Antarktos Rising by Jeremy Robinson

I’ve had my eye on Jeremy Robinson for a while. He’s a self-published author running his own publishing imprint (Breakneck Books), and he’s one who seems to be going places. After spotting a couple of glowing reviews on some blogs, I had to get hold of this.

I love the concept Robinson came up with. America inexplicably freezes, while Russia boils, and Antarctica thaws. The earth’s crust has tilted forty degrees on its axis. All the earth’s nations are now in ruins, with billions dead. As humanity picks itself up from the apocalypse, the remaining governments seek to claim Antarctica (later named Antarktos) as their new home. Rather than descending into war, all the nations agree to a participate in a race. The first three to reach the centre of Antarktos will divide the continent into three equal sections. The losing nations will have to make do with the harsh conditons of their present homeland.

After only two months of mild weather conditions, Antarktos has mysteriously transformed into a lush paradise. Trees and plants have grown at an alarming rate. The thaw also reveals Antarktos to have been inhabited in the distant past, eons ago when it wasn’t covered in ice. Worse still, the thaw has released Antarktos’s wildlife from a state of cryonic suspension. The race teams not only have to outwit and outrun each other (with talented assassins and Arab terrorists in the mix), but they must also face dangerous dinosaurs and do battle with a more intelligent enemy - mentioned briefly in the Bible: giants, known as the Nephilim, recorded in Genesis chapter 6.

From the beginning, the story is divided up into several sub-plots. We follow Dr. Merrill Clark, Antarctic explorer, as he experiences the changes on the continent first-hand. We follow Mira Whitney, in the USA, who must escape an incoming tsunami followed by a rapid freeze. We see right inside the lives of Arab terrorists, intent on sabotaging the American race team. And there are Russians and Chinese sub-plots, too. All the jumping around from place to place does unfortunately have a negative affect on the story’s pacing, but it did help maintain the sense of epic promised in the story’s premise. Occasionally, I got impatent, eager for the race to get moving and the real adventure to start.

The first point where the story faltered a little for me was when Dr. Clark emerged from a naturally dry valley in Antarctica and discovered that all the ice had gone, leaving only soil and rock. The temperature had risen, then the ice had melted and presumably flowed out to sea. But I had to ask myself: why didn’t the water flow into the valley and drown Dr. Clark? A valley, by definition, is lower than the surrounding land. No matter how I tried to think about it, I couldn’t conceive of how one man could survive the “birth pains” of the new continent. I put this plot-hole aside, hoping it would be the only one. Sadly, a little later we see Whitney in the USA hiding from men with guns by pretending to be dead. However, she’s in sub-zero temperatures. The author seemed to forget that the very act of breathing would betray her, as her warm breaths hit the frigid air. Maybe I’m nit-picking, but it bugged me, because I thought it should have been so obvious. To be fair, though, the novel wasn’t littered with these inconsistencies.

The author makes a reasonable attempt to add a more intimate and personal side to the story. The lives of the principle characters are fleshed out. We even see the terrorists’ motives from inside their own heads. But none of it rings true enough for me. The characters were just too straightforward and uncomplicated, their actions occasionally spoiled by melodrama. The novel just lacks a necessary richness in the area of characterisation. And that’s a great pity, because that’s one of the main things I’m after, as a reader. If the characters don’t come alive in my imagination, even the most original and action-packed story will fail for me.

Antarktos Rising is essentially a cross-genre novel. Nothing wrong with that, in principal; genre definitions are merely labels to determine where a book should be placed in a store. Antarktos Rising starts out as a thriller with sci-fi leanings, but by the end it’s in full-fledged fantasy territory. Robinson starts off by appealing to those who like their fiction grounded in something close to reality; he goes to great pains to inject some science into his theory of the earth’s crust shifting. But at the end, we have winged beasts and magical healing powers. Those who where expecting a scientific explanation for the accelerated growth of Antarktos will be disappointed to discover that it boils down to an explanation more at home in a Tolkien-esque fantasy. All I’m saying is, you have to like both genres. You have to be able to handle the massive suspension of disbelief that is part-and-parcel of any fantasy novel right alongside scientific thrillers, which typically thrive on rationality. This strikes me as a hard sell, and it didn’t quite work for me.

