Fantasy series - Floreskand 1: WINGS

 

FLORESKAND 1: WINGS by Morton Faulkner

This is quite clearly the first volume of what is intended to be an entire sequence of stories about the world of Floreskand, a very cultivated creation – BFS Review

The sky above the city of Lornwater darkens as thousands of red tellars, the magnificent birds of the Overlord, wing their way towards Arisa.

Ulran discovers he must get to Arisa within seventy days and unlock the secret of the scheduled rites. He is joined in his quest by the ascetic Cobrora Fhord, who harbours a secret or two, and also the mighty warrior Courdour Alomar, who has his own reasons for going to Arisa. They learn more about each other – whether it’s the strange link Ulran has with the red tellar Scalrin, the lost love of Alomar, or the superstitious heart of Cobrora.

Plagued by assassins, forces of nature and magic, they cross the plains of Floreskand, combat Baronculer hordes, scale snow-clad Sonalume Mountains and penetrate the dark heart of Arisa. Here they uncover truth, evil and find pain and death.

 

Amazon UK - https://tinyurl.com/zafp24cb

Amazon US - https://tinyurl.com/4ufsaj2p

 

The author Morton Faulkner is the pen name of the writing team of Nik Morton and Gordon Faulkner. Nik hails from Whitley Bay, North Tyneside and joined the Royal Navy as a writer. He has travelled all over the world both privately and with the Navy. He gained his Open University BA Degree in 1987 and, on leaving the RN, he began a civilian career in computing. Nik has sold articles and numerous genre short stories espionage, science fiction, fantasy, horror, love, adventure and ghost, and has had 32 books published. Gordon was born and raised in the West Riding of Yorkshire. During an extended stay in hospital in his youth, he developed what turned out to be a life-long passion for Oriental culture, especially Chinese, after reading the travels of Marco Polo. He started training in Oriental martial arts in the late 1960s and after joining the Royal Air Force in the early 1970s started to specialise in Chinese martial arts and Daoist philosophy. During his 22 year career in the RAF, he was one of the founders and General Secretary of the RAF Martial Arts Federation, a post he held until his retirement from military service, when he became a full-time Daoist Arts teacher. This resulted in extensive travel within Europe and North America where he was invited to run seminars and give lectures.

Wings reviews

1.      A beautiful and atmospheric tale. The author has skilfully developed the characters in a way that you feel you are right there with them on their quest. I can say that I have read many fantasy stories I have truly enjoyed, but only a few have left that lingering haunting feeling within me. Can't wait for the next instalment.

Started reading this genre like most people with Tolkien moving on to Feist and Eddings. Grand in scale, well written and certainly the start of the next series on my bookshelf. A gripping read and well worth the wait, congrats Gordon & Nik. Gordon’s vivid imagination has been brought to life by Nik.

3.      It took a chapter or so to get into the world of Floreskand and process the characters, language and sense of place, then I was off! Great story-telling which carried me through quickly to its conclusion, making me impatient for the next book in the series. Well drawn characters with enough mystery about their back story to keep you interested. Well-written too... I could see this as a film - now you just need Vigo Mortensen for the hero and you are set.

A  A fabulous fantasy world so well described that it is easy to see oneself in it, well developed and realistic characters, an exciting plot which does not slow down throughout and makes the reader eager to read on.

A great fantasy adventure with an amazing imagination. You get totally involved in the story from beginning to end. Highly recommend.

This book will keep you turning the pages as it draws you in to the fantastic world of Floreskand

7.    Wings was a great piece of fantasy fiction which I really enjoyed.

8.      Wings is a very good read and one that I'd happily recommend to anyone. It's clear that this is just an introductory, small slice of a well thought out, detailed and interesting world called Floreskand. I'm very much looking forward to future volumes in order to find out more about this world and its people. This time around we meet Ulran, a more than competent inn-keeper, and his two companions on a mysterious quest. The quest resolves itself nicely with a very interesting twist however enough doors are left open to make the wait for the next volume a bit difficult.

Once I had familiarised myself with the world of Floreskand the characters, language etc I soon became engrossed in the story eager to find out what happens next. Great imagination. I loved the characters especially Ulran. Once I had finished the book I was eager to read the next volume in the series. I would thoroughly recommend this book it’s a great fantasy adventure. I could see this as a film.

10. A fast-paced fantasy adventure as an innkeeper, a city dweller full of surprises, and a long-lived warrior, join forces in a race against time. Their quest is to save the red tellars, the giant birds, which are the wings of the overlord. Along the way even the weather becomes a powerful adversary and the three are tested almost beyond endurance. Tensions and evocative language keep the reader turning the pages to the very end! 

  1. An expansive and well thought story, a must-read for lovers of magic and military fantasy.

 

THE KEYS OF HELL - Book review

 

This Jack Higgins novel was first published in 1965. However, in 2001 Higgins revisited the book (which had long been out of print) and tacked book-end chapters, the first and last taking place in Manhattan, 1995. The rest of the book is shown as occurring in 1965, which he also revised, though it could have been improved more, I feel.

