Andy Graham Author

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One Book Interview #43 – Brian Barr (Author)

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The One Book Interview train rumbles relentlessly on, and this week we have . . .

A speculative fiction author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.

A lover of dystopian, Orwell, weird sci fi and the occult.

An artist and author.

Good people of the Internet, writing out of somewhere in the US (I have no idea where!) – Brian Barr

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

Otherland by Tad Williams. I am a writer who loves to mix genre and I love epic writing as well. Tad’s Otherland mixes genre on an expert level- it’s a science-fiction book, but there are fantasy elements, and fantastic world building. The characterization is believable and intriguing. His chapter cliffhangers are exciting, and each chapter just makes you want to read more. His series wrapped up perfectly and it seemed he took the time to comb through his series as expertly as possible, to tie up all ends and make such a complex story complete.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

Aristoi by Walter Jon Williams. It’s a great space opera and probably the first sci-fi novel I read. I’d have to read something science-fiction based while leaving the planet.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

A Clockwork Orange. I found it in my uncle’s old room at my grandparent’s house when I was about 15 or so. It became one of my favorite books. Just the way Anthony Burgess plays with language is incredible.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

That would be a mix between Serpent King: Shadow and Light, which is my latest novel, and Carolina Daemonic Book II: Rebel Hell, which is currently being edited by Leza Cantoral. Serpent King was my chance to play with science-fantasy and tell an epic tale in a standalone novel that may or may not have future books to follow it. Book II: Rebel Hell is the second book of my Carolina Daemonic series, and hits on a lot of dark themes with the world building already established from the first book, so I’m able to dive into a lot of action and wild scenes in the second book while continuing a through, complex story with difficult politics.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

Wow. That’s a hard one. Maybe The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky because it looked at a variety of personalities and gave a deep analysis of where all the characters were coming from, why they thought the way they did, why they chose certain actions. That book helped me understand that everyone’s different, and what may work for one person may not work for another.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

So many books. I think the main book that hit on the what I wanted to write was The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker, which I read in high school. I knew I liked horror, and although I hadn’t gotten heavy into epic fantasy, I knew I liked fantasy. Clive Barker was the first author who showed me the main way I like to write- horror and dark fiction mixed with fantasy and occult themes, with a flair for philosophical probing and interest in art, the act of creating itself. Clive just seemed like a natural influence on me. I grew up with Stephen King in the house, and though I love King, it was Clive who showed me horror that was “my” horror.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

I have three novels out, and a variety of short stories out at the moment. I would like people to read my latest novel, Serpent King: Shadow and Light, to get familiar with my genre mixing, characterization, and world-building. You can get it on Amazon.

Then, I would ask that people check out Carolina Daemonic: Confederate Shadows, which was my debut novel and the first of my Carolina Daemonic series. This book tackles heavy social and political issues. It has a prosier start than my following novels; I like that about it, since I had to discuss and cover a lot of ground to build a dystopian world that is not that different from our own. As an Orwell fan and a lover of alternative timelines, I was drawn towards making my own dystopian fiction. Carolina Daemonic mixes steampunk, the occult, and weird science in an urban horror-fantasy hybrid. Like Serpent-King, it’s multigenre. I also have a lot of short stories in this series as well.

 

You can find Brian at: www.brianbarrbooks.com

Sunlight hits the tapestry of ovular golden designs stretched across the outside of opulent dome-shaped ruins on my home world, possessed by Reptilian poltergeists. I revisit this planet often, the cradle of my origins, and the remaining puzzle piece of the people responsible for half of my ancestry. I am reckless and ashamed inside whenever I sojourn to this wretched ball, so I mustn’t stay long. If I do, then I’ll smash down more walls, cause damage to a few more palaces, and continue to endanger the preservation of this place’s essential yet painful history.

My tortured, tragic beginnings were composed upon Naga, the planet’s interlaced lands and oceans ruled by the greatest civilization of the Draco constellation. My Reptilian people taught me how to hunt, strike, and kill. They showed me how to conquer. In return, I killed them all. Vengeance was the reason behind their demise, for they did more to me and my parents than they did for us, but I often wonder if the annihilation of my people was truly worth it.

Possibly not, if the visions of my mother and father are to be trusted. Their ghosts seem to be lost within the ghostly soup of this possessed planet, contaminated with the shared suffering and agony of serpentine spirits trapped on the once grand world of Naga. My vengeance was in their honor more than my own. If they are truly underworld slaves here, then this planet has every right to shame me.

