Some stocking fillers

With Christmas coming up, I feel I should suggest a few presents. Christmas Eve is the perfect time for weird tales, and they don't come any better than John Whitbourn's Binscombe Tales -- the perfect blend of eeriness, wit, charm and chills. But don't overlook the same author's novel Babylondon, which I sometimes categorize as Doctor Who meets A Matter of Life & Death:

"1780, The Gordon Riots: London is on fire and in the hands of the mob. Babylon rises from the Infernal depths to replace England’s capital and rule forever. Enter the enigmatic Cavaliere, sent to sort things out, armed only with a swordstick—and frightfully good manners."

Also recommended is his short story collection Altered Englands, "where traditional ghost stories rub shoulders with alternate histories, science fiction, fantasy, and tales of the supernatural. Expect blood to be chilled, pulses to quicken, and wry smiles to be raised. Includes the concluding—and revelatory—story from the Binscombe Tales series, ‘England Expects!’"

John Whitbourn doesn't only write for grown-ups. Like many authors, he has shared the tales he told to his own children. Look for Amy-Faith & the Stronghold and Amy-Faith & the Enemy of Calm.

Also imbued with the magic we expect of the season is Roz Morris's delightful short novel Lifeform Three, in which a robot and an animal together remind the humans of the future what really matters in life. Roz also wrote a charming and quirky travel memoir, Not Quite Lost, in which the Morrises explore odd corners of the UK; think Bill Bryson with more focus on the lives and eccentricities of the people met. Of course, I'm not impartial.

Another timeless classic guaranteed to bring thrills and laughs: Jamie Thomson's Dark Lord novels. Supposedly for kids but loved just as much by grown-ups, the series makes ideal reading for Christmas.

If you're not into fiction, regular readers will remember that I have previously praised Andy Fletcher's memoir-cum-life-guide How To Back Horses & Yourself. As I put it in my Amazon review, reading it is like going for a pint with somebody who is expert in their subject and is also a dazzling raconteur who can be funny and insightful while telling you all the ins and outs of their subject.

There's nothing Christmassy about Fights in Tight Spaces, but it is a fun little game that Jamie and I have been enjoying recently, and if you're too lazy to do any shopping it has the advantage that you can just download it. It reminds me a little of the classic boardgame Gunslinger, given that your tactical moves are played in the form of cards with an action point cost (though in Gunslinger you choose the round's cards rather than having them dealt randomly and most cards can be played in more than one way). The developer is currently polishing a follow-up called Knights in Tight Spaces, which I can see myself losing many hours to.

Or what about a gamebook? Some of the best available are Martin Noutch's Steam Highwayman series, rich with enough period atmosphere, innovative fantasy, exhilarating adventure, and vivid characters to draw comparison with Dickens. Playing these is like diving into your own Christmas Day movie.

Possibly the ultimate in depth of both setting and gameplay is Expeditionary Company. This series is complex but rewards the care and attention you'll put into every detail, even down to the NPC guards you'll pick to defend your caravans: some of the NPCs are arrogant and hard to get along with but consummate fighters, others have valuable skills like healing, survival, tracking and trading. There's a huge range of downloadable extras you can find here. What would be even more perfect to turn Expeditionary Company into a Christmas gift would be if there was a boardgame adaptation (maybe a Kickstarter for 2025 there?) but with a little imagination you'll find the gamebooks are all you'll need to carry you off into a whole other world of fabulous adventures.

Another innovative gamebook is In the Ashes by Pablo Aguilera. I say gamebook, but this really is a solo RPG with a fascinating admixture of boardgame elements. I intend to talk more about both this and Expeditionary Company when I get time to analyze them in detail, but suffice it to say that In the Ashes is a physically gorgeous artefact that would make an ideal Christmas present.

Or for something visual that's both disturbing and charming at the same time, let me recommend Ryan Lovelock's brilliant Kadath Express. Ryan has provided a free digital version (hit the link) for you to try online, but consider splashing out for the hardback because it really makes a gorgeous gift.

For roleplaying into the New Year, I like the look of Postmortem Studios' Wightchester: Prison City of the Damned. It's sort of the horror reversal of Mirabilis (see below) as the comet of 1666 causes the dead to rise from their graves. The rising is worst in England, where the dead from the plague and the recent Civil War overwhelm the city of Whitchester, which is subsequently sealed up tight and walled off, becoming Wightchester. The city is now a prison for criminals tasked with reclaiming it and facing certain death from the undead should they fail. (And for further ideas to keep the campaign going once Whitchester is purged of zombies, you could do worse than plunder the imagination of Pat Mills in his comic Defoe: 1666.)

If you're looking for books of mine (and bless you, if so) then the ones I'd most recommend for Christmas are Mirabilis: Year of Wonders volume one and volume two. And if comics are not your thing, the Edwardian fantasy of the Mirabilis universe is also on show in A Minotaur at the Savoy, a collection of quirky vignettes. Or if it's a virtual stocking you're looking to fill, try the online version of Heart of Ice generously coded by Benjamin Fox.

And for viewing on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, here are a few things I've enjoyed over the years while recovering between bouts of turkey and pudding. Wine may also have been involved.

