Karsa Orlong

Going by the one I read I'd say his books don't require an imagination. Or a brain, for that matter

That's appalling, John.

Midwinter of the Spirit by Phil Rickman This is the second of Rickman's 'Merrily Watkins' novels, and it's all about possession and exorcism. I wouldn't describe it as a horror novel, though, and - although it would be easy to think otherwise - it's nothing like The Exorcist. Merrily, now more settled in the village of Ledwardine, is asked by the Bishop of Hereford to become part of his 'deliverance team' - 'deliverance' being the new term for exorcism. Cue Merrily being drawn into a sequence of seemingly unrelated occurences in the area that quickly undermine her confidence in herself, and also the reasons why she has been asked to do the job in the first place. Meanwhile her teenage daughter, Jane, is continuing to push her mother's religion away and, through a new friend, is drawn in a new spiritualist direction, and Lol, the songwriter from the first book, is trying to help a young woman who has suffered in the past from mental problems. Rickman's characters are well-rounded, believable individuals who you can genuinely care about. The story doesn't go for cheap shocks, and there is very little in the way of graphic scenes. Instead, it is a mystery, with some moments of fear and tension, and some thrills. The dialogue is well written and there is a nice amount of subtle wit about it. The setting and its descriptions are really well handled. Rickman has a habit of building up to a big moment and then cutting away to something else, before coming back to describe the aftermath of the first event, so there is some menace, but no outright horror, I would say. If I had one complaint about the book it is perhaps a little too long, and maybe takes too much time to start drawing the various plot threads together, but this is a fairly minor complaint. In general, the pacing is good, and it makes you read very quickly because it is so well handled. It's definitely on a par with The Wine of Angels, and perhaps slightly better. I enjoyed it very much. 8/10

Fixed that for you Noticing a lot of votes for James Patterson - I have to agree. I've only read one of his books ('Cross Country') and it was dreadful.

Gaaaaagh! I'm 35 pages from the end of Phil Rickman's Midwinter of the Spirit and the boss has walked in

Indeed!

Yes, I've enjoyed the first couple of episodes. I hope there'll be a bit more to it in the long run, and I hope it doesn't jump the shark as quickly as Heroes did.

A couple spring to mind: Chris Carter, Chris Ryan, Raymond E Feist, Richard Laymon, Tim Willocks. I'd say that Conn Iggulden and Brandon Sanderson are borderline at the moment. And - sorry to all the fans - I read the first Hunger Games book and thought it was poor, so won't be going anywhere near those again.

Yeah, I'll have a look next time I'm in Smiths. Quite a tough time to be starting another genre magazine I'd imagine.

I used to be a subscriber to both it and TV Zone, even managed to get a few articles published in both magazines back in the late 90s

I was looking at them the other day in Waterstones. I love the covers (the 40th anniversary ones) but I imagine I will get them for Kindle in the end, because there are so many of them and shelf space is an issue!

Vagabond by Bernard Cornwell This is the second book in Cornwell's 'Grail Quest' trilogy and continues the story of Thomas of Hookton. It's hard to write a synopsis for a sequel without spoiling what happened in the previous book! Suffice to say that, as the book starts, Thomas is back in England and heading for Durham, where he is to deliver a message for King Edward. The message, naturally, has to do with the Grail, and Thomas is not the only one following the trail. Soon he is involved in a battle with the Scots, who have invaded at the request of their allies the French, and is dealing with the attentions of a Dominican monk of the Inquisition and his murderous henchman. I thought Cornwell's writing - as has been the case in all of his books I've read so far - was marvellous. He has an eye for detail that brings the characters to life, and his pacing is fantastic, so it keeps you turning the pages. For me, Thomas really started to come into his own in this book, and there are a couple of brilliant new characters plus some returning from the first book. There is one slightly formulaic character: in the first book Thomas made an enemy of Sir Simon Jekyll, who dogged his steps throughout that book, and here he makes an enemy of Sir Geoffrey Carr, another moustache-twirling bad guy. However, to counter this there is the Dominican monk, de Taillebourg, a fantastic character who gave me chills - and I couldn't help but picture Jeremy Irons in the role. There's also some brilliant tension and twists and turns. Although I do still think that his Arthurian trilogy had more depth and better characters, Vagabond is another terrific book that I'd have no hesitation in recommending to anyone interested in an exciting adventure set against a historical backdrop. 8/10

Harsh! Mandy Patinkin's brilliant in it. Although, whenever I see him, I think: "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father - prepare to die!"

