I usually write quite long reviews because I have been asked to review a book by somebody or because I think that there is a lot that can sensibly be said about it, but this week I’m doing two very short reviews simply because I really enjoyed these books and would like to share them with you.
‘The Secret World of Christoval Alvarez’: Ann Swinfen
Elizabethan spies. Mary Queen of Scots. All those plots you read about at school (if you are old enough to have done history when Good Queen Bess was what you got taught about).
Absolutely gripping stuff in stunningly well-written novel by someone who certainly knows their Elizabethan history. Brilliant characters, (largely) convincing plot, loads of lovely period detail.
I wish I could write nearly as well as this. It’s a model of how to do it.
This has a YA feel to it and the story seems a little too fantastical, but the Historical Note suggests it’s not nearly as fantastical as it might be. Two strong female characters, a suitably chilling villain and a story that positively romps along, helped by fluid prose that’s a pleasure to read. I seem drawn to English Civil War stories almost despite myself. This one holds up well on the period detail. There’s the odd bit of military stuff I wasn’t entirely convinced of, though that could well be my ignorance showing. The life of a servant back in the 17th century seems suitably grim with lots of description of domestic chores, miserable accommodation and doubtful diet.
It’s a light read but served very well for a holiday break. It’s a lot of fun.
A quick reminder that The White Rajah is available again on Amazon with a shiny new cover. Now seemed a good time to republish a novel based around James Brooke’s adventures in Borneo as a film on the man’s life (End of the World) is coming out on 21 June. It’s got pirates and battles and derring-do, but it’s mainly a reasonably thoughtful novel about colonialism and good and evil and suchlike. It’s not as easy to read as, say, Shadow on the Highway, but there is a lot of excitement as well as an exploration of what happens when Europeans take responsibility for the development of what we would now call Third World countries.
Back in 2013 I blogged that Rob Allyn, an American film producer with a solid, if unspectacular, back catalogue, had been travelling around Sarawak in Borneo scoping out the possibility of making a film about Sir James Brooke. Despite a reported £15 million dollar budget and official support from the Sarawak government, nothing happened for years. It looked as if this was to be yet another failed attempt to film Brooke’s life.
Before World War II, Errol Flynn pitched the idea of a film based on Brooke’s story to Warner Brothers. Unfortunately, the idea was based on an outline by Lady Sylvia Brooke, the wife of the third Rajah and she vetoed Flynn’s ideas which presented Brooke as a romantic hero, irresistible to women. (Flynn, it must be said, knew what he was good at and concentrated on playing those roles. He, of course, intended to play Brooke.) Lady Sylvia insisted that the plot must reflect the historical reality that Brooke was uninterested in women. (We’ll explore the reasons why this may have been true in another blog post.) Flynn insisted that “You can’t have a motion picture without love,” and Lady Sylvia insisted that you couldn’t have a James Brooke movie with it and Warner Brothers decided not to go ahead.
Errol Flynn
Further possible development of a movie stalled because of the war, but in 1947 Errol Flynn tried again. (You can see his letter to Jack Warner HERE.) The outline Errol pitched cheerfully ignored history, but might have made a decent adventure romance. Warner disagreed, though and the film was never made. In 1968 Warner gave up on the rights.
In 1971 Lady Sylvia died and with her died any concerns about worrying over historical accuracy.
Fast forward to 2013 and, despite a slow start, production went ahead on the latest version of the movie, originally called White Rajah. The movie makers seem to have got a bit nervous of the word ‘white’ and changed the title to Rajah. (I do sympathise because I worry about the racial implications myself, but the dynasty is still known locally as ‘the White Rajahs’ and it’s the way Brooke has been referred to.) Rajah on its own doesn’t make much sense, though, so the film is now Edge of the World.
It’s a big production, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. It was financially supported by the government of Sarawak and filming takes full advantage of the dramatic scenery of Borneo. The curse that seems to hang over Brooke films has struck again, though. Despite being featured as a ‘First Look’ offering in the 2020 Cannes film festival, covid means it will not have its planned cinema opening, instead going straight to DVD/digital.
Jonathan Rhys Myers as James Brooke
The film was available in the USA on 4 June, but we have to wait until 21 June to see it in the UK. I’ve been lucky enough to see a preview. (Writing doesn’t earn any money but it generates the odd side benefit.) I’ll be reviewing it next week. Until then, if you are interested in my take on Brooke’s story, The White Rajah is still available at £6.99 (or £3.99 on Kindle).
Last week I promised that now that we can again travel into Wales I’d give you a break from both The White Rajah and lockdown ennui and give you some photos of the countryside.
It turned out to be a good weekend to get away, didn’t it? The middle of Wales tends to be quiet, even on a Bank Holiday. And the weather was amazing.
There’s no particularly brilliant photos, I’m afraid, partly because heat haze was an issue (though fortunately editing software can take a lot of that out).
I was also mainly using a camera phone rather than an SLR. My SLR is old and heavy. I know it sounds a bit wussy complaining of the weight of a camera, but a lump of metal really can get quite irritating when this is your walk.
I’m also finding that most of the nicest photos have been taken before. This is from the last time we made that steep climb (from about half way up). It seems a bit silly to take it again.
I did take yet more photos of bluebells, though. The bluebells in the hills in Wales are at their best in May and I love taking pictures of them.
I hope you found ways to enjoy yourself over the weekend and that life will return to something more like normal in the weeks ahead.
I’ve just been reading Larry Beinhart’s latest. It’s a lot of fun.
