Ok, not “of doom”, exactly, but I’m hoping to get a job writing headlines for the UK tabloid press.

First up, another great review of The Bookman – this time, from The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf and Book Review:

One of the fascinating aspects of Steampunk is how authors alter the timeline and introduce historical characters, which The Bookman has in spades. The story starts off a bit sedately, but quickly moves into something all action oriented with nary a slow spot. The world building is immense as Tidhar has warped history into something altogether wonderful and exciting, which also shows the authors great love for the written word and the power it can convey.

While over at Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews, author Lavie Tidhar is grilled (in the questioning sense, not culinary):

M(DW): I read that you define your writings as weird fiction. Why an attraction towards the weird? Why do you define your works as weird fiction?

LT: I can’t really answer the why of it. I just tend to have this skewered way of viewing the world, I guess. The thing is, I like writing different things, mixing different genres, trying different approaches, and the only common denominator for them is the “weird”, is that they’re all kind of skewered. But I’d hate to be stuck in one single genre or sub-genre or whatever. I still want to write a cookbook! And I have this dream of one day writing a Mills & Boon romance…

And the first review of Matt Forbeck’s hi-octane scifi adventure, Amortals is already in, courtesy of the Writing and Reading blog:

It’s gripping, exciting, imaginative… It would could make a great film, but it’s a great book anyway so read it, whether you like scifi or not!

Amortals is out next month in the UK and Australia, and June in the US and Canada.

Have a great Friday.

Before we talk about the nature of reviews (and reviewers) let’s take a few quotes from a review over at FantasyLiterature.com where King Maker is under the spotlight:

The premise of King Maker is simply awesome

Maurice Broaddus’ writing creates a dangerous and authentic mood. The language is fierce and evokes the gritty realism of life on the streets. When the supernatural elements are introduced, they drift through the novel like smoke, leaving the reader gradually horrified as the end game is reached.

the dialogue is very effectively written

all of [the characters] are written in shades of grey

For some, King Maker is going to be the best read of 2010.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the reviewer adores this book as much as we do, but she doesn’t. As she is someone as far removed from Indianapolis gangland life as you can possibly get, she found the dialogue difficult to get through at times, and there are a few “extremely gruesome scenes” that she had difficulty in reading, but the interesting thing about this review is that, although the reviewer didn’t particularly enjoy the read, she acknowledged that “sometimes you just don’t ‘fit’ with a book” and that she has “the sneaking suspicion that other readers will love this book.”

She’s right. As a former book reviewer for several magazines, I know how important it is for the right person to read a book for review – no point, for instance,  in giving a visceral horror to a paranormal romance aficionado, no matter how great the title, they won’t enjoy the ride.

So, it’s refreshing to find a review from someone who didn’t particuarly gel with a title, and find that they don’t blame the book, nor themselves, but the synergy between the two.

And for what it’s worth, we’ll take a negative – but well-rounded –  review such as the one above, over an overtly positive but nothing-to-say review, all the time.

Oh, and King Maker is in the shops this Thursday – but before you go buy a copy, just re-read the comments quoted above, from a reviewer who didn’t fit with the book. Yeah, you want a copy…

A few more excellent reviews have surfaced over the last few days:

At Only the Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Lavie Tidhar’s debut, The Bookman is reviewed. They describe it as:

steampunk in 3D! Highly recommended

Guy Adams’ weird and wonderful modern fantasy The World House gets more praise over at Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review:

It’s not often that I find myself tearing through a book, desperate to find out how it all ends but at the same time trying to hold back and drag out such an enjoyable reading experience for as long as possible. It’s even less often that I find myself doing this with a book that can be so unrelentingly dark and sinister. This was my experience of the ‘World House’; a book that reeled me in and had me hooked before I even realised that I’d taken the bait. I didn’t mind in the slightest.

This is the kind of book that ‘Best of Lists’ were made for. Nine and Three Quarters out of Ten

Oh, yeah!

Thomas Blackthorne’s near future ultra-violent SF thriller Edge, meanwhile, has been causing a bit of a stir over at Science Fiction and Fantasy.co.uk:

The characters themselves are wonderfully fleshed out and their interaction is quite mesmerising.
… an intelligent, slick and brilliantly executed novel with a quite unexpected but superbly scripted ending.