The Equivoque Principle - for free, gratis and for nothing!

The very talented Darren Craske has a newbook coming out today. It's called The 11th Plague and you should all go out and buy it forthwith.

"But it's a sequel," I hear you say. "How will be able to read it if we haven't read the original?"

"A good question," I reply. "But fear not because you can read Book 1, The Equivoque Principle, in its entirety should you so choose. Just click below and enjoy. Amn't I nice?"



And if you're not sure about the 11th Plague, here's a sampler. Do I not spoil you?

Top Books of the Noughties - The Results

Well, not surprisingly none of my choices made the Top 10 and only four made the Top 50. There are some good choices in the list but I feel that the Top 10 is a predictable, safe and very Book Club-ish selection (Niffenegger, Hosseini, Zusak etc).

The Top 10 books are as follows:

1. Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne. Is it the best book of the noughties? probably not but it's still a good read and a worthy choice.


2. Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffennegger. I haven't read it but those I know that have speak very highly of it.

3. Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold. Again, not something that's featured in my to-be-read pile.

4. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson. My favourite rant: I am still at a loss to understand how this book is as successful as it is. The first 150 pages were nothing more than a tedious info dump and the rest of the book became a very obvious mystery that any crime reader worth his salt would have solved very early on. I'm told the other two books in the trilogy are much better but I have no urge to read them after wading through the first one.

5. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon. Beautifully written, simple story that repays re-reading. Good to see it in the Top 10.

6. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini. I'd have put good money on this one featuring in the Top 10. A regular book-club choice, it was inevitable.

7. The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak. Is it any good? No idea. I got thirty pages in before I gave up. I just didn't get it (and there are very few books I don't actually finish).

8. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini again. As No. 6.

9. The Road - Cormac McCarthy. Marvellous, if depressing and gritty novel from one of America's finest writers. Good that it figured in the Top 10 too.

10. Atonement - Ian McEwan. I like McEwan's books, I just haven't gotten around to this one yet.

The rest of the Top 50 is a bit less predictable and eclectic although I was hugely disappointed but not surprised to see the vastly overrated The Sea creep in at 44.

The full Top 50 can be found here.

Hughes & Hughes Goes Under

I was very disappointed to hear about the demise of the Hughes & Hughes bookshop chain over the weekend. Apart from the loss of over 220 jobs, it's always sad when an independent bookstore closes its doors. More information and updates can be found on the Irish Publishing News website.



H&H had a marvellous store in my hometown of Ennis. It was a modern bright bookshop with a Costa Coffee adjoining. The staff in there were very helpful when The Third Pig was first published and made sure it was prominent on the shelves.

It will be missed.

Top Books of the Noughties - vote now.

Eason's are carrying out a poll to determine their top books of the Noughties. Some interesting choices in there - as well as some that aren't fit even to line a budgie's cage.

Vote for your top 5 and you're in with a chance of winning the Top 50.

There weren't too many Crime or Science Fiction novels (now there's a surprise) but some of the books I really enjoyed were included. For what it's worth my 5 were:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonatahn Lethem
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

It's probably esy to get all arty and literary and pick the most highbrow and critically acclaimed but I just plumped for the five on the list that I enjoyed the most - which, when it comes to reading, is the only criteria I use.

If there's any justice The Sea won't make the final list but I wouldn't be holding my breath!

Oh and I added The Enemy by Charlie Higson (zombies - of a sort) and Winterland by Alan Glynn (Irish Crime writer) to my to-be-read pile. That book token pile is decreasing slowly.

Books, Books Everywhere

As usual, Santa delivered the goods and a bagful of books descended on the Burke household. Yours truly didn't get as many as in previous years (but did get a wodge of book tokens) but I did receive Under the Dome - a real return to form by Stephen King - and Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett.

N1S picked up Changeling by Steve Feasey (which I have now read and saw that it was good), Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (I read the first few chapters online and it's very promising) and Silvertongue by Charlie Fletcher (last volume in his excellent Stoneheart triology and also on the to-be-read list).



