Blogging Kull and Bran Mak Morn: Kings of the Night

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Kull:  Exile of Atlantis
or Bran Mak Morn:  The Last King
Robert E. Howard
Del Rey

This is the next to last post about Kull and the first about Bran Mak Morn.  They’re together because they appear in the same story.  This is essentially a Bran Mak Morn story in which Kull has a supporting role, although many elements of the Kull series can be seen.  Let’s take a quick look at it.

Howard uses the trick of telling his tale from the point of view of a supporting character, albeit a crucial one.  This is a device he’s used before, especially in some of the Conan stories.  The advantage to this approach is that we get to see how other characters view the hero.  This allows the reader to gain a fresh perspective of the hero and is particularly useful with a series character whose identity has been well established. The viewpoint character here is Cormac na Connacht, “a prince of the isle of Erin.”

The story is divided into three parts.  In the first, the Picts and their allies are awaiting a battle with an invading Roman legion the following morning.  With the Celts and Picts are a group of Northmen.  The northmen were defeated by Bran when they tried to invade.  Their king swore and oath that he would aid Bran against the Romans in one battle, and in return Bran would build him ships for the survivors to get home.  The problem is that the king was killed in a skirmish with Roman scouts, and his remaining men say his death released them from the oath.  Unless Bran finds them a king to fight under, “a king neither Pict, Gael, or Briton”, they will desert to the Romans.

The ancient Druid priest Gonar promises help.  Preceded by a lengthy speech about time being an illusion, he brings Kull forward in time to help with the battle, with Kull appearing to walk out of the rising sun.  At first Kull thinks Bran is his friend Brule.  Bran is descended from Brule and resembles him strongly.  He also wears a gem in his crown that was given to Brule by Kull in a ring, and from Kull’s perspective, that happened the previous night.  Kull thinks the whole things is a detailed dream.  Always eager for a good fight, he agrees to lead the Northmen.

First he has to defeat the new leader of the Northmen, Wulfhere, who is resistant to Kull taking charge.  An extended scene of single combat takes up the rest of the second part.  It’s pure Howard.  The prose is lean, exciting, and pulls you in.  Of course Kull is victorious, but he’s not unscathed.  This helps convince the Northmen he’s not a ghost.

The third part of the story is the battle.  Bran puts Kull, who still thinks he’s dreaming, at the head of the Norsemen at the end of a gorge.  They are the bait in a trap. None of the rest of Bran’s army is disciplined enough to stand and wait for the Romans to enter the gorge.  Once they do, the Gaelic cavalry and the chariots of the Britons, accompanied by the Picts, will sweep in from the sides trapping them.

It’s an effective and bloody plan.  Most of the Northmen die, as do most of the Romans, their camp followers, and many Picts, Gaels, and Britons.  Cormac sees Kull standing on the ridge, outnumbered, the sole survivor of the bait.  Just as one of the Romans is about to deliver a killing blow, the sun begins to set, and Kull is transported back to Valusia.

Appalled at the carnage, Cormac threatens to kill Bran in retribution for not springing the trap sooner.  Bran replies ” ‘Strike if you will.  I am sick of slaughter.  It is a cold mead, this kinging it…A king belongs to his people, and can not let either his own feelings or the lives of men influence him.  Now my peole are saved; but my heart is cold in my breast.”

Heavy stuff.  Even in victory there is bleakness.  This is one of Howard’s best.  A lesser writer would have taken the easy way out at the end of the story and had the victors celebrate.  Instead they mourn the loss of their friends and allies, including the Northmen, and prepare for the next battle with the Romans who will follow after those who have fallen.

This could have been a simple adventure story.  Instead, Howard infused it with some of his favorite themes.  There’s much discussion about the nature of time and reality.  Is Kull dreaming being with Bran, or was his former life a dream from which he had just awakened.  Then there’s the weight of the crown and responsibility, often fulfilled in blood, of those who wear it.  Finally, throughout the story, Howard makes references to the rise and fall of the Picts in particular and how much science has been lost since Kull’s time.  Kull’s armor and weapons are superior to any other in the battle, on either side.

The strands of melancholy and philosophy make this one of Howard’s better tales.  It’s one I’ll return to again in the future, for it’s well worth multiple readings.

