Battle of the 2012 Books, Bracket Eight, Second Round :: Osama by Lavie Tidhar vs. Beyond Here Lies Nothing by Gary McMahon

Our second match in the second round of Bracket Eight of the Battle of the 2012 Books features Osama by Lavie Tidhar doing battle with Beyond Here Lies Nothing by Gary McMahon. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 50 pages.

Osama: Solaris, October 2012 (published in UK by PS Publishing in 2011), 302 pages, cover art by Pedro Marques. Lavie Tidhar is an Israeli writer now living in London. Osama won the 2012 World Fantasy Award. Osama defeated The Steam Mole by Dave Freer to advance to the second round.

The setting of Osama is an alternate universe where Osama Bin Laden is the hero of a series of adventure pulp novels called Osama Bin Laden: Vigilante. Tidhar's narrative peppers in passages from those novels, which describe terrorist attacks that actually occurred in our universe. In the opening 25 pages, an enigmatic woman asks our protagonist Joe, a Western detective living in Laos, to find the author of the Osama Bin Laden books. In the second 25 pages, Joe travels to Paris, where the books are published. He asks a lady of the night about the books. She knows them, but when he seeks more information she bursts out, "They should leave Papa D alone," and promptly leaves.

Beyond Here Lies Nothing: Solaris, August 2012, 352 pages, cover art by Vincent Chong. Gary McMahon is the author of a number of books, mostly horror. Beyond Here Lies Nothing is the third book in the Concrete Grove Trilogy. Beyond Here Lies Nothing defeated A Red Sun Also Rises by Mark Hodder to advance to the second round.

After a prologue from a child's diary describing a bogeyman that goes "clikcety clikcety," the first 25 pages of Beyond Here Lies Nothing introduced us to Marc Price, who is researching the odd township of Concrete Grove. In the second 25 pages, Marc goes home with a strange woman named Abby, who he learns had a daughter who disappeared a few years earlier. We also meet a detective named Royle, driven to alcoholism by the unsolved disappearances in Concrete Grove. In a poignant phone call, we learn that Royle's pregnant wife has moved out until he can control his drinking.

The Battle: Here are two books with solid openings, both of which I genuinely want to keep reading.

Osama takes me to an intriguing universe where al Qaeda's terrorist rampage was somehow contained within the pages of a series of pulp novels. Beyond Here Lies Nothing introduces me to a memorably creepy section of London. Both books take the time for me to get to know their main characters, believable people with relatable problems.

Through 50 pages, I can already say that these are both strong novels well worth checking out. But the Battle of the Books rules devised by some idiot (me) require that I choose only one of the two books to keep reading. I know which one I have to choose, for a nitpicky reason and for a significant reason.

The nitpicky reason goes to the author's writing styles. The writing in Osama is, to my tastes, pitch perfect so far. If I had been in a writing group with Lavie Tidhar and had read this manuscript, I would have told him there's a typo on page 57 and had nothing else to say. The writing of Beyond Here Lies Nothing is also good, but I can find things to quibble with. There are some turns of phrase that don't quite work for me. (E.g., when Marc kisses Abby, "Her thin lips were hard; her large mouth was soft and wet" -- this throws me out of the story as I try to figure how someone could have hard lips but a soft mouth.) And there are several passages where a character perceives everyday places and objects as ominous, for instance:

The empty play park opposite looked different, as if subtle changes had occurred. The swings rocked slowly, the roundabout turned as if it had been pushed gently by an invisible hand; the climbing frame seemed as if it were tensed for movement, like a large spider waiting to pounce.

By itself, I rather like this passage. The problem is that there are a dozen other passages just like it, and for me a little of this sort of thing goes a long way. I prefer Tidhar's relative restraint, for instance pausing to describe airplane passengers as "like silkworm larvae in their soft cocoons" and then quickly moving on.

The more significant reason is that Osama has managed to draw me into the story slowly, taking time for strong characterization, while still giving me a pretty good sense of what to expect. This is a tale of alternate universes, where the bin Laden of our universe becomes a pulp hero in another universe. The sorry detective sent to get to the bottom of this is not going to like what he finds. I want to read that. Meanwhile, Beyond Here Lies Nothing also builds slowly with good characterization, but it hasn't given me a sense of the story's big picture. I know it is a horror novel where people, especially young girls, are apt to disappear forever. But I have no sense of what's behind it all, other than that it goes "clikcety clikcety." That's not quite enough to hook me through 50 pages. (Even so, it's made me want to seek out a copy of McMahon's The Concrete Grove, to try this series from the start.)

