Against Nature on sale in North America

Cholula, Mexico.

For anyone to whom this makes a significant difference with regard to prohibitive shipping costs for books sent from Europe, Against Nature now has a North American distributor - Who North America who presently have print copies on sale for $30, presumably plus postage. So buy now while stocks last etc. etc.

On a related but otherwise entirely different note, how tickled I am to receive the commentary of a virtual friend generally addressed as Urizen, Foremost of the Western, Hermas or one of a number of other names depending upon which part of the internet you happen to be standing in. We've known each other - in so much as one can really know anyone - on various forums and have corresponded on and off for a couple of years mostly regarding our shared appreciation of Faction Paradox novels and early cultures - he has a formidable understanding and appreciation of ancient Egypt, so we've sort of compared notes a few times, which I've always found illuminating.

Anyway, Urizen is another person upon whom I was concerned that Against Nature should make a favourable impression on the grounds that if he judged it to be crap, then it probably was. So with regards to the present girth of my ego, anybody reading this who knows me in person - I'd give it a couple of days if I were you.

It is, to say the least, an impressive work, not only in its intricate structures, but also that this is matched by warm-blooded characters, excellent prose style and an overall high readability - not an unputdownable, but then, that term is usually used of the likes of Dan Brown, so I shouldn't take that as a criticism. Indeed, the book almost requires gaps and spaces between readings to sift and think about the contents along the way. The most important thing, however, I think is that it manages the difficult task of being both impressive and actually readable - in this, I think, scoring highly over both This Town and Newtons Sleep, which were both rather like the famed black monolith: admirable, but fearsome and somewhat unapproachable too.

Equally impressive is the bringing to life of a dead culture, which I know too well is no mean feat, given the often scrappy and rather finessed remains that we are often left with, let alone their often quite alien and alienating concerns (the use of the calendar in Momacani's sections is in particular excellent, I think). That you managed this and then, on top of this, created the first truly interesting presentation of the Great Houses since The Book of the War (and before that, probably The Deadly Assassin, though I have ignored the audios in this consideration), is once again a huge plus for the book. In the end, Against Nature just works, and I can see precious little to criticise it, which is normally a good sign: the true mark of craftsmanship usually being that it looks far, far simpler than it is, and that the amount of work which went into it is invisible.

With that said, I do not feel I could offer thoughts on a book without offering some criticism - what, after all, would be the point without it? I can certainly see what the other reviewers of this book have meant about catching up with the Nahuatl terminology, though I have to admit this only afflicted me slightly, at some point over the halfway mark, and was not terribly severe - I had to flip to the back cover a couple of times to sort Xiuhtecuhtli from Goralschai's Nahuatl name.

What I found more difficult, however, were the various chambers of House Meddhoran, which I found difficult to envisage, partly because I found their functions quite difficult to work out. What is a nosocomion for, or an air gallery? Then again, this also heightened the oddity of the House, and seemed to fit well with the formlessness of the Netherweald. I also found it a little difficult to keep track of the inhabitants, beyond Rhodenet, Laethynrisa, Thraenrellis and Emiousha, partly because some cousins, particularly I think Rothis and Dorhira, only appear relatively late (unless I forgot their earlier appearances).

I also found the jumps between segments could be a little offputting, if I had become particularly in the mood for one segment, but I did insist on reading the book beginning to end rather than following individual strands, so that's entirely my own fault. These are all, however, rather trifling criticisms in the overall scheme of the book, which remains highly to be praised.

That's all I can think of right now, because I am going to need some time to digest the book - which is, again, something of a testament to its qualities. I do not think, at the moment, that it is a great book; it is, however, a very good book, and one close, I think, to the border between the two states. I wouldn't presume to rate the book, but I would presume to call it entertaining, witty, clever, charming, engrossing, sympathetic and emotionally engaging while avoiding sentimentality and mawkishness, and above all, enjoyable. I wish I'd written it.

Thanks again to Urizen for allowing me to reproduce what was written as private correspondence and was as such not originally intended for public view.

The Obverse Book of Detectives

The theoretically final edition of the Obverse Quarterly is now available to buy or download (if that's how you roll) and this time as I mentioned a few weeks ago it's detective fiction, hence the title; albeit detective fiction in unorthodox settings, so I'm told. My contribution is called The Unwoken Princess and is set in Chalco and Xochimilco in the fifteenth century valley of Mexico (and so readers should be forewarned that its conspicuously lacking in characters with names like Gavin, Keith and Shirley).

