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Bee Speaker - Adrian Tchaikovsky

You know what? I sometimes struggle when Adrian Tchaikovsky puts out a new book. Because I tend to explode with breathless enthusiasm, and then wonder whether I'm overdoing it. The problem, though, is that I have to keep doing it, because the man keeps turning out truly excellent work. Annoyingly, therefore, I have to say that with Bee Speaker, he's done it again. 

This book is the third in a series that started with Dogs of War, which was probably my favourite story of 2017. You can read it as a standalone as well, I think, but it definitely helps to have the context from Dogs and 2021's Bear Head. Because this is a story of a world that's broken, and about the  results of best intentions in trying to fix it from far, far away. Because this is a post-collapse Earth. One where we all just fought each other a little too long, and a little too hard. Where hubris and cruelty edged out empathy and humanity, where faith and humanity lost out to CEO's burning rainforests to try and make themselves immortal. But, it's a world surrounded by marvels. Because before things got out of hand, there was Mars. A Mars colonised by genetically engineered life, and regular people, who managed to survive the collapse of Earth, build something together in the harshest conditions, and who are now casting an eye back toward where they came from. Or at least, some version of them did. Because the people who live on Mars, these days, are different to how we might remember them. But they're still people. Even the ones who aren't.

That includes a very diverse cast indeed, a crew of adventurers looking to answer a call for help from Bees. The distributed intelligence called Bees, you see, helped save Mars once, when it was falling into collapse, and now a version of Bees is somewhere on Earth, calling for help. And so help is coming. Help looks like a reptilian sniper with an attitude problem, who can dial their own internal temperature up and down to move from cold strategy sessions to explosive action at the twitch of a dial. And A Dog, a canine hybrid originally built for war, now looking to build something new. And a couple of regular humans, whose ability to survive on the grounds of post-Collapse earth is rather open to question. Because this isn't the place their ancestors left, no. There's shades of A Canticle for Leibowitz here in a monastery that worships Bees, in the raiding gang of bunker dwellers obsessed with their own ideas of chivalry, while holding a dark secret in their hears, in the Factory, a place which keeps turning out Dogs, both as protection and as a means of influence, even when they no longer quite fit in a world reduced to subsistence agriculture in the ruins of abundance. 

Man, Tchaikovsky has a lot going on. He's always had big ideas, and this is definitely a whole mixture of them. But it's also an adventure, as our band of adventurers try to help, and even as they work on making things better, the sparks they use to do that may set the world on fire.  The story combines high-concept thought with some adrenaline-soaked action, with a dash of philosophy and a desire to ask big questions. As both the Martians and those they've come to help struggle with whether they want help, whether they should help, what happens next - and in some cases, what the consequences of action will be. Because four travellers may change the world, and not necessarily for the better. In fairness, the characters...oh, Tchaikovsky has always had a gift for off-kilter viewpoints, and here we are again, as he puts us into heads which are familiar, in a way, and also strange in others, with drives we can't always entirely fathom, but where understanding is always seemingly just within reach. It's smart, and its different and it may give you a headache. 

The post-apocalypse narrative carries a familiar framework, if perhaps not a familiar conclusion, and the paths wended through the story are replete with both surprises and moments of genuine wonder. It is, in a word, a Tchaikovsky book, and as with all of them, it's a bloody good time, and definitely worth picking up.

The Venetian Heretic - Christian Cameron

The Venetian Heretic is the start of a new historical fiction series from the impressively prolific Christian Cameron, whose excellent sci-fi and fantasy work I’ve spoken about here before. Amusingly, at one point I suggested his Deep Black was reminiscent of 16th century Venice, - and here we are, a year or so later, looking at another of his stories, set in, well, 17th century Venice. What’s a hundred years between us, eh? In any event, this story begins with professional swordsman Richard Hughes, whose chance rescue of someone in trouble on the canal-lined streets of Venice leads quickly to mystery, murder, and mayhem. Well, and duelling, conspiracy, and murder. And, well, some theater. Hughes is paddling in the edges of deep water, and inclined perhaps to get more than a little wet.

