Southern Gods- John Hornor Jacobs

By Jay Stringer

First up, a couple of important facts for you to memorise, there will be a test later;

1. JHJ and I have the same agent, which I guess is one of them "conflict of interest" type things, and which almost made me hold off from writing the review.

2. That's irrelevant, because the book is awesome.

"Awesome" is not a word I'm using lightly here. If you type definition awesome into google, then you'll probably get taken to Paul Westerberg's Wiki page. But below that will be various dictionary links that will tell you that awesome describes something that is wonderful, impressive and sometimes frightening.

Here's the bit off the back;

"A Memphis DJ hires recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram to find Ramblin' John Hastur, a mysterious bluesman whose dark, driving music - broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station- is said to make living men insane and dead men rise."

That was already enough to interest me in the story, but it doesn't cover the half of it of it. First we get a very dark and bloody detour that sets the tone for the book, strange shadowy things moving at the edge of forests, whispering dark deals to anyone who'll listen. The prologue of the book set's it's stall out strong; this is the voice of the story, and you want to read it.

When we first meet Ingram, he reminds me of a character from another time, another kind of book. He's a Dashiell Hammett character who has somehow wandered into a Lovecraft nightmare. Both brutish and boyish at the same time, he went off to the war to find a purpose but came back without one. If he provides the strength and the drive to push the story along, it's the other characters we meet along the way who really fill in the heart. There's Sarah, the young mother who is fleeing the the slow burning horror of a family-gone-wrong without realising she's running towards a much quicker way of dying.. She packs her bags and her daughter and leaves her husband behind to head home, back to the farm she grew up on and it's big old house full of secrets. Her daughter, Franny, fills the story with it's energy and light, bouncing around the farm land with her two friends, Fisk and Lenora. And then there's Alice, the woman that Sarah wishes she could be, who runs the farm and dishes out love and advice.

The story is built very effectively on mood and suspense, a creeping sense of horror that is the subtext of every chapter and keeps building. But that can only last for so long, but JHJ isn't a writer to pull punches, and when it's time for all hell to break loose, he follows through where many other authors will try to bait and switch.

There are blink-and-you-miss-it references here to some horror touchstones, from Captain Howdy's real name, to the big bad of Lovecraft, and each one is a clear signpost of the impending doom hanging over the story. JHJ is clearly a writer who understands what makes horror tick, because he scared the crap out of me and he did it without clowns, spiders or my credit card bill. There's something here for everyone, but if you're a parent, this book is really gunning for you. It knows what you're scared of.

This is the month when everyone is going to be pushing horror movies on you, when the stores are filled with plastic costumes for your kids to dress up in, and folk start either keeping chocolate by their door or pretending not to be in for the whole month.

But Southern Gods isn't any of that. It's not modern horror with it's rules and roleplaying, it's not wacky costumes, and it doesn't turn horrible beasts into things that glow in sunlight and romance teenagers. It's a book that understands that bad things need to happen to good people, and that all of us are defined by our fears in some way. You'll find yourselves stopping and scratching your heads, this can't be the work of a debut writer, surely? Not with such a firm grip on plot and character, not with such a strong voice? Not unless he's been making any deals with dark forces that step out of the woods...

I have the audio book to get through, perfect for a long train journey I'm making next week. I'll let you know how that goes, but it was important to read the book first.

Young Junius, You Ordered Yours?

By Jay Stringer

In the final week of Russel's epic quest to retrace the steps of the Littlest Hobo we take the chance to talk a bit of Seth Harwood.

Seth has a new book just waiting for you clickety-click on the 'pre-order' button. It's called Young Junius, and if you've been anywhere near the twitters or the blogosphere you might have seen some of the really cool things that Seth's been doing to get the word out.

So today we have a couple of different things going on. First, we're getting to throw some links at you, tell you about the book and where you can get your hands on it. Second, and this is something that really interests me about Seth, I wanted to take a look at the work he does to get his books out there.

First up let's take a look at the book itself. If you've read Seth's first book, Jack Wakes Up, you'll remember the character Junius. What we get here is what the movie biz would probably call a prequel, delving back into the character's past, but that doesn't really do the book justice. What we have here is a stand-alone story. If you've read Jack Wakes Up then great, if you haven't then Young Junius will still be a full story on it's own. The book is set back in 1987, and is a really cool urban crime story. If you like Richard Price or The Wire this is a book you'll want to check out. Here's the official bit;

In 1987, fourteen-year-old Junius Posey sets out on the cold Cambridge (Mass.) streets to find his brother’s killer in a cluster of low-income housing towers—prime drug-dealing territory. After committing a murder to protect his friend, he finds himself without protection from retribution. His mother gives him fifty dollars and instructions to run, but Junius refuses to live a life in hiding. Instead, shocked by the violence he’s created and determined to see its consequences, he returns to the towers to complete his original mission

There is a special edition of the book that's already winging it's way to the folks who pre-ordered it. It's a lovely edition, and you can see Seth showing it off here;

It was a really interesting way to launch a book, giving fans a chance to sign up in advance for a limited edition that, in turn, would help the publisher getting the book off the ground. If you really want to see what an author can do to break new ground and adapt to the modern market, you need to be keeping an eye on our boy.

The full release is coming soon, and here's some linkage again to where you can pre-order the book. You can follow that link, or you could head on over to Seth's website for a more detailed list of sites, but we would also recommend you head into your local store and ask them to order it. See, this is the thing, if you pre-order online then that's cool and all, each order helps push a book u the rankings and get noticed. But if you ask a store to order it in, then they might order in a couple extra. That means that some browser can actually pick up the book, they can read a bit of it, experience it first hand and buy it. How many great authors have you discovered that way?

So that's the book, and that's where you can get it. Go ahead, I'll wait right here. We'll carry on when you get back.

Honest.

Done? Cool. Okay, here's the deal. I said above that Seth is really out of the cutting edge when it comes to this sort of thing. I've talked before on DSD about authors publicising themselves. Each author has to find their own way, their own level. But I'm fascinated by the path that Seth has marked out for himself.

It started back with his first book, Jack Wakes Up. The content was available online long before the print edition. Seth himself podcasted the chapters, giving you free regular content back before the rest of us were taking podcasting seriously. He also made his book available as a pdf download. And you know what? It didn't destroy publishing. I'm not going to really get into the deeper issues at play there, because I don't want to distract from the matter at hand, but Seth really proved something there.

There's also a lot to be said for the way this brings fans into the process. You are a part of the action. You promote the books, you spread the word. In the case of Young Junius you helped facilitate the publication. If you head on over to his site, or to itunes, you'll see there is Junius content there for you to listen to. We can even give you this really cool link to the story itself. Right now. Click it and see. And it's all in the name of getting you guys in on the fun. It makes it into an active process rather than a passive one, and that is probably the real lesson.

Not every writer can be a Seth Harwood, but we can probably all take something from that element. Make people feel involved. Make them have a reason to root for your book.

Seth will be joining us at DSD towers for an episode of the podcast real soon, and we'll have more news for you in future about how you can win a copy of Young Junius right here. But let's keep this interactive process going. What questions would you like put to Seth? What do you want to hear us talk about?