It’s more than just thriller plus fantasy. There’s a religious side to the story. I have no problem with that, in principle, and I think it’s good that a writer injects his own beliefs into his fiction. That’s writing from the heart, after all. However, there was something strange about reading two characters debate about the historicity of the Biblical Flood inside a novel that was already steeped in so much fantasy. If you want to convince a reader that the events of the Bible really happened, you’re going to need to place your argument in a more reliable context. As a Christian myself, I felt Robinson went a little too far when he suggested that the Flood was not God punishing mankind for its wickedness (as stated in the Bible), but God wiping out a race of demon-human hybrids that had mixed with man’s bloodline. The Flood, he suggests, was a means of restoring humanity back to a pure bloodline. I’m shocked that a Christian author would dare to mix fantasy with reality and be so bold as to misrepresent the will of God.

I hate having to voice all these criticisms, because I really wanted to love this book. In fairness, there were some really atmospheric scenes. The short chapters, many of which ended in cliff-hangers, kept the pages turning. Robinson, as a self-published author, is one of the minority who are doing self-publishing the right way - taking time to shine their prose up so that it sparkles. Robinsons’s grammar, punctuation and style are almost indistinguishable from a professional novelist’s. I think, however, that the story could have benefitted greatly by being submitted to some hardcore critiques prior to publication. The plot-holes alone make me suspect that Robinson is running a one-man show. Every writer needs his advisers.

Overall, this is a story that attempts to be great and succeeds in being good. It’s clear that the author is working to the best of his ability and aiming for the top, which is something I can respect. And I hope that Jeremy Robinson continues to hone his craft with future novels. It struck me that fans of Jules Verne in particular may appreciate this novel.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

What’s a thirty-four-year-old man doing reading Alice in Wonderland? you might ask. Well, I have a fascination with classic literature, and this is one of the most popular novels. It’s not hard to find references to Alice in modern film and literature: since I’m a sci-fi fan, the character Morpheus in The Matrix is the first one that jumps to my mind. For whatever reason, Alice has stuck in the public’s imagination.

I didn’t find much enjoyment in reading during my pre-adolescent years. Hence, this is the first time I’ve ever read Alice. Can it be enjoyed by an adult? That’s too general a question. Was it enjoyed by this adult? Not overly. It’s a story about a girl who’s sitting by the riverbank with her sister. She spots an odd-looking rabbit; it’s wearing a waistcoat. The rabbit enters a rabbit-hole. Alice goes in after him. She falls and falls, eventually landing on a pile of leaves in a tunnel. What follows is a series of bizarre encounters with characters that range from eccentric to psychopathic (usually talking animals of one kind or another). Alice herself does a lot of growing and shrinking in order to squeeze through small spaces and get from place to place. At one point she creates a lake out of her own tears. Each scene in the story has very little to do with any other, and there is no motivating factor in the story’s progression other than mere curiosity. I am loathe even to call this an adventure, on that basis; it reads more like a child’s acid trip. In the end, the story resorts to the most shameful plot device of all, in order to get Alice home: “It was all a dream.” This just would not fly, if written today.

In fairness, Alice was not written for someone my age, so I should try and ask myself whether I think I would have enjoyed this as a young boy. When I think about what I did like as a boy (Star Wars, Knight Rider, The A-Team), again I have to say no. I suspect Alice is for little girls only (and that’s a place I just can’t take my mind back to!). However, I can’t ignore the fact that there is children’s literature that I do enjoy today. And it’s not all boys’ sci-fi adventures. Take C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. The haphazard structure of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland pales by comparison to the carefully woven tapesty of Lewis’s novel. So, I’m sticking to my guns. Alice gets a thumbs down.