The full line up comprises The Sorcerous Dogsnatchers of Fishwife Lane by Chantelle Messier, The Bog-Man Of Bond Street by Thomas H. Pugh, The Crimson Dagger by Jamie Hailstone, The Witchfinder by Paul Hiscock, Exit Stage Left by Mark Manley, and my thing.

The print edition can be purchased here, the electronic version here, and seeing as I already posted Julia Andersson's lovely cover as part of the previous entry concerning The Obverse Book of Detectives, here's a picture of me smoking a fag in a boat in Xochimilco taken by Rob Colson back in September 2005 before everything went down the toilet.

Against Nature: Four Stars on Goodreads

Well, I was bored...

And another review of Against Nature, this time as posted on Goodreads on the 30th April by Philip Purser-Hallard, himself a genuinely exceptional author whose own entry into the Faction Paradox canon, Of the City of the Saved... would easily rate amongst my all-time top ten science-fiction novels were I ever to attempt to pin down such a grouping. Whilst it would be untrue to suggest that I might have packed in writing to become a pole dancer had Phil given my novel the thumbs down, it would have nevertheless been a dark day, so this feels somewhat akin to Henry Rollins telling me my band rocks (conditional to some scenario in which I actually have a band):

There are some issues with the use of language in this novel: Lawrence Burton's knowledge of Mexica culture is rich and detailed and his research is meticulous, but Against Nature doesn't work with the reader to allow them to understand it as well as he does. In some ways that's admirable - as a reader I'm always willing to put in some work to understand a book rather than having its meanings handed to me on a plate - but despite the culture's inherent fascinations, the sheer profusion of unfamiliar terms did become a little alienating.

However, it's exactly the same approach taken to the material set among the inhabitants of the Great Houses, which I found much more comprehensible, and indeed to the contemporary US scenes - we're so immersed in the viewpoint of the current primary character that what they see is presented to us with no more explanation than they themselves would need. I'm confident that an early sixteenth-century Mexica cleric or a Homeworlder, if they were somehow able to read the book, would find exactly as much that was baffling about the contemporary sections.

As I say, I don't mind putting in the work to understand a story - it’s a common expectation in SF (see such books as Neuromancer or A Clockwork Orange), and one becomes used to it - but it’s not exactly restful to read. Couple that with the fivefold alternation between what for much of the book are separate plot strands, and a family life which means that I mostly get to read when I'm already tired, and I quite often picked up the book and found that I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I found it quite slow going.

Much of that is to do with my reading habits, though - I'm sure a younger, more intellectually agile reader would have had no issues with it. The one place where I thought this approach seriously compromised the book was in the suggestion that the actions of the various time-active participants had altered the mythology of the Mexica people, since without a comprehensive knowledge of said mythology it was impossible to detect which aspects of the myths depicted had been culturally imperialised.

That's it for the negatives, though. In a more general way, I loved the use of Aztec myth, religion and ritual, and the descriptive tours of Tenochtitlan and its environs, as well as its modern-day counterpart and the connections between the two. The bruja Ultima, with her matter-of-fact approach to ritual magic, was a particularly fine character, but Momacani (the Mexica cleric whose passages are naturally the most steeped in Nahuatl vocabulary) was also reassuringly sympathetic. The play with alternative timelines was fun - not just the revelation about Todd's relationship to Primo, but also the fractured present-day USA in which the former apparently finds himself about halfway through the book.

The book is crammed full of fascinating ideas, in fact, and its plot is wonderfully twisty, yielding up unexpected linkages between its apparently disparate strands, and building up to a climax whose ill-defined, partial and ambiguous nature is entirely in keeping with the book's presentation of the numinous and sacred. The biggest question of all - Goralschai's true intent - is ultimately unanswerable without an insight into the Ordnance-Tetrarch's thought processes which the book denies us, and I felt it was all the more satisfying that way.

I loved the House Meddhoran sections of the book, and their depiction of an alien but codified world being invaded by the weird, irrational and macabre. (From a smugly personal point of view, I was gratified to see that the Great Houses' vocabulary now includes a couple of my own coinages, specifically archemathics and childe.) The eventual humanisation of these childrene whom the Houses have rejected was touchingly done.

It's difficult for me to rank Against Nature in quality with the six previous Faction Paradox novels from Mad Norwegian and Random Static, even leaving my own horse out of the race... but as the first full-length novel Obverse Books have published, it's suitably impressive, and gives me a great deal of confidence in the quality of the range to come.

