The Last Night at the Star Dome Lounge

M.R. Carey
Absinthe Books

Fain has inherited Ocean View, a boarding house in Hove Harbour from her late mother, who’s still hanging around to offer advice where needed and generally keep an eye on the place – when magic of a different sort starts to rear its head within her home, Fain, her mother and friends old and new must band together to protect Ocean View, and each other.

For the last 20 something years Mike Carey has been a pretty constant presence on my reading pile, from his run on the 'Sandman' spin-off comic 'Lucifer' through the occult detective stories of the 'John Constantine Hellblazer' comic and his own 'Felix Castor' novels to the mushroom zombies of 'The Girl With All The Gifts' and beyond to 'The Books of Koli' he's produced a succession of imaginative wonders that have traversed Heavens, Hells, pasts, futures, elsewheres and other heres.

In this novella for the PS Publishing imprint Absinthe Books Carey takes us to a provincial guest house called Ocean View that's populated by owner Fain, the jar that holds her mother's cremated remains, a closed and sealed off magical night club and an assorted cast of gentle eccentrics and, one night, someone or, perhaps, something, other, that takes up residence and begins offering the residents the fulfillment of their deepest wishes.  We are told little of the world beyond Ocean View but we know it's one where magic holds a place in society and where it's policed aggressively and so the arrival of this new resident brings Fain and her friends into conflict with the authorities.

As a touch point Carey's urban fantasy has echoes of Neil Gaiman's 'Coraline' and 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane' but there's always been a kinship between the two author's work going back to "Lucifer' which the story here is most redolent of both in concept and in execution, the vividly visual nature of the storytelling leaving you with the feeling of having read a comic book more than prose.  Carey has long shown himself to be the consummate world builder and storyteller and proves it again here as with the briefest of strokes in the limited page count open to him he weaves a story of family and of love and creates a world that I'd be happy to revisit again anytime soon.

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The Fall of Koli: Rampart Trilogy 3

M.R. Carey
Orbit Books

The Fall of Koli is the third and final novel in the breathtakingly original Rampart trilogy - set in a strange and deadly world of our own making.
The world that is lost will come back to haunt us . . .
Koli has come a long way since being exiled from his small village of Mythen Rood. In his search for the fabled tech of the old times, he knew he'd be battling strange, terrible beasts and trees that move as fast as whips. But he has already encountered so much more than he bargained for.
Now that Koli and his companions have found the source of the signal they've been following - the mysterious "Sword of Albion" - there is hope that their perilous journey will finally be worth something.
Until they unearth terrifying truths about an ancient war . . . and realise that it may have never ended.

And so we come to the conclusion of Koli's tale as our charmingly naive and endlessly good hearted hero attempts to make good on his dreams.

Having been cast out of his village into the almost certain death of an Ingland covered in murderous flora and fauna and having journeyed with his three companions to the lake where London had been before Koli finds himself at the 'walls' of The Sword of Albion, source of the message the travellers had been following.

Now, I'm going to be very careful here not to give away any spoilers as this is, of course, a pivotal moment in Koli's story and what we have is a book very much of two halves. For me much of the first half was a bit of a jarring change of pace but one proved necessary by the second where Koli is finally presented with the opportunity he's been searching for in an ending that is as bittersweet as it is triumphant.

Finally, I've definitely said this before in my reviews of Carey's books - and it seems likely I'll say it again - but for me he's the true successor to those writers of the end times and beyond - the two John's in particular - that we revere here at Wyrd Britain.  His work, whilst very much his own, is rooted in tales of Triffids, Tripods, Chrysalids and Cuckoos and personally I adore them for it.

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The Trials of Koli: Rampart Trilogy 2

M.R. Carey
Orbit

The Trials of Koli is the second novel in M R. Carey’s breathtakingly original Rampart trilogy, set in a strange and deadly world of our own making.
Beyond the walls of Koli’s small village lies a fearsome landscape filled with choker trees, vicious beasts and shunned men. As an exile, Koli’s been forced to journey out into this mysterious, hostile world. But he heard a story, once. A story about lost London, and the mysterious tech of the Old Times that may still be there. If Koli can find it, there may still be a way for him to redeem himself – by saving what’s left of humankind.

I loved the first book of this new trilogy from Mike Carey and had high hopes for this second one that were well met.

Set in a post-apocalyptic 'Ingland' where the population is greatly reduced following 'The Unfinished War' and live in increasingly isolated villages in a country covered in genetically modified plants and animals all of which have a hankering for fleshy, tasty humans.

Thrown out of his village in the first book for purloining some very rare tech - a (subsequently sentient) music player - from the vaults of the controlling family, Koli falls in with a travelling medic and a young girl who'd previously been part of an apocalyptic death cult.

Book 2 continues their travels towards London and we get to meet more of the denizens of the world in the form of the army of the powerful village of Half-Ax and the gentle fisher folk of the lagoon.  We also get to see what was happening back in Koli's former home as Carey flips the narrative over to tell Spinner's story as Koli's childhood friend also finds herself at odds with that self same controlling family and the soldiers of Half-Ax.

What we have is verty much the middle book in a trilogy that tells a solid and enjoyable road story in the same warm, affectionate and engaging style of the first that drops in just enough hints of what's to come to whet the appetite for the series finale.