Axiom-man by A.P. Fuchs

This is how self-publishing should be done. Too often, a self-published novel is let down instantly by a poorly designed cover that’s nothing more than a piece of stock photography with some text overlaid. But the cover of Axiom-man looks beautiful. Not only is it well drawn (the talents of Justin Shauf and Kyle Zajac), but it shows excellent marketing sense. The comicbook style is designed the capture the attention of superhero comic fans everywhere. I’m not even one of the those, and yet I was intrigued.

If you saw this on the shelves of your local bookshop, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a graphic novel. But it’s a straightforward novel. Superheroes and the written word - I can’t help thinking that’s got to be a hard nut to crack. The kind of stories such characters facilitate are usually visual, containing all kinds of thrills and spills - perfect material for movies and comics. For novels? Well, I can’t fault Fuchs for making a hearty attempt. Rather than going for all-out action, the novel Axiom-man actually spends many of its pages in domestic territory, telling the story of Gabriel Garrison and his struggle to fit his secret life as a hero into his normal life as a helpdesk operator. The story was interesting, and I found myself picking the book up at various points in the day, just to read a little more (this is something I rarely do; I normally just read at bed-time). I have to confess, though, that Gabriel’s dorky, bumbling put-ons were a little too reminiscent of Clark Kent, and his powers not dissimilar from Superman’s.

Partway into the story, a new hero arrives on the scene, calling himself Redsaw. He saves a few lives and soon steals the affection of the city. Although Redsaw’s abilities are on par with Axiom-man’s, Redsaw is a very different person. Axiom-man runs from the press, whereas Redsaw basks in the adoration of the public. Axiom-man wants to team up for the benefit of all, whereas Redsaw is unwilling to share the glory. You all know the saying, “With great power comes great responsibility.” This is the story of what happens when great power is given to the irresponsible - to a self-seeking man filled with pride and prone to outbursts of anger. It’s not long before Redsaw’s hot-headedness causes the accidental death of an innocent man. In one single moment, he is despised by all. Everything changes for him. And then, he changes. I loved this part of the story. Redsaw is a far more believable villain than the likes of the power-crazed General Zod from Superman II. If I have one criticism of this aspect of Fuchs’s novel, it’s merely that it didn’t quite go where I was hoping. I was more interested in reading about the deliberate fall of a man from grace than the possession of a man by an ethereal dark power. There was more potential to this side of the story than I feel was realised.

Towards the end, the story gets down to the anticipated high-octane fisticuffs between hero and villain. And this, for me, was the proof that superhero stories need a visual medium in order to have the proper impact. It was the least interesting part of the book. I can imagine the exciting comicbook frames in my mind, but they don’t carry the same weight in prose. I think the author made a good overall choice to write Axiom-man as a domestic story, with the action scenes sporadic and short.

The book is well edited, with few typing and typesetting errors - streets ahead of the majority of self-published fiction. I’ve read one other book by A.P. Fuchs: A Red Dark Night. Axiom-man shows a distinct improvement, not only in terms of presentation, but in Fuchs’s own maturing style as an author.

Although not marketed as a children’s book, I think Axiom-man would make great reading for boys, not only because boys love superheroes, but because the novel is written from a Christian standpoint, touching on matters such as selflessness, deception and ego. So, if there’s a birthday coming up near you and you can’t think of a gift to buy, consider a personally autographed copy of Axiom-man from the author’s website.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

This short book is comprised of thirty-one letters. Each one begins with “My dear Wormwood” and is signed “Your affectionate uncle - Screwtape.” Weird names, no doubt, and weird characters to go with them. Wormwood and Screwtape are not human beings; they are demons of the spiritual world, existing only to prey upon human souls. Screwtape is an experienced tempter, while his “nephew” Wormwood is new on the scene. The latter’s task is to entrap and destroy one particular human to whom he has been assigned. Each of Screwtape’s letters consists of advice to the inexperienced tempter as to how he might best exploit the human’s circumstances to secure his soul for hell.

