Sharps by K.J. Parker

Sharps is the latest standalone novel from author K.J. Parker, a critically successful, but perhaps not as well-known commercially fantasy author. I’d never heard of Parker until I got a little deeper into the SFF community, where I started hearing the name repeated again and again from other major bloggers, like Justin Landon over at Staffer’s Book Review and Jared Shurin at Pornokitsch. It seems like Parker is just on the verge of becoming an enormous success – an author that’s always been a well-known secret within genre circles, but just not quite there when it comes to the average punter in the bookshop.

Parker writes what you could perhaps term “fantastical histories”. The worlds Parker writes in are 100% fantasy creations, but they don’t tend to involve much (if any) magic or fantastical creatures – rather, Parker uses these worlds to explore ideas and topics that are parallel with our own current affairs. The novels explore the fundamental workings of a range of topics, from politics to economics; engineering to individual power and the nature of good and evil. But although Parker explores these ideas on societal levels, s/he uses individuals to tell the stories. These may be tales with broad-ranging ideas, but the characters are at the centre. And going by Sharps, they’re just damn good stories.

Sharps is the story of two countries: Scheria and Permia. They have long been at war, but for the first time in a rather bloody forty years a truce has finally been called. They are not at peace yet, though. Talks are in place and a diplomatic mission is sent to Permia by the Scherians. For both countries share one central interest – fencing. Scheria puts together a team of its best fencers to tour Permia, with the mission supposedly being to try and unite both countries with this shared interest. A force of goodwill. But things really are not quite that simple.

With Sharps, K.J. Parker takes a sometimes serious and often satirical look at warmongering, organised sporting events and the art of diplomacy. The novel follows almost exclusively the group of fencers sent into Permia, following the points of view of each one at different points. There is the most central of these, Giraut Bryennius, a young man who is forced at pain of death to go with the party into Permia. Addo Carnufex is the son of General Carnufex, Scheria’s most renowned commander (and perhaps throughout the world), Iseutz Bringas – the only female member of the team, Jilem Phrantzes – a former champion and the team’s administrator, and finally, Suidas Deutzel, the Scherian fencing champion – and a real scene-stealer throughout the novel.

Through the eyes of these central characters, we see the foreign country of Permia, and Parker very much limits us to seeing only what the characters do – a country where something isn’t quite right. Nothing seems to go quite to plan and there is clearly more to their diplomatic mission than they are being told. Parker manages to create a tense atmosphere through this sense of just never knowing what’s really going on. The novel twists and turns, Parker only ever showing us what s/he needs us to know, until everything becomes so convoluted and tangled up that it becomes difficult to see where it’s going. But then, right in the final 50 pages, Parker unravels the knot in an ingenious piece of plot structuring, and everything becomes clear.

There were areas, particularly in the middle of the novel, where I struggled. Mainly this was through frustration at misunderstanding the situation, but Parker does have a knack for gauging the reader – the characters are always frustrated with you. What kept me reading was Parker’s outstanding dialogue. Much of the novel’s structure – it’s worldbuilding, plotting, foreshadowing – all come from the dialogue. Parker shies away from copious description, and instead opts to allow the characters to do the telling. And it’s hilarious. I haven’t laughed so much at a novel since some of the older Discworld novels. It’s biting and satirical, but always incredibly funny.

Sharps is like a medieval/early-modern roadtrip through a war-torn, primitive country, with (of all things) a sports team at the centre. It’s not the easiest novel to read, and at times it can become quite dense (despite its average length) with worldbuilding and intrigue which doesn’t always make sense until the bigger picture is revealed. But in that lies Parker’s strength – intrigue. This is an author that is not afraid to write in a structure that only ever reveals what s/he wants you to know. It’s a fun, satirical, darkly funny and at times, thought-provoking read – and I’d have to agree that although there may be better Parker novels out there, it’s only a matter of time until K.J. Parker gets the recognition s/he deserves. 

Pale Kings by Ben Galley

Emaneska is crying out for a saviour
The only question is:
Can they kill a child to save a world?

Emaneska’s Long Winter remains as bitter as a blade between the ribs. War is fast approaching. Gods and daemons are hovering on the horizon. Long-lost revelations arrive to haunt the lives of three men.

The Pale Kings are rising.

While Farden busies himself digging up his past in the strange deserts of Paraia, the storm-clouds begin to gather for Durnus, Elessi, Cheska, and Modren.

