Acracknophobia by Mark Jackman

Acracknophobia: The Sid Tillsley Chronicles Book 3 by Mark Jackman

Sid, whose fist is its own vampire slayer, has gone soft for the sake of a woman. This is disastrous news for people and a relief for vampires, but how long will it last?

ISBN 978-1905091935

ASIM for Kindle B007IVM674

347 pages

LL-Publications 2012

Vampires and humans live in an uneasy peace, under an alliance called the Coalition – not that the public are aware, except those who are inadvertently taken as food. Some of the humans and vampire committee members get on well, but as in all such high-powered gatherings there is political infighting, human manoeuvring and subhuman shenanigans. In the previous two books, Sid and a few pals, living in the Northeast of England, drink Bolton Bitter beer and it seems this empowers their anti-vampire abilities. Book Three, in typical hilarity, sees a scientific analysis of the lowest order and we are ultimately treated to an explanation of how Bolton Bitter has such magical powers.

Before then the book opens with an unexpected first chapter. We have a rare creature – King – a half-breed vampire, who is more into music and burgers than arteries. He is as welcome a break from the usual vampire as Sid is to vampire slayers. The opening chapter, like all the chapters, leave the reader hooked, eager to devour the next. Shortly after we meet King, we are driving along the M56 with his hard-nosed dad, Borg, a ruthless vampire, whose very existence makes this book cold to the touch. I mention the M56 because I know it well, being my local road (when not cycling – I get shouted at otherwise) and Borg is going toMiddlesbrough, where my first publisher lives. So many connections to my own life in this book makes me nervous.

With Sid what you get is more than what you see. He’s a giant of an unpolitical uncouth man with a big heart and a vampire-deadly fist offering readers a continuation of his unique character. You can’t help liking him even if you’d cross the city to avoid meeting him on a dark night. Sid wouldn’t hurt a fly, unless it sucked blood. With King we have a completely new dimension in species-related literature. Fascinating.

In some ways this is a more thoughtful novel than the first two. Loose ends need to be tied up. Fear not you fans of Sid, your ribs will ache with mirth as he is obliged by his new fiancée to attend homophobic-adjustment sessions to modify his attitude to ‘them lot’, and alcoholics anonymous, which he understands not at all being as Bolton Bitter is not so much a problem as a solution. These counselling sessions go against Sid’s persona but without them there would be no ‘Howay the lads’ with Sheila Fishman and her alluring jugs. His feelings go deeper than mere looks. As she steps out of car ‘both of Sid’s cold feet warmed up’. What a great romantic line. Seriously.

Sid’s homophobia takes a hefty knock when the counsellor informs the group that even some penguins are gay. Sid eyes, suspiciously, the chocolate wrappers on the table and asks, ‘Is it catching?’ Sadly for Sid the Miner’s Arms is now The First Swallow of Spring and so he’s not wanting to grace an establishment of ‘them lot’.

The efforts of people to solve the mysteries in Book Three that were presented in the first two books takes us into partially familiar analysis. Arthur: ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbably, must be the truth.’

‘That’s deep, man. Is that some sort of quote?’

‘Aye…Colombo.’

Each chapter ends with a hook just as each starts with a pity media quote – a commentary to the whole gory story. It’s a mystery, a wonderment, how Jackman kept track of the twists and body count. Not even the most teeth-sharpened vampire aficionado will be able to guess how this one ends. I commend this book to all readers of both humour and vampire genres. Enjoy.

 

Purchase from the publisher. Or from Amazon and other book sites, or order from bookshops.

Reviewing from Lanzarote

Shall we take the laptop? Yes, no, maybe for a couple of hours before wife, who would have used it to craft more of her non-fiction Masters work on Education while I would have snatched in between to write up book reviews, more of ARIA book three, and complaints letters. Why on the sunny side of Earth should I want to write a moaning missive? Lanzarote is a fascinating lump of mostly cooled lava in the Canary Islands, but the resort we’d swapped our 5-star Villacana, Spanish timeshare for, with Lanz and Club in its name shouldn’t rate a star, or a moon. Yes, under new ownership and so refurbishments are in hand, and all we need to do is wait for the next meteor. In spite of the shabby furnishings, and corny entertainment, it was clean, the maid smiled and the weather was sufficiently cloudy to stop us getting sunburnt.

My Mold barber told me to hire a bike in Costa Teguise and ‘do’ the coastal bike route. I was tempted but there were too many kids, dogs, people and the occasional lizard to be a whizzing carefree ride. We walked our sandals to the bone instead. And when our feet complained we read books. One of my book group novels is Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. ‘Author’s preferred text’ ie not the one hacked around by the BBC for the TV version in the 1990s. I’ve met Neil at a convention. He’s tall with dark curly hair and no, he won’t remember me. Neverwhere is a beautiful novel set in the underground tubes, cellars, basements, sewers and sometimes roofs of London. I keep thinking it should be called Underwhere. Beyond the prologue, the story starts with a young female, Doors, who has a marvellous ability to think open doors, catches, locks and hearts. She is being chased by two gruesome killers… but I’m not reviewing it now. China Mieville’s Kraken is also set in London – both terrific writers, Kraken more for adults, I’d say. I also read M. John Harrison’s The Centauri Device, because I am an admirer of his literary style and mistakenly assumed the book was about a marvellous technology – the next topic for the Chester Library SFF group. I quite enjoyed the story, based on a sentient bomb that can only be triggered by someone with Centauri genes. The lone man with such, John Truck, leads a fraught existence chasing his dreams in a kind of shoot ‘em up Star Wars feel story (but without aliens, unless that’s Truck). I liken it to those other SF stories where a lone captain struggles to survive against all odds: Pirx the Pilot by Stanislaw Lem, Horza in Ian M Banks’ Consider Phlebus.

