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Review: Atomic Secrets
By John A Hopkins
Enjoyable romp through a plausible alternative history
The great thing about this story is the world it inhabits. It’s not our world, in which the Allies won a decisive military victory in WWII, neither is it the dystopia of, for example, The Man in the High Castle in which Germany won. Instead this is ironically the world of which Hitler dreamed, with Nazi Germany dominant across Europe, and an uneasy truce with Britain and America. The Germany the story paints is a clever amalgam of the Nazi state, and how West Germany evolved after the war.
In 1948 the Allies have the atomic bomb, and Germany is making substantial efforts to create their own. When an unexpected contact provides the opportunity for MI6 to sabotage that programme they have to take it.
The story reflects reality in clever ways. Britain really did attack the German nuclear weapons programme, most famously through the Telemark raids on the Norwegian heavy water plant. In this story, however, a more subtle approach is required, and the author cleverly adapts an attack vector actually used against a rogue atomic programme in our own century. While this is a work of fiction the technical elements are largely correct and clearly explained.
At one side of this tale are a group of British spies, operating under the cover of building trade relationships with Germany. Although not infallible they are dedicated and capable. On the other side are several officers of the Kriminalpolizei, the German police’s detective force. They are also honest and competent, the author avoiding the trope of the indolent or dishonest police officer and building some genuine sympathy. You want the British spies to succeed, but you also want this group of police officers to survive and thrive.
Between these poles sits a mixed cast of other characters each with their own agendas, developing rivalries different from, but not unlike those in the real cold war.
This is a relatively short book and the story rips along quite quickly, action and investigation developing quickly side by side. The Italianate denouement when it comes would fit right into an episode of Zen, with the agreed explanation and resulting punishments and rewards bearing a limited relationship to the truth, but given your ambivalent feelings for many of the German characters it feels quite satisfactory.
Amazon now labels this “A David Brook Novel”, and it is quite possible that the surviving central characters on both sides could re-appear. I would very much enjoy that.
In the interests of full disclosure I note that the author approached me to request a review, and provided a free copy of the book for that purpose, however the review above is very much my own.
Review: Zero Limit
By Jeremy K Brown
Inadequate soapy knock-off of Deep Impact, with random numbers!
This is billed as “Artemis meets Gravity“, but it would be more accurate to say “Deep Impact meets Eastenders“. The main plot element is that a rogue asteroid mining operation accidentally puts the rock on a direct impact course for Earth, and thereafter it is basically a straight clone of Deep Impact, but with a Trumpian, dim demagogue president rather than an Obama-esque one, and a level of soapiness which would shame Eastenders.
The author seems to have a very poor grasp of mechanics, and the course of the asteroid is such that early on it’s “a little closer than the moon”, because the author doesn’t want something as prosaic as the speed of light getting in the way of chatty dialogue between the two central female characters, yet rather later on it’s “about four times further away”. Hang on, doesn’t that mean it’s moving away from Earth?
Other numbers and concepts seem to be equally confused. There’s a good thread about “moonborn” characters being demonised on Earth, similar to current Hispanic and Muslim immigrants to the US, but no explanation of how these amount to any significant numbers, especially given the acknowledged challenges of making the journey back if you were born in 1/6 g. There’s a comparison between the projected impact and the largest H Bomb, but a factor of 1000 goes missing somewhere, and you can’t help thinking that real scientists would use terms like “Giga” and “Tera”, and SI units, which have a well-defined, internationally-invariant value.
I finished the book because I wanted to write a review, but this is really one that wasn’t worth completing.
Review: The Spy. Why?
By Andrew Gross
Fictionalised re-telling of the Telemark story. Why?
While this is an enjoyable read, it prompts one big question. Why did the author feel that a heavily fictionalised re-telling of this utterly thrilling true story was needed? In the preface Gross says that he wants to tell “the story of how only a few brave men put an end to that threat”, but but then proceeds to invent a cast of central characters who are at best “drawn from” the real players and have their names changed. My decision to read the book might have been different if I’d realised up front the level of fictionalisation.
The central part of the book (between the commando raid and sinking the ferry) is almost entirely fictional, involving “Kurt Nordstrom” in not one but two love affairs. Now I get that “Kurt spent the summer of 1943 on the plateau eating reindeer and dodging the Germans” isn’t going to fill a lot of pages, but a shorter more focused tale would have been fine. Once you realise that this section is what it is, it calls into question how much of the remainder is historic.
The irony is that a lot of this is unnecessary. By Gross’ own admission, the dramatic chase which separated one of the escaping Gunnerside team from the others actually happened, just to another character not the invented American, and the true story of how the plant’s night watchman interrupted the commandos setting the explosives not once but twice in search of his glasses is both funny and more dramatic than the way it’s told here.