Together with Farfallen and his Sirens, they must fight to survive against the Long Winter, the vicious machinations of the new Arkmage, and the arrival of something much deadlier than both combined. War, deception, and murder are quickly becoming the only paths to salvation...

Ben Galley has given his imagination free reign in this action packed story. We return to Farden, the troubled yet powerful mage, as he journeys through the desert in search of... well, in search of answers, of advice, of anything to help him in the battle with his enemies. We join him as he finds unlikely allies and is given the toughest of choices to make. We follow as he goes from one landscape to another, from frying pan and into the fire, trying to save a world that doesn’t always want his help.

The cast of characters grows impressively, and the scope of the story becomes truly epic in the best sense of the word. It’s to Galley’s credit that the growth feels organic and natural. I think it is one of the author’s strengths that each of the characters is fleshed out and fully realised. He adds just enough hints or redemption or damnation for each that you never really know who will end up on which side. You think you know, and that’s the delicious part.

In The Written, the first in the Emaneska series (you can read the review here) there is an intriguing blend of new creatures and races with the more familiar fantasy or supernatural ones. One of the main supporting characters is a vampyre, there are dragons aplenty and they are searching for wells of Dark Elf magic. Pale Kings takes this one step further, with some excellent development of the Sirens and their culture, and we are introduced to witches and fauns and shape shifters. I was worried that it would take me out of the action as I’m not generally a fan of these traditional monsters and I have found them to be tired tropes, but with a few minor exceptions what we expect is turned around and used to an advantage or as misdirection. I was surprised to find that I enjoyed these as much as if he’d invented entirely new and mystical races.

The story does take a little while to get going, with some soul searching and character history taking centre stage for a while. I would have liked this spread over a larger section of the book. It was all very interesting and necessary stuff, but if it had been delivered whilst getting the narrative rolling it would have enhanced the experience.

There are some fascinating interludes where we glimpse daemons and gods at work, all of whom are as flawed or as warped as some of the mortal characters! It is in these segments that we can truly see Galley’s imagination fly, and you start to appreciate how ambitious he is being with Emaneska and how far he wants to go.

I really enjoyed The Written, but Pale Kings is cleverer, grittier and a real evolution in the author’s craft. It bodes well for the final parts of this series, Dead Stars Parts 1 and 2. It’s going to be hard going to keep up the pace, so I can’t wait to read them!

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About the reviewer:

Alex can be found in the rolling hills of Oxfordshire, splitting his time unevenly between fighting crime and raising two little boys (which is surprisingly similar). When he does find a spare moment he crams it full of fantasy or basketball, and due to rapidly ageing knees it's mostly fantasy these days. He's trying to learn the writing craft through sheer bloody mindedness and dreams of the day he has to do nothing else. If you're so inclined you can watch him stalk writers on Twitter - @shep5377

The Scar by China Mieville

Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole.

The Scar lives up to its title. Everything and everyone at the core of this story is at a different stage of healing. Whether they have physical wounds, broken emotional bonds or tears in the world itself, everything will eventually leave a scar. Mieville has managed to craft a follow-up to Perdido Street Station which touches on deeper themes of loneliness and belonging. And pirates. Where Perdido Street Station was an introduction to the city of New Crobuzon, The Scar is far more wide-ranging; leaving New Crobuzon for climates new, and to places altogether much stranger than the city it leaves behind.

Bellis Coldwine is the central protagonist of The Scar. Continuing the theme of unorthodox central protagonists from Perdido Street Station, Bellis is a linguist. She’s named aptly; cold, mostly humourless and consistently conflicted by her own decisions. The novel begins in New Crobuzon, but Bellis quickly leaves, believing herself to be in danger from the militia. (In a nice nod to the events of Perdido Street Station) She finds herself a job onboard a naval ship as a translator; a ship which has a cargo of more than just trade goods. But this is all just set-up for the real storyline. When Bellis’ ship is taken by pirates and press-ganged into the floating city of ships known as Armada, she finds herself much further from home than she ever wished to be. And the rulers of Armada have bigger plans than anyone could possibly imagine – leading them to the greatest beast in the seas and the source of unimaginable power.