Against Nature absolutely captures the magic of the previous Faction Paradox books

Xicco, Lake Chalco (in case anyone was wondering).

Another review from the Gallifrey Base forum, originally posted on the 29th April and reproduced here with kind permission of its author, Aaron George. There are some negatives, but nothing said which strikes me as being necessarily unjustified, and I'm hugely gratified that the novel still seemed to work for this reader despite his reservations:

I just finished this yesterday. I was planning on writing a long review like Humbert, but if I did, I think I'd harp on all of the things that I didn't like about it. And I hate those people who come on this forum to write big long posts about how terrible something is. It's a huge buzzkill, and it just stinks of venom. So here's what I'm going to say:

I was worried when Obverse took over the Faction Paradox license that we'd lose something that made Faction Paradox unique. I didn't have any reason to think this, it was just a general worry over change. And, as much as I liked Romance in Twelve Parts, it did feel very different. Each short story focused almost entirely on Faction Paradox, which was fine, but I always thought the magic of Faction Paradox was when it wasn't about Faction Paradox. This Town was a great book because it refused to be about the Faction, instead telling a unique story in the universe. Warlords of Utopia is the best thing Lance Parkin's ever written, and it didn't focus on the Faction at all, and Newtons Sleep, though it did have a large part for them, was wonderful because Daniel O'Mahony's characters, style and inventiveness was distinctive, unlike anything I'd seen before. So I'm happy to say that Against Nature absolutely captures the magic of the previous Faction Paradox books. It is exactly everything I want in this line, and it harkens back to the wonderful nature of This Town, combining creepy atmosphere with the idea that symbols reshape reality and the way something is said is often more important than what it says. So well done both to Lawrence and to Obverse.

Anyways, on the actual book: I love the plot. It's one of the most inventive plots I've ever read, and I love the ideas that went into it. And overall I liked the book. However, there were a lot of aspects of the book that made it very difficult to read, and I often felt like the writing of the book was preventing me from enjoying the book itself. I don't think Primo's a very good character, for instance, and I think that he really needed to be an audience identification figure. Moreover, while the Aztec words worked for Humbert, they really didn't for me. I would read a sentence that, for all intents and purposes read, xxxx walked up to the xxxx, his xxxx catching as he xxxx. xxxx knew that xxxx had told him of xxxx's xxxx four years ago, while xxxx was on the throne. To xxxx, this meant that xxxx was finally xxxx. It was xxxx. This may have been dismissible if that were only one of the threads of the book, but Primo loved throwing out these words too, and Emiousha's storyline had it's own words that just looked like Xs on a page. There are so many characters as well, so on top of not being able to picture anything because it's described using words I don't know, not being able to follow anything because it's using words I don't know, I also have to keep characters straight who all have names that look alike. My other problem with the writing is that for long, long swaths of the story, characters are sitting around talking to each other but not actually doing anything. This gets worse when characters like Primo and Momacani randomly figure out what's going on in the plot, for reasons I can't figure out, and then explain it to the reader through their internal monologue. That struck me as a little sloppy.

I'm sorry, it looks like despite my saying that I wouldn't harp on the negative, I did anyways. I want to stress that I do quite like the book. I love the ways that the book probably rewards future re-readings, and love how intricate everything is. So don't let my criticisms rain on the parade here.

Against Nature: Five Stars on Amazon!

This time I was going for more of a Sir Les Patterson vibe.

I'm beside myself and somewhat tattifilarious to have received a second review of Against Nature, this time from Daniel Worsley writing on Amazon.com:

It's a good book. That much I can tell you.

As for what it's about, that's something entirely different. Is it about someone with a death wish and wanting to take all of creation with him? Or is it about two men discovering that their lives are interwoven, impossible and all part of someone else's grand game? Or is it about what family means to a species who reproduce literally via technology? Or is it about the clash between society and it's gods and the tension created from having to live with but struggle against the gods? Or is it all of those things and more mixed together to create a rainbow cake of interesting text, flavour and thought?

Yes. Yes it is.

