Bound, Alex Caine #1, by Alan Baxter – review by Geoff Brown

Posted on June 17, 2014 by toc_administrator

DISCLAIMER: Thirteen O’Clock is managed by Alan Baxter, Felicity Dowker and Andrew McKiernan as Contributing Editors. While the Contributing Editors’ roles at Thirteen O’Clock are editorial and critique, all three are primarily writers. It is inevitable that their own work will form part of the Australian and international dark fiction publications which are Thirteen O’Clock’s focus, and as such it is also inevitable that their work will be reviewed at Thirteen O’Clock (to prohibit this would not only be unfortunate for Baxter, Dowker, and McKiernan themselves, but for their hardworking editors and publishers).

Thirteen O’Clock will always have a third party contributor review the Contributing Editors’ work. Such reviews will be unedited (aside from standard corrections to typos and grammar), posted in full (be they negative or positive), and will always be accompanied by full disclosure of Baxter, Dowker, and McKiernan’s place at Thirteen O’Clock. At no point will Baxter, Dowker or McKiernan review their own work.

Bound by Alan Baxter

Bound by Alan Baxter

Harper Voyager 2014

review by Geoff Brown

The first Alex Caine book, Bound, is the inaugural mass market urban fantasy release by Alan Baxter through Harper Voyager, the sci-fi/fantasy imprint of Harper Collins. Urban fantasy describes a work that is set primarily in the real world and contains aspects of fantasy. I received a proof copy of this fantastic book well prior to the release date in June, and read it in three sittings. I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to read this.

Bound tells the story of illegal underground fighter Alex Caine, who has certain abilities that seem magical. Alex can see people’s physical intent prior to their actions, allowing him to react in combat in a way almost impossible. Baxter is a highly-skilled martial artist himself, and writes the fight scenes in ways that are both visceral and realistic. I had no trouble visualising the combat within the book as it was happening, something I always judge in any book that features strong combat scenes. Believable yet exciting fighting is very hard to pull off, and Baxter does it well.

As Bound opens, Caine is approached by a man claiming that magic is real, and that Caine himself is a natural user of magic. What starts as a casual and unwanted job reading a magic text turns into an epic journey of discovery and conflict for Caine. Written as a classic Hero’s Journey, Caine at first refuses the call, yet finds himself unable to avoid the tests thrown at him by the antagonist. The revelation of the mysteries that flow throughout Bound are timed perfectly to maintain and escalate the reader’s interest, keeping up a pace that encourages rather than bores or overstimulates. The plot moves along nicely, and ticks all the boxes. The character development is great, and the overall charm of Bound shines through without being lost in the writing itself.

The first part of the book follows Alex as he is introduced to the real magic inherent in the world around him, and then the antagonist is introduced and the real action kicks in. That’s not to say the first part is without action; that’s simply not the case. But after the main foe makes his appearance, the action level kicks up even more than up to that point. Fantastic creatures appear, all hellbent on taking out Alex, and it is up to him and his, at times unwanted, mentor and companion to survive and follow the clues to the climax. By the end, all the subplots are wound up nicely, but I did think the ending came on a little fast once it hit. There is certainly room in the ending and the mythos for further Alex Caine adventures, and the clue that these are forthcoming is the text ‘Alex Cain #1’ that is blindingly obvious on the cover of the Advance Review Copy I was gifted by the publisher. To tell you the truth, I can’t wait to see where this exciting and compelling new series will go from here.

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/tag/alan_baxter/photo.html Geoff Brown is an Australian writer raised in Melbourne’s gritty Western Suburbs. He writes as GN Braun. He is a trained nurse, and holds a Cert. IV in Professional Writing and Editing, as well as a Dip. Arts (Professional Writing and Editing). He writes fiction across various genres, and is the author of many published short stories. He has had numerous articles published in newspapers, both regional and metropolitan. He is the past president of the Australian Horror Writers Association and past director of the Australian Shadows Awards. He is an editor and columnist for UK site This is Horror, and the guest editor for Midnight Echo #9. His memoir, Hammered, was released in early 2012 by Legumeman Books. He is the owner of Cohesion Editing and Proofreading, and has now opened a publishing house, Cohesion Press.