The Kull series of posts is about at an end.  The only one remaining is for “By This Axe I Rule!” which was rewritten into “The Phoenix on the Sword”, the first of the Conan tales.  I’ll be comparing the two in the final Kull post.  That post will launch a series of posts looking at selected Conan stories.  This post launches a series of posts about Bran Mak Morn.  Bran, Kull, and Conan are Howard’s three warrior kings, and Kull is the common link between them.  I’ll have more to say about that as we look at Bran and Conan over the next few months.

Of Blood and Crown and Conquest

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The Crown of the Blood
Gav Thorpe
Angry Robot Books
464 p., $7.99 paper, $5.99 ebook

You know any book that is dedicated to Phillip, Alexander, and Julius is going to be battle-centric.  Or perhaps I should say campaign-centric, because battles are only a small part of a campaign.  The Crown of the Blood doesn’t disappoint, although towards the end I felt the campaign was a little rushed.

Is this book worth reading?  If you like military oriented fantasy without a lot of sorcery in the middle of the battle, then you should enjoy this one.  There is some sorcery, but the battles are fought between legions and bandits, legions and those-soon-to-be-conquered, and legions and legions.  Unlike Glen Cook’s Black Company novels (which I love), sorcery has little to do with the combat.  It’s done the old fashioned way:  looking your opponent in the eye when you try to kill him, just like he’s doing to you.

The plot concerns one Ulsaard, a general in the Askhan army who has managed to work his way up the ranks and is as close to nobility as he can ever be in this society.  He’s more comfortable with his legions than he is with the intrigues of court, and this causes him to be manipulated into taking sides in a disagreement over the succession.

The Empire was founded by Askhos, and he set some pretty strict rules about how things were to be done after he was gone.  By this time Askhos is considered something of a deity.  For one thing, only those of the Blood, Askhos’ descendants, can rule.  All bastards are killed by the Brotherhood, an organization responsible for things like rule of law and collecting taxes, but which also seems to serve a religious function by stamping out any beliefs in conflict with Askhos’ teachings.  The Empire must expand by conquest until it controls the entire continent; Ulsaard thinks this one has been neglected of late.  And the succession must pass to the oldest living son, no exceptions.

What starts things off is that the heir, Kalmud, has fallen ill with some sort of lung disease that is keeping him bedridden but so far hasn’t been fatal.  His younger brother, Aalun, and also Ulsaard’s patron, finds this all very inconvenient.  Ulsaard is chomping at the bit to invade the neighboring kingdom of Salphoria.  Aalun uses this to put Ulsaard in the position of appearing to be in rebellion when he presses to be named successor.  Of course, what starts out as appearance soon turns to fact, especially after Aalun dies unexpectedly.  Ulsaard decides to continue the campaign.

Civil war follows.  One interesting thing is that Thorpe doesn’t hesitate to introduce semi-major characters and then kill them off.  This adds to the suspense as some key players don’t last as long as you expect, making you wonder who is next. 

Another thing I found interesting was that apparently when a man marries a woman, he also marries her sisters.  Depending on the sisters, this could be a sweet deal.  Or not.  In Ulsaard’s case it’s something of a mixed bag.  He loves the older sister, uses the younger sister mainly as a sex object, and barely tolerates the middle sister, who is a scheming social climber and quite adulterous.

There are different cultures shown in the book, with viewpoint characters from some of those cultures, but the main one is the (not surprisingly) Askhan culture, especially the culture of the legions.  Much of the world remains unexplored, in terms of the reader’s knowledge, although to an extent that’s true of the characters as well.  I suspect from some loose ends that we’ll be getting a closer look at some of them in later books.

This was a good book that moved well, had depth of character, and still had some surprises as it went along.  I only had two complaints with the structure of the story.  First, as I mentioned earlier, the end of the campaign seemed somewhat rushed, with several key battles skipped over.  I suspect for reasons of length.  The other was the one situation in which sorcery was used.  It was during winter, when Ulsaard’s legions are encamped, that they began to experience a series of increasingly damaging attacks, things like people getting literally deathly ill with no notice, while hearing chanting voices.  That seemed to be dropped after the most vicious attack fails.  Thorpe skips ahead to spring in the next chapter.