The Scar is a little shorter than Perdido Street Station, but still comes in at a hefty length. However, Mieville has managed to hone his talents between the two novels to create a book which moves along at a near perfect pace, from set-piece to set-piece. Where Perdido Street Station was a little flabby in its first quarter and to some extent in its last quarter, The Scar always moves briskly, and yet always allows the characters and setting room to breathe. On top of that, the plot is an absolute stunner – each individual part building to a huge climax and then starting all over again, but building on what’s come before.

In terms of imagination, Mieville is completely unleashed here. Perdido Street Station was layered with atmosphere and some very original ideas, but The Scar just goes one step further. New Crobuzon was a living city – you could feel every layer of grime seep into you as you read it. But Armada, the main setting for The Scar, could not be more different. I’ve never seen anything like it before. A floating city, made up of press-ganged ships from centuries of pillage, it is an incredible idea and expertly described by Mieville – and yet never to the point of overdoing it. The setting is there to tell part of the story – it’s just an incredible thing to behold on top of that.

Another area where Mieville improves on from Perdido Street Station is his cast of characters. As entertaining as they were in Perdido, only two or three had any real level of depth. The others felt like side-characters. Here, though, even the minor characters feel well-realised and important to the progression of the story. Whether it’s the reMade marine engineer, Tanner Sack, the effective rulers of Armada, The Lovers or the particularly awe-inspiring Uther Doul and his possibility sword, they all feel like they could live beyond the pages.

With The Scar, China Mieville has managed to build on the success of Perdido Street Station to create a novel which expands the world of Bas-Lag and tells a much more thematically cohesive story. You could read it with no prior knowledge of Perdido Street Station quite easily – some may even recommend you do so. But I think you’d miss out on the joy of having read that foundation which Mieville built in the last book. Where Perdido Street Station was essentially a very clever monster hunt, The Scar is a tale of just that: scars. The scars of relationships old and new. The scars of flesh, memory and emotion. The scars from political, personal and social wounds created in the previous Bas-Lag novel. And the scars of the very earth itself. It’s a seriously accomplished novel, and the best I’ve read from Mieville yet.  

The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross

The singularity has arrived and it’s…strangely familiar. In this post-singularity world, Huw Jones wakes up after a rough night at a friend’s house and stumbles downstairs for an awkward encounter with the woman he met the previous night, Bonnie. All relatively normal. With a twist. The house can alter its structure to match the whims of the owner and Bonnie the woman is now Bonnie the man. A self-declared technophobe, Huw finds this all a little much, and makes his excuses. All is not lost as he finds a jury duty notice – he has been selected to join one of the juries that make decisions on new technology sent from off-world. The solar system is slowly being eaten by the Cloud, a vast array of tiny machines amalgamated into a vast computer (of sorts) that is the new home for humanity. And they still like sending spam emails. A pair of kids with brains modified to Einstein levels of brilliance have built something and it’s up to Huw and his fellow jurors to decide whether or not it’s legal, in a courtroom familiar to anyone who has seen any pseudo-courtroom reality television series. Then things get really strange as Huw finds he has been infected with a techno-virus – an ambassador from the cloud, which he is chosen to host due to him being accustomed to pronouncing the rather difficult glottals of his native Welsh tongue - and is forced to go on the run.

The world Huw moves through is a hyper-extended version of our own; the singularity may have brought technological advancement bordering on the magical, but people are still people. Doctorow and Stross take current trends and extend them and then extend them a little more to hyperbolic extremes in a satirical examination of our current world. Pop-up ads now appear projected into your vision and the search for efficient ad-buster software is still as difficult as ever. Facebook is still around, but only in America where access sees Huw inundated with several million friend requests within the space of seconds. After a journey on the required airship (because those are still cool, right?) Huw lands in America which has become a shoot-first, ask-questions-later, ultra-fundamentalist country full of xenophobic rednecks who secretly harbour an obsession with sexual deviance. Oh yes, and you need a tank and an armoured suit to walk outside as a hyper-colony of ants has taken over the landmass of the USA. There is a little bit of cultural smugness in the portrayal of the various nations’ futures as only the UK has remained essentially the same, while the Middle East and America appear more as recidivist caricatures of themselves.