Hughes is the central character, but if I’m honest, the most vividly realised one is Venice herself, the Italian city on the lagoon, at a time when she was less tourist trap, and more incipient global power. The marble bridges over dark waters are described in vivid detail, and the politics that embraces everyone, from the nobility to the gondoliers, twines through the water and the soaring buildings towering beside them. It’s a city of ideas, and of brutal realities, where blood is spilled as quickly as a breath, and where art, where opera is as important as swordplay, and sometimes just as deadly. The prose is rich and affectionate, and brings the city to life, with a warmth, a depth and an energy that is impossible to deny. Cameron’s Venice has a sense of place, of history, and feels at once grand and intimately human.

Onto that stage, no pun intended, steps Richard Hughes - duellist, occasional Englishman, a man who would, on the whole, rather not go swimming in uncomfortably deep waters - metaphorical or otherwise. But he’s also thoughtful, intelligent, passionate, and loyal to his friends and his own sense of honour. Which makes for a likeable protagonist, and one whose penchant for getting into bigger and bigger trouble, following the ripples of larger and larger events to see where they lead, is extremely compelling reading. Hughes is a small fish in the great sea of state, passing on information where he can to help his friends or himself survive on the edges of Society, but he’s also someone striving to do better, to be a version of themselves they can look up to in the mirror. Hughes is a businessman, yes, a killer, absolutely, but one with a code, with ethics, with virtues. Whether Hughes is a good man  is definitely open to question as the story opens, but as the web of influence, murder and politics grows ever more byzantine, his bravery, loyalty and firm friendships become ever more important.. He’s a charming, funny protagonist, whose bouts of pragmatic cynicism are backed by moments of genuine heroism, one whose flaws highlight his virtues, and whose skills with a blade are backed up by a thoughtful investigative mind.Just as well, since he spend smooch of the story being a (variably willing) detective of sorts. In this, he’s aided by a rich cast of men and women who never feel less than real themselves. SOme of them are historical figures, others…less so, but they all have enough detail, enough depth, enough truth in them to be compelling in their own right.

Speaking of detective work - well, this story is a mystery at heart, I think. With murder and mystery at the centre of the narrative, there’s more twists and turns here than , well, between the canals of Venice itself. There’s duels, and opera, and assassins, and religion (and the Inquisition). There’s a dash of romance, and more than one dark moment on dark nights. There’s explosions and politics and passion and more than a little family drama. This is a story with, well, layers. It rewards careful reading, and it is also bloody difficult to stop reading once you get started. I had a great time with Hughes and his Venice, and I suspect you will too. Give it a whirl!

Written on the Dark - Guy Gavriel Kay

In the interest of full disclosure, I think Guy Gavriel Kay is one of the best genre writers practicing in the field today. It’s entirely possible, I think, that he hasn’t written a bad book. And, to be clear, I think he’s knocked it out of the park again. If you’re an existing Kay fan, you’re going to enjoy Written on the Dark immensely. If you’re not…well, you’re probably going to enjoy it, too. 

Kay is known for his alt-history work. Set in worlds that are perhaps one step removed from our own. Where the names are a little different, the faces are familiar but not quite the same, where the thrust of events nudges at the back of your mind, but the details, the intimate, the human, the emotional filigree of the experience, are all very different. And in themselves, these smaller stories can change, shift the rolling path of great events in another direction. Small things, things people do, can change the world. The way two people see each other, the way a chance meeting in the street can lead to a conversation that shifts paradigms…is something Kay portrays very well.  And I tell you what, Kay can write a world. He has a lush, lyrical prose style, which provides his setting with weight, and beauty, and a sense of capturing that beauty alongside the costs. Blood on a silvered blade.  And this is a world that you might have run across before, a world which feels quite similar to medieval France. High chivalry, armoured men on horses, and a desire to make the world beautiful, in poetry, in life. 

Indeed, the protagonist, Thierry, is a professional poet. Maybe professional is taking it a bit far, as he also has several less salubrious side-hustles. But he’s a smart man, and living in his head is no hardship. A fast talker and risk-taker, Thierry is also a thoughtful man, one who knows that words can shift mountains, assuming you can find the right words. That words can build legends, if you can find the right words. That words can shatter men, if you can find the right words. But that from time to time, the world is a dark and deadly place, and if the silvered tongue of chivalry and love can’t do the job, then a dagger at your belt wouldn’t be the worst thing to have. Kay has a penchant for male artist protagonists, and exploring the dichotomy within them of making art and craftsmanship in a more martial world, and this is no exception. But, to be fair, it’s a good bit. The tensions both within Thierry and within society are explored with a compassion and honesty and a sense of truth. And Thierry’s relationships, his struggles with his friends and his lovers and his social and political superiors, sit within a broader sense of events. Within a world on the cusp of change, where the right word in the right place can move a pebble into an avalanche. There's a sense of the epic here, intertwined with characters whose relationships keep that scale grounded, intimate, and human. 

