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Recently, I took a look over my list of read classic science fiction and found that it was wanting. Driven with a mad desire to succeed at any cost, I launched forth to overcome this deficiency in my character and consume those works of the genre that were glaringly absent from my I’ve-read-that list.

One such work of classic science fiction is one that is probably missing from many an American’s list, especially those born from the 1970s onward. Until recently, I believe that this particular book was hard to come by in the US. In any event, it was completely under my radar until I chanced to learn of it in the most unlikely of places.

When they’re not grunting like primeval apes, passing out from alcohol consumption, or preoccupied with shopping for the latest leather S&M gear, members of the classic metal band Judas Priest can actually form complete sentences. Unsurprisingly to anyone who listens to their lyrics, lyric-writer and vocalist Rob Halford (who once looked sorta normal, unlike his current incarnation as an Earth-bound Vogon escaped convict) is a fan of science-fiction (you can’t hear it, but as I wrote this I said “science-fiction” with a bad Birmingham accent, just to get in the Priest mood). Happening to watch a documentary recently about the band, I heard Rob Halford mention John Wyndham’s 1951 British sci-fi classic Day of the Triffids as an example of science-fiction he loves. Not having heard of this novel before, I instantly declared that if Mr. Rob Halford liked it, then goddamnit so would I.

And I did. A lot.

I just finished the book a few days ago, a nice slim volume that doesn’t fart around like, oh, Robert Jordan, but just gets right on with it, so committing to reading it takes slightly less time than writing a doctoral thesis, or building a pyramid.

Briefly, the story tells of survivors of an apocalypse brought on by humankind’s stupidity and arrogance, two separate catastrophes which unite to utterly destroy civilization, and nearly everyone on the earth, in the most unsettling and disturbing of ways — when a satellite loaded with nasty bacteriological weapons crashes to the earth in a spectacular worldwide light show, it blinds all who watch it. Our hero Bill, recuperating from an accident to his eyes, has missed the whole thing, and removes the bandages to discover a world that doesn’t work anymore. Chaos ensues, and typical post-apocalyptic violence results, while Bill struggles to survive and eventually to locate the handful of others who through pure luck missed the light show, and saved their sight.

But that’s not the end of humanity’s suffering. From somewhere in the heart of Soviet Russia, a genetic-modification experiment gone wrong has resulted in the Triffid, a plant that gets up and walks, and has a nasty habit of lashing out with a poison whip that instantly kills its victim. After a nice ripening process, the Triffid then proceeds to scoop up the flesh of the festering corpse.

With humanity blinded and incapacitated, the Triffids take over, and things get bad very, very quickly.

Day of the Triffids is a post-apocalyptic science-fiction novel before there was a genre called The Post-Apocalyptic Science-Fiction Novel, published years before books like A Canticle for Liebowitz and I Am Legend solidified the stereotypes and established the term. There were obviously grim views of the future (a British specialty), but none so typically post-apocalyptic as this book. From a plot point of view, this story would not have felt at all out of place in the more jaded climate of the 1970s, or even the 1980s. Without artifice, John Wyndham wrote a quintessential survival story in a world irretrievably destroyed.

I’ve been peculiarly interested in the post-apocalyptic novel of late, since I’m knee-deep in my own little composition of the genre. Day of the Triffids proved a particularly enriching read, as Wyndham masterfully exploited the possibilities of the genre to mine immense riches of character and drama. The hero Bill struggles through not just the exigencies and miseries of outer world, but his own internal turmoil, fighting within himself to have a reason to even go on. Post-apocalyptic novels can illuminate the human capacity for hope like no other, and I have yet to read a novel which illustrates it so well as Day of the Triffids.

Tackling the idea of bacteriological warfare and genetic-modification is startlingly prescient for 1951. Indeed, it was so far ahead of its time that it is only now, in the 21st century, that the concepts seem at all timely, particularly the genetic-modification theme. In our current climate, when scientists fiddle with nature by affixing animal genes to plants, suddenly the concept of creating a plant which walks and eats flesh is not so very far-fetched after all.

I grew up on British literature of all types, from When the Tripods Came to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, from P.G. Wodehouse to Arthur Conan Doyle, and discovering a classic written in the literary style I love so much which had somehow passed me by, is a wondrous treat indeed. Had this same story been composed by an American, it would have been so different, in texture, in attitude. Anyone who has ever read a novel by a great 20th Century British novelist knows what I’m talking about. The quality is ineffable, but inescapable.

