Paddy samurai maybe 50 books in a year

WARRIOR OF ROME, PART ONE: Fire in the East
Harry Sidebottom, Michael Joseph, 2008, £12.99, hb, 414pp, 9780718153298
Fire in the East is part one of Dr Harry Sidebottom’s Warrior of Rome series and his first novel. He is a leading authority on ancient warfare, and the impressive appendix contains the historical details which are required reading in tandem with the unfolding story.
In the third century AD, the Roman Empire is in turmoil as civil war tears Italy apart and emperor follows emperor in rapid succession. Out of the darkness comes a barbarian, Ballista, prince of his tribe and diplomatic hostage. Seventeen years pass and in 255 AD the Persian Sassanid Empire attacks Rome’s eastern territories, sweeping all before them. Ballista, now a citizen and sometime imperial favourite, is newly appointed to the post of Dux Ripae. In charge of the defences along the banks of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates and all the land between, he is empowered to hold this very edge of Empire.
The novel is a master class in ancient warfare. Vast amounts of actual historical information are expended and one wonders how much is left for the remainder of the series. The story is skilfully constructed, harrowing at times with an imaginative scope. The clarity of observation of the minutiae of war and period detail reveals the author’s command of his subject. His characters, mostly male, are well defined and realistic and illuminate the different nationalities and passions prevalent in the empire at that time. Women play little part: the wife left behind and the feisty but tempting brigand’s daughter.
This is a riveting book, the dominating feature being a city under siege. Dr Sidebottom generously acknowledges the debt owed to past historical novelists who have influenced him. The reader feels confident in the historical accuracy, but whether Warrior of Rome will become the mighty series that is envisaged remains in the gift of historical fiction fans. -- Gwen Sly

Review
"Winterbirth is written with great assurance and tells a gripping story that builds to a grim climax. No one who enjoys heroic fantasy should miss this" The Times "An intriguing and imaginative story... particularly evocative" Dreamwatch

Product Description
As ever greater battles are fought between the Black Road and the True Bloods, so each side in the conflict becomes ever more riven by internal dissent and disunity. Amidst the mounting chaos, Aeglyss the na'kyrim gradually masters the remarkable powers that have been unleashed upon him by his crucifixion. Twisting everything and everyone around him to serve his own mad desires, he begins to exert a dangerous, insidious influence over the course of events both near and far. Orisian, lord of the ruined Lannis Blood, faces not only the consequences of that malign influence, but also the machinations of his supposed allies and the stirring of the long-dormant Anain, the most potent race the world has ever known.

"Bold, brutal, and making no compromises - Morgan doesn't so much twist the cliches of fantasy as take an axe to them. Then set them on fire. Then put them out by pissing on them."Joe Abercrombie
What else can I compare it to? It has the explosive violence of, well, Richard Morgan (only about twice as explosive), the moral ambiguity of vintage Moorcock (but about three times as dark), with the explicit sexual content of Martin (only about ten times more explicit, and I'm not kidding), the harsh language of Scott Lynch (times about 1,000,000). If those things put you off, really, don't bother. The first couple of pages will probably give you a bit of mouth sick. The lyricism of Patrick Rothfuss? Not so much. The languid descriptions of Robert Jordan? No. The charming rural laughs of Eddings? No. No. No.

http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2008/03/steel-remains.html

Synopsis

Four millennia have passed since the gods came to Myrillia, creating the nine lands of peace as a haven from the nightmarish, accursed Hinterlands. In all this time nothing has disturbed the harmony of the nine lands.

But now the goddess of the Summering Isles has been murdered. The only witness is Tylar de Noche, a crippled and disgraced former Shadowknight. As he holds the dying goddess, her last breath bestows a powerful blessing on him-a mark that heals his broken body. A mark that many see as proof that he killed a god. A mark that unleashes a powerful force of darkness within him.