N2S got a Horrible Histories boxed set (nice!), Dreadnought the latest HIVE novel by Mark Walden and Syren the latest in Angie Sage's Septimus Heap series.

N3S got a boxed set of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and has not only read each of them over and over but insisted we get him the latest book as well. Result!

All in all there's plenty there to keep all of us going for the foreseeable future.

And a good start to the New Year

Last Week's Top Ten eBooks at Waterstone's
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1. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Transworld Digital)
2. The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke (HarperCollins e-books)
3. Glass Houses by Rachel Caine
4. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Digital)
5. Not Dead Enough by Peter James
6. FlashForward by Robert J. Sawyer (Gollancz)
7. The Unlacing of Miss Leigh by Diane Gaston (Mills & Boon)
8. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Digital)
9. The Dead Girls' Dance by Rachel Caine
10. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Digital)

Bloody Dan Brown and his mega-seller :o)

We have a contract

This morning I signed a contract with The Friday Project for two more Harry Pigg books. Woohoo - joyness abounds.

Mark your calendars. The Ho Ho Ho Mystery is scheduled for publication in November 2010 and the second (provisionally entitled The Curds and Whey Mystery) will be published in the middle of the following year.


Now all I have to do is finish them!!!!

And still hanging on...

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Last Week's Top Ten eBooks at Waterstones.com
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1. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Transworld Digital)
2. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Digital)
3. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Digital)
4. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Digital)
5. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Digital)
6. FlashForward by Robert J. Sawyer (Gollancz)
7. Hard Girls by Martina Cole
8. The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke (HarperCollins e-books)
9. Not Dead Enough by Peter James
10. The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell (Hachette Digital)


Woot!

Still Bestselling

I'd missed this, but Declan (no relation) Burke of the wonderful Crime Always Pays Blog brought it to my attention....

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Last Week's Top Ten eBooks at Waterstone's
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1. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Transworld Digital)
2. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (HarperCollins e-books)
3. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Digital)
4. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Digital)
5. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Digital)
6. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Hachette Digital)
7. Not Dead Enough by Peter James
8. The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke (HarperCollins e-books)
9. FlashForward by Robert J. Sawyer (Gollancz)
10. The Other Hand by Chris Cleave (Sceptre)

Hmm, in pretty good company there.

The ebook of the Third Pig has been selling well over the past few months, mainly because of the progressive apporach to pricing adopted by my publisher. Kudos to them, as ebook pricing is something I feel very strongly about and will be addressing in a future post.

And no, I've not forgotten the developments I mentioned a few posts back, they're still happening but just haven't been finalised enough to make official. Maybe this week.

Things I've learned while editing.

I like using the word 'predicament'. A quick search of novel currently undergoing edits revealed an embarassingly large amount of predicaments. I love the search and replace function.



Ditto for 'clearly'. Clearly, I like using clearly.

Action scenes need to be fast-paced. The reader doesn't need or want to know what the hero is thinking, just what he's doing (and doing it in short snappy sentences).

Names are important - especially in translation. Apparently Cal means something quite impolite in Russian (so there).

Coming Soon To A...

Apologies for the recent lack of updates. It's not all due to laziness on my part though. Much has happened in the past few weeks, not least the fact that I've landed myself an agent, and, as a result, learned more about the publishing industry than I ever thought possible.

There have been other more exciting developments however that, for the time being, must remain under wraps (and have nothing to do with Shaun cassidy).




But fret not, all will be revealed (in a manner of speaking) in the coming weeks (hopefully).

Stay tuned.

Review: Hell's Heroes

Darren Shan is a writer that I admire hugely. He writes fantastic horror stories and, when I've had the opportunity to see him live, does great readings and really cares about his fans. His current series, The Demonata, concludes with Hells Heroes, the 10th volume in the series.

Shan likes to leave his readers dangling and the end of Vol 9, Dark Calling, was no exception. Bec had allied with Lord Loss, Grubbs and Kernel seemed to no longer trust each other and Demons were breaking through all over the planet. Things were, as they say, looking bad for planet Earth.