Those weren’t enough to spoil the book for me, though.  I’ve downloaded the sequel, The Crown of the Conqueror, and should be posting a review of it in a few weeks.  One word of warning to some of you.  The violence, sex, and language in this novel are quite graphic at times, more so than in many novels published these days, at least in the States.  Or perhaps I should say at least among the authors I’ve read over the last few years.  If you are squeamish or offended by that sort of thing, you might want to give this one a pass.  Otherwise, enjoy it.  It’s an exciting story that drags you in.

A Review of Dreams in the Fire

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Dreams in the Fire:  Stories and Poetry Inspired by Robert E. Howard
Mark Finn and Chris Gruber, ed.
cover art by Jim and Ruth Keegan
Monkeyhaus Publishing
available from Lulu (use above link), $20, 278 p.

Ever since I interviewed Mark Finn back in February (posted here and here) and he told me about this book, I’ve had high expectations for it.  It did not meet my expectations.

This book exceeded my expectations, and in spades.

All the contributors are either current or former member of the Robert E. Howard United Press Association.   The anthology is a fund raiser, and I’ll talk more about that at the end of the review.

The book contains stories and fiction, along with an introduction by Rusty Burke.  Several professional writers are included, but not all of the names will be familiar.  My understanding is that some of the contents are the first published fiction of some of the contributors.  I can only ask:  What took you people so long?  There’s not a dog in the book, and the quality of many of the stories surpasses a lot of what’s in professional short fiction markets these days. Howard wrote in a variety of genres, so not all of the entries are fantasy, although most are.

I’ll not discuss the poetry, since some of the pieces are only a few lines.  I don’t want my commentary to be longer than what I’m commenting on.  I restrict myself to saying the following people have one or more poems in the book:  Barbara Barrett (3), Frank Coffman (2), Danny Street, Amy Kerr, and Don Herron.

The backbone of the anthology is the fiction, and that’s what I want to discuss here.

Charles Gromlich opens the book with a deadly tale of family and gender politics in “A Gathering of Ravens”; this one annoyed me because I wanted to know more about the relationship between Trajan Vittus and Jedess than Gromlich chose to show.  That’s a sign of good writing.  Veteran professional James Reasoner examines the relationship between the pen and the sword in “The Rhymester of Ulm”, while “The Word”, by Rob Roehm, is the only western tale.  Robert Weinberg lightens the mood with “CSI:  Kimmeria”.  Christopher Fulbright gives us a pirate yarn set on the “Bloody Isle of  the Kiyah-rahi”, and Jimmy Cheung’s “Avatar” is a twisty tale of betrayal.

The second longest story and one of my favorites, “Now With Serpents He Wars” by Patrick R. Burger, ventures into territory not much explored by Howard, the Arthurian legends.  I found this one to be fresh and original, with compelling writing and believable characters.  I’m hoping this one will be on one or more award ballots next year.  Oh, and if you don’t like snakes, this one will probably get under your skin.

Angeline Hawkes’ series character, the Barbarian Kabar of El-Hazzar, puts in an appearance in “Two Dragons Blazing”.  Co-editor Mark Finn gives us a something of a boxing tale with “Sailor Tom Sharkey and the Phantom of the Gentleman Farmer’s Commune.”  David A. Hardy descends into madness with his “I am a Martian Galley Slave”; or does he?  Co-editor Chris Gruber, with the longest of the selections and another personal favorite, tells the story of an Indian massacre and its aftermath on the Illinois frontier during the War of 1812, with a dash of horror thrown in for good measure in “Dead River Revenge”.  Gary Romeo tells of a swordsman who has “No Other Gods”, and Morgan Holmes rounds out the volume with “A Meeting in the Bush”, a vignette in which several familiar characters meet up for a brief encounter.

Some of the contributors are shown in the picture below at the signing for the book held at Howard Days last month.  I’ve tried to identify everyone I can in the picture.  If I’ve left anyone out, I apologize.

Signing at Howard Days 2011 – (l. to r.) Amy Kerr, Mark Finn, Angeline Hawkes, Chris Fulbright, Gary Romeo (purple shirt), and Rob Roehm (black shirt, far right)

I expected to the stories to be well written.  Amateur press associations tend to attract intelligent, articulate people.  What I didn’t expect was the level of professionalism and craftsmanship in the writing.  Like I said earlier, some of these stories are better than most of what you find in professional anthologies and periodicals, and none of them fall below that standard.  Not quite what I would have expected for a group of writers who, to a large extent, are not pros and/or write mostly nonfiction.  This was the second original anthology without a bunch of A-list names I’ve read in the last month that has surprised me with the high quality of the stories.  (Here’s my review of the other one.) If other small press anthologies of this type are this good, I’m going to need to read a lot more of them (and so should you).