Truly, I am the greatest subjugator ever spawned from the Reptilians. Naga should be a trophy on my cosmic mantelpiece, a triumphant reminder of my first success as a solitary conquistador. Instead, it is a contaminated burden, adulterated with memories that, akin to the birth world in my collection, I can never let go of, ultimately. My blood and past will always bond me to Naga, for I am Zian Axakil Din’amu Ur, born a commander general’s son, reborn as the Serpent King

Cosmic colonialism, extremist planetary nationalism, and alien genocide are abound in the Dracos Constellation, where the Reptilians rule without mercy. Enter Serpent King, a dark occult science-fantasy novel following the origins of Zian Ur, the last of the Nagans and a cosmic conquistador with a unique destiny.

 

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Please note I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon sites.

 

One Book Interview #42 – Rob Hayes (Author)

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After a collection of posts by dark fiction and horror writers, we move sideways, via steampunk, into fantasy and grimdark.

Author #42 also gives us the most authentic profile picture to date.

(And a stunning book cover for question 7.)

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Derbyshire, UK – Rob Hayes

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

Retribution Falls (1st in the Tales of the Ketty Jay series) by Chris Wooding. Followed quickly by the Black Lung Captain, because you really need to read the 1st book first, but the 2nd book is better. Honestly, I just love the entire Ketty Jay series so very much. They have it all: gun fights, sword fights, dog fights, thrilling chases, epic swashbuckling action, demons, warlocks, golems, a fist fight with a cat, devious religions, ancient secrets, and so very much more, all wrapped up in Chris Wooding’s explosive style.

I first read the book one day when I came down with the flu and it might well be the fastest I’ve ever read a book. I zipped through it and couldn’t put it down. So yeah, everyone should read Retribution Falls so I can have endless conversations about it, and maybe one day we can all convince Chris to write more stories in that world.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

How about I answer by pointing out that I was once marooned on an island in Fiji for 3 months… Well it wasn’t so much marooned as stationed there while researching coral reefs, but that’s beside the point. I actually took 2 books with me during my maroonment and they were Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton because I figured if I was going to live on a desert island for a bit I should probably dream of dinosaurs. And the other book I took was Game of Thrones by the GRRM Reaper himself. Actually that was the very first time I read anything by George and it was so very painful not having access to any of the later books. Of course now I realise that 3 months waiting in GRRM time is nothing.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

I’d go with Damoren (book 1 of the Valducan series) by Seth Skorkowsky. It’s an urban fantasy series where demons are hunted by templar knights who wield semi-sentient holy weapons. The hunters form bonds with their weapons which gives it a sort of dual peril aspect. It’s bloody and nail biting and gruesome and again it only gets better as the series goes on.

Now I’m not usually fan of urban fantasy, in fact I have never read another urban fantasy that I liked, but Seth’s stuff is brilliant. It reminds me of the Hellsing anime and has that same dark feel to it.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

I could cheat a little here and say City of Kings (coming 2018), but I’ll stick to the books I’ve already published. I’d go with The Fifth Empire of Man (Best Laid Plans Book 2). It’s actually my most recent release and continues the piratical story I started in Where Loyalties Lie.

I had an absolute blast writing about my pirates and the vulgar, dangerous world they inhabit. But for me I would say the 2nd book in the series is my favourite because it has so much more going on in it with crazy treasure hunts, massive naval battles, and a race to see who will get to sit on the pirate throne.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

I think I’d say The Dark Portal (book 1 of The Deptford Mice) by Robin Jarvis. I’m a lifelong fan of the fantasy genre and I’m fairly certain it was this book that kicked it all off for me back when I was still but a child. I was a fairly sickly child and my mother and father both worked, so I often found myself alone during those sick days. Sometimes my mother would rent a video from Blockbuster for me, and sometimes she nip to the library to borrow a book or two. One such time she borrowed The Dark Portal and I devoured it as quickly as I was able. I may even have claimed I was ill for a little longer than I actually was just to finish the book. It was the very first fantasy book I can remember reading, and it set me down the path I’m on today

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

On a professional level. I’d go with Aurian (book 1 of The Artefacts of Power) by Maggie Furey. This was the book, and the series, that made me want to give the whole writing thing a go. I’d always made up stories here and there in my head, but it wasn’t until reading Aurian that I started sitting down at a keyboard and trying to turn those dreams into coherent stories. I failed. Back then I failed so very hard. But it was a starting point for me. Twenty years (or so) later and here I am, a professional author. So I’d say Aurian was pretty influential.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

I would start with The Heresy Within (The Ties that Bind Book 1). It’s the book that started my career and the first in the much longer First Earth Saga, which will eventually encompass multiple series. It’s a sort of fantasy spaghetti western where the Bad, the Worse, and the Ugly have to put aside trying to kill each other to face a common enemy. You can expect magic wielding witch hunters, legendary swordswomen, and a world that is trying its very best to kill them all. And you can find it on Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble

You can find Rob at www.robjhayes.co.uk

Rob J. Hayes is a UK based fantasy author of both Grimdark and Steampunk. His love of pirates, witch hunters, vikings, and cowboys has influenced his work far and wide and they can all be found in the pages of The Ties that Bind and Best Laid Plans.