Beyond that, the story has been told well, with less fictionalisation, several times in recent years. The BBC documentary accompanying Ray Mears’ excellent 2003 book was superb, with interviews of many of the real players. I thoroughly enjoyed the tri-partisan 2015 TV series The Saboteurs which succeeded in portraying the perspectives of not only the Norwegian commandos and their supporters, but also the British and Norwegian commanders, and key participants on the German side. Even the still enjoyable 1965 film sticks to the truth at least as much as Gross’ book.
The book was originally published under the title The Saboteur, which makes perfect sense, but then got re-titled The Spy, which makes none, as there’s very little spying involved, and a lot of sabotage. Maybe this was to avoid an obvious clash with the international TV series, but it raises another “why?”.
If you want to read an enjoyable wartime romp with some real key events, then this book is fine. If you’d prefer to understand the background, achievement and the real players, track down one of the TV series.
Review: Darwin’s Cipher
By M A Rothman
At last a good new techno-thriller, but maybe not murky enough?
I like a good techno-thriller, but since the death of Michael Crichton and with Phillip Kerr moving onto German detectives and unpleasant tales of first-person murdering pickings have been thin. I have enjoyed the works of Daniel Suarez, and the more “techno” output from Preston/Child and William Hertling, but having exhausted their catalogues I was getting a bit desperate for my latest trip. That’s when I found Darwin’s Cipher, the second novel from M A Rothman.
The basic plot is a simple one: advanced gene therapy being developed as a cancer cure is surreptitiously diverted into potential military applications, and both the medical and military uses generate very dangerous side-effects, which have to be contained or reversed. The story romps along at a good pace, the “techno” elements are well developed and fairly believable, and you come to like the competent, well-meaning central characters, turning pages enthusiastically to see if they can avert the apocalypse.
The writing is perhaps a bit weaker on the conspiracy side of the thriller. There are lots of secondary characters with varying motivation: good, bad, and those doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. However these motivations are readily revealed and rarely change, and it lacks the sheer murk of a good conspiracy. Also whereas the technical elements are either tidied up neatly or left hanging deliberately, that’s not so true of the darker plot elements, and several key aspects are left unexplained.
That said, these are minor complaints. I did enjoy this book and I’ll definitely read Rothman’s other techno-thriller(s).
In an afterword the author explains that it’s very difficult to get traditional publishers interested in such material, despite the success of Crichton, Kerr and others. That’s a shame, because it’s a genre which continues to intrigue me, and does have an audience. However it looks like we have to continue to go hunting to find the good ones, even before trying to discern the plots of the stories themselves.
Review: The One Man
By Andrew Gross
Decent Thriller but with Annoying and Unnecessary Timeline Errors
Overall this is a cracking WWII thriller, set around the concept of an Allies break in into Auschwitz to rescue a specific prisoner who holds information vital to the Manhattan Project. Andrew Gross has done a great job of capturing the horror and brutality of life in the labour camp, in the constant shadow of the mass exterminations. He weaves into this some believable characters including a Polish Jew who had successfully escaped from occupied Europe, and is then prevailed upon to return to carry out an almost impossible mission, and his nemesis in the form of a side-lined Abwehr Colonel.
Both the set up of the situation and key players in the first half of the book and the suspenseful execution in the second ploy keep hold your attention turning pages right until the conclusion. The core material seems to have been well researched and is based on some well-documented history including Neils Bohr’s daring escape from the Nazis, and Denis Avey’s extraordinary excursion from the Auschwitz POW camp into the death camp to establish a first-hand record of the horrors.
It’s therefore a great shame that this is to some extent spoiled by a number of frustrating and wholly unnecessary errors in the timeline. Other reviewers have observed how the timelines for the key characters don’t quite “add up”. Beyond that there are completely incorrect factual references. The camp commandment goes to a meeting in May or June 1944 with Heinrich Himmler, fair enough, and Reinhard Heydrich, which would be a bit more of a challenge as he was assassinated in June 1942. The central character observes preparations for D-Day, counting the Stirling bombers out and back in again, and is pleased to benefit from the “newly introduced” Mosquito for the mission. The Mosquito was introduced in late 1940, and the Stirling was almost entirely eclipsed by the Lancaster and Halifax after 1943. Why add these incorrect references, when the book would have been fine without those details altogether?
I enjoyed this story, and will probably read some more of the author’s work, but it did leave me feeling a bit annoyed, and for no good reason.
Review: All Tide Up
By Alex Cay
Another great farce
Like it’s predecessor, Man Up!, this is a knock-about farce based around the capable but somewhat cursed sports agent, Patrick Flynn. This time the key protegé is a nymphomaniac Russian tennis player, but otherwise the cast of gangsters, hit-men (& -women) and scam artists hasn’t changed much. So much the better for that. Several of the key characters miraculously make it through from the first book to the second, and if you want to understand how then you first need to read the author’s even more farcical short story Icy Hot.
