reader and robs us of the detail, the immersive experience, to really go with the narrative. There’s also a kind of fifties sensibility running through the book that I really didn’t like. Most women don’t rate a second name and the more ‘developed’ women characters are devoted to their men and know their place. At one point Ranjit’s friend turns up with flowers for his wife and a bottle of whisky for him and Ranjit to drink. I cringed in the background somewhere. As to the science fictional aspects, as you might guess from above, they are lacking in originality. Indeed Clarke basically rips off himself, recycling his skyhook idea from his earlier The Fountains of Paradise and using a mechanism for the aliens to communicate with mankind straight out of 2010: Odyssey Two. This is not a fitting capstone for a lifetime of achievement, and that is what saddens me.

What annoys me is that the publishers went ahead and published it. I am not party to any conversations around how that decision came about. The only reasons that come to mind are they didn’t know or realise that as a piece of writing it sucked or they didn’t care because it was going to sell a boatload anyway or they were asked/ compelled by Clarke’s estate or there was some other legal requirement. I hope there is some other, saner reason.

The other thing that annoys me is that this book is being pushed and pushed hard in the shops. That means that readers who may not have read in the genre before will pick it up as it is purportedly one of the best books by one of our best authors and they will get a totally wrong idea of what we are actually about. Let’s move on to a happier subject.

Little Brother (HarperCollins)

Cory Doctorow

I had to take a break from The Last Theorem although I did drag myself back to it, and that break rewarded me with one of the smartest and enjoyable books I read while preparing this column. Cory Doctorow’s intentions in writing Little Brother are many and varied and all of them worthy. This is a timely book that tackles some hard issues being felt not only in the US but around the world and does so in a cheeky, entertaining way while arguing very sensibly for reason to prevail. I was going to review this in the special YA section that takes up the second half of this issue’s column, but Little Brother is a book that should be read by everyone and my copy has gone straight into the hands of my thirteen year old son. I suggest you do the same.

Marcus is a high school student in San Francisco of a few years from now when ‘security’ systems have become much more pervasive. Even the classroom halls have monitors that identify students by studying their gait — face recognition systems being deemed ‘unconstitutional’. But Marcus is adept at fooling such software, especially when he wants to cut class to play the latest episode of an online treasure hunt game. Then terrorists blow up the Oakland Bay Bridge, Marcus and friends are picked up by Department of Homeland Security goons, and when Marcus refuses to unlock his phone for them he is tortured, abused and scared into compliance before being dumped back on the streets. One of his friends, Darryl — who was injured in the panic after the bombing— doesn’t emerge from custody and Marcus vows to hit back. So begins a new chapter in a city where freedom and civil disobedience go hand in hand.

Little Brother tackles the issue of national security head on. How far can civil rights be curtailed in the interests of safety? When does a state begin to subvert the very things it is meant to stand for? And when it does, who has won — the people or the terrorists? Doctorow is very technology savvy and through the book he shows that the security counter-measures that are meant to keep us safe are, in the final analysis, ineffectual against truly determined terrorists and manage only to keep the innocent populace scared and subdued. It reminded me also of the chilling World War II poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller that starts, ‘They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.’ (Wiki it if it’s new to you.) But Little Brother is in no way preachy or didactic — I read it in a single sitting and enjoyed it thoroughly. It does however have at its heart some powerful and eternal truths. Most notably the fact that when people of good conscience place their trust wholly in their government and don’t continually question its actions and push it to find a better way to cure our shared problems, we often end up with the leadership we deserve.

Little Brother is out in Australia in January if you can wait that long.  

Cenotaxis (Monkey Brain Books)

Earth Ascendant – Astropolis Book Two (Orbit)

Sean Williams

Readers of issue #40 will have read my review of Saturn Returns, the first book in Sean’s SF series. It’s the tale of Imre Bergamasc, 879^th millennium freedom fighter/ mercenary, reconstituted into a new body and fighting to restore the fractured remnants of civilisation after the Slow Wave (perpetrated by persons unknown) broke the dominion of the Forts — vastly intelligent dispersed beings who were the only ones capable of maintaining such a widely spread federation of worlds. Book One was rip-roaring stuff with Imre struggling against an incomplete memory to reassemble his old team, some of whom wanted him dead, and battling the shadowy Barons and the equally inscrutable Luminous who both seem bent on ensuring what civilising forces arise from the ruins of the Wave are quickly dealt with. (If you missed the review and you want to get up to speed, it’s on the Aurealis website.)