 

 

 

 

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One Book Interview #40 – A Birthday

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The One Book Interview reaches forty this week. It has a few more aches and pains in the morning than it did when  it turned eighteen, but it’s still going strong.

To celebrate its 40th birthday, here’s a look back through the last few months – words seen through numbers.

We’ve had:

39 interviews, of which 38 are authors and 1 is an editor;

3 book reviews;

7 questions to each person;

a total of 270 different books mentioned (39 people picking 1 book for 7 questions should be 270, so we’re almost exactly right).

Which books?

Classics, indies, short stories, epic fantasy series, and even a photographic book of sharecroppers in Alabama in the early-mid 20th century.


Some books have appeared more than once (I’ve excluded multiple mentions of people’s own books).

Before we get to the answers, most of the participating authors write dystopia, horror and dark fiction so their book choices may not be a complete surprise. If you fancy, have a guess at what the top choices could be.

I’ll wait.

Done?

In reverse order, and starting with the new entries, these are the top choices:

(All book covers link to Amazon UK)

The Wheel of Time – 2x

The Shining – 2x

Ready Player One – 2x

1984 – 2x

Neuromancer – 2x

Imajica – 2x

The Dice Man – 2x

Animal Farm – 2x

The following books appeared in the 18th Birthday post.

The number of times they have appeared in total is given first; the number of times they appeared in the 18th Birthday is given in brackets.

Death Becomes Her – 2x (2x)

Little Bee – 2x (2x)

Pride & Prejudice – 2x (2x)

Think & Grow Rich – 2x (2x)

The Name of the Wind – 2x (2x)

Harry Potter – 3x (Did not appear in the 18th Birthday)


To Kill a Mockingbird – 3x (3x)


The Lord of the Rings – 4x (4x)

A song of Ice and Fire – 6x (2x)

The Martian – 6x (3x)

The Bible – 7x (6x)

The Bible still has reviews on Amazon! GOD hasn’t struck down the non-believers since I pointed it out last time.

The Stand – 8x (2x)

On Writing – 8x (3x)

The fact that there have been some additions since the eighteenth birthday edition is not surprising given there have been 38 interviews rather than 18. What is interesting is that most of the book choices remain unchanged. ASOIAF and The Martian have gone up a few places. LOTR is a non-mover. Stephen King, however, has knocked The Bible off the top spot with not one, but two books.

Mr King deserves a special mention, in that his books have cropped up more than anyone else’s:

The Talisman

The Running Man

Roadwork

Rage

The Long Walk

It

Gerald’s Game

Different Seasons

Carrie

On Writing

The Stand

Once more, a huge thank you to all the authors that have taken part up to this point.

 

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Turner by Karl Drinkwater

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Following on from the review of The Rest Will Come earlier this week, here’s one of Turner by Karl Drinkwater.

Why two reviews in one week?

Purely because I can. 🙂

The One Book Interview will be back next week with, I hope, something special.

So, before we get to the review, what’s it about?

Some Islands Don’t Welcome Visitors.

An isolated Welsh island seemed like the perfect escape for a convict on the run, a jilted woman, and a policeman seeking a quiet life. When the surly locals turn to murderous violence the three visitors are forced to flee together, trying to stay one step ahead of their increasingly insane pursuers.

The bad news keeps coming. There are too many to fight. There is no escape from the island. And the worst storm in years has just begun. They can only run and hide as they face a night of horror and madness. If they don’t work together then none of them will live to see the light of day.

This tense survival horror novel is a homage to decades of nasty villains, scary predicaments, and bloody books and films.

My thoughts?

Turner is a good book which has the potential to be great.

The things that stood out for me:

The opening section was genuinely chilling – a great example of the main character’s environment being just slightly off at first and then building to a climax.

The prose is evocative – fantastic descriptions of the Welsh countryside.

The sentence structure is superb – a very clever use of long vs. short to build and ease tension.

The lighthouse scene was a classic case of one more chapter before I turn the light out (and skipping forwards a few chapters to get a sneak peak of what happens).

There are some clever twists and a few gruesome moments.

I love the cover!