This style of comedy writing is difficult to pull off, and can mis-fire, but Alex Cay seems to have it off pat. The body count continues to be high, but sometimes (not always) with a slapstick element which invokes a lighter cartoonish tone. The sex scenes are moderately graphic, but provide both the prime driver for several of the female characters and a fair element of the humour. However as long as you are comfortable with a fairly adult style then you will enjoy and frequently laugh out loud at this outlandish tale.
It’s always encouraging when someone takes note and acts on a review. The author personally asked me to review his first book, and I happily did so noting that I’d like to see a change of location, fewer detailed American sports references, and a couple of stylistic tweaks. He has delivered on all those requests, and that makes the book all the more readable. Thanks for listening, Alex!
A great holiday read. I look forward to the next instalment.
Review: Influx
By Daniel Suarez
Enjoyable romp, but largely familiar plot
Daniel Suarez is billed as the new Michael Crichton. While a few of his novels have come onto my radar, this is the first I have read. Based on this showing there’s a great deal of promise, but the fairly derivative nature of the plot suggests that at least for now the pure inventiveness of Crichton has yet to be matched.
The basic precept is this: imagine that many of the key inventions we have been patiently awaiting for the last 50 years – controlled fusion, quantum computing, reliable cloning, a generic cure for cancer – have actually been found, but are hidden from the world at large. What warped power and societal structures would that drive? It’s a great precept, although here it’s turned into a recognisable and predictable plot, with a heroic inventor on the run, while dark forces try to suppress inventions on behalf of the status quo. In some ways it’s reminiscent of Chain Reaction, and by pure coincidence I had also just read Catalyst by Boyd Morrison, which while markedly less futuristic tells a similar tale.
My other slight gripe is that this suffers in a few places from “techno-babble”, short sections which appear to just be a dumping-ground for a large number of technical terms, which just about boil down to “magic”. I know the author is trying to establish the BTC’s technological superiority, but that’s adequately done by the more detailed examples in the main flow of the text.
That said, this is a clever piece, challenging preconceptions and frequently, even literally, turning them on their heads. As a techno-thriller it’s well written, keeping the reader’s attention fully engaged from the first page, and I will certainly be reading more of Suarez’s books.
Review: Man Up
By Alex Cay
Fun, but a very high body count!
This is a comedy thriller very much affecting the style of Carl Hiaasen. Hiaasen’s latest, the hilarious Bad Monkey, uses almost exactly the same Floridan and Bahamian locations, and reading this book almost immediately afterwards did feel a bit like a slightly distorted echo. It would be refreshing to see some authors writing this style of work but against less stereotypical backgrounds, and I hope Alex Cay does so with his future books.
That said, Man Up! is a good example of the genre, and well worth a read. It zips along at a good pace, with enough plot intrigue to keep the reader entertained, even if some twists are rather predictable, and is regularly punctuated with almost slapstick comedy which made me laugh out loud on several occasions.
The central character is a sports agent, and in this case was dealing with ice hockey. In Britain this is very much a minority sport, and the copious ice hockey references and terminology in the first couple of chapters put off at least one reader I know. Keep going and once the real action starts the sports context is no longer such an issue, but if the author wants the widest readership this is something to watch in the future.
I liked the writing style, and was impressed by how Alex Cay had captured the nuances of dialogue for the English characters versus the American ones very well. On a slightly more negative note he has adopted a habit of writing for emphasis One. Word. At. A. Time., which is rather off-putting, and I’d suggest trying to find a smoother alternative.
The book is populated with a range of interesting characters, but in many cases you don’t get to learn much about who they are, or how they have got to where they are, and a bit more background would work well. There are no “supermen”, and a number with very real mental limitations, but almost all the men are enormously well provided in the trouser department, which seems to destroy the good judgement of several otherwise single-minded female characters. I did like the animal characters, including two homosexual bull mastiffs and a shark nick-named Elvis!
This is a tale of stupid wealthy people, corrupt spies and incompetent hitmen, and a large helping of sex and violence more explicit than some other books in this genre is unavoidable. The high body count is actually quite comical, but be prepared for some writing which is not exactly “family friendly”.
Overall I enjoyed the book, and I look forward to reading some more of Patrick Finn’s adventures in the future.
Finally, I’d like to say a big thank you to the author Alex Cay for providing a review copy of this book in Kindle format. I do most of my fiction reading when travelling, and it’s really annoying that most publishers and review commissioners, notably and inexplicably including Amazon themselves, still insist on providing review copies in hardcopy form. Thanks to Alec for doing the right thing.
