Review of Dark Expanse: Surviving the Collapse

Here is something that might interest you: a series of short science fiction stories that illuminate the political landscape behind a free internet game.  This is my review:

So... this is what happens when the gods desert you.  In the case of Dark Expanse – a series of eighteen short stories shedding light on the internet game of the same name – the omnipotent, controlling Zyxlar have inexplicably abandoned the many races of the universe to cope as best they can.

Award-winning authors describe with originality and mastery of the genre how Terrans, Silicates, Saurians, insect-like Chitters, mind-reading Kanzai, gaseous Methenes and the powerful Vilicus all rub along in the ensuing chaos.  Suspicions are fuelled or overcome, alliances brokered and broken, with piracy and opportunism rife.  There’s action, political strategy and personal relationships.

If, like me, you prefer dialogue to express emotion and character, rather than point at outlandish, dream-like technology, you will enjoy the skills of Nancy Fulda and David Wynne.  Simon Kewin and Matt Mikalatos both explore religious belief and moral dilemmas: the Kewin in Hellfire Unleashed, where life-forms are destroyed if they are sentient and hence dangerous; and Mikalatos in A Small and Secret Freedom, where believers discover that the stories surrounding their saviour are untrue and that he’s now a slave.  In The Price of Escape, David Walton’s comically bumbling hero stumbles from one terrible situation to another before coming out on top. 

Some of the authors on board, as you might expect, have a greater facility when it comes to describing action, landscape, conversation and character.  But you will be drawn into this universe, where good and evil is not black and white and, convincingly, reflects familiar political realities and social relationships.  Game-player or not, if you like science fiction, you will enjoy the Dark Expanse.  

If you are interested, you can find it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Expanse-Surviving-Ken-Liu-ebook/dp/B00J499AT0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400665310&sr=8-1&keywords=the+dark+expanse

The Reptile Wars - paperback

I've just received my first copies of the paperback version of The Reptile Wars, so it should be on Amazon's shelves in a week or so.  I have to say even some non-fantasy readers think it looks not bad.  Not bad is Scottish for pretty good, which is English for... well, being Scottish, I don't think I can translate it into American English.  But the cover is on this page and, at the moment, the link to the ebook is here.  There's a lot in it (a life-changing fire, a shaking up of time, mistaken identity, suggestion of an impossible relationship, a long journey, a confrontation with murderers and a mutant, an evil being that wants to live forever, and a final battle with an emergent reptile)  and there's a lot more to come - at least two sequels.  At the moment, I seem to be writing them both at once, with an entirely different story tugging at my writing elbow.

The paperbacks were nice to come home to.  By that I mean, we were a short time - too short - in Andalusia, starting in Malaga then taking the train to Seville.  Such a wonderful place.  If you haven't been, go!  Tapas great, temperature fantastic (maybe too hot in summer), wine was even better, people warm and helpful, trains easy to figure out, and learning enough Spanish to order was not difficult.  The only problem was, I forgot to bring home Manchego.

But it is also the general area in which parts of the book is set in, so I take every opportunity to go there. What is so fascinating about southern Spain (and inspired the book), of course, is the Moorish / Arabic influence, the meeting of the Middle East and Africa and Europe, where Christianity and Islam together produced something as amazing as the Mezquita in Cordoba.