It’s Higgins’s third novel featuring his ‘super-spy’ Paul Chavasse, following from The Testament of Caspar Schultz (1961) and Year of the Tiger (1963).

Only recently returned from a hair-raising adventure in Albania, Paul is meeting his boss, The Chief of the Bureau, in the embassy in Rome. Though due for leave, Paul is tasked with going back into Albania and assassinating a double agent, Noci.

Shortly after disposing of Noci, he saves an attractive woman who is being assaulted in the street. It’s Francesca Minetti – he met her at the embassy. She’s Italian-Albanian and works for the Bureau. She has a private problem – her village’s Black Madonna was spirited away before the secret police could steal it. Unfortunately, it sank with her brother and his boat in the marshes and she barely escaped. Would he help her retrieve the statue? It is a symbol of faith against the repressive Communist regime.

He can’t resist the offer.

Higgins paints an interesting picture of the politics of the period, and the search amidst the marshes is masterfully evoked. Inevitably, there is betrayal, courage, capture and escape, the pace rarely letting up.

The tacked-on end chapter works well, too – cleverly done.

I could not find any reference to the keys of Hell in the text; there is a quotation at the front, an Arabic proverb: There are no keys to Hell –the doors are open to all men.

If I had one issue: I lost count of the number of times Paul – and others – lit cigarettes; a veritable commercial for tobacco or a lazy method of breaking up speech or having the protagonist just do something.

A fast read.

Here's a review of the first Paul Chavasse book:

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com/2015/04/ffb-testament-of-caspar-schultz.html

Here are some thoughts on Jack Higgins, with a quotation from his final Chavasse book:

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com/2010/12/editors-pet-peaves-01-whats-empty.html

 

THE DEVIL'S TEARDROP - Book review

Jeffery Deaver’s 1999 novel The Devil’s Teardrop is yet another fast-paced race against time thriller which he does so well.

It’s the last day of the year. Washington DC. Parker Kincaid is a top expert on document analysis, ex-FBI, now working privately so he can look after his son and daughter. Joan, his ex-wife has remarried and is making waves about getting custody – something Parker definitely does not want.  Joan had been an irresponsible mess, a drunk – and that’s why he’d been awarded custody. This fraught relationship is relevant and has a king of resolution in an amusing manner towards the end.

In a nearby mall there’s a shooting, many shoppers killed by The Digger, who has left Mayor Kennedy a note: pay $200,000 by noon or similar shootings will take place at 4pm, 8pm and midnight. 

FBI agents Cage and Lukas drop by Parker’s house with a copy of the ransom note. Can he discern from it any helpful clues? They’re working against the clock here. Parker has worked with Cage before, but Margaret Lukas, the agent in charge, is new to him. Inevitably, there is friction between them – until they gradually appreciate each other’s strengths in moments of intense drama.

So begins a battle of wills: Parker against the anonymous writer.  One clue is useful – the tail of the dot of the lower case I went straight up so it resembled a drop of water. Parker had encountered this unusual feature before – and he’d christened it ‘the devil’s teardrop’. However, the perpetrator in that case had long since been apprehended, tried and executed…

We encounter The Digger, a damaged individual – always narrated in the present (thus immediate) tense. 

Deaver’s done his research into document analysis – whether that’s the type of paper, the ink’s composition, or the writing style; all intriguingly and interestingly conveyed.

Interestingly, there is a scene – via a telephone conversation - between Parker and Lincoln Rhyme. The motivation of the perp in this book has echoes of the guy in The Bone Collector (1997), Rhyme’s first appearance. Yes, indeed, the reader is being expertly manipulated. 

Inevitably, there’s a twist or two before the denouement.

As this is a standalone novel, any reader new to Deaver could start here and become addicted. [I got hooked by his A Maiden’s Grave (1995) which was made into a riveting TV movie Deadly Silence (1997) starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, which is hard to get hold of as a DVD]. 

This book was made into a TV movie of the same name in 2010 and is available on DVD in the US.

THE DREAM MASTER - Book review

This 1966 Zelazny novel The Dream Master began life as the novella He Who Shapes (1964) which won the Nebula Award for Best Novella, tying with Aldiss’s The Saliva Tree. 

Zelazny, being one of the so-called ‘New Wave’ authors, delved into ‘inner space’ as much as the traditional outer space. The book is set in the future – and for example convincingly portrays driverless cars – where hunger has been abolished. ‘Physical welfare is now every person’s right, in excess.’ (p37). ‘A society, though, is made up of many things, and when these things are changed too rapidly the results are unpredictable.’ (p51)

Charles Render is a leader in his field of neuroparticipant therapy – a Shaper. His patients invariably suffer from persistent uncomfortable dreams or neuroses. Using complex apparatus, Render can effectively enter the patient’s mind and construct the dream world they psychically inhabit and destroy it or make it benign, as appropriate, and sooth or remove the underlying neuroses. He is also a widower, his wife Ruth and daughter Miranda having perished in a car wreck; he has a son Peter. Oh, and some dogs have been operated upon so that they can actually talk to their human owners! 

