Broken Monsters - Lauren Beukes

The Blurb: IN A BROKEN CITY, A DISTURBED KILLER IS TRYING TO REMAKE THE WORLD IN HIS IMAGE.

Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies. But this one is unique even by Detroit’s standards: half-boy, half-deer, somehow fused together. And it’s only the first.

As winter closes in on Detroit, strange and disturbing corpses start turning up in unusual places, pulling several lives into the killer’s orbit.

Gabi has to juggle the most harrowing case of her career with being a single mom to her troubled teen daughter Layla.

Layla, egged on by her best friend Cas, is playing a dangerous game with an online predator.

Broken Monsters is a dark and gripping thriller about the death of the American Dream, online fame, creativity, compromise and the undercurrents of the world we live in right now.

First off, hot damn what an awesome cover. It really jumps out at you and stands out pretty nicely on a bookshelf. Really stunning work by the stupendously talented Joey Hi-Fi.

Bliksem, this really is a damn good book. Really really good. If something interrupted my reading time, I got pretty cross because I wanted to find out what happened next. This rarely happens, but this book really grabbed my attention and had my imagination going into overdrive. Some real brilliant storytelling.

The book is set in Detroit in all it's decaying glory. I think the setting really mattered to the story, seeing as the crumbling city trying to get back on it's feet, trying to get a new identity, really set the tone for the characters. 

This is a multiple POV story, and each has it's own distinct voice and character. TK, the ex con just trying to help people. Jonno, the asshat wannabe journalist looking for some direction in his life, Clayton the misunderstood artist who devolves beautifully during the story and Detective Versado and her daughter, Layla.

This book has quite a bit about the plodding side of policework present, which is pretty refreshing to read. How they plan, assign tasks and start chipping away at the problem in front of them.  How normal police work and procedure helps to insulate the poor bastards that needs to deal with the horrific on a daily basis. 

Gabi is a single parent to a teenager, Layla. Layla is a theatre nerd, in love with the stage and thus awkward as hell. Her relationship with her best friend Cas is one of the few light and uplifting pieces of the book, and really well placed between all the darkness and problems. Gabi just want to keep her daughter and her city safe. She's hard, uncompromising and brilliant.

Jonno really is a whiney bastard. It's easy not to like the little turd. He feels the world owes him for some hardships he's suffered in his life, and he latches onto anybody that can help him. Easily my least liked character in to book, but I think that's what was needed from the clown.

TK and Clayton are broken men. TK trying to do the best he can with the shitty hand he's been dealt by life, and Clay getting crazier and crazier as the book progresses. They are both awesome. 

Some freaky shit happens in this book.  Supernatural magic freaky. And it's the sudden shock of it introduced into the real world that makes it great and makes it stand out. It's violent and shocking and it gave me chills in a good way.

I think it's the ability of Beukes to give each character such a distinct personality on the page that really makes her a brilliant writer. It doesn't matter if it's a  teenage girl or the killer himself, they stand apart and distinct. It makes the reading part much easier and a boatload of fun.

This book is brilliant. I rate this as her best work yet. Stunning.

9/10

Prince of Fools - Mark Lawrence

The Blurb: The Red Queen is old but the kings of the Broken Empire dread her like no other. For all her reign, she has fought the long war, contested in secret, against the powers that stand behind nations, for higher stakes than land or gold. Her greatest weapon is The Silent Sister—unseen by most and unspoken of by all.

The Red Queen’s grandson, Prince Jalan Kendeth—drinker, gambler, seducer of women—is one who can see The Silent Sister. Tenth in line for the throne and content with his role as a minor royal, he pretends that the hideous crone is not there. But war is coming. Witnesses claim an undead army is on the march, and the Red Queen has called on her family to defend the realm. Jal thinks it’s all a rumor—nothing that will affect him—but he is wrong.