Humorously, author Brian Aldiss dubbed Day of the Triffids a “cosy catastrophe”, without meaning irony, and I’m damned if he didn’t hit the nail on the head with the term. For even among the dreadful misery and horrors that we experience in the book, there is a grounded, solid and imperturbable core of domesticity and warmth in the English character that even man-eating plants and bacteriological catastrophes cannot diminish. And it’s wonderful.

One of the great classics of science-fiction.

Next up: another of Wyndham’s masterpieces, The Midwich Cuckoos (twice adapted to film as Village of the Damned)

photo from Wikipedia

Guilt is when you buy a new book at Amazon.com instead of at your local independent brick-and-mortar store because it’s cheaper, even though you know that by doing so you’re contributing to the death of the independent book store.

So, I guess there’s this tradition which people call “summer reading”. I don’t really have a different reading preference in the summer compared to other holidays, but, as it’s summer anyway …

Lately, I’ve been in a science-fiction mood. Now, I don’t consider myself a huge sci-fi reader. A smattering. A smidgeon. A casual foray. But I’m not a diehard SF reader, nor have I read many of the biggies. Nevertheless, lately the mood has been in a sort of space direction, a desire to traipse through interstellar climes.

First up — and first of the summer reading list — was Revelation Space by Welshman Alastair Reynolds. Is it hard science fiction? Or is it space opera? Reviews and descriptions have a hard time making up their mind; it’s both, actually. Reynolds, an astronomer formerly in the employ of the European Space Agency, packs this book with lots of hard science, including tons of speculative technologies of the biological tilt, as well as quite a lot about stellar bodies, but the plot reads and plays out a bit like a space opera — an interstellar scope, lots of unusual planets, epic events, large cast of characters.

What is not in doubt is the tone. It’s dark. Devilishly dark. Things, in Reynolds’ future, are not nice. Not cheerful. There is very, very little sense of connection with present or past humanity. The civilizations of Reynolds’ setting (if you can call them civilizations) bear very little resemblance to our own; lifestyles can seem inhuman and even bizarre. Many of the characters in the story have incorporated modification technology and bioengineering to such an extreme as to seem more machine than human being. Technology is so advanced in the book as to seem almost alive itself, as if the distinction between human being and machine has blurred, commingled. Indeed, this is a very strong theme of the book, and plot devices and character arcs revolve around this concept very heavily.

Interesting, too, is the concern I had throughout at least the first half of the book that I would not find a character among the cast with whom I could feel any kind of sympathy or strong connection. Reynolds does not spend a great deal of effort making any of the characters very likeable, and often they perform actions motivated by selfishness or greed or pride which makes characters you’re beginning to warm to suddenly difficult to like again (in fact, later in the book he uses apparently selfish or inhuman actions as clever ways to throw you, but I can’t discuss these without spoiling the story terribly).

Here’s a very brief setup of the story: Dan Sylveste, head of the administration on backwater colony Resurgam, diligently excavates the remains of an ancient alien civlization, the Amarantin, in the hopes of finding the answer to why they were so suddenly wiped out of existence on the eve of travelling into interstellar space, and why the human race in their exploration of the galaxy have yet to find any other living alien species. He fears a terrible secret which may mean the end of the human race as well is waiting to be discovered. Ultimately, he is forced into a dangerous bargain with the unfriendly crew of interstellar vessel Nostalgia for Infinity, who have their own dark agenda, to seek out a momentous galaxy-wide horror and discover the truth behind the disappearance of the Amarantin race, while an assassin with complex ties to his past closes in, and the political fabric of the settled planets crumbles behind him.

That sounds a bit like copy, doesn’t it? Sorry. Anyway, it’s a very complicated novel, and the plotlines are many and varied, and cleverly interwoven. Much of the book reads like a thriller; Khouri, blackmailed into hunting down Dan Sylveste for crimes she is intentionally ignorant of, vacillates back and forth about whether she should kill him or defy her blackmailer. Other characters are in similar dilemmas, and most of the scenes in the book are woven through with tremendous tensions, as different characters in tough situations struggle to find the right way to act, respond, and choose.

I think, ultimately, it’s this tremendous layering of tension among characters as the overarching plot thrusts forward, that makes Revelation Space work so well. Without this enormous sense of momentum, I think many readers — myself among them — would become lost in the sheer dark bizarreness of the universe Reynolds has crafted. It’s just really strange, disquietingly so. Reynolds projects this notion that extremely advanced bioengineering technology causes the human race to splinter into extremist groups, some of whom are totally obsessed with modifying their bodies using cybernetics and genetics almost to the point where there is no humanity left.

