Review: Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

I have a confession to make. When I picked this book off my pile of review books my heart sunk. First off, I’d scanned the promotional material and knew it was yet another high school teenager falls for inappropriate male story. Then there was the small matter of the black feather that had fallen out of the envelope that accompanied the promotional material. So, there was no doubt about it. I wasn’t going to enjoy this.

Yeah, well, OK.

Approximately 150 pages in and I had to put it down because the kids were screaming to be fed, and that’s pretty much how it carried on until I had reached the final page.

So what makes Hush Hush worth reading?  To start with, there’s the two lead characters. Leaving aside the problem of their names (Nora and Patch! I ask you. Those names might work in the US but in England I have an image of a decrepit and irritable old woman getting down with the dog. But I digress), these two are as well-drawn and attractive as any. Nora is a feisty number. She is self-reliant and not easily spooked and no one could be more surprised than she when she finds herself drawn towards the mysterious new boy at school. Indeed, she refuses to give in to the inevitable, does her utmost to avoid Patch and even starts dating another boy, until she comes to suspect that he may have been involved in the death of another girl.  All of which makes the final submission to Patch all the more convincing.

Patch, too is a multi-dimensional creation, no mean feat given he’s the supernatural one. He remains difficult to read, right up to the end. Yes, he’s the fallen angel and yes, he fell, we learn, for all the right reasons. But there are hints a many of the evil he has perpetrated in the past and neither Nora nor the reader can be sure that in the end the evil side of his nature will not triumph.

And then we come to the writing style. This is lean and pacy and dominated by sassy and believable dialogue. Hush Hush is a book you can read quickly, indeed that you want to read quickly. It’s fun and exciting, intriguing and not a little bit sexy; it’s a different twist on the high school romance and a stupendous first novel.

I gather Becca Fitzpatrick is now working on a sequel.  I won’t be picking that one up with a sinking heart, but I do hope I don’t get another black feather.

Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpartick, published by Simon & Schuster, October 29^th 2009

Review: The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Now, there’s horror that is scary, and there’s horror that is stomach-churning. This first volume in the Monstrumologist series is both. It deals, by means of supposed nineteenth century journals, with an infestation of anthropophagi in a peaceful nineteenth century New England town.

The journals were written by one Will Henry, who at the time of this first story, is twelve years old and living with, and as apprentice to, the monstrumologist of the series title: Doctor Pellinore Warthrop. The story opens with the arrival at the doctor’s home of a late night caller with a strange delivery: a dead anthropophagus, still attached to the body of the young girl on whom it had been feeding. Strange late night visitors bearing bizarre packages are not uncommon, we are told, but this particular arrival excites more interest than usual and the doctor immediately sets about examining the find, whilst Will takes notes. What follows is the first of many minute descriptions of these beasts, their gore-bespattered rows of teeth, the gut-wrenching odour which exudes from their every pore and the barbed claws ‘as sharp as a hypodermic and as hard as diamonds’. And you know then that this is no book for the faint-hearted.

So this is the story of a reclusive doctor and his young assistant and their battle to rid New England of a pod of anthrophagi. Well, yes. And no. It is also a coming of age tale. Will has come to live with the doctor after his parents were killed in a fire. He is alone, as the doctor is also, and as the quest to discover how the anthrophagi arrived in New England and how to destroy them unfolds, so Will comes to understand who he is and what the doctor means to him.

And the doctor too, has his own personal angle to the quest, and at this point, it seems, the book becomes very much a product of its period. For Pellinore Warthrop is the son of a monstrumologist, and when the anthropophagi turn out to be connected in some way to his father, Warthrop knows that only he can finish the business. Is it fanciful of me to see a reflection here of a war started by one US President and re-opened by his son? I understand that it is all too easy, post 9-11, to read references to the war on terror into fantasy fiction, but whether conscious or not, the similarities here were too marked for this reader to ignore.

A multi-layered book, then? Yes.  And perhaps one that is a little too sophisticated for its 13+ target audience. The protagonist may only be twelve, but the writing style and language are true to its nineteenth century journal conceit. The ghastliness of the monsters is described with exquisitely literary quasi-nineteenth century prose. Will that appeal to readers more familiar with, say Darren Shan? I’m not sure. But more sophisticated readers will love having more to get their teeth into!