You could be forgiven for thinking that this is not a serious book, but you couldn’t be more wrong. Yes, it’s laced with humour; yes, it contains the most ridiculous character names (Slubgob & Toadpipe are a few incidental demons you’ll meet); but this book is actually trying to be deadly serious. “What about?” you might ask. “How to send someone to hell?” Quite the opposite. In reading The Screwtape Letters, the reader gets clued into the subtle strategies of Satan so that they are exposed for what they are, and the reader is able to withstand them. Here’s one example which stood out for me, on the subject of how to pray:

Whenever they [the humans] are attending to the Enemy Himself [God] we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves. Keep them watching their own minds are trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills. When they meant to ask Him for charity, let them, instead, start trying to manufacture charitable feelings for themselves and not notice that this is what they are doing. When they meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to feel brave. When they say they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling; and never let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired, at the moment.

Being a Christian, I believe in the existence of demons, and I’ve picked up a thing or two from the Bible about how they operate. The details are sketchy at best, and it makes me unsure whether everything Lewis talks about is related to demonic activity in human life. But that’s not really important, becuase the purpose of each letter is to communicate warnings about dangers which Christians can fall into unawares, and those dangers are real, whether they are related to spiritual warfare or not. It’s a stroke of genius that Lewis decided to write a book of this nature in this highly entertaining format.

There are thirty-one letters in all, one for each day of the month, if you like. I found that some topics were more relevant to me than others, but I came away with a sense that this is a book I should read again in the future, when fresh insights would be gained.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Millions will disagree with me, but - dare I say it? - I don’t think this book is much good. “Can millions of kids be wrong?” you ask. Well, all I can do is offer my personal opinion.

Harry Potter is a boy who is forced to live with a very nasty aunt and uncle because his parents died in a car-wreck when he was an infant - or so they say. The truth of the matter is that his mum and dad were a witch and wizard who were slain by a powerful dark wizard called Voldemort. Soon, Harry is whisked off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and so begins the transformation from an ordinary downtrodden schoolboy into a young, powerful and very famous wizard.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with the initial premise. In fact, kids might be inlined to relate to Harry, in his personal journey out of a horrible life with bad parents and few friends. The trouble is, the story doesn’t contain much in the way of danger to keep the reader interested. Harry walks into his new life, learns this and that, gets into a bit of minor trouble here and there, and it’s very much ho-hum, la-de-dah. The only hint of danger comes from the rumour that Voldemort is still alive somewhere. Rowling waits until the last quarter of the book before she gets this part of the story moving.

The novel also features so many overly used trappings of the fantasy genre. Witches, wizards, pointed hats, magic wands, cauldrens, pet owls, goblins, ghosts, trolls. We’ve seen all these things before, and it’s all tossed into a pretty unoriginal concoction that barely holds together. Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite fond of far-fetched stories, but when Rowling on one page wants us to treat death as a serious matter (i.e. Harry’s parents), and on another page shows us a comcial ghost called Nearly-headless Nick, her fantasy world starts tearing apart at the seams. Fair enough, maybe kids don’t look at things as critically or seriously as an adult, but I think it’s a writer’s responsibility not to be a lazy storyteller.

More of this laziness is aparent in the structure of the prose, and this is where I really put my writer’s hat on and get critical. Far too often she uses the most ambiguous or needless adverbs like, “he said darkly”, “she said excitedly.” Usually a person’s words say enough about the manner in which something is spoken without the need for additional words. I’ve been taught that when a writer floods their prose with adverbs, it usually because they are afraid the reader won’t understand them - the “timid writer” syndrome. One of the worst was “He stared unblinkingly upwards”. Unblinkingly is a bad enough word in itself, but doesn’t the act of staring presume your eyes are wide open in the first place? You may say I’m nit-picking; you may say kids don’t care about this kind of thing. All I will say is that it’s a writer’s responsibility to write well.