After escaping a death trap set by the Silent Sister, Jal finds his fate magically intertwined with a fierce Norse warrior. As the two undertake a journey across the Empire to undo the spell, encountering grave dangers, willing women, and an upstart prince named Jorg Ancrath along the way, Jalan gradually catches a glimmer of the truth: he and the Norseman are but pieces in a game, part of a series of moves in the long war—and the Red Queen controls the board.

As my one reader knows, I'm a huge fan of Mark Lawrence. His Broken Empire trilogy was one of the best I've read yet, and the finale, Emperor of Thorns, put me in a book depression for at least a month. It was that good.

The Prince of Fools is the first book in the Red Queen's war trilogy, also based in the Broken Empire landscape and at the same time as the first trilogy. I highly appreciated this, seeing as I love the world and the characters he's created. You can read Price of Fools without reading the first trilogy, but a lot of the nuance will be lost if you do that.

Onto Prince Jalan. He's tenth in line to the throne, a minor Princeling of the Red March and pretty much a bastard in all the other ways that Prince Jorg isn't. A self confessed coward, putting his wants and needs before everybody else. He's certainly not ambitious, whoring and gambling his life away in all the luxury being a Prince provides. As he says in the book, his priorities is Prince Jalan, Prince Jalan, Prince Jalan with looking good coming a distant fourth. That being said I found him an entertaining protagonist, bringing humour to quite a dark world. With us riding in his head as a first person viewpoint certainly helped in this regard. He reminded me a little of Rincewind I must say.

The fun thing about Prince of Fools, with it being set almost concurrently with the first trilogy, is the different viewpoints to the same events. Jalan doesn't really give a crap, but there are enough hints around him to make stuff interesting to the sharp eyed reader. A few old favourites makes short appearances in the story which was pretty awesome. And we get a little bit of a clearer view of the moves made by the powers behind the throne, The Silent Lady, Sageous and their power plays.

Jalan gets caught up in this secret war through no fault of his own, and forced to go on a quest to the frozen north with Snorri Ver Snagason, a huge insane Viking. Honestly the poor bastard had no choice, and he complains pretty much all the way there. OK, it was 30% his own fault, but you'd never hear him confirm that. Snorri is pretty much awesome muscle, power and cheer. He's the perfect counterfoil for Jalan and their interactions throughout the book is a fun read. Jalan actually shows some real character growth without losing his cowardly charm, and he certainly contributes to their quest, even if it's pretty accidental for the most part. I do not know if Snorri's surname is a nod to Gemmel's early works, but I certainly hope so. Those that do not know of what I speak, go read Legend you lazy cretins.

Our two heroes, one roaring north and the other screaming in terror, run into quite a few fun and dangerous adventures on their way. They even visit the Tall Castle, and Jal almost has the misfortune of meeting Jorg in his early wild days. I'm sure that if this happened, poor Jal's tale would have ended right there, seeing as Jorg would have used his blood to decorate the walls on principle. I have no doubt that Jorg would have taken Jalan out just because he irritated him.

The quest they are on certainly isn't standalone in the Broken Empire universe, and I'm sure the follow up books will clarify and intertwine the two stories more and more. This is easily one of my favourite books of the year, blending a quest adventure story with a deeper, darker one seamlessly. It certainly stuck with me, making me wonder about the implications.

10/10

Kraken stirring

So yes, I've been AWOL for the last six months, which is my fault. I promise to have some reviews up next week, seeing as the real job has settled down pretty well after six months. See you all later.

Moon's Artifice - Tom Lloyd

The Blurb: In a quiet corner of the Imperial City, Investigator Narin discovers the result of his first potentially lethal mistake. Minutes later he makes a second.

After an unremarkable career Narin finally has the chance of promotion to the hallowed ranks of the Lawbringers – guardians of the Emperor’s laws and bastions for justice in a world of brutal expediency. Joining that honoured body would be the culmination of a lifelong dream, but it couldn’t possibly have come at a worse time. A chance encounter drags Narin into a plot of gods and monsters, spies and assassins, accompanied by a grief-stricken young woman, an old man haunted by the ghosts of his past and an assassin with no past.