Then there are the computer viruses, which affect those with these cybernetic implants, causing them to mutate uncontrollably, like a particularly disgusting scene from Akira. Reynolds writing is vivid and brusque, harshly delivering a sensation of feeling and presence without flowery description, perfectly matching the harsh brutality of this world.

If it wasn’t for the fantastic narrative thrust of the thing, I would have drowned in the unpleasant, bizarre future universe, no matter how distressingly plausible or scientifically sound it all is. His absorbing, brisk style kept me moving quite rapidly through the dense plot, and ultimately I was rewarded not just with tremendous humanity and even goodness amid all this alien, disturbing scenery, but a resoundingly satisfying conclusion and collision of seemingly disparate plots and elements. This is not one of those books in which plots meander along and then fizzle out, never brought fruitfully to bear by a lazy author. Reynolds harnesses all his plots and drives them into a focused conclusion that rewards the reader for enduring their intricacy and occasionally baffling variety.

This all seems very assured and mature for a writer’s first book, which Revelation Space is, but Reynolds has actually been developing this fictional world — and his narrative style — for years through short stories published in various British science-fiction magazines. Revelation Space is definitely the work of a confident writer and, even clocking in at just over five-hundred very dense pages, it doesn’t at all seem long-winded or flabby. In fact, despite its tendency I would almost call it a fast read.

Alastair Reynolds is sometimes lumped in with the “new weird” movement, which seeks to advance the art of strange fiction by fusing elements of horror, fantasy, and science-fiction freely. In that respect, I think Reynolds belongs to this class, particularly with regard to hard SF and space opera, but that doesn’t mean that this is a book without concrete definition. If you think that space opera should be like Flash Gordon, you may be disappointed, but if you enjoy the idea of science-fiction with very strong writing skill, an epic plot, and a dizzying array of sights and sounds (and you’re not too scared of taking a walk on the dark side), it’s difficult to go wrong here. I thoroughly enjoyed it; hardly a waste of time.

Up next: Fellow British author Peter F. Hamilton’s enormous — and decidedly less dark — epic book, Pandora’s Star. First of a series, and it’s almost a thousand pages long. Light, fast reading. Perfect.

Every once in a while I stumble on something that produces a swell of long-forgotten memory inside me. It’s like a long laid-aside bit of my past is brought back into sharp focus by whatever it is I’ve stumbled upon.

It was this sensation that assailed me when I visited Demian’s Gamebooks site (go here) yesterday.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “gamebooks” refers loosely to any book which has interactive or roleplaying elements in it (as opposed to a normal novel, which you simply read from beginning to end, noninteractively). The most famous example of these types of books is probably the childrens’ Choose Your Own Adventure series, where the reader has to make decisions at different points in the narrative, causing the plot to branch. These books were rudimentary versions of gamebooks — others, such as the Fighting Fantasy series, were much more complicated and involved, requiring the use of dice and numerical statistics, much like Dungeons & Dragons. They were also known as solitaire adventures, since the player didn’t need other players in order to enjoy the game. The book itself became the opponent.

I had completely forgotten about these gamebooks, or the fact that they had been greatly enjoyable to me during their heyday in the mid-80s. Stumbling on Gamebooks.org, which is a database of all known interactive books complete with photos, powerfully reminded me of days long gone, holed up in my room, rolling dice while I struggled through one grand adventure or another. And, because the game is played alone, the experience is much like that of reading: the quiet, the stillness, the insularity of experiencing something that lives only inside your imagination.

Steve Jackson’s Car Wars series of books: “Oh my god, I played those!” The Fighting Fantasy series from the other (UK-based) Steve Jackson: “That book was awesome!” Stumbling onto the lists and pictures of these old series brought back fabulous memories: Be An Interplanetary Spy, others.

Of course, remembering one aspect of that era brought a flood of other memories from the time back; those were my skater years, when finding a new bank parking lot with a cool concrete curb where I could perfect my ollie-180 grinds was a momentous event. A time when I must have watched The Search for Animal Chin like a hundred and fifty times.