Dark Rite by Alan Baxter and David Wood – Review by Damien Smith

Posted on April 29, 2013 by toc_administrator

DISCLAIMER: Thirteen O’Clock is managed by Alan Baxter, Felicity Dowker and Andrew McKiernan as Contributing Editors. While the Contributing Editors’ roles at Thirteen O’Clock are editorial and critique, all three are primarily writers. It is inevitable that their own work will form part of the Australian and international dark fiction publications which are Thirteen O’Clock’s focus, and as such it is also inevitable that their work will be reviewed at Thirteen O’Clock (to prohibit this would not only be unfortunate for Baxter, Dowker and McKiernan themselves, but for their hardworking editors and publishers).

Thirteen O’Clock will always have a third party contributor review the Contributing Editors’ work. Such reviews will be unedited (aside from standard corrections to typos and grammar), posted in full (be they negative or positive), and will always be accompanied by full disclosure of Baxter, Dowker and McKiernan’s place at Thirteen O’Clock. At no point will Baxter, Dowker or McKiernan review their own work.

Dark Rite by Alan Baxter and David Wood

ISBN: 978-1940095004

Gryphonwood Press

Dark Rite is the inaugural collaboration between Thrillercast co-hosts Alan Baxter and David Wood. It sits on the cusp between a long novella and a short novel (just over 40,000 words for the pedantic) which means, whilst difficult for award judges to classify, it is able to deliver a novel’s worth of story and action in a package that’s easy to digest in an afternoon.

We open with our protagonist, Grant Shipman, heading to the tiny Appalachian hamlet of Wallen’s Gap to deal with the deceased estate of his father. Dumped remotely by his girlfriend of three years and no longer tied down to anyone or anything he seriously considers joining the seemingly friendly community permanently.

However, such thoughts are short-lived as he begins to unearth some disturbing facts about the town, its people and history. As a result, he quickly manages to inadvertently scare off Cassie, the only normal-seeming local, and have some disturbing run-ins with the resident banjo-wielding heavies.

With Cassie’s help, he begins to piece together an increasingly horrifying history of Wallen’s Gap and its occupants despite being stone-walled at every turn. Throw in a brutal public murder in broad daylight for good measure and Grant and Cassie realise they’re stuck firmly in the middle of a small town conspiracy of Hot Fuzzian proportions.

It becomes increasingly clear that there was more to the death of Grant’s father and the conspiracy enwrapping them is more than two people can handle. Dark cults, magic, brutal violence, witches and warlocks crash together and spiral towards a bloody and catastrophic conclusion with the unstopability of a demonic freight train.

Although I’ve not had the pleasure of reading David Wood’s works to date (something I plan to rectify shortly) I have read many of Alan Baxter’s works and whilst the dark cult was no shock, the main protagonist surprised me somewhat. Rather than being some heroic skull-cracking anti-hero, Grant Shipman is nothing more than an ordinary man. A young, fit, no-nonsense man for sure, but still with all the familiar problems and frailties of anyone else in the world and therefore easy to relate to.

Whilst nothing else particularly caught me off guard as the story played out, it was nonetheless a rollercoaster ride that kept me turning the pages until I was almost late for work. This story ticks all the boxes of a rollicking action / cult mystery, including the obligatory hook at the end, and would make a fantastic movie should that option ever arise. Wood and Baxter have managed to construct an engaging, punchy story that is dark enough to sate the bloody-minded but not too dark to keep the rest of us up at night, and for less than the price of the coffee, this is definitely worth the investment of an afternoon.

Damien Smith has heard that to be a great writer, one must read a lot and write a lot. While the former is covered off in spades, he reserves the latter for when he can actually imagine something stranger than his young family and the world around them can throw at him. If you’d met his family, the frequency of his writing may surprise you and give you some insight into his mind. Occasionally his stories even get published.

The Darkest Shade Of Grey by Alan Baxter – review, by Robert Hood

Posted on March 23, 2012 by toc_administrator

DISCLAIMER: Thirteen O’Clock is managed by Alan Baxter, Felicity Dowker and Andrew McKiernan as Contributing Editors. While the Contributing Editors’ roles at Thirteen O’Clock are editorial and critique, all three are primarily writers. It is inevitable that their own work will form part of the Australian and international dark fiction publications which are Thirteen O’Clock’s focus, and as such it is also inevitable that their work will be reviewed at Thirteen O’Clock (to prohibit this would not only be unfortunate for Baxter, Dowker, and McKiernan themselves, but for their hardworking editors and publishers).