• 101 Dalmatians
• Catch Me If You Can
• First Men in the Moon
• A Ghost Story for Christmas (especially "The Ash Tree")
• Inside Number 9 (like M R James, ideal for Christmas Eve)
• Knight & Day
• The Ladykillers
• The Lost City
• Passengers
• Robin Redbreast
• Spy
• The Stone Tape
• Survivors (1975)
• The Time Traveler's Wife
• The Woman in Black (1989)

Finally, a freebie: my pulp-era SF pastiche "Cubic Capacity". It's not specifically set at this time of year but it has got a lacing of whimsy such as readers used to find in Unknown, which seems appropriate to the season, and being free it counts as a gift. I was 15 years old when I wrote the story and I'm not sure I could do it any better today. A ghost of Christmas Past, then.

Popes & Phantoms

If you're a regular visitor to this blog you'll know the high regard I have for the work of John Whitbourn, who is possibly the leading author in the field of the English New Weird. And, full disclosure: John also happens to be one of my oldest and dearest friends. Not that I'd allow that to sway my judgement; I have lots of author friends and I don't recommend all their books with the same unforced enthusiasm I have for works like the Binscombe Tales and Babylondon.

This one is a special treat. It's John Whitbourn's second ever novel, originally published in 1992, which has finally been released in its complete version. I read it in manuscript more than thirty years ago and there are still scenes that are so vivid in my memory that I have to remind myself it wasn't a movie. To quote from the publisher's website:

"Admiral Slovo was a man of his time, but of more than one dimension. In his sixteenth century, a pirate might be followed by the corpse of his victim, walking across the ocean, until putrescence claimed it. Or an interview with the Pope might be mirrored, exactly, by one with the Devil. Reality shifts could cause a king to see his capital city shimmer into another realm entirely. 

"Through such scenes of macabre hallucination, mayhem and murder, Slovo is a man alone, set apart by his stoic beliefs from the rigours of human fears and passions. As such, he was a valuable find for the Vehme, a clandestine, subversive society that ensnares its members from an early age, securing loyalties by the expedient methods of blackmail, bribery and barbarism.

"But Slovo is more than a Vehmist puppet, and whether as a brigand on the high seas, or emissary to the Borgias, or as the Pope’s Machiavellian Mr Fix-it, he plots a course that suits his own ends as much as those of his paymasters. He knows that, in the words of his mentor Marcus Aurelius, 'in a brief while you will be ashes of bare bones; a name, or perhaps not even a name'. And there are few things that cannot be solved by a stiletto in the eye."

London's burning

W Somerset Maugham said, "There is an impression abroad that everyone has it in him to write one book; but if by this is implied a good book the impression is false." Sixty years later, Christopher Hitchens put it more brutally: "Everyone has a book inside them, which is exactly where it should, I think, in most cases, remain."

In the last few years we've seen both statements proved many times over. Self-publishing and e-books have increased the number of titles being released each year from hundreds of thousands to many millions. It's a tidal wave of tat with just a few treasures in among the deluge, and those swept by so fast you could blink and miss them.

All the more reason, then, to rejoice when a writer of proven talent comes out with a new novel. And that's especially so when the novel is that writer's masterpiece, the one they've been honing for years, the work into which they've poured a lifetime of experience, craft and imagination.

Such a book is John Whitbourn's Babylondon. (Babylon and London, that is, as I'm sure you already realized.) How can I describe it in a way that will do justice to such a unique story? Imagine yourself in London in the summer of 1780. An angry rabble, enraged by laws intended to reduce discrimination, descend on the capital in an orgy of violence. A week of destruction and violence follow. These are the Gordon Riots. As one bystander put it as he watched public buildings go up in flames:

‘London offered on every side the picture of a city sacked and abandoned to a ferocious enemy.’

Yet this is unlike any modern populist howl of prejudice. Behind the scenes, malevolent forces are at work, exploiting the ignorant minds of the mob to bring about an infernal doom even more calamitous than a no-deal Brexit. From elsewhere in the multiverse comes a supernaturally competent, stylish and deliciously eccentric agent known as the Cavaliere. Imagine a refined, swordstick-wielding incarnation of the Doctor impeccably dressed for the century of lights, perhaps played by Tim Roth...



...with a touch of Marius Goring's performance as Conductor 71 in A Matter of Life and Death...



The Cavaliere soon gets himself an able companion to serve as his guide to this era, by the simple expedient of acquiring an orphan from the Foundling Hospital. (Since I'm doing the casting, Kate could be played by the young Billie Piper -- or Chloë Grace Moretz if she's up for attempting a Cockney accent.) Our two heroes will need all their wits and wiles, though, because ranged against them are a whole hierarchy of lethally adept opponents from this world and the planes beyond -- some of them armed with quantum weapons that even the Cavaliere has no defence against. ("This stuff shouldn't be here at all," warns the shadowy Guardsman as he equips his locally recruited minions.) And all this against the bloody backdrop of the riots as London is torn apart.

If I haven't piqued your interest by now then that's entirely my fault, because Babylondon is a modern classic that should appeal to every connoisseur of historical SF, multiverse adventure, and parallel worlds. John Whitbourn has been working on this novel since the late '90s and he's brought it to the quintessence of perfection. Grab your periwig and your poignard, and allons-y.