In Cenotaxis, which is cutely referred to as Astropolis 1.5, Imre Bergamasc is fighting a protracted battle to take control of Earth. The cradle of civilisation is a powerful symbol to humanity and an important stepping stone for Imre’s plans. But there’s a wrinkle. The ruler of Earth, the only person who controls a close to impregnable instrumentality known as the Apparatus, is as strange as the Forts, Singletons and Primes of this universe, but more unusual than any of them and – potentially – God.

Sean’s done a nice job with what is essentially an expansion novella from his original story arc. The point of view character is Jasper, the manufactured God, who has a very singular way of looking at the universe and of experiencing reality. In a way he’s a foil for Imre who has gone through his own process to rebuild a shattered memory. Jasper by comparison has all the pieces: past, present and future, but they come at him out of sequence and some knowledge is hidden or at least not yet revealed to his omniscient viewpoint.

Imre simply can’t countenance losing the fight, but Earth is protected territory: he can’t be as brutal in his pursuit of Jasper as he’d like to be. The solution, when it comes, is richly Christ-like in its imagery, which can only be fitting. While not ‘required reading’ for people in order to enjoy the rest of Astropolis, Cenotaxis does provide some insight into events fairly central to Earth Ascendant, and it is a handsome and low-priced volume from a small American independent press. I bought my own copy of this one and if you’re anything like me, you probably will too.

So to the main course — or the middle course in this three book series — Earth Ascendant. And thereby, perennially, hangs a bit of a problem. Because middle books are always a tricky balancing act. You’ve had the wonder of watching a whole new universe unfold in book one and you know book three is going to deliver one hell of an exciting pay-off (or else), so what does that leave for book two? You can fill out the situation but you can’t definitively finish anything, or not anything significant. So the first section of Earth Ascendant provides some detail about the state of Imre’s efforts to reunite the various planetary systems under his rule. The Apparatus certainly helps but with space travel confined by relativistic speeds and Imre’s insistence that he remain a Prime, i.e. one of a kind without the benefit of multiple copies running around, it is an onerous and ultimately self-defeating task. Most of the early action takes place on Dusshera a planet which Imre would like to convince to join him, but is not above subduing if they refuse to play ball. But during his hardcast journey he is held up momentarily and told that something is coming to Earth and he will want to be there when it arrives.

While the first half of the book was interesting, I wasn’t entirely engaged. I wanted to know what was going on with the Barons and the Luminous, who had caused the Slow Wave and why Imre had been wiped from the universe in the first place. Thankfully my prayers were at least partially answered in the second half of the book when Imre receives an interesting visitor with a singular offer and we are off into intrigue and excitement and, ultimately a nice setup for book three, where Sean can finally take the brakes off and go hell for leather. I’m looking forward to it.

Up Till Now – The Autobiography (Macmillan)

William Shatner

I must admit to a love/ hate relationship with William Shatner. As a child I was obsessed by Star Trek and I just thought Captain Kirk was the best thing ever. Then, I had the chance to go to a convention in the UK where Shatner was appearing — this was in the mid-seventies — but I didn’t go because I felt even then that there was no way Shatner the human could live up to Kirk. And as I grew older and the Star Trek movies came along and the various biographies came out, I learned that he wasn’t well-liked by people such as James Doohan and Walter Koenig and that tallied with my earlier doubts. Shatner the person, it seemed, was egotistical, not above upstaging fellow actors and a bit of a — well there may be younger readers present, so I’ll go no further. The upshot was I stopped thinking about him or his famous TV character. And then he made Boston Legal, and I could forgive a lot. Because we’d both grown older. He, it seemed had learned to laugh at himself and I had learned how people’s perceptions of others are sometimes off kilter and coloured by their own personalities and experiences. And the fact is, Shatner has done a LOT, from the early days of live television theatre, to the first (and last) Esperanto movie, to the Star Trek series and films, horrible spoken-word albums, T J Hooker, Rescue 911, Boston Legal… The man may be egotistical, but he works hard, has a great sense of humour and judging by Up Till Now can tell a good story. If you are a Star Trek child or you love Boston Legal this is a fast, easy, informative and entertaining read.