Thirteen O’Clock will always have a third party contributor review the Contributing Editors’ work. Such reviews will be unedited (aside from standard corrections to typos and grammar), posted in full (be they negative or positive), and will always be accompanied by full disclosure of Baxter, Dowker, and McKiernan’s place at Thirteen O’Clock. At no point will Baxter, Dowker or McKiernan review their own work.

DSOG-cover The Darkest Shade of Grey
A novella by Alan Baxter

Reviewed by Robert Hood

“Noir” is a term that is somewhat loosely used these days, especially as cross-genre experimentation continues to attack whatever subgenres hold still long enough to get suitably mugged. Naturally, authors cherry-pick individual aspects of the noir form’s “original” manifestation (essentially 1940s and 50s “film noir”) to apply to their own work, thereby blurring the edges of the definition somewhat — the most common ingredients being a tone of dark, urban cynicism and tough-talking PIs (or some other investigative types) vaguely reminiscent of Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe or Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade. But however loose the definition might become, there’s no denying the appeal of the shadowy crime-based format. Whether it melds with zombies, ghosts, robots, future dystopias (as in Blade Runner), Batman sweeping through the dark streets of Gotham City or re-worked fairytales, combining fantastical elements with the noir tropes and their air of claustrophobic darkness has proven extremely popular.

Alan Baxter’s novella The Darkest Shade of Grey, serialised on the Red Penny Papers website and now available as an ebook, boasts many of the key elements of noir fiction, adroitly combining them with other tropes – in particular the currently popular stereotype of a troubled protagonist with a psychic “ability”. David Johanssen is a journalist whose life has been rent asunder by his own flirtation with the supernatural, in the form of a Ouija board and an entity by the name of Lamashtu. Lamashtu’s femme fatale presence has tempted him into a mire of obsession, prescient vision and failed relationships, just as the noir hero becomes a victim of his own moral failures and is led astray by a sexy female client or victim. Now, living a despairing existence in a Sydney cityscape filled with demons (mostly of his own making), Johannsen struggles to find a way out, only to slide deeper and deeper into the quagmire. In true noir fashion, only bourbon offers him momentary escape from his self-loathing.

The novella begins with the bloody murder of a young woman in a Kings Cross backstreet – a murder which Johanssen’s intuition tells him is the tip of a Big Story that will put him on a better footing with his increasingly impatient editor – and leads him via a potentially insane hobo and much death to a reality he never expected to find and may not survive. The story has a strong tidal flow that drags the reader through to its imaginative climax. The investigative groundwork of the plot runs smoothly and without overt contrivance, and the revelations of the end don’t disappoint. Like the classics of film noir, which were filmed in black-and-white, Baxter’s noir plot teaches his protagonist that what seems to be black can in fact be merely the darkest shade of grey.

As good pulp fiction should be, Baxter’s story is fast-paced, yet the author maintains a noir atmosphere effectively, not simply via plot maneuvers and archetypal characters, but through snatches of effective description and a dark sensibility that is integrated into the details. He’s not afraid to stop and smell the waste run-off occasionally. If Baxter’s use of language can veer toward bare cliché at times, it is a form of genre-based cliché that mostly feels authentic and you go with it easily. Indeed Baxter gives enough individual distinctiveness to his secondary characters to make us accept them, and though Johannsen himself is a stereotype (the classic noir loner, lost to a dark, and ever-darkening reality), Baxter develops the elements that make up that stereotype into a character who is at least as believable and pitiable as your standard noir hero. Then there’s the City – an important character in noir stories. As a Sydneysider it is fascinating to watch Baxter transform Sydney into a noir hell. Indeed it would have been a bonus to see him develop this element further, if he’d had the space to do so.

In the end, The Darkest Shade of Grey may not be the ultimate example of supernatural noir, but it is certainly a good example, an enjoyable and engaging pulp-inspired read that fulfills the promise of its evocative cover and its effective title, with some ideas that linger in the mind long after the lights go out.

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Robert Hood is a writer of speculative fiction in all its forms, though he veers to the dark side more often than not. He loves noir fiction and mixing-and-matching the genres. Check out some of his collected stories in Creeping in Reptile Flesh (Morrigan Books, 2011). A dark fantasy novel, Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead, is due out in 2012 from Borgo Press (US). His website can be found at www.roberthood.net and he occasionally posts reviews there and on his blog, Undead Backbrain.