FALLEN KINGDOM by Darren Humphries

This book has been on Amazon for a while, but I haven't got around to announcing it on here because it's been one of those kinds of years and I was hard at work on the short story collection that has just become available and which you will be able to find in the subsequent blog post.

This one is a little bit different in tone for me. It's more of a slow burn adventure, a stranger in a strange land story in which a man returns to a country he thought he knew to find it changed beyond all recognition from the one he left.

As he travels in search of his wife, he learns how the oppressive regime came into power and what the secret of the shadowy police force known as the Hoods really is.

There are elements of Brexit in the UK shutting itself off from the rest of world, but that just provides the backdrop and isn't what the book is about. The book it about one man's journey to find that which is precious to him. That's a story I've wanted to write for a while and it's finally down and available on the kindle.

The full blurb is as follows:

"On V-Day, Great Britain removed itself from the world in an unprecedented act of isolationism. All foreign nationals were expelled and the borders were sealed. All trade stopped. All communications ceased. Anyone trying to leave by air was shot down by the RAF. Anyone trying to get in by sea was sunk by the Royal Navy. The Channel Tunnel was filled with concrete. The United Nations established an exclusion zone, preventing anyone from attempting to enter for their own protection.

Craig Benton, though, was not just anyone. Ex-special forces and trapped abroad whilst in deep undercover action, he is determined to evade the blockade, get into Britain and back to his wife, no matter what it takes.

What he finds on his return is a country greatly changed from the one he left, a country living in fear and ruled by a secret police force known only as the Hoods.

How was this possible? How could the home of modern democracy have fallen so low as to become a police state cut off from the rest of the world in self-imposed exile?

He was to find that the answer was much stranger than he could ever have guessed."

Available on Amazon kindle

BLOWING THE BLOODY DOORS OFF and other lessons in life by Michael Caine

The man himself

Michael Caine dragged himself up from almost cliched humble beginnings to become an oscar winning, restaurant owning national treasure, not to mention Batman's butler. His decades in the business have had highs and lows and a longevity that means what he has to say about the movie business (and by extension all business) ought to be worth listening to as he presents the lessons that he has learned in his life and times.

Those lessons turn out to be 'show up on time', 'know your lines', 'grab your opportunities', 'be kind' and 'be lucky' (plus a few others that I don't recall). Considering that I summed those up in a single line and don't even recall the others after a few hours suggest that they weren't really that much to hang a book on all by themselves. Certainly, quite a few of them got repeated several times.

That said, Mr Caine knows how to tell a story and be thoroughly entertaining whilst doing so. He also knows that a film star's autobiography (even a sort of autobiography like this) works best when it is filled with anecdotes about other film stars and Michael Caine seems to have met them all. He kicks of with a story about John Wayne and never looks back.

Michael Caine seems like an all-round good bloke, both from the stories that he tells and the tone in which he tells them. He seems to have maintained a sense of himself and his past despite the heights to which he has risen. He would certainly be someone to have in your list of fantasy dinner party guests. The time that you spend with him in this book may not profoundly change your life, or even tell you much that you don't already know about how to live it, but it will be time well spent as the book is as engaging and entertaining as the man seems to be and that should be enough for everyone.

ELEVATION by Stephen King

We have reached the point where anything that Stephen King writes will be published. I generally don't have a problem with that, but this 'novella' is a thin tome with what looks suspiciously like double spacing. If it took me two hours to read then I'm surprised.

It also felt like some reheated old ideas thrown together. The central conceit of Thinner was a man who got thinner no matter what he did. The central conceit here is that a man is getting lighter no matter what he does. Gravity is losing its hold. Does this cause anyone great concern? No not really.

The main concern is that there's a married lesbian couple running a restaurant and people don't approve. The local seasonal running race should take care of that. Really? In Trump's America, one photograph is all it takes to change conservative views?

It is a slight tale that doesn't last long or think deep, both of which are surprising for King.

