BLOG TOUR - STRINGERS

TITLE - STRINGERS 

WRITTEN BY - CHRIS PANATIER 

PUBLISHED BY - ANGRY ROBOT BOOKS 

PUBLICATION DATE - 12TH APRIL 2022 

Page 20 of Chris Panatier’s “Stringers” contains this sentence - “She’d added muscle like a rutting brymlack on a torpgrub diet”. If that sentence appears perfectly normal to you, then you need to read this book.

I fear I may run out of adjectives to describe this extravagantly bonkers yet deeply profound book by the end of this review. The crazy plot involves Ben, an unwilling fount of amazing/pointless facts about natural science (and watches) which have appeared unbidden in his brain from an early age. Seeking out other sufferers on the Dark Web, he agrees to meet one of them who turns out to be an alien bounty hunter tasked with capturing Ben and others with the same gift, known as “stringers”. A galactic search for a devastating concept known only as The Chime ensues. Also, a stubborn jar of pickles plays a large part…

The supporting characters, especially the alien Naecia who has her own, more traditionally sci-fi narrative thread, are fully fleshed-out and individually interesting. Panatier juggles varied, exciting story strands which cleverly intersect whilst never dropping any of the narrative balls in what is quite an intricate and serious story, despite its humorous overtones. He takes a complex idea (people who can access the minds of dead people on the same “string” and their obscure and sometimes valuable knowledge) and creates a fun and accessible novel. “Stringers” is written very much in the same vein as Douglas Adams (there’s even a Babel Fish reference) or Jasper Fforde, the latter especially present in Panatier’s use of footnotes, which offer fascinating tidbits of Ben’s labyrinthine knowledge of the sex lives of bugs. The footnotes are actually highly relevant to the plot and shouldn’t be ignored.

This is not hard sci-fi, just a ridiculously fun romp with believable characters and a surprising amount of depth amidst the jokes. “Stringers” is incredibly easy to read and the plot moves at a satisfying pace that never becomes boring, with moments of great poignancy on the theme of friendship. Fresh and inventive, “Stringers” is naughty, sweary, heartbreaking and brilliant - with great big dollops of nerdiness, pop culture references and sexy alien tech. If you’ve ever argued about an episode of Blake’s 7 in a comic shop, “Stringers” is the book you need right now.

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THE EMPLOYEES

TITLE - THE EMPLOYEES

WRITTEN BY - OLGA RAVN | TRANSLATED BY MARTIN AITKEN

PUBLISHED BY - BOOK'HUG PRESS 

PUBLICATION DATE - 8TH MARCH 2022 

Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize (given to translated books), “The Employees” is a short science-fiction novel by Danish author Olga Ravn which tells the story of a spaceship manned by humans and humanoids (basically a kind of artificially “grown” human) and the consequences of their discovery of alien lifeforms on a planet. Both types of crewmembers begin to become attached to the aliens and start yearning for things and people they left behind on Earth whilst trying to maintain their strictly controlled productivity levels. This inevitably leads to conflict.

Now this is not a straightforward novel. It is told in the form of written “statements” taken from interviews with the crew during the unfolding of the story. This works quite well, and a palpable tension is built as the story is told through these snippets; some are a couple of pages long, others just one sentence. You will not know who is talking to begin with, but after a while a few different characters can be discerned, and you will come to understand who they are and the parts they play in the story.

I am not going to spoil the ending, but it would not take a genius to work out what happens. Even so, this book is a short but imaginative and often quietly profound examination of the dominance of work in our lives and ultimately what it means to be human.

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DUSKBORN RADIANCE Vol. 1 - A MOTHER'S QUESTION

TITLE  - DUSKBORN RADIANCE Vol. 1 - A MOTHER'S QUESTION 

WRITTEN BY - PASQUALE DI FALCO 

PUBLISHED BY - ATMOSPHERE PRESS 

PUBLICATION DATE - 28TH OCTOBER, 2021 

In the opening chapter of “Duskborn Radiance Volume 1 - A Mother’s Question”, we are introduced to siblings Caterina, Dominic and Amadeus and their fellow villagers who are all Brethren. Watched from afar by a mysterious sorceress, all three are on the path to a destiny they cannot imagine, and may not even be ready for. This coming-of-age is set against the cosmos-spanning drama of good versus evil that is playing out in the universe around them. 