 

Children’s and Young Adult Speculative Fiction.

Because of the fact that this column will appear on the Aurealis website well before it appears in print, and the fact that we are approaching the Optimum Gifting Period (otherwise known as Christmas), I thought it timely to do a run down of some current, mainly Australian speculative fiction titles, just in case you are a parent, aunt or uncle bent on indoctrinating the young people you know into the wonders of the genre, or you are one of those young people and want to know what to put on the pressie list you will shortly be waving under your preferred Gifting Unit’s sensors. And to help me along the way, I’m joined by a few special guest reviewers each with their own unique takes on the works presented.

Wolf Kingdom (Omnibus)

Richard Harland

The Sorcerer’s Tower (Omnibus)

Ian Irvine

The Sunken Kingdom (Omnibus)

Kim Wilkins

Here are three very worthy stocking-stuffers. Omnibus have brought out Wolf Kingdom and Sorcerer’s Tower in four easy to read volumes apiece while Kim’s Sunken Kingdom has been reissued as a one volume Omnibus omnibus (sorry, couldn’t resist it).

Richard Harland’s Wolf Kingdom is a fast-moving and very readable action adventure about Tam and his sister Nina who have to flee their home after the wolf solders that control the country take their mother and father away. Lost and alone, the pair are nevertheless very resourceful. Nina is very clever and Tam, it seems, never lets things get him down. The plot fairly races them through a series of adventures that sees them join a group of free humans intent on fighting against their wolf oppressors.

In The Sorcerer’s Tower, Ian Irvine tells the tale of Tamly, the only boy in the village of Meadowhythe who can’t do magic. But that very fact gives him an edge when the town and its people come under magical attack. It seems that the land was wrested from the evil sorcerer Shardax four hundred years earlier. But evil does not die and through the books, Tamly and his friend Kym, who is brilliant at magic but rather naughty with it, are thrown into a series of adventures to keep the village safe.

In The Sunken Kingdom, the royal children, Asa and Rollo, are orphaned when the evil magician Flood kills their parents, drowns the entire kingdom save for a few islands and then maintains a sky fleet to watch over its remains and strictly control its population. Asa and Rollo escape but they must undergo many dangers if they are to regain their birthright.

As you might expect from these authors, the stories are a cut above, beautifully crafted with magic, excitement, surprises, chases and fights all along the way and the text is suitable for primary aged children either to read themselves or be read to depending on their level. All three stories are also richly illustrated, Wolf Kingdom by Laura Petersen and the other two by D M Cornish (of Monster Blood Tattoo fame). The set is completed by Fiona McIntosh’s Shapeshifter books.

Twilight; New Moon; Eclipse; Breaking Dawn (Atom)

Stephenie Meyer

Reviewed by Nicola O’Shea

Stephenie Meyer has become a publishing phenomenon, with all four books in this series dominating the bestseller lists. The novels are aimed at a teenage readership but cross over easily into the adult market. Despite their vampire/werewolf characters, they are essentially romances: girl meets highly unsuitable boy, initial dislike turns to love, but with problems due to the external factors marshalled against them. What makes these novels different is those external factors — our heroine, Bella Swan, doesn’t just fall in love with a bad boy; she falls in love with a vampire. And the most vocal opponents to the relationship are a pack of werewolves.

Twilight, the first book in the series, has seventeen-year-old Bella moving to the town of Forks to live with her father. Used to being the odd one out, not only for her pale skin and clumsiness, but also for her sense of seeing the world differently from everyone else, Bella expects her first day at school to be the usual social torture. It seems the ugly duckling has grown into her name, however, for by the end of week one Bella’s been asked out by (and turned down) three of her schoolmates, has a group of friends to hang out with at lunchtime, and has had her first run-in with Edward Cullen, an impossibly handsome, aloof Adonis who only socialises with his siblings, all of whom are also extremely good-looking.