If I have any complaint at all, and that’s stretching the definition of the world “complaint” almost to the breaking point, it would be that only one story is a nonfantasy.  That being Rob Roehm’s, which is a grim western.  (Chris Gruber’s comes close to being a straight historical, but does contain a fantastic climax.  Mark Finn’s is a definite fantasy, even though it’s about a boxer.)  Now I discovered Howard through his fantasy work, primarily Conan, so I’m not really trying to cast stones here.  My point is Howard wrote a great deal more than just fantasy.  There were the westerns, both humorous and serious, the boxing stories, and the historical adventures.  I was expecting more entries in those veins, seeing how the focus was about Howard’s inspiration of these writers.  Maybe in the next volume guys?

Finally, one last thing.  This book costs $20.  You might be thinking that’s high for a trade paperback, and under other circumstances I would be inclined to agree.  But this is a fund raiser for Project Pride, the community organization that maintains the Howard House, puts on Howard Days, and has done work above and beyond the call of duty to maintain Robert E. Howard’s legacy.  If you’ve been to Howard Days, you understand what that means first hand.  If you haven’t, Project Pride maintains the House and grounds.  Provides meals for Howard Days attendees for free (although registration and a donation are requested to defray the cost of the evening meals and to get an accurate count, I don’t think anyone has ever been turned away).  Maintains copies of a number of original manuscripts.  And makes Howard fans not only feel welcome but like part of the family.  When you buy this book (and you should), your money will be going to a good cause.

Amazon Piracy: A Disturbing Case of a Writer Being Ripped-Off

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Passive Guy over at the Passive Voice posted this disturbing news story a little while ago.    It seems author Ruth Ann Nordin is having a problem getting a pirated copy of one of her books removed from Amazon.  They seem to be dragging their feet about removing the stolen book and giving her the runaround.  In an act of solidarity with Ms. Nordin, I’m passing this information along in hopes that enough people will raise enough of a stink that Amazon will respond quickly and do the right thing.  They did for her other two books that were stolen.  Good luck, Ms. Nordin.  As an aspiring author, you have my full support.

Why You Soon Won’t be Able to Find a Good Book in a Store

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I was reading one of Kris Rusch’s columns over at The Business Rusch the other day, the topic being shelf space disappearing in book stores.  At that reminded me of an unpleasant experience I had the other day in Wal-Mart, one that is now repeated every time I walk into the store (which isn’t nearly as often as it was a few weeks ago).  If you haven’t read Kris’s column, please go read it now.  I’ll wait.

There, that didn’t take too long, did it?  Ms. Rusch brings up some very disturbing points, and while some of them are negative, others are mixed.  For what it’s worth, here’s my take on things, including why I’m not going to be shopping at Wal-Mart as much in the future.
 For starters, I understand the point Kris makes about Barnes and Noble trying to drive customers online.  It helps their bottom line for two reasons.  First, in the short term, it provides an incentive for Nook purchases.  Eventually that market will saturate, either because everyone will have one and the technology will mature to the point that repeatedly releasing an updated version will no longer be cost effective, or more likely that a new technology will come along and make the Nook obsolete.  The second reason, and the one that bothers me, is that it will allow B&N to either close more stores to get out of expensive leases or devote more shelf space to non-book items such as toys, games, stationary, and greeting cards.  Along with more floor space to sell the Nook.

Borders, even before it declared bankruptcy, was undergoing this at a disturbing rate.  When I started graduate school at UT Dallas back in the early 90s, the Borders at the intersection of  Royal and Preston was one of the two go-to bookstores in the Dallas area, the other being the Taylor’s near Prestonwood Mall, although living at what was then the northern edge of the suburban sprawl, i.e, in the other direction, I tended to frequent the Bookstop in Plano near Collin Creek Mall rather than drive an extra hour.  All three had excellent selections of science fiction and fantasy, mystery, and scientific and technical books, and all were willing to order titles not in stock (although Taylor’s charged to do so). 

