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Oct 29, 2009

Neuropath

Professor Thomas Bible’s best friend shows up out of the blue, then disappears.

Neil Cassidy, brilliant, charismatic and hunted by a watered down FBI taskforce for a series of horrific crimes that leave Thomas shaking his head in disbelief. ‘My best friend couldn’t have done that’ he says. But what if he did? What if Neil and his colleagues at the NSA found a way to shut off the circuits in the brain that induce fear, recognition, pleasure, pain or even love.

Set in a near future world where global warming has kicked in, Europe is in frozen chaos and Russia no longer a threat. Neuropath explores the dark recesses of the human mind and the consequences of rewiring our own circuitry.

Oct 24, 2009

What I read this week and a tough decision

Finished Gutshot Straight - good - comes in out in January of next year. Don't quite get the title. I would've said that was my favourite read of the week and then along comes Noah Boyd's The Bricklayer and consider me blown away. First in what I hope will be a long series, unputdownable with plenty of pace, twists and suspense but you'll have to wait until Feburary 2010 to get your hands on it. Next up Shades of Gray the new Jaspar Fforde.

The tough decision, losing the opening sequence of Tball - all 50 pages of it (gulp!). On the re-read it was too pedestrian and didn't reflect the growth or increased responsibility of the character. I'm sure the ripple effect will catch me out further down the line and I'm sorry my 'fixer' had to go but maybe I can use him for something else.

Oct 21, 2009

The danger of the single story

A friend sent me this podcast - click the title link to view it takes a while to fully load and please forgive the adverts at the end. Chimamanda Adichie gives an insightful talk which pricked my conscience several times. Don't worry if it pricks yours too.

Oct 19, 2009

Support your local bookstore!

This price war between Amazon and Sprawlmart is ridiculous. I know these are tough times but discounting books to under 10 dollars is only going to help those two companies bottom lines. It won't help the publisher, the new untried authors just waiting in the wings to wow you and most of all it will hurt the small indie bookstores like ours. We can't discount the way the chains do but the way they sell books they might as well be selling fast food. The only interaction you get is at the till where they try to up-sell you their discount program.

Indies all over the country are struggling and they provide a much better customer experience. We greet our customers, if they are repeat customers we often greet them by name. We recommend books based on our having read them not because the buyer at head office likes them. We are passionate about matching books with customers and we always want to know what you thought of our recommendations. We have a discount program and ours doesn't cost you a cent. So please after reading this post find out if you still have an indie bookstore in your part of the world and if you do - visit it - get to know the people who live and work in your community and after numerous visits you may even become friends. Give a giftcard from an indie bookstore (indiebound is valid at indies all over the country)

Use us or lose us.

Oct 17, 2009

arcs galore

Current on my to-read pile, The Bricklayer by Noah Boyd, the new Jasper Fforde which I'm so excited about I forgot the title and one called The Bellringers which I want to read but may run out of time before doing so.

Oct 16, 2009

The Gates by John Connolly

Started this yesterday and finished it this morning. Connolly the author of The Book of Lost Things has come up with a tale perfect for Halloween.

The Gates of the title are the Gates of Hell which the inhabitants of 666 Crowley Road in the sleepy hamlet of Biddlecombe have inadvertently driven a wedge into. But the event was witnessed by young Samuel Johnson and his faithful dog Boswell out trick or treating three days early. This is a young adult book but would appeal to older readers too. Of course being a little boy no one believes Samuel, not his soon to be divorced Mum, his teacher or his local priest. Samuel teams up with his young friends, the scientists manning the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland and a very confused banished demon with a passion for jelly beans and driving fast cars while hiding under a blanket.

This book is laugh out loud funny in parts - the local vicar taking down a very bad tempered (and long dead) Archbishop named Bernard the Bad is priceless. It's Shaun of the Dead meets Harry Potter. Fans of Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman or the late Douglas Adams will love this.

Oct 15, 2009

Nutty week

Two more shifts and this nutty week will be over. Sherman Alexie was incredible last night - we had at least 200 people over at the Framery, the Bagley/Dixon event on Tuesday was well attended and for tweens we had Kaleb Nation - the twilight blogger guy - on Monday. On my break last night I managed to sneak a peak at 'And Another Thing' by Eoin Colfer. Douglas Adams' estate asked him to a Hitch Hikers Guide sequel and judging from the first couple of chapters I think they picked the right man for the job.