The Monstrumologist: The Terror Beneath by Rick Yancey, published by Simon & Shuster, October 2009, £6.99

Review: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

As ‘what-ifs’ go for the starting point of a novel sequence, this one’s a doosie. 

Assume that Darwin not only came up with natural selection but that he also pre-empted Crick and Watson, discovered DNA, or ‘life-threads’ as they are called here, and then set about fabricating all kinds of species to help mankind. Then assume that the new ‘technology’ is only accepted by Britain and her allies, whilst Germany pursues a more historically accurate technological development, albeit, unwittingly influenced by the ‘Darwinist’ fabrications.

Now place all that in the historical setting of 1914, add a couple of kids who are not quite what they seem, snap your fingers, and voilà, Leviathan! Well, not quite.

Leviathan is the first in a new series by Scott Westerfeld, he of Uglies fame, and you can tell it’s the first in a series because it ends on one of those cliff-hangers that have you turning the page desperate to find out what happens next. 

It opens with the night-time escape of young Prince Aleksandar, Alek for short, in the company of Count Volger and Otto Klopp, master of mechaniks. Alek’s parents have just been murdered in Sarajevo, and the Count knows that the true assassins (not the Serbian scapegoats) will be after Alek next as the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. So, under cover of darkness, they take a Cyklop Stormwalker, stuffed to the gills, with gold bars and the family insignia, and make their escape, trudging across central Europe in disguise and desperately trying to keep one step ahead of their ‘Clanker’ (ie German) pursuers.

Now, the Stormwalker is one of those traditionally powered vehicles that have been subliminally influenced by Darwin. It’s very much a tank or armoured vehicle, but instead of running on tracks (Alek has a little joke about how daft this would be) it uses huge mechanical legs. This provides the reader with no end of fun as Alek learns how to guide the walker at night without tripping over, stop safely from a run and walk on bended ‘knees’ to duck under low archways or keep under cover of trees.

Meanwhile, the other kid, Deryn, is about to apply to enter the British Air Service. Which would be fine, of course, if it weren’t for the minor fact that Deryn is a girl. Of course, she isn’t any girl. She’s the daughter of an aeronaut and has virtually been brought up in the air. She is tough, feisty, clever, and resourceful and she has an endearingly boyish turn of phrase, all of which is aptly demonstrated on her very first day in the service when she successfully pilots a Huxley through a storm.

And this is the point where the reader is first introduced to a ‘hydrogen breather’, for a Huxley is a sort of organic air balloon, a fabrication made from the life-chains of assorted medusae (jelly fish and other poisonous sea creatures) whose belly is full of hydrogen exhaling bugs and bacteria. Therefore, as the medusa feeds it produces hydrogen which fill gas bags in its belly and enable it to rise.  (So hydrogen breathers are actually hydrogen exhalers but that just doesn’t trip off the tongue so well.)

Sadly, Huxleys are also rather primitive beasties, as Deryn calls them, which are easily spooked by high winds. Thus Deryn’s feat is considerable even if she does end up having to be rescued by the Leviathan.

The Leviathan. This is the blue whale sized version: a massive ecosystem, part airship and part weapons carrier. But because it is a ‘fab’, because it is organic, it seems to have something resembling a personality, such that when it lies, deflated and famished on a Swiss glacier later in the story, you feel real pity not only for the humans aboard but also for the ship itself.

Westerfeld’s prose, superb as it is, is only partly responsible. For Leviathan isn’t just a written book. It’s an illustrated one and Keith Thompson’s monochrome drawings and their tender depiction of the fabs, all smooth, sinuous lines, and misty depths, cannot but entice the reader into this mindset.  I love these drawings. They have a delightfully early-twentieth century feel to them at the same time as being undeniably modern. The attenuated figures and impish faces are reminiscent of Chris Riddell’s Edge Chronicles characters, and some of the battle scenes are pure steampunk, but then you get illustrations like that of the Captain’s cabin which would not be out of place in a Sherlock Holmes story.