Bella can’t help being fascinated by Edward, even though his reaction to her is one of intense dislike. Then he saves her life and their relationship changes — Edward now seems determined to win her friendship. But there are things about him that don’t add up — his lightning-fast reactions, his superhuman strength, his ability to turn up exactly when needed, not to mention his eyes that change colour from black to topaz. Bella discovers the indigenous Quileute people have banned the Cullens from their land and quizzes Jacob, the son of her father’s friend, Billy Black, about it. He tells her a legend about the old people who transformed themselves into wolves to hunt ‘the cold ones’, better known as vampires. The Cullens made an agreement with Jacob’s ancestors: as they didn’t hunt humans, they would be allowed to remain in the area but could never venture onto Quileute land.

The clues are all pointing in one direction, but Bella can’t stop herself falling in love with Edward. Nor he with her, despite being so many decades older and supposedly wiser. And so begins the passionate first-love relationship that carries them, and us, across four novels. As expected, it’s not smooth sailing: not only does Bella have to meet Edward’s vampire family, she has to deal with Billy Black’s concern for her safety, not to mention the usual teenage angst about telling her father she has a boyfriend while keeping secret his less desirable traits. Then there are the other vampires attracted to Bella’s sweet-smelling blood — those that haven’t vowed not to hunt humans.

Bella’s clever, wry, self-deprecating and remarkably pragmatic about the difficulties of dating a vampire; and the novels are related in her first-person voice, which is very engaging. It’s a credit to Meyer’s compelling plotting in Twilight particularly that I raced to the end without noticing a key romantic element was missing: there’s no sex. Twilight is all about young first love and it seems reasonable for Bella not to rush into a sexual relationship with Edward; it’s only as we get into books two and three that the sexual tension starts to feel overly prolonged. Meyer tries to get around this by introducing a rival for Edward in New Moon — Jacob, who changes from sweet teenager to werewolf during the course of the novel — and then setting up a love-triangle situation in Eclipse, where Bella finds herself torn between two very different men. By Eclipse, however, I was sick of Bella’s agonising and just wanted her to make a decision. This wasn’t helped by the fact that by now it was clear that Meyer’s plotting follows a set pattern: first there’s the prologue showing Bella in a life-threatening situation; then growing tensions between her and Edward, or her and Jacob; followed by some kind of attack on her by other vampires. Twilight is fast-paced and makes for compulsive reading, but by the time I got to Eclipse I was turning the pages far less eagerly and felt I was being held back from any kind of resolution so the author and publisher could drag out the series and maximise their sales figures.

Bella spends much of books two and three trying to convince Edward to make her a vampire. Secretly, she’s worried about how she will handle the transformation: apparently, young vampires are super strong and super thirsty and it’s impossible for them to resist the desire to feed. I was curious to see in Breaking Dawn how Meyer handled the difficulty of turning her heroine into a bloodsucking murderer — for surely the issue had to be resolved in book four. She delivered, but while I enjoyed seeing Bella revel in her newfound strength, speed and grace, I was disappointed by how Meyer got around the difficulties I’d anticipated.

This series is more likely to appeal to Buffy/Angel fans rather than those with hardcore vampire tastes. Meyer’s vampires don’t drink human blood, they’re able to wander around in daylight, and although they avoid direct sunlight that’s not because it’s lethal but because their skin sparkles as though they’re encrusted with diamonds. As I said, these books are romances in the first instance — and if I were a cynic, I might suggest the vampire element was there only to make them stand out in a crowded romance market.

Variant X (Lothian)

Sue Robinson

Variant X is a rather topical YA eco-thriller. With the accidental breaching of Australia’s quarantine laws, a deadly botfly has entered our ecosphere and, as it flourishes, the top end of Australia is all but evacuated. As a result, thirteen-year-old Adam Wilde is in the Amazon with his parents who are both scientists. Working with the local Indians, who collect botfly samples for testing, Adam’s father and mother hope to find a means to neutralise the botfly plague. But when his father’s friend, Jerry, turns up with his annoying daughter Sharma, things start to go wrong with deadly consequences.