There are a few things I wasn’t so keen on.

After the opening section, a few chapters were a little confusing in that there was too much jumping from one character/ place to another.

The main villain is bordering on cartoon-like. I would have preferred him to be more rounded. Similarly, I’d have liked some of the violence to be a bit more subtle. I have no problems with people writing about violence, but the truly scary stuff in the book was the anticipation of the terror and the moments when the author left me floundering in my own imagination.

A few sections made me feel I was being spoon fed info.

The use of Welsh for some of the characters conversations got in the way of the flow of the text. I like the idea of using Welsh to add to the flavour of the book, but I found it lessened the tension when I wanted things to be going quicker.

All in all, Turner is well worth a read, but I feel it could have been so much more harrowing in places.

Four stars.

Turner appears in this collection of all three of Karl’s books. I’ve also read Harvest Festival (review coming soon), which I highly recommend.

The collection is currently priced at 2.95 GBP, which is scandalously cheap for three books.

If you’re interested in reading the words behind the words, i.e. what Karl reads when he’s not writing, you can check out his interview below. (From a million years ago.)

One Book Interview #2 – Karl Drinkwater (Author)

 

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The Rest Will Come by Christina Bergling

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Yesterday you had the interview; today you get the book review – Christina Bergling’s novel The Rest Will Come

Let’s get the disclaimers out of the way:

1 – I received a free copy of the book. Since finishing it, I’ve bought a copy. (As I’ve mentioned before, we need to support the arts – musicians, authors, artists and so on. If you don’t, they won’t be many of us left before long.)

2 – Confessions of a Reviewer who are organising this for Christina have represented me in the past.

None of those have influenced my review and what follows is an honest opinion.

So, before we get to the review, what’s it about?

Murder can be risky…and not just for the douchebags on the business end of Emma’s power
saw.
Men only let Emma down. They cheat, and they lie. They send unsolicited pictures of their
genitals. Ready to give up hope, Emma decides to go on one last date. Then it finally happens—
she finds the thing she loves most of all.
Killing clueless jerks she finds on the internet.
Lost in a happy haze of hunting her victims, devising increasingly-clever killings, and
streamlining her dismemberment process, Emma gets careless.
As her need for her murderous outlet grows, she runs an increasing risk of getting caught…or
worse—falling for one of her victims.

The verdict?

I’m afraid to say I wasn’t too keen on this book. It had a lot of potential but failed to live up to it.

(I’m going to try and avoid any spoilers in the review so please excuse any vague statements.)

Let’s start with the good stuff.

Great cover and tagline: murder might be her one true love.

The overall premise is good: a woman who is utterly frustrated by her repeated failures with men (some do sound like ‘douchebags’ to be fair) so comes up with an extreme solution.

The opening is strong.

There are some nice lines in the text (‘roommates with rings’ & ‘wrapped around a digital finger’ spring to mind) and a few choice descriptions.

I like the ‘life reversal’ of the protagonist and her best friend and the feelings that brought up.

The humour is world-weary and realistic.

The passages about running were great. (The author runs and this shows.)

No typos! (Shouldn’t even need to be said…)

However, there were some issues that got in the way of these positives.

The timeline jumped around too much at the beginning. The narrative caught up nicely with the opening paragraphs later in the book, but the initial time changes threw me.

There were some sudden scene shifts throughout the story which weren’t immediately obvious.

I think the prose would have been more effective had the descriptions been sparser. As it is, it slows the pace down too much. There were also a few expressions which left me scratching my head and wondering what the author meant.

A large chunk felt like backstory: why the protagonist does what she does and a blow-by-blow account of how she got where she was. This, again, slowed the book down.

Similarly, I found the action scenes lacking tension. With one exception, everything happened too easily for the protagonist: what she did, how she did it, and how she got away with it. Maybe this was the point, but it made the whole experience too flat.

I think the contrast between who the protagonist becomes and her relationship with her best friend could have been expanded on. It was touched upon near the end, (the relationship between these two people was one of the book’s highlights)  but I think there was so much more potential there.

As for the end, I was hoping for a climax of some sorts. I saw part of the end coming a long way back in the text, but the exact resolution was a surprise. It’s a quirky way of doing ‘a happily ever after’ that is very clever in some respects but left me feeling high and dry.

All in all, there was enough I liked in the story to consider reading another book by the author, but I’m afraid I didn’t enjoy this one too much.

Three stars.

If you’re interested in reading the words behind the words, i.e. what Christina reads when she’s not writing, you can check out her interview below.

One Book Interview #39 – Christina Bergling (Author)

 

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One Book Interview #37 – CM Saunders (Author)

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The Welshman’s here.