Rapture of the Nerds is incredibly fast-paced; in fact, I’ve never read anything that races along quite at this speed. Every paragraph contains a new idea, or a weird twist on something familiar. There is a slight sense of ‘ticking the boxes’ of geek-cool as they lift ideas from various sources such as familiars from Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City, uplifted gibbons a la David Brin and talking crows (I can’t remember exactly where this is from, but it felt familiar). The book is full of nods and references to SF/F staples such as The Matrix, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Doctor Who, World of Warcraft, etc. In this it is reminiscent of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, in that half the fun is searching for all these little mentions. This is a book for a specific audience and plays to that strength as many things are skimmed over that could have been developed and explained in great depth.

This may be a structural commentary on the way we use technology especially the internet, in that we consume information very shallowly as we race around from page to page. This idea that we are misusing, or at the very least under-using, the power of the internet may be one of the major themes in this book. One of the sections I found rather telling was near the end (no spoilers): 

“[…] the unlimited, unconstrained world of imagination, and we build a world of animated gifs, stupid sight gags, lame van-art avatars, stupid “playful environments, and brain-dead flame wars augmented by animated emoticons that allowed participants to express their hackneyed ad-hominems, concern-trollery, and Godwin’s law violations through the media of cartoon animals and oversized animated genitals. […] Give humanity a truly unlimited field, and it would fill it with Happy Meal toys and holographic sport-star, collectible trading card game art.”

Due to the skimming nature of the story, the characters aren’t fully developed, they are fully secondary to the plot and the ideas the authors wish to explore. To be honest, too much character development isn’t strictly necessary; Huw is the generic ‘everyman’ or I should say ‘everyperson’, who experiences his new world for us, so we don’t need a long history or motivations for every single thing. However, it is his relationship with Bonnie (who becomes one of the other main characters) that feels a little flat because of this. The fluid nature of her gender could have made for some very interesting interactions between her and Huw as he is still attracted to her despite her briefly being a man. However, throughout the novel this is never explored as whenever they interact it is always as man and woman. And due to various noticeable shifts, this feels like a conscious decision by the authors to back away from this particular issue.

Despite a rather muddled ending, this is a book that sticks with you after you finish. I found myself mulling over many of the ideas and images thrown around so haphazardly for some time afterward as it takes some time to process them all. It is a fun ride and you will often feel like you are just a spectator as these two authors take you on a wild journey through their version of the fractured future. I would recommend it to those who like their speculative fiction to be both familiar and not so serious.  

The Rapture of The Nerds, by Cory Doctorow & Charlie Stross. £7.99, 12th April 2013, Titan Books.

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About the Reviewer: Craig Leyenaar is completing an MA (Writing) at Warwick University and then will be prostrating himself before the publishing world in hopes of being granted access. His television was taken away at a young age for no good reason, but was soon replaced with books. He has stuck with them ever since and now after twenty years of reading them he finally feels ready to comment. His tastes include everything from China Mieville and M John Harrison to Isaac Asimov and Peter F. Hamilton to David Gemmell and Terry Pratchett to - he better stop there otherwise there won't be room for anything else. 

Interview with Richard Ford

Richard Ford originally hails from Leeds in the heartland of Yorkshire, but now resides in the Wiltshire countryside. His debut novel Kultus was released in 2011. His second novel Herald of the Storm hit shelves in April 2013 and is available in the UK everywhere.

 

WBR: Hi Richard – Welcome to Wilder’s Book Review, and our first ever interview!

RF: It’s great to be here, Doug. I’ve not felt this honoured since I won the Swindon and District Ferrero Rocher eating championships back in 2001.

WBR: First up – give us three words that best describe your new book.

 RF: Bloody. Bawdy. Brilliant.

        Too much alliteration?

WBR: Well I've already read it and it certainly lives up to those descriptions! But for those that haven't, can you tell us a little more about your new series Steelhaven and the first book, Herald of the Storm.

RF: It’s an epic fantasy series set entirely within the capital city of Steelhaven and told from viewpoint of seven disparate characters, from the heir to the throne down to a struggling street thief. The city itself is under threat of siege as the country comes under attack from the north, and as things begin to unravel on the frontline, they’re not going so well back at home either.

  

WBR: What was the idea behind Steelhaven and your motives for writing it?

RF: I wanted to do something quite sweeping and character-driven. I’d also been watching a lot of quality TV shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men, which have a lot of characters but still manage to tell a cohesive story. Rather than just the usual kings-and-knights-and-barbarian hordes kind of malarkey, I thought I’d focus on the little people too, and show how they get by while the major players are doing their thing. Most of the main action – the battles and nation-changing events – happen off-screen, but there’s still plenty of murder and mayhem back home too.