Lawrence Burton divides his story up into something that could be seen as five books in one, and uses the symbolism of a compass (the five points being North, South, East, West and the Centre point) and a uniquely Mexican mythology connected to that symbolism to create the foundation of his tale. Each compass point has it's own texture, it's own voice and feel. One has a sad ground-down weariness to it, another a faded pomp and majesty. As you read it, you're offered clues as to how the stories inter-relate and it's a genuinely rewarding feeling when you put two and two together and something you thought in passing a couple of chapters before turns out to be what's happening. He also litters it with little jokes and winks (such as one of the characters being a Priest in Black whose job it is to investigate mysterious sightings of gods out of their natural habitat).

I know it says Faction Paradox on the cover, but it's not directly a Faction Paradox novel. The Faction's referenced in it, some of their techniques and rituals turn up but it's more a other peoples and powers from the FP universe novel. It's a good stand-alone, you don't need to be au fait with the Faction to enjoy it, everything you need is within the covers, but it does offer a little something more for the Faction fan (including one of the famous mystery characters from The Book of the War if I'm not mistaken).

The Unwoken Princess

I have a short story called The Unwoken Princess in The Obverse Book of Detectives, currently on pre-order but available soon so far as I understand. Esteemed fellow contributors include Chantelle Messier, Thomas H. Pugh, Jamie Hailstone, Paul Hiscock, and Mark Manley with the emphasis on unconventional efforts to stretch the boundaries of detective fiction. My story, for example, is set in fifteenth century Mexico (which admittedly probably won't come as too much of a surprise) and presents a much earlier tale in the life of Icnopilli from Against Nature, one which draws stinking great chunks of inspiration from Terry LaBan's excellent strip Muktuk Wolfsbreath - Hardboiled Shaman from a few years back.

Should be good, and you can pre-order the print version by recontextualising your computer mouse in proximity to this here link: http://obversebooks.co.uk/product/2-4-the-obverse-book-of-detectives/

Against Nature Not Too Bad, Claims Bloke

Well, I'm hugely gratificated and enhumbled to have received the first full review of Against Nature by someone who actually shelled out for a copy. James Douglas Burton - to whom I should probably stress I am not knowingly related - posted this on the Gallifrey Base bulletin board on Wednesday 17th April. Whilst I have a few minor quibbles here and there, I have to say he really seems to get what the book is about, and I'm greatly pleased to learn that for the most part it reads as I hoped it would read.

Without further ado, here's what he wrote:

 
All right, I finally just finished reading Against Nature this morning. Took me a week to read - mostly because I have been working an awful lot and been extremely exhausted. And when a book is as complex as this one, reading when your brain is at the refusing to take in what is on the page stage of consciousness, you definitely have to just put the book down.

But I finally had the time to complete the novel, and what an excellent book it is. I am going to attempt to present some of my thoughts in a very random order here, so bear with me. It also may be less thorough than many of my book ramblings, because as sophisticated and complex as the book is, we end up in such a different place from where we started, with so much having gone on inbetween, that I find my initial thoughts gone by now. I will try to retrieve one or two of them.

I guess I'd better preface this by stating what ought to be obvious: the following is, of course, my opinion. Not just my opinion, but a specific description of the way I personally reacted to the text. My experience of it is likely to be different than the next person's - and I certainly don't want to suggest that it is reflective of the author's intent. Anything I take away from it is just that: what I take away from it.

Keeping that in mind, much of what I write here is likely to be nonsense. So be it.

Speaking of personal reactions, and of nonsense, I should state that my knowledge of Central American culture and history is so limited (to basically nothing) that I cannot tell how much of what Lawrence Burton writes makes sense and how much doesn't. (I refer specifically to the twists and turns of the mythology and culture as it applies to the events of this story, by the way - not to his prose in general!) I approach it all (including all of the long Nahuatl words) the same way I approach the Homeworld-related stuff - as a bunch of things I cannot possibly understand, so just roll with it.

Hopefully my approach is close to that which is expected by the book and its author - taking the wrong angle at this material is likely to end up with your experience of it being quite wrong. So I hope mine isn't too far off course.

Basically, whether I am reading the passages about the gods and history of the native Central Americans, or the technobabble of House Meddhoran, I read through it and try to take in the gist of what is going on, hoping I have gleaned enough for it all to make sense, and don't bother trying to fully understand every little piece of what is being presented.

If anyone here ever watched the TV series Alias from a few years back, the writers there had an interesting approach. They would begin by hitting the viewer over the head with fragments of backstory presented in a way that was impenetrable, then rattling off complicated explanations of who was on what side, in relation to whom, and the plot would usually unfold quickly with much back-and-forthing on motives and loyalties. Basically, the creators of the program presented the viewers up front with things they couldn't possibly understand completely - and in doing so were attempting to reassure the viewer that they were not going to fully comprehend the details and that we should just go with it.

