Elitist Book Reviews

Happy New Year all! I hope you're having a good one so far. I humbly present you James Lovegrove's THE AGE OF VOODOO, the latest installment in the legendary godpunk series. This time around readers get to delve into the lesser known world of voodoo or vodou. And you know what they say, "Where there's voodoo there are sure to be voodoo zombies!" Somebody says that...right?

Lex Dove was a specialist, an assassin, a ghost. He is living out his hard earned retirement on a beautiful island in the Caribbean. Retirement is short lived. A call comes, a request from his old employer. Just like that he is back in the game, chosen as a local guide for a very special group of special forces soldiers. Lex is a professional but no amount of experience could prepare him for what he will face beneath the surface of Anger Reef.

Do you know why I get so excited about a new Pantheon novel? You can always expect a few things when Lovegrove sets to it. You can expect interesting characters. You can expect thorough research. You can expect big ideas. And you can expect explosive action. You can expect the unexpected. Each Pantheon novel is a contemporary myth of man against god(s). Despite this underlying theme Lovegrove never tells the same story twice. THE AGE OF VOODOO, like previous entries to the series, is a standalone adventure that plays on legend. The diversity of the Pantheon series is its greatest strength.

With THE AGE OF VOODOO Lovegrove exposes some of the fundamentals of voodoo (duh). In a lot of ways that makes this the riskiest novel in the series to date. The previous novels all dealt with better known deities and religions. One of the best things though, about reading one of these, is learning about exotic belief systems. Granted this is fiction, but I always get the sense that Lovegrove has done his research. The subject of THE AGE OF VOODOO is the distant and unknowable creator god Bondye, and the subservient spirits called loa. The most popular loa outside of voodoo is Baron Samedi, the devilish rogue featured on the cover and my next Halloween costume. It's not all that complicated but I'll leave the rest for readers to parcel out.

Lex Dove is a British ex-operative. He has a talent for violence but no real desire to act on it any longer. Or so he says. He hangs around his friends bar, playing bouncer. The memories of his victims plague him. The fact that their deaths protected the civilized world are little remedy. Surprisingly enough, the main protagonist isn't the headlining performance this go around. Instead, that honor goes to the voodoo practitioner, Albertine, and the Navy SEALs of Team Thirteen. Albertine plays guide into the occult world of voodoo, explaining the ins and outs in digestible chunks. I rather appreciate that she doesn't fit the stereotypical voodoo mambo. She is, in fact, a respectable woman with a decent IT job that happens to have access to hidden knowledge.

Then there is Team Thirteen, the "janitors of the uncanny." The SEALs put the special in special forces. These are the boys the government calls when things go bump in the night. They deal with the supernatural - with extreme prejudice. Vampires are real. As are werewolves and ghosts and other nasty baddies besides. This is the "Stephen-King-meets-James-Bond world of Team Thirteen." The Team doesn't get loads of development, though Lieutenant Buckler is a one tough mo-fo and Tartaglione is good for a chuckle or five. Still, they are definitely interesting and I'd like to see how one member comes to terms with their new...capabilities after the novel.

The plot is noticeably weaker than previous Pantheon novels. Setting the pins takes half the novel and knocking them down seems to breeze by. Once on the island the pace ratchets up considerably, leaving less time for exposition. The deity aspect of THE AGE OF VOODOO also feels lighter. There are some really cool things brought up but it's not as intricate with the lore. I suppose the best way to describe it is "understated." There are some really great moments, specifically the hilarious Chapter 9: A Reasoned, Gentlemanly Exchange of Views. I respect that Lovegrove utilizes zombies without dawdling on them. Plus these are voodoo zombies, zuvembies, they retain primitive cognition. They aren't set on consuming flesh, they are capable of basic survival responses. They are meat robots at the command of their maker. This makes them much better foes than the traditional American zombie.

All in all, THE AGE OF VOODOO isn't the strongest of Lovegrove's Pantheon novels. It lacks the characterization of AGE OF AZTEC and the explosive action of AGE OF ZEUS. Nonetheless, it is an entertaining novel dealing with lesser known subject matter. As always, Lovegrove remains the king of godpunk.