WBR: The city of Steelhaven is absolutely central to the first novel, and presumably the rest of the series – what was your main reason for focusing on one city to such a

degree?

RF: First and foremost it helps keep the book focused and stops it meandering off. The fantasy quest saga is getting a bit tired, so there was no way I was going there. I wanted the series to culminate in a siege, so letting the reader get to know the city as much as the characters gives them a kind of emotional investment in the place… before I burn it to the ground!

WBR: So would you say you're playing around with the tropes a little, taking all the elements of epic fantasy but minimising the setting and concentrating the focus of the story?

RF: I've previously blogged a bit about worldbuilding and my hatred of it here. However, that was before I'd started on the Steelhaven series in earnest. Since then it's become obvious that an epic fantasy writer who disregards their worldbuilding is just asking for trouble. Saying that, you're right about concentrating the focus on story, and in particular character. You can have all the intricate worldbuilding you want, but if you're characters are two dimensional and your story lacking any edge, your novel is bound to fail.

WBR: Herald of the Storm appears to focus on what's happening at home on the sidelines while the big adventures happen "over there" - was this an intentional focus of yours in writing this book?

RF: I guess it was. There's an invading army and the king goes out to face it. In 9 out of 10 epic fantasy novels this would be the main focus, but I wanted to concentrate on Steelhaven and its story. Anyone who likes epic battles shouldn't be put off though, there's plenty of that still to come later.

WBR: Will we see more of the world outside of Steelhaven in future books?

RF: The first three books will be set mainly within the city. Beyond that, who knows, but I’d definitely like to stretch my wings a bit.

WBR: You have quite a diverse set of point-of-view characters in Herald of the Storm - were each of them planned from the outset, or did they come up organically during the writing process? Do you plan on expanding the core cast in the future?

RF: Most of the characters evolved with their own stories. When I was planning the series it suddenly hit me that I could probably amalgamate their differing story arcs into one overarching plot, and they would all cross over at some point. This can be quite tricky, and I have been known to plot a chapter breakdown in Excel before now.

The sequel to Herald of the Storm will see a new major character introduced but I think eight core characters are enough for now. Too many POVs can lead to a novel losing its focus and meandering off on meaningless tangents. I’d like to avoid that if at all possible.

WBR: What were your main influences behind the book? 

RF: I originally pitched the series as ‘David Gemmel’s Legend meets HBO’s The Wire’ and I think they’re the main two. Obviously, as all writers are, I’m influenced by everything I see and hear in a variety of media, be it novels, TV, comics, film or computer games. Writers find source material everywhere they look, and I like to steal things… erm… borrow things wherever I can.

WBR: You also have another book out, published by Solaris, titled Kultus. Can you tell us a little bit about it? Is this a series you are likely to return to somewhere down the line?

RF: Kultus is an all-action, balls to the wall, adventure novel. A Jason Statham movie-in-a-novel for steampunk fans, if you will. In particular it was influenced by several hardboiled characters from 2000 AD, which I was obsessed with as a kid. It’s my homage to Judge Dredd, Johnny Alpha, Slaine and Rogue Trooper.

I’d certainly love to write a sequel – in fact I’d planned it as a series of novels – but at the moment I’m mainly focused on Steelhaven. Who knows, maybe one day Thaddeus Blaklok will rear his big ugly head once again.

WBR: That's good to hear - I know of a lot of people who want to see the return of Thaddeus!

WBR: What’s next for Richard Ford?

RF: Book two in the Steelhaven series approaches completion of its first draft. Then it’s the never-ending cycle of edits as I tear more hair out trying to make a jumbled mass of words into a coherent reading experience. Not that I’ve got much hair left to tear.

WBR: Do you have a tentative release date for the next book as of yet?

RF: We're aiming for a year between releases, so it'll be around April 2014.

WBR: Finally, what are you reading right now?

RF: I’ve nearly finished The String Diaries by Stephen Lloyd Jones (which isn’t out yet, but being a fellow Headline author I got an advanced copy). It’s brilliant too, highly recommended.

WBR: Thanks Richard! 

Herald of the Storm by Richard Ford is available now and is published by Headline.

Kultus by Richard Ford is also available now and is published by Solaris. 

You can read my review of Herald of the Storm here.