I’ve been asked through Jim Steel to write a review for Interzone of debutant novelist Hannu Rajaniemi’s forthcoming The Quantum Thief, due in September I believe. I said yes.

This does represent something of a conflict of interest for me as Hannu is a fellow member of the Edinburgh and East Coast Writers’ Group and of course of Writers’ Bloc. But, as Jim reminded me, everybody in British SF knows just about everybody else and the book’s title suggests a Science background might be an advantage in assessing it.

I mentioned Hannu a while back when he got his writing deal. He knows string theory, though, which wasn’t around when I were a lad.

Some of my time in July will naturally be taken up with this project but the review won’t, of course, be appearing here.

Two fellow members of the East Coast Writers’ Group have had books published recently.

Alan Campbell’s third novel, God Of Clocks, has garnered some good reviews, notably these ones in Strange Horizons and Scotland On Sunday.

I reviewed his first novel Scar Night, here.

Poet Jane McKie’s second collection is called The Sun Is Green. Her first, Morocco Rococo, won an award for best first book.

I think I’ve mentioned my writers’ group before. I believe its full title is the Edinburgh and East Coast Writers’ Group. Its offshoot performance arm, Writers’ Bloc, I’ve mentioned many times.

Anyway, fellow group member Andrew J Wilson has a story in the latest H P Lovecraft’s Magazine Of Horror. If horror’s your bag you might want to check it out. Though, as another group member Zornhau says, this story is more like a Borstal style Harry Potter with overtones of horror.

It’s available as a free download.

Hannu Rajaniemi, like me a member of the East Coast Writers’ Group, is a Writers’ Bloc stalwart. He has just landed a three book publishing deal with Gollancz – on the strength of a 24 page synopsis. I didn’t know that sort of thing happened any more.

Hannu is Finnish by birth and upbringing but has been living in Edinburgh for quite a while now. His English prose puts many writers born to the language to shame.

He also has a PhD in something to do with string theory but don’t ask me what. I’m an Organic Chemist – we don’t care what goes on inside nuclei.

I’ve no doubt Hannu will make it big in the SF world.

Tor, 2006

Disclaimer. Alan Campbell belongs to the same writers’ group as I do, so you may wish to discount what follows. Nevertheless, I only saw very small parts of this book before it was published and none of it in its published form. Apologies to Alan for taking so long to get round to actually reading the finished novel but it’s another 500+ pager and time is short. I will refer to him as Campbell throughout as in a normal review.

In the city of Deepgate, someone is going about murdering people, draining them of their blood and hence their souls. Moreover, it is not the usual culprit, Carnival, who normally takes just the one victim and then only on Scar Night. The perpetrator is trying to produce angelwine, a forbidden concoction that confers resistance to wounds and, perhaps, death.

Deepgate itself is an impressive creation. It is held together by chains and is suspended over an abyss at the bottom of which a god is believed to wait to collect the blood and souls of the departed.
Because he wants to convince us of the reality of his setting, Campbell has a tendency to overdescribe at times, even if lovingly, but this is of course probably what the intended reader will most like about the book.
A minor caveat is that there is sometimes an overtone of default mediaevality about the city, especially in the importance of the church and the degree of technology, though, refreshingly, there are airships.

As you would expect from a first novel there are some infelicities scattered throughout and there can be problems with pacing but Campbell has created believable characters – Dill, Mr Nettle, Presbyter Sypes, Rachel Hael, Fogwill Crumb, the poisoner Devon – and even the minor ones all behave the way real people would in their circumstances.
However, when the inevitable happens and some of the characters descend into the abyss and others move on to the plains surrounding Deepgate the emphasis on character becomes lost and action begins to predominate. This may have been necessary but I felt it was to the novel’s detriment overall.

Campbell is at his most convincing in the earlier part of the book, depicting the city, its inhabitants and their daily lives. He may have created a rod for his own back here if his fans develop obsessive tendencies.
However, the build up to the climax is, to my mind, too rushed. (There may perhaps have been a touch of rapidly approaching publisher’s deadline about it.)
And the title is a bit askew. We experience two Scar Nights during the book’s course not just one.

Further disclaimer. A fantastical tale of this sort is not my usual preferred reading.
But there is enough good writing here to make me want to read the sequel Iron Angel.