Chased across Myrillia by enemies both human and ethereal, Tylar must uncover and face down a being powerful enough to kill an immortal-the true godslayer. For if he fails, all of Myrillia will fall into shadow

Brian Ruckley’s unremittingly bleak Godless World trilogy finds its conclusion with Fall of Thanes, and it’s increasingly obvious that this trilogy was well-named indeed. The descent of a recognisable if basic human civilisation in to barbarity and madness, when higher functions are stripped away by the increasing power of Aeglyss, the half-human, half-kyrinin hybrid, is shown in brutal clarity by Ruckley. Having co-opted the armies of the Black Road and given them a victory over the True Bloods, the power flowing through Aeglyss is corrupting both him and all those around him – random acts of senseless violence abound, and base instincts seem to be overtaking all of the people’s of Ruckley’s wintery world. His taking the rotted city of Kan Avor, reclaimed from the floodwaters, as his base, is a clear symbol of his relationship with decay.
Orisian, the Thane of what is left of the Lannis Blood, continues his mission to defeat Aeglyss by delivering the woman Krina to him – he alone has the vision that she is the key to the half-breed’s defeat. Although there is a touch of Frodo about Orisian, in that he is central to the defeat of the darkness, yet is somehow not as sympathetic as he ought to be, his mission in this volume feels more purposeful and central than it did in the last, and you feel for his ever dwindling retinue as they are gradually picked off by enemies or driven insane by the madness sweeping across the land.

Meanwhile, Kanin, Thane of the Black Road’s Horin Blood, is only prevented from falling in to madness by his overwhelming need for vengeance over Aeglyss, who killed his sister Wain in the previous volume, Bloodheir. Gathering a force of men around him by sheer force of will, his fate is tied up with that of Aeglyss right to the end. As a character who started out firmly on the side of bad, back in Winterbirth, Kanin has become, if not likeable, then at least sympathetic, caught up in a train of events that he helped to start, events that he has not been in control of for quite some time.
We also follow the fate of Orisian’s sister, Anyara, as she is taken south to the capital of the True Bloods as a hostage. There she encounters the High Thane’s chancellor, the Shadowhand, now a puppet of Aeglyss, and his wife. There is a touch of Macbeth about the High Thane, Lheanor, and the havoc wrought by Aeglyss through his proxy is of a different kind to that happening to the north. It is here that we meet again possibly Ruckley’s best creation in terms of sheer force of character, the morbidly obese criminal mastermind Torquentine, who does his bit for the forces of good, even if it is in the name of self-preservation.
Ruckley drives the story along nicely, with a mounting sense of chaos pervading everything, that only the strongest characters are able to resist for any length of time,with a denouement that is violent while perhaps not being quite as dramatic as I had expected. The presentation of Aeglyss as a kind of Christ-figure, suffering on behalf of the people of the world in order to deliver a changed reality, is much more explicit in this volume (at one point he actually has himself crucified to enhance his powers), and the counterpoint between his physical deterioration and his burgeoning power is well handled. Despite the fact that he is the root of the carnage sweeping across the land, it’s possible to see him as a victim of these events too.
If things took a slight dip in the middle volume, Fall of Thanes was for me a strong conclusion to a very enjoyable trilogy, a sequence of books that embodies everything I enjoy about traditional epic fantasy, and I look forward to seeing what Brian Ruckley does next.

Bandit Roads by Richard Grant

Bandit Roads by Richard Grant (Little Brown, £16.99), a former winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, is worth buying for its first and last chapters alone, which have already appeared in the Telegraph Magazine. They manage to convey the author’s fear for his life so vividly that as a reader you are almost as frightened on his behalf.
The book tells of Grant’s exploration of Mexico’s wild western Sierra Madre. Before setting off there he was told: “If you go up in those mountains, you’ll get shot on sight, no questions asked, and the guy who shoots you will probably still have a smile on his face from saying hello.”



Michael Kerr telegraph

Review

'Crusade is a sweeping historical adventure as well as a cracking sequel' --Financial Times

'Intricate but wonderfully written, a romp of a read and an exhilarating ride' --Birmingham Post

Product Description

It is 1274 and in the fortified city of Acre, the last major stronghold of the Crusaders in Palestine, an epic conflict is beginning.