In that context, it was possible for the approach to have the unfortunate effect of switching off one's brain and simply enjoying the ride. That wasn't quite what was intended, but I think it was the way most viewers would experience the show.

Here, obviously, that isn't even close to what ought to be experienced. But some of the same mindset had to be taken by me. Rather than try to parse every sentence, grasp the significance of every Nahuatl word, or Homeworld jargon, I try to grasp the implication of what is occurring, to get a sense of the situation and the motives of those involved, and accept that some things I simply will not understand. In the land of Faction Paradox it is usual, after all, to be unable to grasp the entire situation.

I'm also reminded here of a failed attempt at the same kind of thing. K.W. Jeter's novel Noir (set in a strange cyberpunk future that doesn't make much sense at all) opens with a chapter that deliberately throws every piece of nonsensical terminology native to this future world at the reader. It is deliberately unreadable, designed to throw the reader in at the deep end and say this is the world you're going to be in, folks - deal with it. There (partly due to the world's unrealistic nature, partly due to the author's lack of skill) it was merely off-putting and failed to have any positive effect.

Lawrence Burton is, of course, much more capable than Jeter. Rather than throwing these things out there as a challenge, or a warning, or a test, or whatever purpose such a technique may be designed for, Burton merely presents the world in which his characters live. No thought is given to the uneducated reader - but neither are terms and references tossed at us in order to specifically affect us one way or the other. Whether the character is from modern day America, seventeenth century Mexico, or the Homeworld of the Great Houses, the text is presented as one natural to the lead character of that segment. Terms that the protagonist would be familiar with are presented matter-of-factly, whether the alien reader will understand it or not.

This approach helps to give the feeling of a real world - not one created for our consumption, but one which exists with all its complexity, regardless of our reaction to it or conception of it. As much as I may be confused by it at times (and I use the term loosely - my favorite filmmaker is David Lynch and I enjoy the way one can fully experience something without necessarily understanding it) the novel always feels genuine and sincere and solid. Three-dimensional. Four-dimensional. Real people, in a real world.

Now, that's not necessarily to say that the book is centered on real people and how the events affect them. Burton has clearly put some work into making these into fully-developed people - but the complexity and fluidity (and mythicality) of the story take the focus away from how would these people react to this situation and more on the unfolding of the legend and the greater themes, and what happens to the world. Many novels focus their stories on the inner progress of their characters; some see the characters as simple game pieces to move about on their board to create the plot. (Both of these can be equally valid ways of storytelling). Against Nature is neither of these, and is more about the unfolding of a myth and the recreation of the characters' realities. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at explaining what I mean, so you will have to read the book itself to get a sense of the approach it takes.

Because of the mythical tack the book takes, I'm not sure a plot is something I can say it has. But allow me to briefly describe the premise of the novel:

Structurally, each chapter is split into five, describing five points of a quincunx. East, North, West, South, and Center. Each segment focuses on a different protagonist - though their lives overlap significantly and they will appear in each other's segments as the story unfolds. East focuses on Primo - a Mexican youth who is beset by a mysterious ailment. North is about Todd, a man whose recent history begins to unravel. West we see House Meddhoran and its Kithriarch - Emiousha - as they encounter the nebulous Netherweald in which they are stranded. South is for Momacani in ancient Mexico as he moves toward what will be a very important ceremony for everyone. And in the center of everything is Goralschai from the Homeworld, whose motives are impossible to comprehend.

The whole tale is rooted in Central American culture. It shapes the Homeworld segments as much as it does the Earth-bound ones. Mictlan, the underworld, becomes the most important location in the universe as the story progresses, being entwined with the paths and fates of all parties.

Anyone who has read Lawrence Burton's work before knows that he is a ridiculously good author. This novel shows that particularly well. The amount of work that went into this is plain to see, and the talent that causes it to come into being is immense.

That's not to say that I have no issues with it. I don't believe I have ever read a book that I had no problems with. Against Nature can at times be vague. It is deliberate, of course, but can be off-putting. Never more so than at the climax of the book - which I didn't even realize was the climax until after the fact. As I say, it is intentional (Whatever had happened back there had apparently been for the best, but no one seemed clear about what that might have been, the book says of this event) but can be frustrating - for me at least.