Recommended Age: 15+
Language: Frequent.
Violence: You betcha!
Sex: Nothing explicit.

Get the series!
AGE OF RA
AGE OF ZEUS
AGE OF ODIN
AGE OF AZTEC
AGE OF ANANSI
AGE OF VOODOO
AGE OF GODPUNK

James Lovegrove writes exactly the sort of books the reviewers here at Elitist Book Reviews love to read. Gods, monsters, aliens, power armor, and more. Having just recently topped 100,000 in sales of his Pantheon series and with a new book just hitting the shelves...well, it was the perfect time for an interview. James was kind enough to oblige, here is what he had to say.

***

Elitist Book Reviews: Hello there, James. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to make an appearance on our infamous blog. EBR tradition dictates that we give the authors we interview a chance to brag. So have at it! What makes you and your novels so great?

James Lovegrove: You mean aside from intrinsic awesomeness? Indisputable brilliance? Unerring originality? Spectacularly handsome physical appearance? Nope, can’t think of anything.

EBR: You’ve been writing for a little more than twenty years now. When is it that you knew you wanted to be an author?

JL: I’ve read loads of interviews in which an author refers to a particular Damascus moment when, as a child, he or she realized that books are actually written by people, and this revelation set him or her on the road to writerdom. All I have to say to that is, “Duh!” It never occurred to me that books weren’t written by people. Where else were they supposed to come from? Magic Pixie Land? But I think, even armed with this insight, I always knew I was going to write fiction for a living, almost from the day I realized I could read and enjoyed reading. I wanted to be lots of other things when I grew up--mostly a multimillionaire rock star surrounded by countless of shaggable groupies--but deep down the literary calling was there, nagging and gnawing at the back of my mind, telling me that this and only this was what I was made for: writing. It is, I’m fond of saying, the thing I do least badly, and therefore it is what I now do.

EBR: Can you give us a little insight into the process of getting published? Any useful tips for writers looking for a publishing deal of their own?

JL: I was lucky, in that my first novel (The Hope) was accepted by the first publisher I sent it to. I never had to go through the soul-sapping but character-building process of rejection slips and getting oneself noticed. That isn’t to say that I haven’t struggled and worked hard. I spent years honing my craft and getting on in the publishing biz, but I didn’t have that initial knockback which--given my personality type--might well have deterred me from ever trying again. I would say the best way to get published is to write your damn book, make sure it’s the best damn book you could have written, and then get yourself an agent and make sure he or she is the butt-kickingest agent you could have and is doing the very best he or she can on your behalf. Oh, and submit a “clean” manuscript, well laid out, paginated, the works, with the least possible number of typos and punctuation errors. A busy agent or commissioning editor will always look favorably on a tidy manuscript, as it’s indicative of a tidy mind. Messy manuscripts end up in the bin, unread. It’s a fact.

EBR: With the Pantheon series you seem to have carved out your own sub-genre some are dubbing "godpunk". What inspired the Pantheon series and the very idea of this sort of urban-mythology?

JL: Very little inspired the first Pantheon novel, THE AGE OF RA, other than an invitation from Solaris Books to pitch an alternate history idea to them. Of the three ideas I submitted, the one I (and they) liked the most was the one that involved a world where the Ancient Egyptian gods had taken charge, carving the continents up into their own individual power blocs. I didn’t know much about the Egyptian pantheon at the time other than that these were gods who all had animal heads, were more than a little mad, and slept with their siblings. This seemed to me very fertile territory. Welding a military-SF plot onto that scenario was the next step. I didn’t have to think about it very hard. It just seemed a natural, logical extension. And hey presto, alakazam, I had the first book in what has turned out to be a pretty cool series.

EBR: Having recently published an exclusive to digital eNovella, "Age of Anansi", how do you feel about the impact of eBooks as an author and a reader?

JL: I don’t have an e-reader and probably never will. I like books made of paper and card and ink and glue. I like the proper, physical object. I like to be able to bend a book back, chuck it around, peruse it in the bath, do what I want with it, safe in the knowledge that I’m not in danger of breaking a costly piece of kit which I will then have to replace and restock. Also, every book on my shelves (and there are many thousands of them) has meaning for me. I can remember more or less how old I was when I bought it, where I bought it, what buying it meant to me… I don’t want a piece of software, I want a thing.