The writing also sucks on a descriptive level. The book exudes about a tenth of the atmosphere of the movie. One example: remember the goblins at Gringott’s Bank in the movie? Rowling desribes only a fraction of their appearance in a mere two lines of prose, and that’s all we get to go on.

People are already hailing this book as a classic, comparable to C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. There’s no doubt that kids took a genuine, honest interest in the Harry Potter series at the beginning, but today I think it’s a living on media hype more than anything. Time will tell whether Harry is here to stay, or whether he’s just a passing fad.

The Dark One by Bill Purcell

The Dark One has been printed in paperback by a company called iUniverse. I use the word printed rather than published deliberately. iUniverse is one of a new breed of publisher/printers who are offering budding novelists an unconventional way of getting their books in print. New technology allows these print on demand companies to print and bind books as orders come in rather than investing a lot of money and warehouse space on a large print-run. When you break it right down, it’s self-publishing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of self-publishing. I love the idea of giving two fingers to the traditional publishing industry, which barely gives new writers the time of day. I love the idea of doing all my own typesetting, artwork, marketing, and cutting out all the middle-men who would want their slice of the pie. However, if there’s one big problem with self-publishing, it’s this: it allows the unpublishable to be published. And on that rather ominous note, I must ask the question: on which side of the fence does The Dark One fall?

This is a fantasy novel in the tradition of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game. It has all the trappings of the genre and, rightly or wrongly, makes no apology for this: orcs, ogres, dragons, goblins, elves, dwarves, and of course, humans. The story centres around one human in particular: Roger Jenson, a cop from our world, bored with his unexciting job in his unexciting town. Then, one day, Roger is magically transported (in a humourous fashion) to a strange new world of fantastic creatures.

As Roger makes friends, he is given the title The Dark One, partly because he appears to be the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, and partly because he’s a black guy. On another comic note, there’s a slight problem with being black in this world, and it has nothing to do with racism. In this world, a dark-skinned person is the offspring of a woman raped by an ogre!

As with all good fantasy novels, there is a quest. The balance between good and evil is being threatened by a war which is brewing between the orc race and human race. Initially, Roger and his band of followers intend to fight in this war on the side of the humans, but as the story develops, it becomes imperative that they must prevent the war from getting started.

One aspect of this novel that I liked in particular was the author’s descriptions of swordplay. I was able to vividly picture every strike and block, and got a real impression that Purcell knows something about the art of fencing. I was also quite surprised when certain characters died, quite suddenly and brutally. It gave the whole story a great sense of unpredictability.

One thing I feel quite ambivalent about is the book’s brevity. A very large story is crammed into a mere three-hundred pages, and whilst I liked the way this kept the action flowing hard and fast, everything is very underdescribed. One example of this was an occasion when Roger led his friends into a battle that lost the lives of many. I expected him to pause afterwards and reflect on the fact that it was his decision that brought this situation about. There was room for so much character development here, but it’s all left uncharted, with the effect that the people never quite seem three-dimensional. The war between the humans and orcs, which is essentially the cornerstone of the story, is also underdeveloped. There was plenty of scope for the reader to be infused with a sense of impending doom, where it becomes clear that Roger must succeed or it’s the end of life as we know it. As it stands, the reader is left with a sense that Roger could simply say, “Screw this. I’m off to build my ranch and raise horses,” and everyone would have lived happily ever after.

Some of my criticisms may come down to personal taste, but there is one thing which is absolutely unforgivable. Normally it’s something I wouldn’t even have to mention in a review: typing and typesetting errors. You can overlook the odd one creeping in, but they are scattered all over the place. If you want to be a self-publisher, you’d better be prepared to put in the necessary legwork at the proof-reading stage.

Overall, an enjoyable but flawed fantasy novel, for fans of D&D.