Will Campbell is a Templar Knight, trained for war, but as a member of the mysterious group known as the Brethren, he is also a man of peace. After years of bloodshed, the Brethren have helped to create a truce between the Christians and Muslims. But Will now fears they have been betrayed. King Edward of England has promised the Pope that he will lead a new Crusade, while in Acre itself, a ruthless cabal of Western merchants, profiteering from slaves and armaments, is plotting to reignite hostilities in the Holy Land.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, Sultan Baybars is caught in a power struggle. His son and heir has become involved in the dangerous designs of the insidious soothsayer, Khadir. While Baybars wants to take on the mighty Mongol empire, Khadir and others want to destroy the Christians once and for all.

As war looms, Will is torn between his oath as a Templar, his secret role in the Brethren and his duty to Elwen, the woman he loves but is forbidden to marry. He is caught at the centre of a web of deception and destruction, as he and all those around him rush headlong towards one of the most dramatic moments in history.

"The Edge of the World" stands at almost 600 pages and it is divided into 126 chapters, each told from the POV of one of the main characters, Criston, Adrea, Aldo, Omra, Anjine, Mateo, Hannes, Imir as well as from the POV of several less prominent ones. There are several maps at the beggining of the novel, a glossary of names and places at the end and an interview with the author as well as an extract from the next installment of the trilogy.

Note that the Glossary contains some notable spoilers as I found out to my surprise, so I recommend to avoid it at least for the first 200 or so pages.

The multiple threads of the novel weave very nicely, there are several unexpcted twists and turns and the ending is essentially where the next novel will start. No particular cliffhangers, but no true resolutions either.

Fast moving, engrossing, clear prose and great characters you learn to care about. This is how "The Edge of World" read to me and despite its length I finished it quite quickly since it's a very easy read. However this does not mean straightforward, since the novel twists and turns in quite unexpected directions and when you think you have an idea where it goes next, you are soon confounded.

Also the novel takes place across quite an extended period of time, so we see characters change, grow, children become adults, babies become teenagers and that adds a lot to the depth of the novel in contrast to many series that compress a lifetime worth of events in a short period.

Reading the Glossary early in the novel I found out about one of the major twists and about a character that becomes quite important later on, and that is a reason to avoid doing that at least for a while.

Despite its name, the novel is not a maritime one, most action takes place in palaces, cities and other land based places, though map-making, exploration and voyages of discovery always hover in the background. While saying that hot air balloons play as important a role in the story as ships is an exaggeration, the fact that we can compare the two illustrates the point above.

If you start liking a character a lot, be aware, since Mr. Anderson tends to put them through trials and tribulations that change them and their circumstances a lot, another big plus in my opinion.

Comparing with the "Seven Suns" saga with which this novel shares quite a lot of themes and character sketches, I have to say that the "limited expanse" of the Tierra/Uraba world actually focuses the novel much better, than the sprawling galactic action in "Seven Suns", and while the sense of wonder of the latter is much less seen here, the characters are more interesting, more developed than the somewhat steoretyped ones in "Seven Suns".

So I would say that on the whole "The Edge of the World" is the superior book unless you look only for sense of wonder and unlimited vistas, where "Seven Suns" excels.

"The Edge of the World" was a positive surprise not in that I liked it a lot, which I expected based on my prior experience with "Seven Suns", but in that it is a deeper novel, one that re-reads much better, with characters I really care about and want to see their fates in the next volumes which became true asap's for me.

Highly, highly recommended and a notable 2009 fantasy novel for me.

Review

'... a lively, stimulating account of this bloody day of battle. It is full of both serious research and entertaining gems. Barker makes the politics of the Hundred Years' War lucidly comprehensible.' Erica Wagner, The Times 'She brings vividly to life scenes such as the ceremonial surrender of Harfleur at the outset of the campaign, or the extraordinary pageant mounted by the city of London to celebrate the victorious king's return.' Richard Barber, Literary Review 'Juliet Barker is a talented and versatile historian ... [Her] deep understanding of the late Middle Ages shows in many fascinating asides about contemporary life. Biographical vignettes of the participants, great and small, liven up the pages ... This book is a model of how to write scholarly history for a wide audience' Jonathan Sumption, Evening Standard 'History writ fine, overflowing with extraordinary details ... a milestone in Agincourt studies' Independent

INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

'A gripping story'

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets


Review



This is a true crime classic from the creator of "The Wire".The scene is Baltimore. Twice every three days another citizen is shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned to death. At the centre of this hurricane of crime is the city's homicide unit, a small brotherhood of men confronted by the darkest of American visions. David Simon was the first reporter ever to gain unlimited access to a homicide unit, and his remarkable book is both a compelling account of casework and an investigation into our culture of violence. The narrative follows Donald Worden, a veteran investigator nearing the end of his career; Harry Edgerton, an iconoclastic black detective in a mostly white unit; and Tom Pellegrini, an earnest rookie who takes on the year's most difficult case, the brutal rape and murder of an eleven-year-old girl.

1242 AD and Europe is in flames once more. The King of France, Louis, has decided to stamp out the heretic faith of the Cathars once and for all. The trouble is that Petroc and his mentor, Captain de Montalhac are on the wrong side... For the Captain can no longer ignore his Cathar roots and heads for the Languedoc and war with his former patron. He takes with him not only gold, but also something far more valuable - a mysterious relic depicting the face of Jesus. This 'Cathar Crucifix' will rally a full-scale rebellion against the French Monarchy. But Petroc can see the danger to his friend. Louis possesses a huge army and the necessary ruthlessness to crush all in his path. Now - as Montalhac retreats to the mountain fastness of Montsegur - only Petroc can save his friend - and perhaps the most sacred relic of all...

In A.D. 793 a flotilla of sleek longships sailed out of a storm and onto the windswept beach at the Holy Island of Lindesfarne, off England's north-east coast. The marauders who leapt from these grim-prowed craft sacked the monastery there, slaughtering its monks in what was seen as a strike against civilization itself. This event marks the dawn of the Viking age, an age in which adventurous, ambitious heathens surged from their Scandinavian homelands to raid and trade along the coasts of Europe. Fellowships of warriors, bound by honour and wanderlust, would reach as far as Newfoundland and Baghdad, the sword-song of their battles ringing out in Africa and the Arctic. They were nobles and outcasts, pirates, pioneers and great seafarers. They were the Norsemen.

Being half Norwegian and spending so much time in the fjords, I have always known I would write a Viking novel. As a child, I would look out across the water, letting my imagination summon the image of a dragon-prowed longboat rowed by grizzled, bearded men. I could, if I really concentrated, hear the sound of oars dipping in unison into the sea. I still do it even now! I imagine families standing on the smooth rocks of the shore, waving their menfolk off. I feel the fear knotting in the men's stomachs as they set off in open boats across the North Sea. I feel the prickle excitement beneath my skin. In the summer of 2004 I scribbled down the first words: 'I do not know where I was born. When I was young, I would sometimes dream of great rock walls rising from the sea so high that the sun's warmth never hit the cold, black water....I know nothing of my childhood, of my parents, or if I had brothers and sisters. I do not even know my birth name.' I think this opening was a deliberate attempt to venture beyond my own reality, seeing as I come from a very close, firmly-rooted family. Osric (later Raven) is shunned by society because he is different. He is an outcast. My life may be a little unconventional, but I would like to think I am not entirely outcast!
Much about the novel changed over the two years of writing, but those opening lines made it all the way, and I'm glad about that.
From then on, I just tried to write the sort of book I would want to read, full of battles and adventure, but one which also delves into the mind of a young man thrust into a strange new world. I hope I have succeeded. The book was certainly a lot of fun to write.
Giles Kristian.