Pasquale di Falco has an interesting writing style; well-suited to the fantasy genre, it takes some getting used to but if you give it a chance, the story really flows as all the usual fantasy tropes are thrown into the mix; simple folk living a simple life in a rustic village with hints of faded magic and a shadowy enemy. But this is turned on its head in the next chapter as we’re thrust into a hard-boiled sci-fi story on a cruise-ship in space, and Di Falco proves himself adept at writing for this genre too. The reader is left wondering what this has to do with the world we have just been introduced to, but the relevance soon becomes apparent. Di Falco manages to create a palpable sense of growing power, both benign and malevolent. In this sense it is very much a slow-burning story that rewards close attention, and tasks the reader to patiently discover its secrets.

The story does feel a little bogged down at times with exposition and world-building, and the history of the world is sometimes a little hard to follow, but the characters are well-realised and the story is deep and absorbing so you don’t mind the odd slow paragraph. When you get properly into the story you realise the stakes are not just high, they are stratospheric. 

The story is blessed with a colourful cast of characters and alien species, including a female with a forehead a foot high. There are little character quirks such as Caterina having very long hair which she neither cuts nor washes, leading to her being admonished by her mother. The villain of the piece is wonderfully evil but also subtly nuanced, so he is much more than just a baddie.

Merely the beginning of an epic new fantasy fable, “A Mother’s Question” is a genre-busting triumph and I can’t wait to see where the series goes next.

 

INHIBITOR PHASE

 “Inhibitor Phase” is the latest novel by Alastair Reynolds and is a return to his ongoing Revelation Space universe. 

Deep underground on a rocky, desolate planet called Michaelmas, one of the last outposts of mankind struggles to survive whilst staying hidden from the alien Inhibitors, known as “wolves”, who want to eradicate humanity. On a mission to destroy a passing spaceship before it betrays their presence, Miguel de Ruyter encounters a lone survivor who may know more than she’s letting on. The woman, known only as Glass, will lead Miguel on a quest for a weapon which may end the Inhibitor threat. 

It’s been a while since I’ve read one of Alastair’s books, but it all came flooding back as I re-immersed myself in the Revelation Space world. Reynolds has created a living, breathing space empire, so even while reading a story about one isolated part, you still get the sense of a much larger universe affecting events; an universe of sentient spaceships and omnipotent life-destroying weapons. 

Whilst this is a standalone book, there is a moderate amount of recapping of previous events in the Revelation Space saga, but that’s to be expected as it has to pull centuries of backstory behind it. The preface assures us that whilst this book can be read without prior knowledge of the preceding books (I recommended reading them all anyway, if you haven’t already), it does reference them a little but without major spoilers. The preface includes a short intro to the major events of the Revelation Space universe and a more detailed timeline, glossary and list of prominent characters is provided at the back of the book. 

The first part introduces us to the story’s main characters; Miguel de Ruyter, the administrator of the outpost and the survivor, who calls herself Glass, who will have a profound effect on both Miguel and the colony. Both characters are superbly written, and as usual there is a colourful cast of equally well-drawn supporting characters. There is plenty of hard sci-fi technology but Reynolds’ never lets it overwhelm the story. His prose, while dense in places, crackles with energy and import, and his distinctive style will soon have you in its grip. The story is pacy, exciting and often gory and brutal, but there are moments of humour - Reynolds even manages to squeeze in a “Game of Thrones” reference - and the relationship between Miguel and Glass sparkles first with sassiness and eventually grudging acceptance as they learn to work together and even to rely on each other. The story builds to a thrilling ending as we’ve come to expect from Reynolds. 

Alastair Reynolds’ books have always been among the hardest of hard sci-fi, but he never loses sight of the human factor, no matter how altered humans become, or how enormous in scope his stories are. And they are big, with “Inhibitor Phase” being no exception; space journeys take decades, characters go into suspended animation or “reefersleep” for extended periods. This is epic sci-fi, but in the end the story hinges on human decisions. 

This novel is every bit as good as the earlier books in the Revelation Space saga, and reading it is like slipping on a favourite old jumper. Fans of those books should not hesitate to buy this. Vast, epic yet very human, “Inhibitor Phase” is vintage Alastair Reynolds.

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