And in between the skating were the games: Car Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer. Trips to the gaming store to drool over all those metal miniatures arrayed like so many commemorative statues beneath the glass counters, which were always warm and a little greasy. And those weekend games of Shogun (later renamed Samurai Swords), from the Milton-Bradley Gamesmaster series, with my brothers, which sometimes lasted six hours, but were worth every minute. I still remember the thrill of a successful ninja assassination strike, crippling my opponent by robbing him of his daimyo.

Then weekend family trips to Carmel, or Mendocino, or Point Reyes. The smell of restaurant grills mixed with the ocean air, and then devouring awesome science fiction and fantasy in the motel rooms — The Foundation Series, the Han Solo Adventures, Eddings. Walking the forest trails along the coastline, imagining I was in one of those wondrous fantasy settings.

It can be dangerous to live in the past. But every once in a while, letting a wave of memories overwhelm you, to just let go and allow yourself to be transported back to another time, with its own cornucopia of scents and experiences, and places.

All of this triggered by a little, low-res photo of an old and forgotten gamebook at a site accidentally discovered. How amazing is that?

Recently I learned, via Neil Gaiman’s blog, that Cody’s Books, a longtime fixture of my birthtown Berkeley, is closing their Telegraph Ave. store, due to mounting competition from online booksellers (read: Amazon).

This unhappy news got me to thinking about how many of my regular shopping visits are to chains and not independent/locally-owned shops:

office supplies: Staples or Office Depot
books: Borders (usually)
groceries: Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s
DVD rentals: Blockbuster
DVD purchases: Best Buy, online superstores

I find myself frequently shopping for whatever reason at: Target, OSH, Home Depot. All national chains. Hell, even my lunchtime stops are often at chains: Baja Fresh, In-n-Out Burger, Panda Express. Computer stuff? It seems to be often PC Club, or online giants (who so often coincidentally ship from the San Gabriel Valley anyway) — forget CompUSA, which I despise.

I’m not suggesting that Pasadena (or Los Angeles in general) is lacking in independent shops where I could make my purchases. Indeed, Vromans Books in Pasadena is a fabulous and venerable bookshop. And I can nip across the street to the well-stocked Bungalow News. I’m afraid the reasons are more mercenary: I get all these coupons all the time from Borders, which offer enough of a discount that I can actually afford to buy books on occasion. I simply couldn’t afford to pay the full cover price that Vromans charges.

And that’s where the chains have us, or the online people. Look at Amazon, which often has discounts on merchandise ranging from 25 to as much 40 percent off list. For someone like me, with a tight budget, this knocks pricey stuff like computer books from “impossibly expensive” down to at least “barely affordable”. I just can’t afford to pay $45 for a computer book at Vroman’s.

It doesn’t make me feel any less guilty. It’s for this reasoning that the owners of Cody’s had to recently close their Telegraph Ave. location (they’ve still kept the Fourth Street location open). I would be gutted to learn that Vromans had to close their Colorado Ave. location here in Pasadena. I’d feel that, at least in part, it was my fault. Horrible thought.

America is a land seized in the iron grip of national or international chains, squeezing out independent and locally-owned businesses in every imaginable sphere of our economy. Banks: chains. Grocery stores: chains. Pharmacies: chains. And on and on.

This ongoing battle about Network Neutrality, with companies like AT&T throwing money around to seize control of the Internet, is one battle in millions that corporations have waged on the populace since the corporate world took off well over a hundred years ago. The corporate mentality dictates that it’s not enough to be a successful company yourself, you must also strive to destroy your competition.

Let’s not even get started with Starbucks, shall we?

It was singularly unpleasant to realize just how much a proportion of my shopping is conducted at chains. I like neither how it changes my perception of myself, nor what it implies for our economy in general. I like the notion of businesses owned and conducted by their operators. The lazy indolence of people such as myself, to not demand the way of life with their buying dollars that they wish around them, depresses me.

Oh, gotta run. I’ve got to pick up lumber at Home Depot, swing by Trader Joe’s for some groceries, return my DVDs to Blockbuster, get a bite to eat at Baja Fresh, get some new printer cartridges at Staples, get a couple shirts at Target … and bemoan the fate of the mom-and-pop shop.