I don’t want to spoil the story, but I will say that Kay never has a problem keeping my attention. This is one of those books whose first few pages grabbed onto my heart and mind, and refused to let go until I was done reading it, at some unconscionable hour of the morning. It’s a story with some romance, some heart, some rapid pivots and sharp twists. It’s a story that, I know it’s a cliche, is a page-turner, because it for sure kept me turning pages. 

Kay has always been a great writer, but I think he’s at the top of his game here, telling a tale that is at once a soaring piece of theatre, and an intensely personal story. It is, in short, really rather good, and I encourage everyone to go and pick it up immediately.

The Book That Held Her Heart - Mark Lawrence

Those of you who have been following along for a while know that I'm a big fan of Mark Lawrence. His fantasy work is always clever, always builds a richly detailed world that you can live in, and always, always, always comes with the kind of emotional honesty that leaves me feeling for the characters, and thinking about the story for weeks afterward. Not to give the game away, but The Book That Held Her Heart, the final volume of his Library trilogy, is all of those things. It promises big, and manages to deliver even more.

It's a lot of things, this saga. A love story, Livira and Evar, reaching out to each other across time and space and narrative construction. And a story with an idea, a question - is it better to build knowledge and pass it between generations, along with the attitudes and horrors that built it, biases and terrors moving between generations, pushing down on people until they're fossilised under the weight of the past - or to remove that knowledge and have people build something from nothing, making the same mistakes over and over and over again. There isn't a Big Answer for that Big Question, I think, but the book gives its characters the chance to explore the idea, to reach the edges of it, to try and unpick some of it, to perhaps build their own truths about what to do, much like the rest of us. 

In looking at the big idea, the book definitely deals with some smaller ones as well. It explores the notion of identity. In a space where people skip between worlds and eras, who they are isn't necessarily who they may become. And as the space between the pages of the Library grows more unstable, people can find themselves echoes of what they thought they were, or being someone else entirely - or fighting to exist at all. There's a sense, looking around at the characters, that theyre both re-evaluating themselves and falling into versions of themselves that they're still struggling to define. Arpix and Clovis, whose budding romance was such a joy in the previous book, continue trying to find their way around their own prejudices and world shattering events to find each other, to find what they need in each over. And Livira and Evar continue t try and find each other at all, without falling into the pages of their own fictions. The book looks on these romances positively, shows us that they're people who matter, that their choices and feelings and needs matter. They're also saving the world, of course, or a world, or something like a world, but they're doing it for each other, for their friends and loves and the connections that they've made. I'm a sucker for Arpix and Clovis, to be fair, the gentle librarian and the explosive warrior, coming to an understanding across times and species that says, you're people, and you're wonderful for it. But we do see some old favourites as well - the Librarian Yute, for example, finds himself travelling a world that might be ours, in the borders of the exchange between the library (or libraries). It is...not to spoil it, but he finds himself in a part of history where librarians are less than welcome. And in struggling to understand what that world is, trying to see what makes it tear itself apart and build itself up again, in understanding costs and conflicts and humanity, Yute is our eyes into our own strength, resilience and bravery. 

This is a book which isn't afraid to take chances, to flip the table and move the reader out of what they were expecting, and into something new. And it's a book with so many stories to tell. I must admit to enjoying them all - from Yute to Livira to Evar to Mayland and out into the world of siblings and friends and bit parts and people who are the heroes of their own story - and they all feel like they have self-realisation, have depth, have a reality of their own, looking back at you from the page. That they all have a story to tell. And they do. And that story, though I won't spoil it, is a thoughtful one. A kind one. Sometimes one that gives the reader a pang in the heart - good, or bad - and sometimes one that warms you from the inside out. It's a story that builds on what came before, and pushes it somewhere ne. It's a story that, at the last, will make you think and make you feel. 

It's good, is what I'm saying, and if you've come this far in the series, it's worth your time. 