See, I'm the complete opposite, I think Morena Baccarrin is fab in it. I interpret the 'emptiness' as a wonderful stillness to her performance, it's all in her eyes and her posture, whereas - to me - Danes chews the scenery too much. Ah well, each to their own

I'm enjoying it very much. The only thing I'm not so keen on is Claire Danes's performance, it's not quite working for me, especially when everyone else is so good.

I think that the misconceptions some people have of sf are more appropriate for fantasy, in that a large percentage of the fantasy books out there rip-off Tolkein in some way or other which results in a lot of unoriginal drivel on the shelves and literally invites scorn. There's more scope for different and challenging ideas in sf, so there's more variety. Plus you don't get many multi-volume series in sf, whereas there's a lot of that in fantasy, and it gets tiresome. It sounds like I don't like fantasy - I do. When it's done well and with originality it can be fantastic, but I'm even more selective when it comes to reading it than I am with sf, and I like to delve into the sub-genres like urban fantasy etc. Those who feel fantasy is just about swords/sorcery/wizards/dragons etc should read The Lions of Al-Rassan or The Anubis Gates or Replay or Waylander or Perdido Street Station etc. There are also some authors out there who are having fun subverting the traditions of the genre and making it much harder hitting and gritty as a result (Erikson, Martin, Abercrombie etc)

I'd never heard of it until a couple of days ago, then a friend recommended it to me, and after reading some reviews and listening to what he had to say about it, it was a case of 'Must have! Must have!' I suspect it might leapfrog over much of what's already in my TBR pile

So Amazon are finally bringing the Kindle Touch to the UK in wi-fi and 3G versions: http://www.amazon.co...&pf_rd_i=468294

Aaaaaand my TBR pile shoots back up to 89

On the way home yesterday I bought Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire in Smiths. That means I bought five books in total yesterday

I have an image in my head of Waterstones morphing in a Hogwarts staircase kind of way every time I walk in

I read about 100 pages a day, so it depends on the length of the book!

Loving this at the moment, the new album from Norway's finest http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geVfu4kNIEs&feature=related

Genuine typo, but it made me giggle Went to Waterstones at Piccadilly last night (apparently it's the biggest book shop in Europe, is that true?) and they had one copy each of the David Gemmell and Steve Pressfield books I was looking for but they were all bent and knackered, looked like used copies. I wasn't going to pay full price for books in that condition. Running out of options now ETA: Okay, just ordered the two Gemmell paperbacks from Amazon: Sword in the Storm and Winter Warriors. I had a gift token to use, too, so they were effectively presents Also, total impulse, I ordered two more paperbacks from the Marketplace, both from Jack Whyte's Arthurian 'Dream of Eagles' series: The Skystone and The Singing Sword

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds Campion and Purslane are shatterlings (clones) of the Gentian Line. Unlike other members of the Line, they are lovers, and travel the galaxy together. They have been in existence for six million years. In trying to transport a passenger to the mysterious Vigilance they make themselves late for the 32nd Gentian reunion, where all shatterlings gather once per circuit of the Milky Way to share their memories and experiences. When they eventually get there, some 55 years late, they find that the Gentian Line has been ambushed, and all but a few have been slaughtered. Running for their lives, they slowly start to uncover the truth about what has happened, and why. This is the third Reynolds novel I have read. As usual, it's full of big ideas and a real sense of wonder. It's also fairly mind-boggling in places - stories that involve time dilation usually have that effect on me! - and has some great characters and a nice sense of humour. There's also a point in it, where things really start to kick off, that it gets pretty exciting. Unfortunately it doesn't maintain the excitement through to the finale, which I quite liked but wasn't what I was expecting (which is a good thing, in many ways). In fact, I think the book is probably 100 to 150 pages too long and, with some editing, could have been even better. That said, Campion and Purslane are good characters, two sides of the same coin, and Reynolds' narrative trick of alternating chapters between them but telling it all in first person is a clever one, if slightly disorienting at first. Better still, Hesperus is a marvellous character, a machine being who develops in interesting and logical ways as the story progresses. I also liked Dr Meninx and Betony a lot - the latter being another character who doesn't quite work out the way you might think. Each 'part' of the book begins with the story of Abigail Gentian, the young woman from whom all the shatterlings were cloned. Her story alone is almost worthy of its own novella. The story of House of Suns span thousands of years, as characters come and go in and out of stasis as they travel across the galaxy, but it doesn't even begin to describe what Reynolds has in store as the novel enters its latter stages. It's just such a shame that the pacing goes awry and takes the tension with it because, for a while there at least, I was thrilled. It's very good, but it could have been great. 7/10