Yesterday I updated my little “current reading” list on my pathetic and in-desperate-need-of-improvement sidebar. Here’s a micro-blurb on each of those three and why they’re there:

“Hero in the Shadows” — I did a post a couple of weeks back about how David Gemmell rescued the fantasy genre for me. At the time, I’d just begun reading this particular entry in the non-series of Drenai tales, and having finished it quite quickly, I can wholeheartedly recommend it. As ever. Waylander the Slayer, a supernaturally gifted assassin, who found his way at least partway back to the path of good after years as a killer, makes his third appearance in this one. While all Gemmell books are designed to be read independently, “Hero” is the third in a series of books about Waylander. Reading the other two (”Waylander” and “In the Realm of the Wolf”, the latter published in the UK as “Waylander II”) will increase your enjoyment of this novel immeasurably, though it’s not a requirement. In all of Gemmell’s books, good people often do bad things, sometimes for good reasons; and bad people wind up doing good things, for reasons they sometimes cannot fathom. Gemmell writes in gray areas, exploring heroism and the costs of fighting evil in thought-provoking and sometimes disturbing ways.

There is a character in “Hero” — a ditchdigger whose sole ambition in life is to have enough coin to gorge on food, liquor, and whores — who finds himself a “chosen one”, destined to lead a band of ancient warriors against a foe, and in the process become a hero, while a disciplined, deeply religious warrior monk, who has spent his entire life in training to combat this very evil, finds himself marginalized, as a simple ditchdigger fulfills a role he himself spent his entire life training to face. Gemmell uses these kinds of surprise upsets and turns of role as a way to explore the complexity and confusion of good versus evil, and the roles individuals find themselves playing in the conflict.

“Droidmaker” — having just bought this yesterday, I am already completely engrossed. This book, by a former employee and member of Lucasfilm’s crack team of computer engineers, deftly segues from a biography of Seventies film rebels George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola (and friends) into a chronicle of the thinktank of computer pioneers who would develop revolutionary technologies such as Non-Linear Editing systems, and initiate the spark that would eventually become Pixar, THX, even Adobe. “Droidmaker” in a sense represents the ideal book to me, the ideal subject matter, and the ideal biographical approach, meshing personal biography with technical history, and company lore.

It also represents a period in film and computer history which is of huge interest to me. For whatever reason (don’t laugh), the sagas of film and computers in the late Seventies and early Eighties hold a great deal of romanticism for me. I could watch the documentaries on the Tron Special Edition DVD over and over, re-read Alan Arnold’s journal of the making of Empire Strikes Back over and over; the early years of Atari are hugely fascinating. One of my very favorite books ever is “Industrial Light and Magic: the Art of Special Effects”, which chronicles the first ten years of ILM. “Droidmaker” fits perfectly into this space, filling in dots and fleshing out shadowy areas, and it covers so much territory so seamlessly that the mind boggles.

Check out this excerpt from the dust jacket flap to see what I mean:

Droidmaker is an insider’s chronicle of Lucas’ uneasy role between business, technology and entertainment—with parts played by Francis Ford Coppola, Walt Disney, The Grateful Dead, Akira Kurosawa, Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, Stanley Kubrick, Ross Perot, Robert Moog, Steve Jobs, The Doors, Steven Soderbergh and many others. Their stories woven into a tapestry of backdrops: USC, Atari, Sun Microsystems, CBS, America Online, Amadeus, the Univeristy of Utah, Tron, Xerox, Twilight Zone, Pixar, Jurassic Park, and, of course, Skywalker Ranch.

If this sounds hopelessly overambitious, fuzzy in its direction, be assured that it is very focused and clear. But the involvement of individuals in Lucasfilm’s computer research, and then the scope of influence this computer research then brought to bear on the entertainment industry, is extraordinarily broad.

Magnificent stuff.

“The Britons” — I confess to being something of a history fan, especially of medieval and ancient European history. I slogged through the 1200 pages of “Europe: A History” without complaint. “Britons”, part of a series about European peoples, is about that fuzziest and elusive of all ethnic groups, the Briton, who may or may not be Celtic, may or may not be transplanted European, did not have a written language as such … in other words, mysterious and tantalizing. Loosely, Britons are the people who were living in England, Wales, and parts of Scotland when the Romans arrived. Sort of. Kinda. They were a network of tribes who shared a common language and customs. We think. Sorta. Modern Welsh is one the modern descendants of their language. Anyway, we know very little about them, and this slim and very direct book looks at the most contemporary archaeological and historical evidence to shed as much light on them as possible. And it does a damn good job of it. It then goes on to discuss what survived throughout subsequent millennia of these ethnic “Britons”, when the Isles were repeatedly conquered by Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Normans. It also discusses the historical/mythological figure of Arthur, most famous Briton of all.