Variant X is a bit of a patchy read. In parts, the prose fairly sings as Sue describes the beauty of the Amazon basin, clearly a place she has a deep love for, and Adam and Sharma are very believable and resourceful children. But there are structural and plot issues. The book begins with an overly long series of newspaper articles — some nine pages worth — tracking the spread of the botfly plague and there is a scene which, rather clumsily as it turns out, prefigures something about one of the main characters. In addition, the sub-plot which seeks to throw our suspicions away from the real villain of the piece is not supported by what we have learnt and so is unconvincing; in fact it’s hard to believe the adults would swallow it. It’s a pity, because all of these things could have been easily fixed since the underlying bones of the story are very good.

Skulduggery Pleasant (HarperCollins)

Derek Landy

Reviewed by Callum Stevenson (13)

Skulduggery Pleasant is a detective. He is however a little different from most other detectives. For one thing he is a mage who works for a secret magical organisation that no one has ever heard of. And, of course, he’s completely devoid of flesh because he is dead and has been like that since an evil sorcerer known as Nefarious Serpine played a horrible trick that got Skulduggery killed. Now he’s back, he’s looking for Serpine and wants revenge. But Serpine has terrible plans of his own and Skulduggery must team up with Tanith Low, a British monster hunter, Ghastly Bespoke, one of his old friends, and a teenager called Stephanie Edgley. He is not sure why she has to come along, but somehow she’s important.

Skulduggery Pleasant is funny, incredibly well-written and will keep you wanting more from cover to cover with its action-packed battles and totally believable characters. Will they succeed or will evil triumph and the world fall into eternal darkness? I really enjoyed this book and would probably recommend it to teenagers who like a good fantasy or crime story. It covers both perfectly.

Flitterwig (Scholastic)

Edrei Cullen

Reviewed by Freya Stevenson (11)

Ella is a bit strange. She has pale skin and pointy ears and doesn’t really fit in anywhere. One day she goes to get the mail and a pair of glasses is in a letter. She puts them on and she can see little weird creatures – elves and things – that she can talk to. Some are good and some are bad. When they eat sugar they turn bad. I liked the book because it was interesting and sort of weird and funny.

Into White Silence (Woolshed Press)

Anthony Eaton

Into White Silence is a YA novel which I would place at the higher end of the YA spectrum in terms of reading ability. It is a heavily researched piece — Anthony spent some time in Antartica as part of an Arts Fellowship program — and has a gothic horror feel. The story concerns an ill-fated expedition to the South Pole just after the First World War, and it’s a kind of Scott meets Frankenstein affair with more than a nod to the atmospherics of Edgar Allan Poe. Eaton begins his tale of the 1922 Raven Expedition partly as a confessional. He found the diary of William Downes, one of the explorers, while at Casey Base and stole it — or so he relates in the book. It’s a nice conceit and draws us into the tale, but, as we read on, he continually intersperses the ‘diary entries’ with commentaries of his own and little sections that prefigure in a Brechtian way what is to come next. Unfortunately I found these constant authorial interruptions annoying. As to the diaries themselves, they are technically impressive, not only in imagining in such detail the minutiae of the expedition and marrying it to historical fact, but in maintaining the authentic voice of an early twentieth century adventurer throughout. Unfortunately the effect of all this detail is to ultimately drag the narrative down. If you’re a fourteen-year-old who’s mad keen about Antarctica, you might drink all this in with rapt attention. If your interests lie elsewhere, it might be heavy going.

Un Lun Dun (Macmillan)

China Mieville

Reviewed by Nicola O’Shea

This is China Mieville’s first book for children; he’s best known as the author of four adult fantasy novels that have won him a swag of awards. ‘Un Lun Dun’ is the war cry of the inhabitants of the abcity of UnLondon who are engaged in a deadly battle against the Smog, a noxious pollutant that’s taking over their city. Their best hope is the Shwazzy, a girl prophesied to come from the other London who will defeat the Smog with the UnGun. The trouble is, when the Shwazzy does arrive, she doesn’t have a clue what to do.