Living in exile.

Fueled by ghosts from his country’s past.

With a writing career that stretches from China all the way back to the Somme. (Via a few lad mags.)

Good people of the Internet, writing out of London, UK – Chris Saunders.

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

This might a left field choice for a horror buff, but I’m going to nominate The Dice Man by Luke Rhineheart. If you aren’t familiar with the plot, it’s about a psychologist who begins to question his life, and starts making decisions based on the throw of a dice. He uses the dice to determine everything from what to have for breakfast to what to do when faced with huge, life-changing decisions with far-reaching consequences. There are a lot of things you can read into it (forgive the pun) but to me, using the dice in this manner means you remove all responsibility for your actions and put all your faith and confidence into something else. Luck? Destiny? God? Some other higher power? Who knows. It’s the ultimate freedom. Try the dice life for a while and see where it takes you. It’s liberating.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

That’s a good question. If I could only take one book, it would have to be something weighty, complex and fitting, as well as entertaining and somehow relevant. Based on those criteria, there’s only one I can choose, and that’s The Stand by Stephen King. The complete and unabridged version because at over 1100 pages, it’s bound to keep me occupied for a while. It’s not my favourite book of his, but I can’t think of anything better to help herald the birth of a brave new world.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

I’m one of those cheap fuckers who are always browsing Amazon for bargains. Earlier this year, I picked up a couple of books by a writer I hadn’t heard of before called Amy Cross. One was called The Cabin, and I think the other was Battlefield. Both blew me away. Since then I have been reading as many of her books as I can, but it’s difficult as she seems to write faster than I can read. It’s disconcerting.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

Sker House, my paranormal mystery novel. The reason it is so important to me is because much of it is based on fact. The location is real, as is much of the history and even some of the stories I allude to in the book. I also managed to weave in some local folk and ghostlore for good measure. To say the area is rich in source material would be an understatement. The story wrote itself, all I had to do was invent some characters, insert them in the existing framework, and give them something to do. The house is situated on the Welsh coast near Bridgend, and I used to visit a lot when I was a child. I wrote the first draft of the book six or seven years ago when I lived in China, then I put it through another edit and finally released it last year. Funnily enough, it’s also my biggest seller.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

This is too hard. I’m going to have to choose an entire series of books, and can only hope that’s within the rules. That series is Alfred Hitchcock & the Three Investigators. These were the first books I remember reading after the obligatory Enid Blyton period (or was that just me?). More than that, they were the first books I remember actively seeking out, in the way of scouring book shops and library shelves. Apart from being exciting boys adventure stories, the books also helped instill morals and a code of ethics. The truth was always revealed, and good always triumphed over evil. Things are rarely so cut and dried in real life, of course, but when you’re young you believe that’s how the world will (or at least should) be, and for that reason they probably had a profound effect on my formative years. I only realized a few years ago that Hitchcock didn’t actually write any of them. A man called Robert Arthur Jnr did, and just used Hitchcock’s name to attract attention.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

This might not be the most original choice, but I’m going to have to choose Stephen King’s On Writing. I read it when it first came out in 2000 when I was just starting out on my writing career. I’d had a few short stories published in the small press and a couple of anthologies, but that book is a gold mine of solid, workable information and practical advice. Just by reading it my writing improved by a considerable amount. More than anything, it instilled a kind of belief in me and threw open the door to a new world. On Writing breaks down ‘the craft’ and makes it appear simple, giving the reader a deeper, more profound understanding of even the most complex aspects.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

My latest release – Human Waste would probably be a good starting point. It’s the story of a prepper who wakes up one morning to find the world overrun with bloodthirsty zombies. But all might not be what it seems. A couple of reviewers have said that my writing often contains a sardonic twist of humour. It can be quite hard to identify, but it’s nearly always there. With Human Waste I wanted to push that aspect a little further. I usually stay away from the more extreme brand of horror. Too much of it comes across as unsophisticated and tacky. But I wrote a story for DOA 3 earlier this year (a series of anthologies on Bloodbound Books which cater toward the more visceral end of the spectrum) and really enjoyed it so that was something else I wanted to explore further.

You can find Chris at www.cmsaunders.wordpress.com

C.M. Saunders is a UK-based freelance journalist and editor. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in over 60 magazines, ezines and anthologies, including Loaded, Record Collector, Fantastic Horror, Trigger Warning, Liquid imagination, and the Literary Hatchet. His books have been both traditionally and independently published, the most recent being Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Uncut), and Human Waste, both of which are available now on Deviant Dolls Publications. He is represented by Media Bitch literary agency.

 

 

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