The Devils - Joe Abercrombie

 

I've been sat on this one for a while, and honestly, I am so excited to finally talk about it. Because The Devils is both a new direction for Abercrombie - a fresh setting, characters we've never seen before, a chance to lay out a story unwebbed from his First Law series - and also absolute vintage in terms of quality of writing. Its sharp, funny, and terribly, wonderfully human. So if you want the one line version, if you're wondering if The Devils is worth your money, then basically, yes.

The world, then. Well, it feels equal parts familiar and strange. A medieval Papacy exists. Constantinople stands athwart a crossroads of land and sea. There are knights, marching around like they own the place. Worthy peasants and more than a few priests. But in between the cracks of the familiar, we find the strange. There are wizards raising the dead and throwing the occasional fireball in service to Imperial masters. There's werewolves skulking about. Constantinople is run by a nobility that purportedly fuelled its power with blood magic. And there's the omnipresent threat of the Elves, of course. Because while humanity is always its own enemy, here it's only the second-worst enemy it has. Every so often, the Elves surface from the lands held under their sway, and go on a rampage of murder, property damage, and bespoke cannibalism. Abercrombie takes these differences, and weaves them through the tapestry of the world so seamlessly that sometimes you won't even notice that they're there. Like that elf. That just tried to eat you. From the rich, ornate halls of Papal Italy, through dark forests and, at one point, several ships, and all the way to the end of the (human) world, we see a world rich in flavour and texture, a place that feels lived in and real, whilst also slipping in wonders and horrors from beyond imagination. It's a heady mixture, that helps lift up what is in many ways a journey novel.

Of course, it doesn't do that alone. There are...well, there's a lot of characters, and more than a few get their own points of view. The Papacy, you see, is putting together a team to return a lost princess to the edge of the world. Which may save the world, or at least buy it a bit of time. But when your princess may not be...exactly...princess material, and when the city she's meant to rule over is run by people who aren't super keen to have her back, its time to build a team with special skills to get her back there. Like the A-Team, if the A-Team consisted of a werewolf, a necromancer, an immortal warrior, an elf,  a Jill-of-all-trades seemingly of all trades, an actual elf (minus cannibalism) and a vampire. And if they all had terrible attitudes, leaned toward homicide as a solution to all of their problems, and performed their duties out of resentful self-preservation rather than any actual zeal. So...not so much like the A-Team, I guess. But they're a wonderful set, nonetheless. The werewolf, Vigga, is a personal favourite, a person who takes "live in the now" to its extreme, and has trouble remembering what she's up to and why, and so leans into relishing every second of it - in between moments of raw human guilt. She's alive, passionately so, and that pours off the page. I was also partial to the invisible elf, Sunny, who is sufficiently unmemorable that she an wander about in all sorts of places that she perhaps shouldn't be. Her gentle slow-burning romance with the ersatz princess is a delight, both of them trying to figure out why the other one might seem to like them, with a lot of will-they-won't-they and more than one moment of comical misunderstanding based on them trying to unravel each others emotional intelligence form first principles. But the whole cast are wonderful,. They're fun to read, fun to root for, and have that blade-tinged dialogue that Abercrombie is famous for. Importantly, watching them work together, or, well, at cross-purposes, is constantly fun. You can tear through he pages wanting to see what this band is going to do next, because it's almost always not what you expect, and only sometimes because they screwed something up! Or blew something up! Or both!

And the story itself. Well, it crackles with energy. It's a story of a journey, mostly. Going form point A to point B with, well, quite a few stops and diversions in between (I shan't spoil them). And along the way, the characters go on a journey of their own, figuring out who their friends and enemies are, and who they want to be. It's probably a bit more....positive than you'd expect if you're used to the First-Law-iverse, and it's also heart-warmingly, acidly, charmingly funny, and at times emotionally raw and honest. At other times, it's doing banter and swordfights, basically for the fun of it. It's a story that knows where it's going, and trots along such that you have to keep turning pages to keep up, and suddenly it's four in the morning, and you're wondering whether you should sleep or just keep going and finish the whole thing. And when you do, you're coming off it feeling the catharsis of a well-crafted conclusion, and the sadness that you have to wait who knows how long for another book (though I gather they'll all be standalones).

This is, in short, Abercrombie at his best, and you should give it a try.