Then Taylor’s closed, Barnes and Noble bought the Bookstop chain and closed the one in Plano to open a B&N on the opposite side of the mall, and suddenly Borders was the only good place to get almost anything in print. 

That didn’t last long.  I’ve only been in that Borders a few times in the last five years, and usually it was to find a magazine I couldn’t get at the big B&N on Northwest Highway.  I don’t know if that particular store is still open.  I’ve bought very few books there in the last half decade or so.  Each time I went in, it seemed the fantastic literature had been moved to a different area and had less shelf space.  Along with all the other books.  And there more titles turned face out, which is one of the points Ms. Rusch made in her essay.  Books facing out take up more space, meaning the shelves hold fewer books.  The last time I was there, it wasn’t worth the gas to drive over.

So how does Wal-Mart figure into this?  It’s simple.  They’re committing the same type of stupidity as the major chains, but they don’t have the excuse of an ereader to fall back on.  I live a little over two blocks from K-Mart, four or five blocks from Target, and about a mile and a half from the nearest Wal-Mart (there are four in town).  I’ve been going to this Wal-Mart for one reason.  They have had a section of their book department devoted to science fiction, meaning that the section was labeled as such.  Now the selection was at least 50% fantasy, but I’m not complaining.  I read considerable amounts of both. I’ve seen Wal-Marts that devote some shelf space to a few sf/f titles before, but this is the only one with entire section devoted to the stuff.  A number of them have sections for westerns, which I’m not knocking, except I don’t think westerns sell as well as sf & f.  Maybe Wallyworld is different, because the westerns section in my local Wal-Mart is still intact.  And none of the employees, excuse me, associates, I talked to could tell me who made the decision to remove the fantasy and science fiction. 

What did they put in its place?  They moved the romance section over and put “Books” where the romance previously was.  They’re still putting the display together (they’re anything but quick here), but it appears to be mostly children’s books and cook books.   All face out.  I guess they think fewer titles with more visibility will sell more books.

So now I have one less venue I can walk into, pick up any one of several books, and browse through them.  As far as I’m concerned, electronic browsing isn’t worth the time it takes.  I like to flip through the book.  I’ve bought plenty of books at that Wal-Mart, some of which I’ve reviewed at Adventures Fantastic. And I like a good selection, which, given its size, this one had.  But it’s no longer worth the time and gas to drive over and put up with the crowd for the books they have now.

My local B&N has a decent selection, meaning I can find something that interests me.  But I can’t find everything, including much of the stuff I want.  Kris Rusch wrote about not being able to find her latest science fiction novel, City of Ruins, in a B&N but being told it was in the warehouse and she could order it.  The local one here didn’t stock it either.  Nor did they stock Howard Andrew Jones’ The Desert of Souls or Scott Oden’s The Lion of Cairo.  They had a novel by Paul Finch which I wanted to review, only they sold it before I could buy it and didn’t order a replacement copy.  It was a zombie novel; the replacement would have sold.  I’m going to have to order all of these books.  And that’s a hassle.  I ordered the Oden, but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.  The other three will probably get ordered sometime before the end of the summer.  I want to review and discuss all four of them, but I’ll probably review other things I have at hand first.  It’s easier and faster that way.

I could go on.  There’s a locally based chain with a number of stores in Texas called Hastings I could write an entire post about, but this is negative enough as it is.  The more I write, the grumpier and more depressed I’m getting.  If you’re like me and like to spending time in book stores just browsing to see what treasures you can find, I don’t hold out a lot of hope of being able to do that much longer.

This essay has been cross-posted at Futures Past and Present.

Independence Day Greetings

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I’m traveling this weekend and will have limited computer access, so most of the work I’m doing on the blog will be to get caught up on some reading.  I’ll be posting a couple of reviews this next week, one an anthology and the other a novel.  Since I had a few minutes where I could log on, I wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy Independence Day.  And if you are a citizen of a country that doesn’t celebrate American independence, please accept my wishes for a good weekend.

The Best Six Novels I’ve Read in the First Six Months of 2011, Sort of

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Well, 2011 is about half gone, and while I’m not going to look at the New Year’s Resolutions I posted (because I’ve exceeded some considerably and failed at other even more), I thought this would be a good time to look back over the novels I’ve read during the first half of the year that I’ve written about and see which ones were the best.

