Tag Archives: Eric Brown

Wolf Hall and Beyond – the Guardian

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On Wednesday the BBC will be televising Wolf Hall so it has been in the news recently and the Guardian has Wolf Hall and Beyond as the front page of yesterday’s Review section. If you’re interested you can read John Mullan’s article here. I haven’t read any of her books apart from Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies but I really want to read her earlier work now. In fact there are quite a lot of interesting articles in this week’s Review, see if there’s anything you fancy reading about here.

I know that quite alot of people collect the old Ladybird books nowadays, I’m not one of them but I must admit that they are very nostalgic. There’s an article about them here. There has been a hundred years of Ladybird design, you can have a look at the Guardian gallery here.

If science-fiction is your thing then you might like to read author Eric Brown’s reviews of up and coming books here.

Jani and the Greater Game by Eric Brown

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Jani and the Greater Game by Eric Brown is a science-fiction book, more specifically it’s Steampunk and it’s the first Steampunk book which I’ve read. In fact the book was dedicated to Jack and myself, as you can see from the photo below. Eric Brown has been a full time science-fiction writer for 20 odd years but this is his first foray into Steampunk.

Book Dedication

Jani and the Greater Game cover

I didn’t really know what to expect of this book but I was agreeably surprised, I really liked it and am now looking forward to reading the sequel, which I believe isn’t quite finished yet.

Janisha Chaterjee is an 18 year old who has been educated in Cambridge but her father, an Indian government minister is seriously ill, so Jani has returned to see him. On the way back home the airship she is travelling on is attacked and most of the other travellers are killed. Jani survives along with an old lady, Lady Eddington, whom she had befriended on the journey, who it turns out has influence in high places. They are helped by a strange looking being who had been a prisoner on the airship and he gives Jani what she thinks is a coin, before he legs it away from the Russian soldiers who are advancing on them.

So begins Jani’s adventure where she has to dodge the British army, Russian spies and a mysterious Indian holy man and his side-kick. Jani has difficulty deciding who can be trusted and her life is in danger from just about everyone it seems. Amongst the bad guys there are a few really likeable characters which is always a must for me to enjoy a book.

It turns out that steampunk books are a sort of combination of historical fiction and science-fiction. The atmosphere in this one is Victorian with some wonderful futuristic gadgets thrown in. Who wouldn’t love an enormous mechanical elephant which you can ride on and in?

Eric Brown did live in India for a few years so I’m presuming that the Indian parts are all authentic. Go on, if you’re new to steampunk too – give this one a go!

Murder By The Book by Eric Brown

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Eric Brown has been writing science fiction successfully for donkey’s years but Murder By The Book is his first foray into crime fiction and going by this one I certainly hope it won’t be his last. It’s published by Creme de la Crime, an imprint of Severn House Publishing.

I read far more vintage crime than contemporary crime books, mainly because I don’t go in for ultra gory descriptions, so the 1950s London setting fitted the bill for me, Brown managed to evoke the atmosphere well, not that I was there at the time mind you, but I have soaked up a fair amount of the ambience in my years of reading vintage crime. It’s also nice and bookish, involving crime writers, agents and publishers.

Charles Elder is a literary agent who confesses to Donald Langham, one of the writers that he represents, that he’s being blackmailed over compromising photos. Charles is actually a likeable character, bon viveur, gourmand and generous gent, something quite rare in literary circles. Unfortunately his Achilles’ heel is that he’s a bit of an old queen at a time when it was still illegal in the UK. Donald has had some experience of working in a detective agency in the past so he offers to try to track down the blackmailer for Charles.

Donald isn’t exactly successful and more crimes follow thick and fast when crime writers are found dead in bizarre circumstances. When Charles ends up in hospital it gives Donald the chance to get closer to Maria Dupre, Charles’s French assistant, he has fancied her from afar for years. They bond over their mutual angst over Charles. Donald is a bit slow when it comes to women it would seem.

As ever, I don’t want to say too much about the storyline, I did have an inkling as to the culprit at around the half-way or two thirds mark but it certainly didn’t detract from my enjoyment and there were plenty of twists and turns along the way which had me doubting my guess. An awful lot of tea drinking goes on in Murder By The Book, with Earl Grey being Donald’s tea of choice. So if you’re a bit of a tea Jenny too you might want to make sure that you’re well supplied with your own favourite blend of tea to accompany the book.

I found Eric Brown’s writing to be smooth and pacey, I read this one in three chunks but I would have read it all in one sitting if life hadn’t got in the way of my reading time. Although I’ve not read an awful lot of science fiction I think I might just have a go at some of his SF too.

The front cover says: A Langham and Dupre Mystery. I’m looking forward to reading the next one and the development of Donald and Maria’s relationship.