Battle of the Books, Spring 2012, Second Round :: The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod vs. The Faceless by Simon Bestwick

We continue the second round of the Spring 2012 Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books with The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod versus The Faceless by Simon Bestwick. The book I most want to continue reading after 50 pages will move on to the semifinals.

The Night Sessions: Pyr trade paperback, April 2012, 261 pages, cover art by Stephan Martiniere. Ken MacLeod is a four-time Hugo nominee among many other honors, and The Night Sessions won the 2009 British Science Fiction Award for best novel. The Night Sessions reached the second round of the Battle of the Books by defeating The Demi-Monde:Winter by Rod Rees in the first round.

The first 25 pages of The Night Sessions introduced us to J.R. Campbell, a Christian fundamentalist from New Zealand, in a future when Western governments have turned very solidly secular after the devastating "Faith Wars." In the next 25 pages, we see Campbell tending to the intelligent robots in a creationist park. Meanwhile, in Scotland, Detective Inspector Adam Ferguson and his robot sidekick lead the investiation of an apparent terrorist bombing that killed a Catholic priest. We've also briefly met Dave Warsaw, a night club disk jockey who combines music with virtual reality imagery.

The Faceless: Solaris paperback, February 2012, 470 pages, cover art by Luke Preece. Simon Bestwick is a horror and crime fiction author who has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award. The Faceless got here with a first round win over Shadow's Master by Jon Sprunk.

The Faceless is set in northwest England, where strange masked figures are wreaking havoc. In the first 25 pages, Anna Mason was left to care for her young niece after the mysterious figures killed her sister-in-law, leaving her brother severely depressed. Anna had her own bout of mental illness years earlier, during which she saw the same (imaginary, she thought) masked figures. Much of the next 25 pages follow Detective Chief Inspector Joan Renwick, who is investigating a series of disappearances, which she hasn't yet connected to the masked people. Several short flashbacks suggest that all this is somehow related to men who were badly injured in World War I.

The Battle: We have here two well-written novels, both of which are engaging from the outset. I have nothing the least bit negative to say about either, but the Battle of the Books forces me to choose only one to continue, so which one do I like that little bit more?

I like each book's central concept. They both involve police investigations related to an interesting genre premise. I enjoy a good creepy story, and The Faceless nicely ties in the horrors of World War I and a local legend about the masked "Spindlies." The Night Sessions has a lot of good science fictional scenery, and I find the future after a religious war involving fundamentalist Christians intriguing. Solid marks for both books, but I'm a bit more interested to see where The Night Sessions is going with its story concept.

The characterization is excellent in both books. In the second 25-page section, The Faceless had some charming and witty banter between Chief Inspector Renwick and a grizzled but kind-hearted Sergeant Stakowski. I'm slightly less interested in the cops in The Night Sessions, except I like their intelligent robot assistants. But I love the interplay at the creationist park in New Zealand between Campbell (who is a creationist), park guide Vermuelen (not), and an AI robot named Piltdown, one of the park's attractions. In this scene, Vermuelen comes upon Piltdown's detached head as Campbell tinkers with the robot's body:

"Back problem?" he said.

The head moved as if trying to nod. "Yes," it said. "Stripped a gear in my lumbar hinge. Fucking baraminologists."

"Language," chided Campbell, not looking up.

"From the Hebrew," explained the robot head, wilfully misunderstanding. "Bara min, meaning 'created kind,' a very flexible taxon indeed."

"I don't quite follow," said Vermuelen. "What have creationist taxonomists got to do with your back?"

"A few weeks ago," said the head, "they reclassified my kind from 'fully human post-Diluvial local variety' to 'extinct large-brained ape.'. . . So suddenly I've got to start shambling around like a half-shut knife, swinging my arms and grunting. It's demeaning, I tell you. And it's done my back in. I expect my neck will be next."

"Your neck's fine," said Campbell. "Just keep applying the WD-40."

It's nice to know that the ultimate answer to any engineering challenge remains the same well into the future!

As much as I'm enjoying The Faceless, it's The Night Sessions that I really don't want to put down.

THE WINNER: THE NIGHT SESSIONS by Ken MacLeod

The Night Sessions advances to meet another creepy book from Solaris, Christopher Fowler's Hell Train, in the semifinals.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Spring 2012, First Round :: The Faceless by Simon Bestwick vs. Shadow's Master by Jon Sprunk

The Spring Bracket of the 2012 Battle of the Books continues with The Faceless by Simon Bestwick against Shadow's Master by Jon Sprunk. Which book will I most want to continue reading after the first 25 pages?