On the cusp of an industrial age that threatens the warrior caste’s rule, the Empire of a Hundred Houses awaits civil war between noble factions. Centuries of conquest has made the empire a brittle and bloated monster; constrained by tradition and crying out for change. To save his own life and those of untold thousands Narin must understand the key to it all – Moon’s Artifice, the poison that could destroy an empire.

This is the first book in the second series by Tom Lloyd, author of the stunning Twilight Reign series. Moon’s Artifice is certainly different than Lloyd’s previous work. While Twilight Reign was firmly based in the epic fantasy category, Moon’s Artifice is a bit harder to define. Sword and sorcery? Almost. Epic fantasy? Has that feel to it. Detective crime novel? Yes, kind of. It’s a good mixture of quite a few genres, and as someone who doesn’t honestly care about strict subgenre definitions it suits me fine.

Central to the world is the caste and House system the Empire lives by. The Imperial City is ruled by the house of the Emperor, House Sun. Each of the big houses in the Empire has their own district, in which their lesser houses are welcome. The population is also divided into the nobles and the peasants, and with civilization living tightly within this system and people being tattooed by law with their caste and house marks, escaping to a higher station seems impossible.

Narin is an Investigator, born to the lower caste and working to become a Lawbringer, the enforcers the Empire’s law on the populace. He does have a few secrets, the biggest one being an affair with a noblewoman, which is potentially life threatening to Narin, seeing as sleeping with someone elses wife is really not that a good idea, especially if said someone is noble born. You’d think Narin has enough to worry about, then the gods drop a huge problem at his feet, and it has Empire shattering consequences.

The Gods. The biggest secret that the Emperor’s family has is ascension. Mortals can become gods, if they are perfect in one part of their life. Lord Shield, Lawbringer, Pity, Duellist etc has proven their worth and been ascended to godhood. The fun thing about this pantheon is that they like to get their noses stuck into mortal affairs every now and then. And when a god notices you, it’s too late to run away. Along with the gods there are also demons who has influence on the world. I get the feeling that the gods and demons story has quite a lot more depth to it, and that should be fun exploring in later novels.

At least Narin isn’t alone in his struggles. His best friend, Enchei, supports him throughout the book. Enchei is not just there as support of filler, he has his own secret history and dark past. His immediate superior is Lawbringer Rhe, the most respected of his order with a strict sense of the law and right or wrong. I loved Rhe for his unblinking and uncompromising service to the law and empire he’s sworn to. It almost cost him his life, but he was willing to take that sacrifice to preserve the integrity of the Lawbringers, and that is heroic. Irato is a dark horse character, seeing as his actions influences the majority of the early parts in this book. He is a product of the poison, and shows clearly the dangers it poses to humanity and to the empire. Kesh is my favourite though. A girl who started out terrified, then mad, bent on revenge and at last she develops into a major player in the book. She is a damn great character, doing what she feels she must do to reach their goals. She is tenacious, bold and always ready for a brawl, even if the odds are stacked against her.

The world Lloyd built is intricate and brilliant. He has the ability to drag the gods and demons into the story, not as omnipotent beings, but more as troublemakers trying to get a head start on their fellows. Since the gods are ascended humans, seeing this human trait of selfishness in them makes them quite a lot more interesting than if they were a beard in the sky or hurling lightning at humanity.

Narin is always one step behind the conspiracy. He’s trying to catch up to a group of people who’ve had decades to plot and set things into motion. There is a sense of desperation throughout the novel as they try to unravel the mystery, and it’s mainly through hard work that they manage to get the breaks they need to bother the conspirators. No real lucky breaks are to be had to help them along, which I liked as realistic.

I loved this book. It’s fast paced, mysterious, interesting and the characters are brilliant. It’s an amazing start to a brilliant new series.

9/10