Having said all which, I’ve got nothing against e-readers at all. I appreciate that they’re great for busy people, for people going on holiday, for people who like tech, and I appreciate, too, that they’re becoming the lifeblood of the publishing industry, the new paradigm. May they live long and prosper. Just not in the Lovegrove household.

EBR: Solaris is responsible for publishing your supernatural thriller, REDLAW. What is it that separates your vampires from, say, TWILIGHT?

JL: If I was going to be flippant, I would say the difference between me and Stephenie Meyer is that I can write. But that’s not at all fair. She has done what she has done, reimagining vampires (and indeed werewolves) as kind of idealized boyfriends, and firing the romantic dreams of millions of teenaged girls and selling a kajillion books. More power to her elbow. But I like my vamps old-school. I like them creepy and predatory, recognizably human but still alien and nasty and “other”. That way, when I depict them as an oppressed minority in the novel, as I do, I can play on people’s sense of prejudice and then whip the carpet out from under the reader’s feet when I reveal that the vampires are actually sympathetic and that it’s humans who are the real monsters. REDLAW is a thriller but it’s also satire, a reversal of the norm, and I’m continuing that theme with its sequel, REDLAW: RED EYE, which I have just completed.

EBR: How much research do you typically do for one of your Pantheon novels? You seem to have an extensive knowledge of ancient mythology, how do you decide what to use and what to cut out?

JL: I like to read at least two or three books devoted to the particular mythology I’m shamelessly exploiting--ahem, I mean lovingly exploring. I was well versed in only one pantheon, the Greek, before I started this series. I knew a little about the Norse gods, mostly from old Lee/Kirby Thor comics, but otherwise learning about each pantheon is a voyage of discovery, and a very pleasant one at that. Basically I’m reading stories, not dry facts, and that for me isn’t research at all, it’s fun. The difficulty comes later, as I rework those stories into a new context, make the pre-existing mythical characters fit the novel’s scheme, and attempt to craft a story that will reflect the themes and tone of the pantheon concerned. I say difficulty, but it’s actually a hell of a lot of fun.

In fact, I’ve just realized: my job involves pissing around all day making stuff up and reading other people’s made-up stuff. Is that even a job? In theory, when it comes to writing each book I would like to include everything I’ve read about the relevant pantheon, not least because I hate even a minute of research time going to waste. In the event, though, it’s a case of filleting out the really juicy material, the bits too good to leave out, and using whatever best illustrates both the nature of the pantheon itself and the subtext of the novel.

EBR: As an author who do you consider your influence?

JL: Just about anything I read is an influence, for good or for ill. If a word in a book I happen to be reading at the time seems to me just the right word I’m looking for in my own novel, I’ll use it. Sometimes that goes for a whole phrase. My writing influences are a number of authors but mostly Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Stan Lee, Alan Moore, Kurt Vonnegut, Alan Furst, Colin Wilson and Alfred Bester. But anything in the environment around me has a bearing on what I’m working on--news reports, interesting things people might say to me, random thoughts that occur at odd hours of the night, my home, my family, my cat… Everything feeds into the mulch from which ideas grow. It’s a continual, ongoing process.

EBR: You’re in a bookstore, in the SF&F section, and a customer mistakes you for an employee. He/She asks you to recommend a novel. You can’t recommend your own novels (because OBVIOUSLY the customer has read them all). What book/series do you recommend?

JL: I’d steer this person towards the works of Alan Moore (assuming there’s a graphic novel section nearby) and suggest he or she try Promethea, which is one of the Sage of Northampton’s unsung triumphs. But should this bookstore be one of those lousy ones that doesn’t sell comics collections, I would waggle Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man and/or The Stars My Destination under this individual’s nose and say, “This is cyberpunk long before William Gibson dusted off his manual typewriter. This is space opera and future extrapolation and adventure SF and bebop jazz all rolled into one. This is mainlined imagination at its purest and most inventive and explorative, and please stop staring at me like I’m a madman, I’m really quite normal, honest…”

EBR: What do we have to do to have cameos in your next book where we die violent deaths?