Buy it here - UK / US.

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The Book of Koli

M.R. Carey
Orbit

Beyond the walls of the small village of Mythen Rood lies an unrecognizable world. A world where overgrown forests are filled with choker trees and deadly vines and seeds that will kill you where you stand. And if they don't get you, one of the dangerous shunned men will.
Koli has lived in Mythen Rood his entire life. He knows the first rule of survival is that you don't venture beyond the walls.
What he doesn't know is - what happens when you aren't given a choice?

Mike Carey has destroyed the world before in his fantastic mushroom zombies novel 'The Girl With All The Gifts' and its sequel prequel 'The Boy on the Bridge' and here he's up to apocalyptic shenanigans once again with his new 'Rampart Trilogy' beginning with 'The Book of Koli'.

Now I absolutely love a post-apocalypse novel but I generally prefer a more immediately post scenario than we have here.  Koli's world is several hundred years on from ours in a UK devastated by war and by genetic tampering that has left the world over-run by plants and animals with a real taste for all that squishy stuff that humans are made of.

This first book provides an easy and nicely straight-forward story that allows for some comprehensive world building as we follow young Koli on his travels from the relative safety of his village out into the wilds of Ingland.  

There are the inevitable shades of the two Johns (Wyndham & Christopher) along with hints of Walter M. Miller Jr's 'A Canticle for Leibowitz',  Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age' and Patrick Tilley's 'Amtrak Wars'.  With its undercurrent of botanical menace its debt to 'The Day of the Triffids' is the most notable but Carey has rejigged, reinvented and revived it for a new era and his story is fun and fleet of foot, never settling and thoroughly enjoyable and I'm very much looking forward to getting stuck into the next one.

Buy it here - UK /  US.

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

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Fellside

M.R. Carey
Orbit

Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. It's not the kind of place you'd want to end up. But it's where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life.
It's a place where even the walls whisper.
And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess.
Will she listen?

Over the years I've read quite a lot of Carey's writing. I liked his Lucifer series and his run on Hellblazer was fun and I worked my way through a couple of books of Unwritten before lack of funds put a stop to my graphic novel buying. Of his novels I think I've read them all; the Felix Castor books were enjoyable but a little too Constantine and 'The Girl With All The Gifts' was a worthy successor to the apocalyptic proclivities of the two Johns (Wyndham and Christopher).

This time out Carey has condemned us all to prison, a women's prison on the Yorkshire moors where newly convicted child killer, Jess Moulson, has started to see and hear the one person who absolutely cannot be there, the little boy she accidentally burned to death whilst in a heroin stupor.

'Fellside' is a dark and unforgiving book that sometimes feels just a little too soap opera for it's own good. The prisoner hierarchy has a whiff of a certain Australian prison show about it and the less 'conventional' aspects of what's going on with Jess aren't explored anywhere near deeply enough for my liking.

When it's on game though it's an engaging read that uses a pretty intense premise to explore guilt and redemption without leaving you too emotionally drained.

Buy it here - Fellside

The Girl With All The Gifts

M.R. Carey
Orbit

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.

Over the years I've read more than a few things by Mike Carey.  From his fun run on Hellblazer through Lucifer, Unwritten, various one shots and assorted library rentals to his 5 Felix Castor novels.  For the most part they are well worth reading I do have a real preference for his sci-fi / horror work to his superhero stuff (which pretty much applies across the board for me). So, when I heard about this new novel I was tentatively intrigued.

As much as I enjoyed the Castor books they did feel a little like they were an extension of his work on Hellblazer just with extra added man on penny whistle action and after 5 of them I didn't really want to read another.  So, I had checked up just enough to know that it wasn't part of that series but knew nothing other than that little bit in italics up there ^.  The title and cover image had me thinking that what we had here was a sort of 'Chrysalids' or 'Midwich Cuckoos' sort of thing but on reading it becomes quickly apparent that it's far more of a 'Day of the Triffids' deal.

It tells of Melanie, an unusual girl in unusual circumstances who has lived her short life alternately alone in a cell or strapped to a wheelchair in a classroom until, along with her favourite teacher, two soldiers and her least favourite scientist, she is forced into travelling across a post apocalyptic England.

Melanie is a warm hearted genius, deeply besotted by both learning and Miss Justineau - the only adult who has ever shown her any compassion.  She is unaware of her own history or why she is kept strapped to her chair at gunpoint.  When the circumstances change she becomes capable and savage in equal measures; unsure of the truths being revealed to her but acknowledging,  processing and embracing them.

The other characters are very much stock supporting cast - hard bitten sergeant, nervous recruit, noble teacher and devious scientist - and there very much to provide purpose to Melanie's physical journey and partly her mental one although in many ways the Melanie we end the book with is simply a more experienced version of the one we meet at the start, still a romantic dreamer trying to, if not cram the lid back on Pandora's box, then at least to civilise it's contents.

I'm not entirely convinced I'm in sync with all the gushing plaudits that litter the books cover but it certainly was an engaging read.  It felt like a hark back to the days when British authors seemed to take an inordinate amount of pleasure in ending the world in a multitude of imaginative and unusual ways.  This is, in the opinion of this reviewer at least, a fine thing as I love those books and if you share my feelings then I think this is a journey you'd also enjoy.

Buy it here - The Girl With All The Gifts