One thing quickly became clear:  I need to read more novels.  Not all the novels I’ve read have appeared here for the simple reason that some of them were not fantasy or historical adventure.  I’ve decided to keep the science fiction separate (which is why I started Futures Past and Present), and after one review, I’ve not blogged about any mysteries or detective stories.

So here’s my list of the top six (very loosely defined, as you’ll see) of the best novels I’ve read so far this year.

6.  The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi and The Executioness by Tobias S. Buckell.  Okay, if you want to get picky, these are two books, not one, and they’re novellas rather than novels.  I”m going to stretch the definitions a little because they were written in a unique collaborative manner, take place in the same world, were marketed together, and were published at the same time.  They discuss a world filled with something called bramble, which I described in my review as kudzu on steroids.  Bramble is the side-effect of using magic and is slowly taking over the world.  And it’s a world I want to see more of.

5.  Hawkwood’s Voyage by Paul Kearney.  This one is the first of a series of five.  It’s in print in an omnibus volume entitled Hawkwood and the Kings along with the second installment, The Heretic Kings.  I’ve read both of them, although I haven’t gotten to the remaining three yet (I will).  I think I prefer Hawkwood’s Voyage to The Heretic Kings simply because of the way it’s structured.  There are several viewpoint characters, and in the first book, the viewpoint alternates between chapters.  In the second, the book is divided into sections with each section telling the story from a particular character’s viewpoint.  This is epic fantasy on a dark and bloody scale, with action, intrigue, heroism, villainy, and mystery.  They’re both much better than average, and if you haven’t read them, you should.  My reviews of both are here and here. 

4.  This book will be discussed later.  You’ll see why.  Trust me.

3.  The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells.  This is the first in a series of at least three.  Martha Wells has been posting snippets of the next volume on her blog, but I’ve not had a chance to read them yet. This series could turn out to be science fiction at some point, but for now I’m considering it fantasy for two reasons.  One, Martha has only written fantasy so far.  Two, it reads like a fantasy.  But it has that sense of wonder you get with the best science fiction that seems to be missing these days.  It’s the story of a young man (but not a human man) you discovers who his people are and what his purpose in life is.  It has some of the best aerial combat sequences I’ve read in a long time.  Here’s what I thought of it in detail.

2.  Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick.  This one is a great novel about an honorable thief who finds himself trying to save his kingdom.  The sword fights go on for pages, yet Hulick, an accomplished fencer, makes them seem like only a couple of paragraphs, they flow so naturally.  Beginning writers should study him to learn how to write a fight scene.  Loads of fun.  The complete review is here.

4.  Thirteen Years Later, 1. Twelve by Jasper Kent.  Vampire hunting during the Napoleonic Wars. Evil, repulsive vampires, not the sweet, sexy kind meant to appeal to the necrophilic fantasies of teenage girls.  The vampires in these books are pure evil and not to be trusted at all.  This is vampire hunting for the intelligent reader.  I’ve put these two books together because they are part of a greater story arc.  While you can read Twelve as a standalone, Thirteen Years Later is very much dependent on the previous book.  I put them together on the list because I think of them as part of the same work.  How to rank them, along with The Cloud Roads and Among Thieves was tough.  I loved each of these four books, but for different reasons.  In the end, I decided to use the vampire books to bookend (so to speak) the other two.  This pair of books is intelligent, fresh, and surprising.  A high water mark in vampire fiction.  Reviews are here and here.

And that’s it.  The best six novels I’ve read in the first six months of the year.  If you’re looking for a good read, you can’t go wrong with any of these.  I’ve put a widget up at the top of the page in case anyone decides to take a closer look at one of these books.  It will probably stay up for the next month or so.

I’m looking forward to what the next six months will hold.

David Gemmel Legend Award Winners Announced

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The winners of the David Gemmell Legend Award were announced

The winner of the Morningstar Award for Best Newcomer was Warrior Priest by Darius Hinks.

The other nominees were Spellwright by Charlton Blake, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy)by N. K. Jemison, Shadow Prowlerby Alexy Pehov, and Tymon’s Flight: Chronicles of the Tree Bk 1by Mary Victoria.