One telling phrase is surprisingly prophetic: ‘The power to hurt has evolved in a direct relationship to technological advancement.’ [q.v. our present-day anti-social media, for example].

A potential client is Eileen Shallot, a resident in psychiatry at State Psych. She is congenitally blind and wants Render to train her to become a Shaper like him. (p23). Since she has no visual sense, he feels that her goal is unattainable and therefore he is reluctant at first. Butt she convinces him it would be a scientific triumph when he succeeded. What he had not figured on is Eileen's overpowering hunger for visual stimulation… 

Eileen’s dog is called Sigmund. ‘An argument with a dog was about the most ludicrous thing he could imagine when sober.’ (p44) Some of the scenes between Render and Sigmund are quite amusing.

Zelazny has a leaning to poetic and visually arresting phrasing. (Render) ‘remembered her fingertips brushing over his face, like leaves or the bodies of insects, learning his appearance in the ancient manner of the blind. The memory was not altogether pleasant. He wondered why.’ (p39) 

Talking of poetry, Render quotes Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (p100) - and there’s no credit in the front of the book!

I particularly liked this scene: Eileen is looking at herself in her compact. ‘Her thirtieth birthday, like a huge black cloud, filled an April… She touched her quizzical lips with colour, dusted more powder over her mole, and locked the expression within her compact for future use.’ (p117) 

The scene with young Peter touring a space exploration exhibition reminds me of Ray Bradbury’s The Silver Locusts: ‘Almost imperceptibly, it had lifted itself above the ground. Now, though, the movement could be noted. Suddenly, with a great gushing of flame, it was high in the air, darting against the grey. It was a bonfire in the sky, then a flare; then it was a star, rushing away from them. “There’s nothing quite like a rocket in flight”.’ (p94)

In this case, I suspect the shorter version should have been left alone. I felt that there were too many stream-of-consciousness paragraphs where very many literary and artistic allusions were shoe-horned in, providing padding to get to novel length. Even the scene at the exhibition with his son Peter was not notably relevant. 

Still, I’m glad I finally got round to reading this ‘classic’ science fiction novel, and enjoyed several aspects of it.

EYE OF THE NEEDLE - Book review

 

Ken Follett’s debut novel Eye of the Needle (1978) is a fast-paced thriller which deservedly got him noticed – and was made into a film of the same name starring Donald Sutherland, Kate Nelligan and Christopher Cazenove.

Henry Faber (Sutherland) was a Nazi sleeper agent working for Canaris. His nickname is ‘The Needle’ as he uses a stiletto knife to kill. He is almost caught sending radio messages but manages to murder his landlady before she can give him away. He goes on the run, resorting to one of several aliases. 

At about the same time Lucy gets married to RAF pilot David Rose, who is due to join his squadron for his first flight in a Spitfire. Driving away on their honeymoon, they’re involved in a car crash.

Some three or so years later, Lucy is with David and their young son on Storm Island, virtually cut off  from the world and the war. Which is how David likes it, since he lost his legs in the crash and has become embittered. He no longer seems to love Lucy and she has become a drudge; if it wasn’t for David’s disability and her son, she might have left him. There is a sheep farmer at the other end of the island, with a radio transmitter.

At this time Faber has been ordered to investigate Patton’s troops who are supposedly poised to invade Calais. He penetrates the fake airfield and camp in Norfolk, complete with inflatable tanks and plywood aircraft. It’s an elaborate ruse to misdirect the Nazis, when the real landings will be in Normandy. He takes photos and then moves north to keep his rendezvous with a submarine in the North Sea.   

Hunting Faber is a spycatcher called Godliman, a recently recruited history professor, and his colleague Special Branch Inspector Fred Bloggs. Considering the communication limitations during wartime, they still manage to track Faber to the north.

While a sleeper, Faber met Godliman when they were both admiring a cathedral’s architecture. So Follett even then was interested in the subject – and of course that interest blossomed into his outstanding magnum opus The Pillars of the Earth (1989).

Faber steals a boat in an attempt to meet the U-boat. Unfortunately, a storm hits and he is washed ashore on Storm Island. Lucy takes him in and he provides her with a believable cover-story. Once he learns about it, Faber intends to use the radio transmitter to summon the U-boat. 

Follett convincingly portrays the frustration and despair of Lucy. David’s attitude virtually throws together Faber and Lucy – and a guilt-ridden passionate interlude follows. The claustrophobic atmosphere of the farmhouse combined with, the close proximity of a fit good-looking stranger, an attractive woman and an embittered cripple result in violence and death.

A tense page-turner that has not lost any of its appeal since publication.

If you’ve never read any Follett, this is a good place to start.

 

PS - It's rare to find a typo in Follett's books. Here's one, though: '... picked up her wristwatch from the door.' (p249) Should be 'door', of course. :)