Review: Resistance
By Owen Sheers
A Fascinating but Disturbing Alternative History
This is a fascinating book, although its title and blurb are rather misleading. I was expecting something along the lines of a Welsh Defiance (the story of the Belorussian Otriads which successfully battled the Nazis behind the Eastern Front), or Secret Army, but in reality the “Resistance” of this book’s title is most notable by its almost total absence. This is in many ways a much scarier story, about how a German invasion of Britain might have succeeded, but I understand totally why the author didn’t choose instead to call it Collaboration.
At one level, this is a masterful and almost believable re-telling of the progress of the Second World War with a completely different outcome, reminding us how many of the key points individually turned on the narrowest of margins provided either by blind fortune or inexplicably poor German decision-making, both of which could easily have been reversed. How, for example, D-Day could have been scuppered by poor weather, or a single effective German spy operating on the right part of Britain’s South Coast. With only a couple of such reversals the Britain of the story leaves itself open to a successful German invasion in 1944.
The bulk of the story is then a study of how war-weary British communities and German soldiers progress, as much through pragmatic accommodation and grudging acceptance as overt surrender or collaboration, to some form of settlement. As a study of human behaviours in hard times it’s excellent, but it’s empathically not a stirring tale of derring-do. The book also ends with the disposition of most of the central characters left open – I would have preferred a more definite outcome, but that would perhaps have closed things down where the book deliberately tries to portray sources of ambiguity.
The story focuses on a small farming community in the Brecon Beacons, between Abergavenny and Hereford, an area with which I have strong family connections, including a great Aunt and Uncle who farmed in a small valley in the Beacons, very like the central community. As such I very much enjoyed the portrayal of so many places I know. I have even drunk in the only pub which gets mentioned by name!
The author, Sheers, is primarily a poet, and his writing paints a very expressive verbal picture of the land, the events and the people of the story. My usual taste in fiction is more focused on action, but accept the style of the book and you will be fully absorbed by this story, even though it is not a comfortable one.
Review: World War Z – The Book
An Oral History of the Zombie War, By Max Brooks
"The World At War" with Zombies!
Christopher Tookey’s review of World War Z the movie made me decide two things simultaneously: I did not want to spend £20 on going to see the film, but I did want to read the book. Having done so, I’m very glad I did.
The book takes the simple concept of “a plague of zombies”, and tries to tell the story of a modern, global human struggle to first survive and then fight back and retake the world. To do this the author, Max Brooks, adopts the unusual but highly effective device of a series of interviews with key witnesses: soldiers, survivors, leaders, administrators and political or social commentators.
The book is as much about the socio-economic upheaval of such a happening as it is about how zombies behave. Given the concept of “flesh eating zombie”, the emerging story then reflects a very modern understanding of virology, military capabilities, human behaviour and geopolitics.
The interview-based structure really resonated with me, although initially I was slightly puzzled why. Then the penny dropped. This is “The World at War”, adapted for science fiction. I am a great fan of that 1970s epic documentary, told largely through interviews with soldiers, survivors, leaders… The author doesn’t explicitly acknowledge that influence, but once you see it, it’s obvious.
I haven’t seen the film yet, but based on the trailer and reviews it sounds like the screenwriters have thrown away this wonderful structure in favour of a much more simplistic linear narrative focused on a few central characters. If so, that’s an enormous shame.
For an intelligent, inspiring tale which will keep you turning the pages you won’t do much better.
Review: El Dorado Blues
By Shaun Morey
Another enjoyable romp
Like the predecessor novel, Wahoo Rhapsody, this is an enjoyable romp which charges on at an impressive pace. As a complete antidote to all the “Templar Treasure” novels of recent years, while this does feature a long-buried fabled treasure, which is located and dug up in the first few pages. That’s when the trouble starts…
Thereafter the story becomes a tale of rich and unscrupulous dealers and collectors trying to get control of the treasure, with a few reasonably honest characters caught in the middle. It’s neither a very long story nor a very complicated one, but it’s quite fun.
I liked the new unpleasant characters, and welcomed the return of the same “good guys” from Wahoo Rhapsody. I just hope Morey has done his legal homework creating a wealthy collector with an ill-fitting toupee called Ronald Stump!
My only complaint about the first book was that it felt a bit too obviously a copy of a Carl Hiaasen, and there’s still some truth in that criticism. In particular Atticus Fish does feel like an echo of Hiassen’s character Skink. However, that’s a minor complaint, and I look forward to the next book in the series.
Review: Utter Folly
A high comedy of bad manners, By Paul Bassett Davies
As good as Tom Sharpe at his best
I can praise this book no more highly than to say that it’s reminiscent of the best work of Tom Sharpe. A cheerfully anarchic tale of country folk, of dark passions, of sex, drugs and rock & roll, of windmills and traction engines.
To reveal much more would risk spoiling the story, but rest assured this will keep you turning the pages and frequently laughing out loud.
If you mourn the passing of Sharpe’s best work, and are frustrated by the way so many purported “comedies” import of this genre fail to amuse, then you will enjoy this.
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