In the middle of 'Gutshot Straight' right now. Also starting to re-read Tball and do a page by page of what needs changing/fixing/polishing but at least I've got a first draft of the second book.

Oct 9, 2009

Some thoughts on Paris Under Water

This isn't out until January but several things struck me as I was reading that can't really go into a blurb. The first - how visible officials were, they not only visited the worst hit areas, they sent aid when it was requested sometimes in a matter of hours. In Jackson's book there are numerous photos of Louis Lapine prefect of police and the Premier and President - Briand and Fallieres wading in mud, sitting in rescue boats, showing the people their government was in this disaster with them. Not one minister left his post - in fact the National Assembly continued to meet even as its corridors filled with flood water.

Second the modernisation of Paris, especially the Metro enabled the flood waters to reach farther into the city, in some cases engineering made the situation worse.

I couldn't help comparing the Paris flood of 1910 with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Lastly the 1910 flood lasted just over a week and stretched the civilised Parisian's social fabric to breaking point. If it had continued into the second week this might have been a different story. Take away our creature comforts for a couple of weeks and watch us descend into chaos.

Oct 8, 2009

Ups and Downs

The ups - having a request for the full manuscript - not just a partial or the first two chapters - the whole thing!

The downs? another rejection letter waiting for me when I got home last night and the fact that I just agreed to work Monday thru Friday next week! To avoid any further damage I'm taking myself and my laptop to an anonymous coffee shop as of now - I'm in the home stretch of the second book:-)

Oct 7, 2009

Still caught up in the Paris floods

Finished the Propher Murders, next up is Crush by Jacobsen. Still working on the Paris arc, plus Gutshot Straight by Lou Berney just hit my in-box. The blurb reads like an amped-up version of The Transporter and therefore right up my street.

Oct 2, 2009

last but not least

The Violet Hour by Daniel Judson

The power of a lie, it can come back to haunt you and destroy everything you love. Cal Rakowski is about to learn this the hard way. Someone he knows, someone he trusts isn’t who they appear to be and mechanic Cal whose off-the-book job is about to go up in flames has no idea of the trouble headed for the tiny town of Bridgehampton in the run-up to Halloween and beyond. An ex husband with limitless resources and a sadistic streak, a fixer with his own personal female assassin, a tenacious FBI agent all looking for or looking to kill Cal’s friend. It’s going to be hell in the Hamptons.

Another new October title

The Hunt for Atlantis by Andy McDermott

Dr Nina Wilde has made the discovery of the millennium, the location of the mythical Atlantis. Helped by the philanthropic Frost foundation and protected by Eddie Chase a blunt Yorkshireman with an SAS background Nina and the Frosts race to uncover the temples of Poseidon before the mysterious and deadly brotherhood can destroy them forever.

The action careens from the streets of New York, via Iraq to the Gulf of Cadiz and the mountains of Tibet. With the brotherhood hard on their heels and a traitor in their midst Nina and Eddie must uncover the truth and battle a revelation so explosive it could bring about the end of one civilization and the resurrection of an old order. Throw in an undiscovered lost tribe, a megalomaniac bent on global destruction and the revelation that ‘they walk among us’ and you’ve got a thriller that’ll keep you reading into the small hours.

The first in a rip-roaring new adventure series that has movie franchise written all over it.

New for October

Rizzo’s War by Lou Manfredo

There are clean cops and dirty cops and then there’s Joe Rizzo. Joe is the kind of cop who puts away the bad guys, calls in favours when he needs them and tries to break only five rules a day. He’s on internal affairs’ radar but Joe considers himself and his fellow officers chemotherapy for the cancer of petty crime that ails New York City. So he’s wary when city councilman Daily has him and his new partner Mike McQueen assigned to an off-the-books search to find Daily’s messed up runaway daughter. What did she take that he so desperately wants back and can Rizzo and McQueen handle the fallout that their investigation is about to generate.

Manfredo’s gritty debut thriller strips away the car chases and gun fights of TV cop shows and takes you deep into the nuts and bolts of police work and as Rizzo tells his young partner. ‘There’s no wrong. There’s no right. There just is.’