Empire Rising by Sam Barone

I must admit to being initially disappointed by this novel. It purports to be historical fiction set at the dawn of civilisation, a period of history about which I know very little but would like to learn more. Unfortunately the only history in this novel is a few names of people and places borrowed from the real history of the Akkadian empire. Everything else is pure Hollywood style fiction. A Connecticut Yankee at the birth of civilisation if you like. Apart from a few gratuitous sex scenes neither Gary Cooper nor Jimmy Stewart would be out of place in this novel.

However ...

Once you get over the lack of any real history the book turns out to be an entertaining read with plenty of action and intrigue and a few big battles thrown in for good measure. I think I will put Barone on my B-list of heroic fantasy. This novel never comes close to the brilliance of David Gemmell but there is enough in it to justify picking up the other books in the series. I should point out that I inadvertently skipped the first book of Barone's Akkadian series: Dawn of Empire but this second book reads just fine as a stand alone novel. .

Moshin Hammad: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This award winning short novel left me feeling somewhat dissatisfied. It concerns the tale of a bright young Pakistani who graduates top of his class from a top US college and aspires to a glittering career in the world of business only to crash headlong into the new realities and new world visions that came about following the events of September 11. This is a higely important topic but unfortunately I found it very hard to empathise with the main character. His subsequent actions struck me as being the height of idiocy. The main motivation that comes across from the novel is a self centred self destructive jealousy. In Hammad's favour I should acknowledge his clever device of putting the reader into the book as listener to the tale being related by the main protagonist. This works well and by the end of the short novel you are no longer just a listener but active participant. Sadly this ending , though clever, is not enough to rescue the rest of the unsatisfying story.

Tad Williams: Otherland, Sea of Silver Light

Final volume of this terrific saga resolves all plot threads and ties everything up very satisfactorily. All in all I highly recommend this saga as an entertaining mix of fantasy, Sci Fi with a dash of cyberpunk thrown in for good measure. The virtual world setting allows all of those elements to fit together seamlessly. Be warned though that these books are long, far far longer indeed than is required to flesh out the plot. The pay-off for for wading through all 4000 plus pages though is a story filled with extremely well drawn characters. Williams populates his stories with credible living breathing actors who are a far cry from the shallow stereotypes that normally fill genre novels.

Tad Williams: Otherland Mountain of Black Glass

This third novel in the Otherland saga is a big improvement on the second. Having set the scene and fleshed out his characters in the first two volumes Williams is free to advance the plot once more and he does so masterfully. Very entertaining and with a few unexpected twists thrown in for good measure.

Tad Williams: Otherland, River of Blue Fire

This second novel in the Otherland saga took me a long time to finish which is not a good sign. This large volume (700 pages +) fleshes out the story world somewhat but advances the plot by very little. I can't help feeling that this whole book is unnecessary and with tighter writing the important parts could have been squeezed into the other volumes. On the plus side William's characterisation remains head and shoulders above the wooden stereotypes we are more used to in Fantasy novels and the overall saga still retains my interest. I have already started on book 3 which happily seems to be progressing at a faster pace.

Aside: There is an Otherland MMO currently in development. I hadn't realised this until I spotted this article in Massively. Sounds very interesting, since the books are largely set in a virtual world they give lots of scope for mmo type stuff. One feature of the novels that I hope is replicated is the ability to move between completely different sim worlds. You could be flee from a battle in Ancient Egypt and tuumble into a HG Wellsian London. More information here.

Otherland: City of Golden Shadow by Tad Willliams

Tad Williams is a good writer and not just in a Science Fiction / Fantasy sense. He writes very readable prose with very well developed characters that stand up well alongside the best of contemporary non-genre fiction. Otherland is Tad's take on Cyberpunk and "City of Golden Shadow" is the opening volume in this saga. The book was written in the mid 1990's and William's cyberspace is more down to earth than Gibson's angular vector graphic inspired visions from the previous decade. In many ways Otherland seems like Second Life with added multimodal input. There is even an mmorpg described in the book that is not dissimilar to the games we play today (Hardcore afficionado's will be pleased to note that Williams' mmorpg has perm-death). A good adventure story set in an engrossing world with well drawn well written characters. All in all a very good read if a little over long.

The Mamoth Book of Extreme Sci Fi, edited by Mike Ashley

I find it hard to give an overview of an anthology, particularly one as diverse as this whose stories were chosen specifically because they are unusual. Their very diversity makes it hard to consider the book as a whole. Some of the stories were very good and I cannot remember any bad ones so I guess that makes it a good anthology overall. The list of authors is varied and includes many illustrious names My personal favourites from the collection included Geoffrey Landis's "The Long Chase", Ian McDonald's "The Days of Solomon Gursky" and Greg Bear's "Judgement engine." The last story in particular takes a very ambitious position, set as it is at the end of the universe and deals with big questions of philosophy.