I read with LOL moments, Mark Jackman’s Acracknophobia, third and last (apparently by popular request) in the series on Sid Tillsley, vampire slayer with a mighty fist. Full review in a later blog. Also Peg Herring’s Dead for the Money – the second in the Dead Detective Agency series – a clever premise of a demised detective going from limbo back to the living to solve a murder. My wife, who doesn’t enjoy fantasies, but does like mysteries, liked this novel a lot.

I also started, cos I found it by lucky chance in the resort library, Ian M Bank’s Surface Detail (2010) in the Culture Series.  Hang on, it starts with a girl being chased by two killers…

There’s more to Lanzarote than me reading books for review. I’ve been three times and cannot stop admiring how early settlers, drifting, possibly expecting lack of survival, found water and made it work. The Canaries exist because of the tectonic plates pushing up in mid-Atlantic. 300 former volcanoes make up the island of Lanzarote (one is still mildly active) and the broken up lava fields look moonlike. (depending on which moon!) Weathered ash and lava are nutritious for crops such as vines, tomatoes, potatoes and many others if you can water them. Wells found water in the past but now it is by desalination plants. I made my own volcano in the kitchen. I was frying up (in healthy olive oil) local potatoes, onions, tomatoes, peppers and a soy-based protein. It smelled absolutely gorgeous. Then I dropped a glass breakfast bowl. It looked like a crater before it hit the floor – then exploded. I thought the food cooking on the hob would be safe but we found glass ejecta ‘bomb’s – aarrggh. Into the bin. We abandoned self-catering for that night and sampled local cuisine of a pasta variety. Tasty.

In other news I learnt that ARIA: Left Luggage will be released on August 1^st. Yeay. The publishers, LL-Publications have a list of reviewers now but if you are a reviewer and want one please look them up and ask at http://www.ll-publications.com

 

Image of Lanzarote courtesy of http://www.spanish-living.com/

A Fistful of Rubbers

A Fistful of Rubbers: The Sid Tilsley Chronicles – Book Two
Mark Jackman
Reviewed by Geoff Nelder

In an apparent contradiction of the title, there are surprising moments of philosophy and political intrigue here that no aficionado of vampire literature should ignore.

Paperback: 312 pages
Publisher: Logical-Lust (14 Nov 2010)
ISBN-13: 978-1905091584

I have been reading vampire stories for decades but it is only in more recent years that the genre has sprung a leak in conventions. New myths were generated by Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1897 followed meekly by many writers. For example he invented the notion that vampires have no reflections, can be killed by a crucifix, warded off by garlic, and have to sleep in soil or a coffin. Jackman’s vampires snub such stereotypes though for dramatic effect he keeps with Stoker’s concept that vampires burn in sunlight.

In Book One: The Great Right Hope, many new and invigorating ideas were introduced such as the acknowledgment of vampire existence by some ‘normal’ people in authority and a Coalition created to govern this uneasy co-existence. Of course the excitement comes when vampires and humans break with the Coalition. The politics of such a dichotomy, introduced in Book One, is explored further in Book Two, but don’t worry, there is no chance of you falling asleep. The action of Sid’s right fist, supported by his Middlesbrough pals, and fuelled by Bolton Bitter beer, drives the story on its drunken, bruising and hilarious journey.

As we come to expect from Mark Jackman, there are ingenious and disturbing vamp-lit innovations. We learnt in Book One that Sid’s fists can dispose of a vampire, while normally only decapitation can. In Book Two, one of Sid’s drinking buddies, Brian Garforth, discovers that shagging his one-night-stand vampire lover, the most beautiful female on Earth, turned her to ash, making his jizz a more hazardous substance than a wooden stake. A fact leading to the eponymous title, A Fistful of Rubbers after a scientist invented a kind of condom six-gun. Another surprise is that vampire fathers often die in childbirth. Yes, you heard me correctly, but I’ll let you read the rather touching reason when you read the book yourself. A bizarre yet intriguing novelty is when an uncontrollable beast of a vampire, Gunnar Ivansey, confesses his evil deeds to a priest. Fascinating.

In this sequel, Sid’s fist remains mighty but the man himself is troubled. The Miner’s Arms is closed (temporarily, don’t fret), forcing the lads to discover new drinking emporiums forcing them to encounter people of differing sexual preferences creating extreme discomfort and shame, Worse, the political factions impinge on Sid and his friend in ways obliging them to retaliate. There’s much more.

This sequel is more intellectual than Book One with its political and philosophical shenanigans, but fear not, Sid and his pals will always see you right.

Any fan of Sid Tilsley in The Great Right Hope will be uplifted and rightly beasted by A Fistful of Rubbers.
Purchase from Amazon UK