Books – Ghost of a Chance

[a_cubed]

After my mammoth session of catching up with Alastair Reynolds books, I decided to move on to something a little lighter for a while. This is the first of two so far in a series (I’m now reading the sequel, Ghost of a Smile) by Simon R. Green. Green is another author who throws in ideas left right and centre, rather like Stross and Reynolds in that regard. He also mines his own past work and that of classic authors for throwaway links, somewhat like Kim Newman (Ano Dracula, Diogenes Club). In particular this series is probably set in the same world as both his Nightside sequence and his Secret Histories sequences, both also contemporary hidden-world urban paranormal. I say probably because although the Nightside and Secret Histories are clearly linked, this one hasn’t been brought in directly yet. Anyway, this book introduces the Carnacki Institute, who deal with ghosts and related weirdness. The name is drawn from William Hope Hodgsen’s classic tales of Carnacki the Ghost Finder (as is the name of the series “Ghost Finders”) which stories I have also read and enjoyed. As Hodgson died in 1918 his works are out of copyrght and Green is able to include his characters and settings (though bringing them up to date) without worrying about copyright problems. He throws in many other similarly-sourced things in the Nightside books particularly and even some where he skates close to the edge such as the “Travelling Doctor” (clearly The Doctor from Dr Who, but very carefully described at a distance in such a way as to avoid over-zealous copyright lawyers).

In many of his books, the Nightside and Ghost Finders series particularly, Green seems to subscribe to the Moorcock approach to fantastic fiction writing described by Moorcock in “Death is No Obstacle” by Colin Greenland (interviews of Moorcock by Greenland). These are short books by modern standards (about 250 pages) and the action races along. No more than three pages of description without something happening. Also in contrast to Reynolds work which typically covers months, years, decades, centuries, millenia or even aeons of subjective and/or objective time, the 250 pages here comprise of one half hour introductory episode followed by three or four hours or so of the main plot (the second book seems similar). In some ways this read more like a novelisation of a TV show episode than your usual novel. Green makes all of this work and I’m a big fan of his books. They’re not deep or highly stylistic. They are fun, light reads with well-drawn characters that you can get along with (but who have their own quirks). As another reviewer once wrote of David Eddings, these are two dimensional characters, but they’re certainly drawn in exquisite detail in those two dimensions. A distinct contrast to what I’ve been reading lately, but well worth it, particularly if you’ve read the earlier works in this oeuvre by the likes of Hodgson, Wellman or other modern heirs like Newman. Green seems to be churning these three series out one in each every year, but their quality doesn’t seem to be suffering at all, and he doesn’t seem to be running out of ideas, either.

This shows what can be done when the ridiculous excesses of copyright are removed from the equation, and a good modern writer gets to remix ideas from classics of the genre.

Current Mood:  listless

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Originally published at blog.a-cubed.info

Comments

[meepfrog.livejournal.com]

That sounds interesting. I own the Carnacki stories, and enjoy them a lot, and of course, enjoy at least some of Kim Newman's stuff with the references. Might look these up.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

Carnacki without the repeeeeeaaaaaated vowels :-). They don't have an electric pentacle, but do have a "girl geek" who uses 21st century electronic equipment in the same spirit.
I've recently bought but haven't read Mysteries of the Diogenes Club by Kim Newman, based on having read some of the Diogenes Club stories in an anthology (can't remember the anothology now). It's the second Diogenes Club short story collection, but the first one is out of print and must have been a small print run (or only sold a few before being pulped, though that would usually preclude a sequel) because the few second hand copies available are prohibivitely expensive.

[cat-that-walks.livejournal.com]

Old man Carnacki is mentioned in the last Nightside book.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

Which one? I wait for the paperbacks, so A Hard Day's Knight is sitting waiting to be read. John Taylor mentions having been taught a trick by Carnacki in one of the earlier ones as well, IIRC.

[vivdunstan.livejournal.com]

I think Mysteries was the third Diogenes short story collection. I have the earlier The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club, which I bought new at less than RRP, and now I see goes for rather a lot - eek! Before that there was The Man from the Diogenes Club, which goes for even more secondhand.

Ironically I can't read this book. I look at it on the shelves and want to, but I have huge difficulty reading print books now due to brain damage from the MS-like illness. Maybe things will improve some time though. Didn't realise it was a rare book, let alone quite valuable, until seeing your post.

And thanks for alerting me to the Simon R. Green books. I'll need to wait for Kindle versions of them (the Kindle allows me to overcome a lot of the reading difficulties I have with print books now), but they look right up my street.

[cat-that-walks.livejournal.com]

The (currently) last ever Nightside book, 'The Bride wore Black leather'

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

There's also Simon R. Green's earlier sequence which starts with Blue Moon Rising, a very funny set of fantasy/fairy tale trope twisters. This is followed by six short books of non-contemporary urban fantasy detective tales, collected into two triple-book omnibuses [warning: different titles on the same omnibuses in the US and UK] called either "Haven of Lost Souls" and "Fear and Loathing in Have" or "Guards of Haven" and "Swords of Haven". He then finishes with a return to the Blue Moon setting with Beyond the Blue Moon. There are also a couple of related books set in the Blue Moon geographic area (the urban fantasy ones are in a far away city called Haven) featuring different characters. I've never managed to get into his Space Opera Deathstalker series. Apart from anything else, they're all doorstep tomes.
THere's a lot of similarity in style and tone between the Haven books and the Nightside/Secret Histories/Ghost Finders sequences and even some overlapping characters from The Street of Gods, which appears in both Haven and the Nightside and includes some "Gods" in common. As I said, he has a tendency to mine his own as well as others' work for colour.
Ah, I didn't even know there were three Diogenes Club volumes. Thanks for the poiner on that one. The inability to read physical books is horrible. It's one of my nightmares, but at least there is the electronic option these days, even if not everything is available on it. Twenty or even ten years ago and you'd have had far fewer options and thirty years ago it would have been books on tape only. So, glass half-full time, at least there are e-readers these days.