This is a novel of subversions. UnLondon itself is a kind of anti-London, where the Thames becomes the Smeath, the houses are built of moil (mildly obsolete in London) objects discarded by the other city’s inhabitants, the sun is a doughnut shape (rumour has it London’s sun is the missing centre) and flesh-eating giraffes roam the streets. The Shwazzy is Zanna Moon, a tall, blonde schoolgirl with an air of being good at everything. Except in this instance, it’s her best friend, Deeba, the UnChosen One, short, dark and plump, who turns out to be the hero. Deeba’s quest is difficult and dangerous, but again Mieville subverts expectation: instead of completing each stage of the quest in order, Deeba refuses to play by the rules and cuts right to the heart of the matter — getting the UnGun and going after the Smog.  

Un Lun Dun is also about the threat of pollution: the Smog was driven out of London by the Clean Air Act of 1956 and took refuge in UnLondon, where it’s gradually regained its strength, feeding off the pollution and emissions that filter through from the other city. Now it’s ready to devour UnLondon wholesale and has created an army of smombies and stink-junkies to help. Once it’s destroyed the abcity, the Smog will return to London and swallow it up as well.

Mieville is an inventive writer and Un Lun Dun is packed with all kinds of amazing characters and contraptions: Obaday Fing, the tailor whose head is a pincushion; Skool, the collection of aquatic creatures housed in a diving suit; Brokkenboll, the Unbrellissimo, whose unbrellas are crucial to the Smog’s plan to destroy the city; the binjas — dustbin bodyguards highly skilled in martial arts; the Black Windows that inhabit Webminster Abbey where the UnGun is hidden. Mieville’s own charming illustrations appear throughout, and bring the characters to life in a way that the written descriptions don’t always manage. The story is (inevitably) very London-centric and I wonder whether kids who don’t know that city will pick up on the jokes and wordplay. That aside, this is a clever and right-on adventure story with a very cool girl hero. As the UnLondon graffiti says: ‘UnChosen One Roolz!’

Other YA and children’s titles to look out for —

The Dust Devils by Sean Williams (Angus & Robertson) – Set in the same world as his Books of the Change series, and continuing the story begun in The Changeling, about Ros who escapes from his family when he learns they plan to sacrifice him to save their farm from drought. Suitable for 10-14 year olds.

Dragon Blood Pirates books 1-6 by Dan Jerris (Lothian) – Nicely illustrated and packaged, each with a pirate map and temporary tattoo, Dragon Blood Pirates will satisfy the little buccaneers amongst us with the tale of Al and Owen, transported through time by an old sea-chest and hauled aboard the pirate ship The Booty in order to solve the mystery of Dragon Blood Island. For primary school age children.

Monster Blood Tattoo, Book Two: Lamplighter by D M Cornish (Omnibus) – Another beautifully put together book, and illustrated by Adelaide author/ artist Cornish too, Lamplighter follows on from Foundling in which Rossamünd journeyed across The Half-Continent to take up his position as lamplighter and fell in with Miss Europe, a feisty monster hunter who can shoot lightning from her hands. Probably more suited to the higher end of the 10-14 age group and beyond.

Moonshadow: Eye of the Beast by Simon Higgins (Random House) – Yet another South Australian, Simon Higgins has created the exciting world of Moonshadow, a young ninja in shogun-era Japan with the power to see through the eyes of animals. Moonshadow must use all his skill and special abilities to fight an invincible enemy and stop his land sliding into civil war. For primary school age children.

If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late! The Secret Series: 2 by Pseudonymous Bosch (Allen & Unwin) – fantasy

Coraline by Neil Gaiman – The Graphic Novel adapted and illustrated by P Craig Russell (Bloomsbury) – horror [‘weird and scary’ according to Freya.]

Demon Apocalypse by Darren Shan (HaperCollins) – horror

Demon Stalkers by Douglas Hill (Macmillan) – horror

The Key to Rondo by Emily Rodda (Omnibus) – fantasy

Escape by Sea L S Lawrence (Omnibus) – fantasy

Ruby Rosemount and the Doomsday Curse by Jodie Brownlee (Omnibus) – fantasy