And it begins with the following quote:

“I am Arthur, King of the Britons.”
“King of the who?”

Any book which begins with a quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail has got to be good.

So. Three current/recent books. Good stuff to be had by all.

I used to be a big fantasy novel fan.

In the mid-Eighties and onward, I voraciously consumed the big series by the big names, people like Eddings, Robert Jordan, Brooks, and others.

Then, for some reason, the well began to dry. New volumes in series I had once held in high regard left me disappointed. New authors I tried were poor enough that I couldn’t bring myself even to finish books for which I had actually paid money. The fantasy genre had taken a right turn while I, it seemed, had turned left, fallen into a ditch, and broken my ankle.

Years passed. The sands of time spilled grain by grain through the hourglass. Occasionally, with the longing of what once was, I would wander through the fantasy section, wistful, occasionally stroking reprints of great books I had already read and loved. More occasionally still, I would pluck a mass-market paperback from the shelf, plunk down two platinum pieces, and try anew the genre which had once been such a favorite. Most of the time, I failed to find something to renew my love of the genre. There were occasional breakthroughs, as with Elaine Cunningham’s first few installments in her Forgotten Realms books, which are very good. But the breakthroughs didn’t come very often.

But the magic moment, the moment when the prodigal returned to the fold, the moment where the lost traveller at long last saw the light of the welcoming inn through the darkness of the trees, happened a couple years ago when I chanced upon a new name (for me), David Gemmell.

David Gemmell brought the magic of the fantasy fiction genre back to me, and he did it in about fifteen pages. I started with Legend, his first book, and the first book any new reader should begin with, and knew within something like ten minutes that I’d found someone who could restore my faith in a genre I’d long since given up for dead.

Restore it he did. Not just with Legend (originally published in 1984 — and no, it has nothing to do with that weird Tom Cruise movie), but with every novel I’ve read since, all of which are in the same fictional setting as the first (he’s written novels in other settings, I just haven’t read them yet). These loosely-connected novels, which Del Rey term “The Drenai Saga”, take place up to a millennium apart from one another, vary in terms of their ties to events in the other novels, and can be read in any order you choose (I recommend reading in publication order).

Some, but not all, of them have recurring characters: Druss the Legend, Waylander the Assassin, Skilgannon the Damned. Many of these heroes die a hideous death at the end of one novel, only to be revisited down the road in a “prequel” novel chronicling events which occur before the events of the previous novel. Or something; that last sentence confuses even me.

In Gemmell’s world, life is brutal and harsh, violence has severe consequences (like actually causing pain and death), and people try to be good and sometimes fail. Guilt and loss are permanent, not fleeting, and revenge, though frequently practiced, is not always sweet. Magic is rare, mysterious, frightening, and very spiritual. Evil is present in human beings, and it’s present in fell creatures who live in shadowy, malignant places. There’s a Mongolia-type desert nomad race, and there’s a China-like decadent, sophisticated race (remember playing AD&D in the Eighties with all those Far Eastern lands? Yeah, it’s like that). There are no elves and dwarves. Indeed, Gemmell’s fantasies are what you might describe as Sword and Sorcery, in that they follow the tradition of authors like Michael Moorcock (a great favorite of Gemmell’s). Sort of; all these sub-genre things always confuse me.

Regardless of how you define them, you can find Gemmell’s books in the fantasy/sci-fi (yeah, that’s right, I said sci-fi, not SF, which excludes me from the true über-SF geek club, who are too snooty to use a term like “sci-fi”) section of your local bookstore, or here (pretty please click? I get a little commission and I love you for it). Go on. Give it a try. You’ll be glad you did. I’m the guy who recommended Gamma Ray, remember? I’d never steer you wrong.

As a kind of aside, one of the things for which I admire Gemmell is his remarkable consistency. He’s written a bazillion books, and I have yet to find one which seems dashed off, or stuffed with filler, or rambles on or seems like it needs lots of editing. Partly I think this is thanks to his journalistic background, which helped give him that most desirable of all author’s skills: self-criticism. He has the capacity to evaluate his work, pull out the knife, and chop it to smithereens. His books almost never ramble beyond four hundred pages, they almost never sidetrack into interminable characters’ inner-voice thoughts or endless pages of worthless dialogue. They stay on the straight and narrow like an episode of Lost, and they’re lean as Tom Hanks after he got rescued off that island.

Consistency leads to trust, and Gemmell has spent the entirety of his novel-writing career building a hell of a lot of trust.

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