I’m always interested to read how other writers approach things I’ve just written (or am writing) about. So I was fascinated to see Loren Estleman tackling the idea of anti-Napoleonic agents in Paris because that’s exactly what’s going on in the next Burke book. And now I can look at how a well-established author updates a traditional fantasy genre to make it work in the “real” world. In Something Wicked I took a new look at vampires so that we could imagine them living “normal” lives in London (and dancing a lot of tango, as it happens). Larry has created a thoroughly 21st century monster but one that behaves exactly like traditional zombies. I think he’s made it work.
There’s a not particularly subtle (not at all subtle really) sub-text that comes from a clearly left-field political perspective. It will put off some readers but I enjoyed it. Big business is bad and pharmaceutical companies are not to be trusted. Larry’s targets range across underfunded police departments, private military contractors, the war on drugs and dumping toxic waste in third world countries but they do all come together to create ‘the School of Tomorrow’. Here children are fed behaviour modifying drugs to produce perfect high-achieving pupils taught by staff who have been similarly pharmaceutically “Optimized”. All goes well until the drugs are polluted with poisonous run-off from a toxic waste dump (I told you it all fits together) to produce children with massive cravings for more drugs (I told you it wasn’t subtle). Once they’ve taken all the pills, they start trying to extract the drugs from the bodies of teachers and others who have them in their blood stream. Yes, these are now zombie children! All locked in a school!! With just a few drug-free individuals trying to save them!!!
It’s every zombie film you’ve ever seen. Bits are hilarious, much is gross. There’s zombie sex (not very good sex, but I guess that figures), spectacular amounts of violence, stupid policemen, clever stoners and evil businessmen trying to work out how to make money out of it all. The set-up is an enjoyable read and the climax had me so hooked I missed my Netflix fix. Personally I felt the middle act was perhaps a tiny bit over-extended, but then I’ve never been a huge zombie fan. There’s only so many shuffling creatures cornering people and ripping them apart that I can feel invested in, but lots of readers will love it. The fact that the evil zombies are often small children does give it a slight edge: they’re more likely to bite your calves than your neck and when people start retaliating it turns out you can throw a small child quite a distance. Definitely not a book for those of a sensitive or nervous disposition.
So does it work? Clearly I thought it did. Larry is self-publishing this, because despite his record as a best-selling author (Wag the Dog, No One Rides For Free) traditional publishers were unenthusiastic, so Larry has self-published this. I think it will do well: clearly reimagining traditional fantasy tropes is where this genre is at (he says, hoping to see a spike in sales of Something Wicked). Seriously, this book deserves to do well. It’s a great read and just £3.50 on Kindle.
Other Urban Fantasy novels are also available
Apparently this genre is called ‘Urban Fantasy’. Who knew? Certainly not me when I started writing it.
If you enjoy this sort of thing, can I point you at Something Wicked? I may have mentioned it once or twice already, but reviews suggest it is good. Vampires hanging out in the sort of tango clubs I hang out in, just trying to get by in a world they think might not be too happy if we all knew their lifestyle choices.
I’ve also written a novella, Dark Magic about a troupe of stage conjurors whose act is getting a little diabolic assistance. It does not end well but you will laugh. Surprisingly (and satisfyingly as far as I’m concerned) some people said it was genuinely scary as well as funny. No zombies, though – not even one.
In the early days of lockdown (can you remember that far back?) lots of us made a point of trying to keep in touch with friends we could no longer meet up with. The more technically enabled went for Zoom while people like me (I don’t even have a camera on my computer) used telephones. It was nice. My son, who is very much of the text based generation being big on things like WhatsApp, said that actually talking to friends was a novel and exciting development.
As time has passed, these conversations have become less novel and exciting. They seem more likely to proceed thus:
“So, how are things with you?” “Oh, you know. Same old, same old. And you?” “Oh same thing. Nothing much is happening around here.”
Long ruminative silence.
I’m beginning to feel the same way about my blog posts and other social media. Time was when every few weeks I would write something about an interesting place I’d visited. Because my blogs are so much about history, this would often be a discussion of a site of some historical interest. Sometimes, though, it would just be a pretty part of the countryside or a tango club I’d enjoyed or some random, but potentially interesting or amusing, happening in my life. As we begin to open up, this may start up again, but so far the Great Reopening has been fairly nominal. Most places can’t survive economically on the income that they can generate from the number of people they are allowed to have in and those that are open can have a distinctly half abandoned and depressing air. So what to write about?
Last week saw the republication of The White Rajah and, quite honestly, I could write about this for weeks. I’ve already discussed the swords on the cover and enough people were interested in that to make me feel that I will soon do something even more geeky about metallurgy and sword-smithing. I’ve written about James Brooke (the eponymous White Rajah) and will doubtless write about him again. I can wax lyrical about Sarawak (where the book is set), its people and history. But I do look quite carefully at the audience for the blog each week and the sad truth is that people are already beginning to feel that I have perhaps overdone it talking about this book.
So what should I write about instead? Every so often I do ask people for ideas – I do believe (up to a point) in giving the audience what it wants. But I get surprisingly little feedback. You can put any ideas you might have in the comments section – I do always read it – or try to reduce them to 280 characters and tweet them to me (@TomCW99). Failing any suggestions, you’ll probably find some photographs of Wales next week, as the lifting of restrictions means that I can at least visit there. Of course, I do post the odd book review through my blog. With life still fairly restrictive in many ways, you can always escape into a book. Speaking of which, have I mentioned that The White Rajah is now available on Kindle and in paperback?