Hell's Heroes picks up where Dark Calling ended. Grubbs is trying to come to terms what he's done to Kernel and with Bec's betrayal. Kernel doesn't trust him any more and threatens to leave first chance he gets. From this inauspicious start, Shan weaves a compelling tale of action, loyalty and the inevitable lots of gore that wraps up all that has gone before and answers the questions raised in previous volumes.



Although he displays a solid grasp of tone and plotting, Shan's greatest strength as a writer is, in my opinion, the quality of his endings. His massive 12-volume Vampire series finished with an ending that was unexpected, appropriate and, in hindsight, set-up right from the beginning. Above all, it gave me a sense of conclusion that avoided cliche and felt right. Hell's Heroes ending is just as satisfying and, without giving anything away, takes the story in a totally unexpected direction that, again, had been foreshadowed throughout the series for those who paid careful attention.

One aspect of the final volume that I found interesting was the nature of the narrator. Grubbs has become bitter and despondent and the easy-going, wise-cracking character of earlier novels isn't as much in evidence. Although this makes Grubbs lass sympathetic to the reader, it's a natural progression based on earlier events and makes the character more honest and believable. It's a difficult thing to pull off, particularly with a younger readership, but Shan does it without ever losing the characters basic humanity. It's a bold step but in the contxt of the overall story, a necessary one.

The Demonata itself was a more complex series than the Vampire one. Not only did it have have different narrators in various volumes (Kernel, Grubbs and Bec) but, as it progressed, it spun out of being just a horror story to address bigger themes. In the course of the series it covered the true meaning of friendship, the nature of Death and the origin of the universe, without ever becoming worthy or forgetting that its primary function is to tell a good story. It takes great skill as a writer to balance these aspects of the narration and manage to keep the reader engrossed. The Demonata manages to achieve this effortlessly and is a fitting ending to a magnificent series.

Not content to rest on his laurels, Shan has a new book, The Thin Executioner, coming out early next year and follows that with a four-volume series about Larten Crepsley, one of the most enduring characters in the Vampire series. Does the man ever sleep?

Review: The Bromley Boys

The Bromley Boys: The True Story of Supporting the Worst Football Team in Britain is an affectionate look back at Bromley's 1969 season by lifelong - and somewhat obsessed - fan Dave Roberts.

What makes the book so much more than so many dull football memoirs is character of the narrator himself (and the fact that Bromley were indeed a bit rubbish). Eternally optimistic, a draw or narrow defeat is seen as a sign that good times must be just around the corner. It is this misguided optimism that makes the narrator so endearing - especially when it flies in the face of footballing reality. Newspapers are pored over for details of match reports and he's duly outraged when his team don't feature; a faux-sheepskin football manager's jacket (surely not the the usual Christmas present for the average teenage boy) is worn as a mark of pride and he never forgets to bring his boots to the matches - just in case someone doesn't turn up and he's asked to play.



The book is full of very funny anecdotes that display Roberts' love for his team and the lengths he goes to watch them home and away, and he is joined by a supporting cast of oddball fellow supporters who are all portrayed with affection and warmth.

It's a tribute to the author that he can look back at his teenage self and not only recognise exactly how obsessed he was but can put it down on paper 'warts and all' with openness and genuine nostalgia for a more innnocent time.

Funny, well-written and very honest, The Bromley Boys is for anyone who has ever supported a football team - especially if they were useless.

It Was Too Good to Last...

..and Bryan Adams can stop worrying now. After a good run at the top of the charts I had dropped down to No. 5 on the original fiction list last week. Can't complain though.

Doesn't the time just fly by?

It's been a busy few weeks at Casa Harry.
A few more updates on events occuring:

Third Pig got good reviews at the Eurocrime and Cornflower blogs as well as in the Tuam Herald newspaper (below). Good to see that people are still liking it.



Another local newpaper, The Limerick Leader, did an interview. I can be seen, in all my glory, here.

The Third Pig was also released as an ebook and sales have been pretty good - then again, it's been at a very attractive promotional price too.

In other news, the horror trilogy seems to be attracting interest and I've had some interesting discussions about it. Nothing concrete has happened yet but so far the feedback has been positive. As they say in the Heineken ad: 'Now we wait'