The Ravenheart Award for best cover art went to Olof Erla Einarsdottir for Power and Majesty by Tansy Raynor Roberts.  Since many of these books weren’t published (at least originally) by US publishers, I’m going to refer you to the Award website, where you can see the cover art.  The art often differs from country to country, and what I find may not be the correct illustration.  (Since I’m writing this during a break at work, I’m pressed for time and doubt I can find the correct covers before I have to go back on the clock. And I’m not sure about the legality of posting them without permission simply to show off the ark.)

The Legend Award for Best Novel went to Brandon Sanderson for The Way of Kings.  The other nominees were The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett, The War of the Dwarves by Markus Heitz,The Alchemist in the Shadows by Pierre Pevel, and  Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan for Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time, Book Thirteen).

There’s a nice writeup on the Award site with a slide show of the presentations.  If you have a second, you should definitely check it out.

Gods of Justice

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Gods of Justice

Kevin Hosey and K. Stoddard Hayes, ed.
Mark Offutt and Joel Gomez, ill.
Cliffhanger Books, 205 p., ebook $4.99, print (forthcoming)

This is turning out to be the summer of the superhero.  Not only are we seeing more superhero movies than we ever have in a single summer, but print-wise superheroes seem to be on the rise as well.

Case in point, Gods of Justice, edited by Kevin Hosey and K. Stoddard Hayes.  This the sophomore publication of Clffhanger Books, a new small press.  Their first publication was an anthology of paranormal romance.  It was a nominee for Best Book of 2010 for The Romance Review.  That means they set a high standard their first time out.

The question is, do they live up to it in this book?

The answer is “Yes, they do.”  The book’s webpage summarizes the stories, so I won’t try to do that here.   Instead, I’ll give you my overall impressions.

First, these stories are not set against a common background or universe.  Of the ten stories, one is set in a dystopian future and one on a distant planet (that one is a Western, of all things, and one of the best in the book).  The remaining eight take place on Earth, with one occurring in No Man’s Land in World War I.

The tone and settings vary widely.  So do the characters.  Some are about scared people trying to do the right thing when the right thing isn’t always clear or could be quite costly.  Some deal with the obligations of heroes and power, while others examine the corrupting effects that power has on the hero and how heroes can sometimes become villains.  More than one author deals with time travel, a popular theme in superhero tales.  Although there’s no explicit sex, a couple of stories contain mature themes and language, so if you’re thinking of giving the book as a gift to a young reader, you might keep in mind age-appropriateness.  I’d say the book is a PG-13.  But if your reader is mature enough, you should give the book.

I met editor Kevin Hosey back in February at ConDFW.  When the review copy showed up, I had let the book slip my mind, so it’s arrival was a pleasant surprise.  The next pleasant surprise was in reading it.  With the exception of DC Comics writer Ricardo Sanchez and Star Trek author Dayton Ward, the lineup seems to consist of fairly new authors.  At least I wasn’t familiar with the authors names, so I was a little unsure about what to expect.  I needn’t have worried.  

While one or two entries didn’t do much for me (primarily for reasons of personal taste), I found the quality quite high over all.  If most of the writers are at the beginning of their writing careers, they should only get better with time.  I’m going to watch for some of these people.  The variety makes this another diverse anthology, meaning most readers should find plenty to like here.  I certainly did.  I seem to be blessed with a number of this type of anthology lately, with one more I should have finished in a few days.

A couple of stories committed what I think of as comic book logic, which threw me out of the story, but the level of craftsmanship is better than what you would find in most anthologies with a high percentage of new writers. I think this is the first time I’ve read a western set in space in which I want to read more.  While I like westerns, I’ve found they usually don’t work well on other planets.  This one did, and it couldn’t have been set in the Old West and worked.  The story about the time travel murders was a refreshing twist as well.  And “The Justice Blues” had one of the best character developments of the book.

Most of the stories have an illustration, which was a nice touch (particularly the one on p. 71).  But the focus here is on the stories.  As it should be.

All in all, I found this to be a fun book.  The contents were well-written, thought provoking, imaginative, and entertaining.  I was sorry there were no more stories when I reached the end of the book.  If you like comics and superheroes, by all means give this one a try.  This is the first in a series with at least two more planned, although I have no idea when they’ll be published.  Hopefully soon.  I’m looking forward to them.

This review was also posted at Futures Past and Present.