That said, the man does know how to write and you breeze through it pleasurably enough, though by the end of the this snack you're left far from satisfied.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER FAQ

We've been a bit sniffy in the past about the FAQ books because they don't answer frequently asked questions and they don't address the subtitle of "everything that's left to know" about their subjects, but it's time to just accept that this is the marketing line and nothing is going to change that.

So here it is, the latest potted history of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of television's finest fantasy shows, with chapters on the major characters, each season's plots, the 'big bads', the spin off show ANGEL and more. 

It's written by people who clearly know the show and clearly love the show and contains interviews new and old, but it is not (as has been the case with the other books in the series that we have seen) revelatory. There is little here that the hardcore fan won't already know and the there is too much here for anyone who is going into the show for the first time. There are spoilers indeed here.

That said, the book succeeds in its primary function, which is to remind you just how wonderful BUFFY VAMPIRE SLAYER was and, after reading it, you'll be bringing down those DVDs and plunging back into the world of the Slayerettes once again.

NORRIS GOES WEST is released on Amazon

NORRIS GOES WEST, the sequel to SPENSER GOES NORTH has just been released onto Amazon sites around the world for anyone with one of those Kindle reading thingies to enjoy (or not, their choice). 

The street urchin of that first book takes centre stage this time as he investigates missing children on the streets of Liverpool and ends up in an adventure that will uncover a deadly threat to the British Imperial Commonwealth.

Yes, another one.

He'll find his street smarts tested, his courage stretched and his horizons forcibly expanded, but he will also face his greatest challenge yet - girls.

The hardback will be available on lulu.com as soon as I can get it formatted for that and checked.

The Art of Horror - An illustrated history

Of all the genres of movies there are, none has produced movie posters that are as colourful and lurid as those created to sell the humble horror movie. In fact, the more humble the horror movie, the more lurid the cover. Some of history's greatest movie posters are reprinted in this sumptuous coffee table book that spans from the earliest silents right through to Resident Evils and Underworlds that were around and about at the cinema in recent times.

Considering the length of the publishing process, no book can ever hope to be completely up to date, but considering that the art of the movie poster is dying on its feet with the advent of photoshop and video screen advertising, this may the last book to celebrate the art of the nasty poster for nasty movies.

It's not just filled with posters for the likes of Nosferatu, The Curse of the Werewolf and (ahem) The Human Centipede, there are some original pieces that celebrate the likes of The Masque of the Red Death, The Mummy and Pan's Labyrinth.

There are words as well, though they rarely amount to half the page and don't really tell any hardcore horror or movie poster fan anything that they didn't already know about or didn't really need to know about. The words, though, are not what books like this are about. The pictures are the thing and it's unlikely that you're going to find a more comprehensive and visually appealing collection of horror movie poster art anywhere.

Horror art is always going to be something of an acquired taste and certainly this book's audience is going to be limited by the subject matter, but if you've acquired that taste then there is plenty here to enjoy.

So, with Halloween just over and Christmas on the horizon, treat the gore-lover in your life to this hefty tome of bright, black and red-drenched cinematic horror delights, the like of which we are unlikely to see again.

AN ORC LIKE BALREK is released onto Amazon Kindle.

I am finally able to announce the arrival of the sequel to one of my earliest books, An Orc Not Like Others.

An Orc Like Balrek picks up sometime after the previous book and continues the story, catching up with old characters and introducing some new ones. The blurb goes something like this

"Balrek is not like other orcs.

For one thing, he is now the ruler of an entire City-kingdom, something that has not endeared him to many people of power and led to regular assassination attempts.

All of which makes securing his legacy and creating the first orc homeland all the more difficult.

And that was before what happened at the theatre.

This return to the City-kingdoms of An Orc Not Like Others brings together characters old and new to continue the story of the orc who truly is different from others."

This sequel has genuinely been decades in the making since it has been the back of my mind since the first one was written, though it is hardly the sequel that I had in mind way back then.

It's still a fantasy novel, it still has its tongue lodged in its cheek at times and still contains scenes of gratuitous orcery.

No orcs were hurt in the writing of this book (which really annoyed most of them).