The Faceless: Solaris paperback, February 2012, 470 pages, cover art by Luke Preece. Simon Bestwick has been publishing horror and crime stories since 1997. His short fiction is collected in A Hazy Shade of Winter and Pictures of the Dark. His novella "The Narrows" received a nomination for the British Fantasy Award. His previous novel Tide of Souls was set in the Tomes of the Dead universe.

The Faceless takes place in a sleepy town in Lancashire, in northwest England (where Bestwick lives), and involves strange masked figures appearing out of a heavy mist. In the first 25 pages, we meet Eva Griffiths, who is struggling to support her daughter Mary and her unemployed and depressed husband Martyn. But Eva is killed when the "faceless" figures appear and Martyn is soon institutionalized in a home called Roydtwistle, so the job of caring for Mary falls to Martyn's sister Anna, a closet lesbian with her own history of mental illness. We also meet Detective Chief Inspector Joan Renwick, and we read excerpts from the testament of Lance-Corporal Cuthbert Winthrop, who took a severe shrapnel wound to the face in World War I.

Shadow's Master: Pyr trade paperback, April 2012, 309 pages, cover art by Michael Komarck. Shadow's Master is third in a trilogy, following Shadow's Son and Shadow's Lure, Jon Sprunk's first published novels.

The hero of the Shadow Saga is Caim, an assassin with a mysterious background and the ability to summon shadows, to lethal effect. By the opening of Shadow's Master, Caim has begun a quest to the desolate, perpetually dark northern reaches of his continent. He travels with three human companions and with the sensual spirit Kit, whom only he can see. Caim has left behind Josey, a queen carrying his child. Josey leads a company of soldiers north to find him, but it is doubtful they can catch him.

The Battle: It took me a few pages to settle into both of these books. The profusion of English idioms in The Faceless is difficult at first for a Yank, but I settled into the characters' cadence before long. Similarly, Sprunk has on over-the-top delivery that is offputting initially (e.g., "The priest licked his lips, which continued to wriggle like two albino worms."), but it's a deliberate stylistic choice that I think serves the story well.

After 25 pages, I'd be happy to continue reading either book, but forced to make a choice, it comes down to this: Through four chapters, Sprunk has given me little indication what's at stake for any of his characters. In particular, I have no clue why Caim is traveling into the North. Even his companions don't seem to know what they're doing there, although they are apparently content to follow Caim wherever he pleases. Similarly, Josey strikes me as a pleasant enough character, if a bit naive and self-centered, but aside from carrying a torch for Caim, I don't yet know what conflicts she faces. No doubt this partially reflects that Shadow's Master is third in a trilogy and I haven't read the first two books, but even so I should like to have picked up more hints or reminders by now of what the story is about.

I know what The Faceless is about: strange, dangerous figures descending on a quiet English town. Apparently these ominous figures are related somehow to veterans of the Great War. Bestwick introduces this conflict through a set of interesting characters, and he establishes early on why the appearances are meaningful to his characters. When Anna goes to pick up little Mary from school, the faceless appear outside the classroom window. They leave without doing any harm, and nobody yet knows they were responsible for the death of Mary's mother, but Anna is shaken, because the figures are familiar to her. The first 25 pages end with Anna driving Mary home and asking her about the strange people:

"Were you frightened?"

"No. I know how to deal with nasty men like that."

Anna had to laugh. "Oh do you now?"

"Yeah. Kick 'em in the goolies and run. That's what Mummy--" She stopped.

Anna almost ruffled her hair, but didn't. Mary was sunk down in her seat, looking dully out of the window. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter -- older, even. "We shouldn't tell Daddy about this, should we?"

"No," Anna said. "Probably not."

* * *

She let the music fill the car, focused on that and driving Minnie the Micra safely back across town. Better that than thinking of thin, immobile faces, black cloaks blowing tatters around bodies of sticks; she'd seen them when she'd been at Roydtwistle. Her and no one else. Because back then, she'd been insane.

This is a terrific hook to end the first 25 pages, leaving me with a compelling desire to keep reading.

THE WINNER: THE FACELESS by Simon Bestwick

The Faceless moves on to the second round, where it will meet The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod.

To see the whole bracket, click here.