JL: Well, a large bribe would never hurt. That or pissing me off royally. In REDLAW: RED EYE there’s one secondary character who is named after a concert ticket promoter who ripped me off for quite a large sum of money last year, and has hidden behind this country’s bankruptcy laws in order to get away with not repaying me and his other creditors. This crook’s namesake has all sorts of hideous indignities committed upon his person in the book, and I took exquisite delight in inflicting each and every one. Personally, I wouldn’t want a character with my own name to meet a hideous end. Peter F. Hamilton abused a character called Lovegrove in one of his books, and thought it amusing, but I did not. Perhaps I’m worried that there’s some kind of sympathetic voodoo magic involved, but I wouldn’t want to harm the fictional proxy of anyone on whom I didn’t wish harm in the real world.

EBR: Can you tell us what you have planned for writing in the near future? Any more Pantheon novels or super secret projects?

JL: There’s at least two more Pantheon novels in the offing, but the only one I can say with any certainty is going to happen is AGE OF VOODOO, because I’m just about to start work on that. There’ll mostly likely be another couple of Age Of… e-novellas too, since the first, "Age Of Anansi", seems to be selling well. But the super secret project which I pitched for earlier this year and which has just been given the go-ahead, is a couple of Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books. I’ve been dying to write a Holmes story ever since I was a kid, so this is the proverbial dream come true. They’re going to be steampunkish takes on the standard Holmes adventure, fast-paced and action-y but with plenty of deduction and detection as well.

EBR: Thank you so much for finding the time to answer some of our questions. Do you have any final words for readers?

JL: What are you doing looking at this when you could be reading my latest?

***

A special thanks to James for dropping by the blog. It's always awesome to hear behind-the-scenes stuff that makes an author "tick". If this interview doesn't make you want to read his work, you are dead inside.

AGE OF RA
AGE OF ZEUS
AGE OF ODIN
AGE OF ANANSI
AGE OF AZTEC

REDLAW

Continuing in the tradition of James Lovegrove's exceptional Pantheon series comes the e-novella AGE OF ANANSI. This is a story that breaks away from the Military SF nature of the previous novels, though it does remain true to the thematic roots.

Dion Yeboah is a successful criminal defendant, a man with the keen ability to bend the law in his client's favor but never break it. One day, however, the trickster god Anansi pays Dion a visit and offers him a deal he cannot refuse. At Anansi's behest, Dion travels across the Atlantic to participate in a multi-pantheon trickster god free for all in the United States. The competition is stiff and if Dion wants to keep his head he will have to rely on his precision honed wits to overcome the likes of Loki, Set, and even the infamous Coyote.

AGE OF ANANSI is not fast paced, action-saturated thriller like its predecessors. If anything AGE OF ANANSI is a morality tale that really accentuates the brand of modern day mythology Lovegrove has been crafting with his Pantheon series. The driving force behind the story is the interactions of meddling gods and the humans caught up in their schemes, and it seems that none can scheme better than a trickster god.

Novellas can be a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand Lovegrove was able to tell a riskier story that he may not have been able to write otherwise. On the other hand I feel as though the concept is so good that it deserved a full length novel. Dion as a character is established well enough that he makes a suitable protagonist but the greatest facet of the Pantheon series, the relationship between the gods, is underplayed. The tangled web of plot and deception could have really thrived with such a distinctive congregation of gods from separate religions.

Wanting extra of a good thing doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing, so I'm loathe to hold it against AGE OF ANANSI that I desire more. AGE OF ANANSI isn't the best of the Pantheon series but it does further the sequence for the better. Lovegrove's tales of modern mythology are truly one of a kind, and like AGE OF AZTEC, the ending of this story packs a sizable punch.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: A few words, but much lighter than normal.
Violence: What little violence there is occurs off screen.
Sex: Hinted at but not described.