Descent - Marko Kloos

I've been talking up Marko Kloos for a while now, and at this point he's my go to recommendation for "military SF done right". He has a talent for action, for being able to make fighting on the ground seem visceral and bloody and deadly, and battle in space seem stately and messy and lethal. It has an honesty to it, an unflinching acceptance of people trying to do the right thing in a space where that can mean getting hurt, or killed. There's a sense that anyone can be a hero, and a careful caution against hero worship in the same package. And he does this while also being able to put you through an emotional wringer, both in combat and out. Wondering who will survive is one thing, but seeing how they relate to their friends, their families, building them up past ciphers into something more, with a payoff to match, takes talent - and Kloos has it in spades.

Descent is, honestly, proof of that. It spins us across four point s of view, all familiar from previous books in the series, and gives us a blend of personal connection, functional competence and superior firepower that proves quite compelling.

Take Aden. Once a member of an infamous political unit on the losing side of a cross-system war, all he wants to do now is keep his head down, fly trade runs with a crew who are becoming his friends, and forget the past. That past, unfortunately, is seeded throughout the world of the Palladium Wars series, and escaping it isn't often an option; in fact, reckoning with it may be Aden's only chance for a regular life. He's a thoughtful person, and we get to see that here, as he's quietly inserted as a deep cover operative into a movement looking to revive the nationalism of his homeworld. If he manages to figure out what's going on, and who's behind the surprisingly well funded terror group he's infiltrating, then he can go home happy, and alive. But managing to do that is going to be a real trick. Aden's scenes are often wonderfully tense, as he tries to get into the inner circle of the group without giving himself away. But all the more so because, as time goes on, he feels more empathy and sympathy for the, What side he'll be on by the end of the series remains open to question, but Aden can take us on a voyage of moral complexity without making it feel like drudgery - and the portrayal of his, ha, descent, into radical politics, off the back of seeing how poorly his people are being treated, is picture-perfect. 

He's not the only one of course. I always enjoy Idina, the combat soldier for the forces occupying Aden's world after their failed war of aggression. A peacekeeper, she always manages to be in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. And that gives her an excuse to blow some stuff up, often with extreme prejudice. That said, now Idina is running an extra-judicial snatch-squad, looking for the heads of the group that Aden is infiltrating, and things seem like they're a little murkier for her. She's still making the right calls, but the ground is shifting, as her team kicks in doors and works through the ethics of pre-emptive imprisonment, torture and execution without trial. It helps that Idina herself has a personal courage and moral centre that keeps her deeply sympathetic, and that when the chips are down, and she's almost out of ammo, she'll do the right thing.

If Idina is the heart of the story, Solveig is the soul. Instead of approaching conflict through the lens of battle armour or ship cannon, she's coming at it with a sharp suit from the boardroom. Her company, her family, seem to be entangled with the nationalist resistance, a group Solveig has no sympathy for. And we can watch as she slowly stretches her wings, takes hold of some of the company that her father is legally no longer allowed to run, and starts digging into both the past and the future. Solveig is a bright, fierce flame on the page, and her gently budding romance with a police detective is a quiet joy between more adrenaline-fuelled moments (though Solveig has her share). It's interesting to look at things outside a purely military perspective, and Solveig gives us another angle with cool precision over a deeper river of emotion that sometimes makes for a rather intense read.

And then there's Dunstan, who, fresh off being promoted and in charge of the weirdest, deadliest ECW boat in the history of space warfare, is now out on a fishing expedition. He's a solid lad, a good commander, and it's interesting to note that he keeps finding himself wanting to go back into the black rather than stay at home behind a desk with his family. That dilemma is approached with a maturity and compassion I thought was interesting, and I hope we see some more of that later on - though for now, he's mostly breaking out the cool space warfare gadgets. Which, to be fair, are pretty cool - Kloos has a good eye for space action, and knows how to eke out the tension for maximal emotional payoff.

And that's Descent, really, a book defined by its characters. We're here at an inflection point on their journey, as they all stumble down one slightly darker path or another, deciding who they are, and if that's who they want to be. And doing it against a backdrop of rapid-fire action that'll leave you desperately looking at the last page and wondering when the next book is coming out (or maybe that's me). In any case, it's a perhaps more deliberately paced moment in the series, but if you're a fan, still a damn good time.