Of course Deryn and Alek meet eventually and Westerfeld has no end of fun with roles, allowing, for example, Deryn, the pretend boy, to take Alek, the pretend Swiss villager, hostage. By the end of this novel Deryn has discovered Alek’s true identity, but hers remains hidden, although not for long one suspects given her burgeoning romantic inclinations.

I will reveal no more.  

Leviathan, the book, is as superb and captivating a fabrication as Leviathan, the hydrogen breather. It has action, mystery, deception, and even the first stirrings of love. It also raises some fascinating questions about man’s relationship to beasts, should you want to get philosophical, and provides a spin on early twentieth century which makes your mouth water.

It was published only a few days ago. So there should still be some copies left. But move fast as this one is bound to become a bestseller quickly.

Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, illustrated by Keith Thompson, published by Simon & Schuster, £12.99 harback

Review: Dark Visions by LJ Smith

Dark Visions comprises three novels, The Strange Power, The Possessed and The Passion, all of which were originally published back in the mid 1990s. Now they have been repackaged into a single 730 page paper-back volume and released back to a public whose taste for this kind of urban fantasy has been rekindled by the ubiquitous Twilight books.

And here comes the apology.  I know you’re all sick of references to La Meyer and her magnum opus but in the case of Dark Visions I really must draw the analogies. Why? Because reading these three novels you cannot help but be struck by the similarities and as this volume has only just been published (September 3^rd) you may fall into the misapprehension that Smith had been influenced by Meyer.  The truth, however, given the original publication dates, would seem to be the opposite.

But let me tell you a little more about the novels themselves.

The Strange Power introduces the main characters. Kaitlin is an artist, whose drawings have the uncanny habit of coming true. She is invited by the mysterious Dr Zetes to join his group of psychically talented teenagers in a purple building in California. (The significance of the building’s colour is never explained but it’s such a super detail, I thought I’d mention it!) There she meets the two other major characters in the three novels: golden boy, Rob, the healer, and brooding but gorgeous Gabriel, the telepath.

By the end of The Strange Power the three teenagers, along with the two other psychic teen residents of the purple house, Anna and Lewis, have discovered that Dr Zetes isn’t quite the philanthropist they thought, fought him off and in doing so created a psychic bond between group members that cannot be broken.

The Possessed opens with the group on the run. They have escaped Dr Zetes and are desperately working their way up the west coast of America looking for the beach that Kaitlin believes houses their salvation. As they hide out together they grow closer and Kaitlin finally discovers Gabriel’s secret: he’s not just a telepath, but a psychic vampire who has to drain others of their psychic energy to survive.  Now, ordinarily you might run from this. But not Kaitlin. No, she decides that she’s strong enough to control Gabriel and offers herself up as a source. And at this point I can hear you all screaming Bella and Edward at me. So I shall say no more. 

The novel ends with an apocalyptic battle between the Fellowship (the good guys) and Dr Zetes and his bunch of psychic freaks (you guessed it, the bad guys), the outcome of which proves to be not entirely satisfactory for either side. And Kaitlin is not happy either, torn as she is between good old Rob and scary but sexy Gabriel!

The third novel, The Passion, brings both the love story and the battle between good and evil to an end.  This is the one where Kaitlin grabs hold of her life, takes risks and emerges triumphant. She also gets the boy, but I won’t reveal which one.

So, what did I make of the books? Well, they’re a lot shorter than the Twilight opus and the read far more quickly.  The style is leaner and the pages turn rapidly.  Watching the relationship between Kaitlyn and Gabriel ebb and wane is a joy and those readers who criticised Bella for being too sappy, will find for more meat on the bone in Kaitlyn.

The minor characters in the group, Anna and Lewis are less clearly defined. This is only natural given the sheer dominance of the romantic triangle, but, for my money, I could have done with a bit more colour.  Still, that criticism aside, if you liked Twilight, then you will like Dark Visions and it is amazingly good value at only £7.99 for all three books.

As to me, I’m off to read Scott Westerfeld’s latest. I’ve read too many books about American teenagers recently and I really can’t face them again for a while!

Dark Visions by L.J.Smith, published by Simon and Schuster, September 2009