Here are your links to the full series:
AGE OF RA
AGE OF ZEUS
AGE OF ODIN
AGE OF ANANSI
AGE OF AZTEC

AGE OF AZTEC is the fourth entry in James Lovegrove's excellent Pantheon series. Don't worry if you have yet to read any of the other Pantheon novels because each book is a standalone adventure. Lovegrove has successfully carved out his own unique niche, a fusion of near-future Military Science Fiction and Alternate Historical Fiction based around the pantheons of the ancient world.

It is 2012 and the Aztec Empire rules the entire world. Dissent is eliminated with extreme and uncompromising prejudice. The Aztecan theocracy practices gruesome rituals of human sacrifice and the downtrodden masses line up voluntarily for the honor. In the midst of the cruelest regime in human history a masked vigilante rises to fight the totalitarian system and free the people. He is called a terrorist. He goes by the title, the Conquistador and Chief Inspector Mal Vaughn is hot on his trail.

The Conquistador, Stuart Reston, has much in common with other well known fictional champions of justice. Reading AGE OF AZTEC I couldn't help but make comparisons to Zorro, V from V for Vendetta, and of course Batman. That said the Conquistador has quite enough to differentiate himself from other infamous masked vigilantes. The Stuart Reston is ever so slightly unstable. He is arrogant and foolhardy, brash and attention seeking. Reston is addicted to empowerment he feels from his alter-ego and the pain it allows him to veil through blood shed. I took a while to warm to Reston but once I had embraced his nemesis relationship with Mal Vaughn I was hooked.

And of course if I am going to pay credit to the Conquistador I also have to tip my hat to Chief Inspector Mal Vaughn. Mal is an implacable copper working for a system she doesn't quite believe in any longer. Personal doubts aside she is a driven individual whose career--and very life--depend on catching Public Enemy Number One. Mal is every bit as engaging as the Conquistador, if not more so. The real chemistry of the book is when both characters clash verbally, resulting in brutal exchanges of dialogue that are rife with parry and riposte.

The gods are the foundation of the entire Pantheon series and in each entry Lovegrove has managed to deliver variety. The explanation behind the gods in AGE OF AZTEC is utterly different than any of his previous novels. What aspect does remain the same is how intricate and complex the relationships are between the gods themselves. In mythology the gods are often just amplified representations of humanity and Lovegrove uses this to create characters that are simultaneously alien and yet still relatable. The Aztec pantheon is fascinating and refreshing, and it is clear that despite the fictional nature of the story Lovegrove has done his research.

If the gods are foundation upon which the Pantheon series is built than the influence exerted by the presence of the gods is the brick and mortar. AGE OF AZTEC presents a world where the Aztec Empire was not wiped out by the Spanish, but instead gifted with super advanced technology by the gods. The Aztecs then use this technology to subjugate the entirety of human civilization. In a way AGE OF AZTEC is a sort of reverse-steampunk. Lovegrove doesn't waste time on info-dumps, instead allowing readers to piece the puzzle together with a bare minimum guidance. Life under the Empire's rule is altered but still recognizable. Everything from beverages to sports and even names, reflect the Aztec dominion.

AGE OF AZTEC channels many genres. The novel starts out with as a swashbuckling, man against the regime sort of affair. With Inspector Vaughn's PoV comes a police procedural flavor. Finally the novel climaxes in a military assault of cataclysmic proportions. Though comprised of various influences, Lovegrove creates something that is surely his own sub-genre, godpunk as I noticed it being coined in other reviews of the Pantheon series.

The last time I had this much fun reading a book it was Larry Correia's SPELLBOUND. That alone should tell you something. I read AGE OF AZTEC in three extended sittings, staying up late into the night. Rarely ever does a novel surprise me in terms of plot direction (call me jaded) but this book got me with not one twist, but two. I had no idea how the book would finish until the fantastic ending. Fans of Alternate Historical Fiction, Military SF, and even Fantasy can all find something to love in James Lovegrove's AGE OF AZTEC.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: Frequent and colorful.
Violence: Human sacrifices and pitched combat, there is some bloody stuff to behold.
Sex: Mentioned and alluded to, sometimes explicitly

Here are your links to all the Pantheon novels:
AGE OF RA
AGE OF ZEUS
AGE OF ODIN
AGE OF AZTEC