THE WINNER: Osama by Lavie Tidhar

Osama advances to the semifinals to take on The Diviners by Libba Bray.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the 2012 Books, Bracket Eight, First Round :: Beyond Here Lies Nothing by Gary McMahon vs. A Red Sun Also Rises by Mark Hodder

We return to the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books, after a brief interlude to argue about puppies. The fourth match in the first round of Bracket Eight of the Battle of the 2012 Books features Beyond Here Lies Nothing by Gary McMahon versus A Red Sun Also Rises by Mark Hodder. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

Beyond Here Lies Nothing: Solaris, August 2012, 352 pages, cover art by Vincent Chong. Gary McMahon is the author of nine novels, a half-dozen collections and several chapbooks, mostly horror. Beyond Here Lies Nothing is billed as the third book in the Concrete Grove Trilogy, following The Concrete Grove and Silent Voices. But I've heard that each novel in the trilogy features different main characters and a story that stands alone. After 25 pages, I certainly don't feel like I've stepped into the middle of the story. The novel begins with a page from the diary of a child terrified of a bogeyman that goes "clikcety clikcety." Then we meet Marc Price, who has come to Concrete Grove for the funeral of a friend of his late uncle's, whom Marc had recently gotten to know while researching a news story or book. He accompanies the brother of the deceased to a nearby tavern, where he meets a provocative woman named Abby, who snaps at him rather rudely, yet seems determined to take him home with her.

A Red Sun Also Rises: Pyr, December 2012, 273 pages, cover art by Lee Moyer. Mark Hodder is best known as the author of the Burton & Swinburne alternate history series, the first volume of which won the Philip K. Dick Award. A Red Sun Also Rises is a stand-alone, unrelated to that series as far as I can tell. The protagonist of A Red Sun Also Rises is Aiden Fleischer, a 19th Century English priest. In the opening section of the book, Fleischer comes across as pedantic and judgmental despite being filled with self-doubt. He becomes infatuated with a new family's beautiful daughter, which potential impropriety the family promptly seizes on to blackmail him. Rather than confront the family, Fleisher flees to London, just as Jack the Ripper's killing spree begins. Through 25 pages, the alien creature on the cover of the book has made no appearance.

The Battle: Here is an interesting Battle. Both these books are nicely written, both feature obviously flawed main characters, and neither book has gotten to the main storyline in the first 25 pages——nothing science fictional or supernatural has yet occurred in either one. And yet, one book has pulled me into the story much more firmly. Let's see if I can articulate why.

First, while I have no particular complaints about the writing in A Red Sun Also Rises, neither has it especially caught my eye, while Beyond Here Lies Nothing has some very intriguing descriptions of its Concrete Grove setting:

As he drove, he was struck by the way things never changed around here. It was like a film set that had not been taken down when the production company moved on, and people had moved in to set up home inside the two-dimensional backdrop. There was a sense of impermanence, yet also the belief that everything would remain as it was now, as it had been since the estate was built.

Second, both authors include a prologue to let us know that fantastic events are coming, but McMahon's works better for me. A Red Sun Also Rises begins with Mark Hodder claiming the manuscript to follow was retrieved from a sunken sea vessel. I appreciate the nod to proto-science fiction novels, where the authors always felt compelled to insist, this really happened. But it didn't draw me in like the single page of a child's diary that opens Beyond Here Lies Nothing:

I think somebody hates us. he is in the house all the time but we cant see him. he makes noise when nobody else is here. he wants to hurt us. we hide under the bed when mummy and daddy are in the pub.

To me, that is chilling stuff.

Finally, while both books' protagonists are flawed, Hodder has yet to give his main character any likeable qualities at all (one hopes they're going to start to develop fairly soon), while McMahon's cynical loner protagonist is at least interesting. I want to know more about him, and about this odd place called Concrete Grove.

THE WINNER: Beyond Here Lies Nothing by Gary McMahon

Beyond Here Lies Nothing advances to the second round to face Osama by Lavie Tidhar.

To see the whole bracket, click here.