Blake (The Pistoleer, 1995, etc.) again demonstrates his talent for mingling historical fact with fiction, in the case here of the Mexican War and the antebellum frontier. Brothers John and Edward Little return to their remote north Florida farm from a search for their runaway sister only to find their father on a murderous rampage. The boys defend themselves and kill their father. Their mother, meanwhile, has fled. Left alone, the teenagers set out for Texas, but they become separated in New Orleans. John, who can't control his violent nature, kills a man and, to escape hanging, joins Zachary Taylor's Mexican Warbound army. Edward, in the meantime, also commits murder but flees to Texas and after several bloody adventures ends up in Mexico. He first joins a company of scalp-hunters, then takes up with a band of Mexican bandits who are ultimately impressed into US Service as the infamous Spy Company. For his part, John deserts the army and joins the St. Patrick's Brigade, composed of Americans (mostly Irishmen) fighting on the Mexican side. Shifting between the brothers' parallel stories, Blake offers a virtual encyclopedia of graphic violence. People are shot, clubbed, knifed, eviscerated, castrated, decapitated, impaled, flayed alive, hanged, scalped, dismembered, blown up, and immolated. And sexual perversions run the gamut from rape to sodomy to incest and necrophilia; only bestiality is omitted. Brutality and grotesque images are played out against invariably blood-red sunsets and dawns.

The only book bloodier than Blood Meridian. Early on I thought Blake was actually trying to outdo McCarthy in the body count, and maybe he was. But Blake is very much his own writer, and there's plenty of the "Old, Weird (and super violent) America" to go around.

Except maybe Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" there is no other book I can think of that compares with Blake's noir, hardcore, historically-based vision of the 1840s west.

In a remote mountain academy, the politically expendable younger sons of the Great Houses study for an extraordinary task. Most will fail, some will die, but the reward for the dedicated few is great: mastery of the andat, and the rank of Poet. Thanks to these men - part sorcerers, part scholars - the great city-states of the Khaiem enjoy wealth and power beyond measure, and the greatest of them all is Saraykeht: glittering jewel of the Summer Cities. There are those in the world, however, who envy such wealth. There are great riches to be had in the Summer and Winter Cities, and only the threat of the andat unleashed holds the enemies of the Khaiem in check. Conflict is brewing in the world. Alliances will be broken and friends betrayed. The lowly will be raised up, the mighty will fall and innocents will be slaughtered. And two men, bound to each other by an act of kindness and an act of brutality, may be all that stands between the civilised world and war. War and something worse ...

In If a Pirate I Must Be..., Richard Sanders tells the larger-than-life story of Bartholomew Roberts, aka Black Bart. Born in a rural town, Roberts rose from third mate on a slave ship to pirate captain in a matter of months. Before long, his combination of audaciousness and cunning won him fame and fortune from the fisheries of Newfoundland to the slave ports of West Africa. Sanders brings to life a fascinating world of theater and ritual, where men (a third of whom were black) lived a close-knit, egalitarian life, democratically electing their officers and sharing their spoils. They were highly (if surreptitiously) popular with many merchants, with whom they struck incredibly lucrative deals. Yet with a fierce team of Royal Navy pirate hunters tracking his every move, Roberts' heyday would prove a brief one, and with his capture, the Golden Age of pirates would pass into the lore and legend of books and movies. Based on historical records and journal and on writings by Roberts himself, If a Pirate I Must Be...is the true story of the greatest pirate ever to sail the Caribbean.

One of the satisfactions of Richard Sanders' book is the revelation of how close pirate mythology is to the truth.

This book is fascinating and a fast read.Richard Sanders admirably satisfies my love for swashbuckling and rollicking pirate tales, whilst providing historical and societal background in great detail.

This book is a great example of how narrative history can be used not just to tell stories about the past but also to illuminate the world in which these events unfolded.

Great book. Although a historical study it reads like a novel and is clearly written by someone with a love for the subject who is able to put the concept of piracy into a greater context.

"The men as they rode turned black in the sun from the blood on their clothes and their faces and then paled slowly in the rising dust until they assumed once more the color of the land through which they passed." If what we call "horror" can be seen as including any literature that has dark, horrific subject matter, then Blood Meridian is, in this reviewer's estimation, the best horror novel ever written. It's a perverse, picaresque Western about bounty hunters for Indian scalps near the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s--a ragged caravan of indiscriminate killers led by an unforgettable human monster called "The Judge." Imagine the imagery of Sam Peckinpah and Heironymus Bosch as written by William Faulkner, and you'll have just an inkling of this novel's power. From the opening scenes about a 14-year-old Tennessee boy who joins the band of hunters to the extraordinary, mythic ending, this is an American classic about extreme violence.