And we all have out little bugbears, right? This author's fellow Lawrence (Faction-creator Lawrence Miles) has a tendency to present things that he thinks are profound statements about life and the universe, but which are often inane. But I am able to ignore the things that bug me about an author's work (again: nothing and no one is perfect). With Lawrence Burton, I have discussed before how the way his extreme dislike of the current direction of Doctor Who gets into so much of what he writes gets a bit wearisome for me. His Señor 105 novella (The Grail - a very good story indeed) devoted a large part of its plot to being an allegory of the way he feels modern Doctor Who has been ruined, and of its fans' attitudes.

He hasn't done much of that lately (I mean, he still hates modern Who but it doesn't usually pervade his writings either here, on facebook, or wherever) but I admit that when I read this comment (about a tapestry from the Homeworld) I groaned a little:

It told of some minor President, a record of his later years, a narrative that had turned garish and vulgar; of interest only to an addlepate.

As I said, though, this is just a little bugbear of my own, and not a black mark against the novel, or its author.

While I am commenting on little details, I wish I had made more highlights on the text to discuss now. There are a lot of lovely little touches in the text, but one humorous aside tickled me particularly. One character has just been tested by having another character attack him unexpectedly - the attacker loses an arm in the process of this little test.

Had someone simply thought to ask have you or have you not recently found yourself tainted by sacred forces? he might simply have answered yes and Chitilma would still be blessed with a plurality of arms.

One of my favorite quotes of the book, that...

There is an awful lot of attention to detail in this book. The author's knowledge of Central American history and culture is obviously great, and I imagine the specific research for this story must have been immense, but his realization of the people from the Homeworld and their technology and society is wonderful as well. I am actually a little surprised at how much of Marc Platt's House structure Burton was able to use (looms, Drudges, Kithriarch - the word cousin is not used in the House, since in this universe the term is too tied to Faction Paradox) but there is a lot of the West segment that has been fleshed out by Burton himself. I don't pretend to understand the technology, or the way the Netherweald works (even after later revelations as to its nature) but it all feels very much of a piece. The actual denizens of House Meddhoran are not fully realistic individuals, but there are reasons for this. Besides being Homeworlders (and largely unknowable therefore) they are newly-loomed childrene, and deliberately unique ones at that. Some of them are more individual than others, and the way the House works (or doesn't) is fascinating to me.

Goralschai, the center-piece of the novel, as it were, is a less interesting character than the others. His motivations are unclear (deliberately) and even his specific intent is something I am incapable of understanding (and hopefully everyone else is as well - I wouldn't like to think I am just being stupid here). Worst of all (for me) is the finale (in which he and the other characters are, of course, involved) which comes and goes without the reader (or, at least, this reader) realizing that it even was a finale.

The resolution is disappointing (to me) but not crushingly so. It fits in with the mythological approach of the novel, and works exactly as I am sure it was meant to. (Commentary on the event afterwards makes it appear that the characters feel the same way about it that I do.) I refuse to spoil the events of the novel by explaining what about it seemed unsatisfactory to me, but would be interested in seeing if others experience this in the same way that I did, or if their way of seeing it is dramatically different.

You may or may not have noticed that I have mentioned no specifically Faction Paradox-related characters or events yet. In fact, there is one such in the book, who has a distinct hand in events. Called variously Yaotl or Lorraine Conti she is (or was) an agent of Faction Paradox who takes a specific interest in events and ends up really stirring things up. She is, I suppose, the only real outsider to this tale - and while not one of the primary forces in the book, her actions are central to several of the story strands.

But the whole story is very "Paradoxical" - even without the Conti character this book would sit right at home among the Faction Paradox works. One of my favorites of the series (This Town Will Never Let Us Go) doesn't even have any real members of the Faction either. It is the themes of the book, the way they weave together, as well as the complex way they are told, that make this a very Faction novel.

As I seem to have waffled on for ages without actually saying anything (I look at the clock ticking away in the corner of my screen and wonder where the morning went to) let me briefly mention some nice little allusions in the book that tickled my fancy.

I mentioned already an oblique reference to Burton's dislike for modern Doctor Who. I may groan at the intrusion of the sentiment into this novel, but it is amusingly and slickly done. And frankly, all of the Lungbarrovian allusions in House Meddhoran make me smile.

In one character's dream-vision early on, he sees a masked wrestler speaking to a young boy selling chiclé - an obvious reference to Señor 105 and Rodrigo.

There is a face-painted Aztec priest called Tlohtoxcatl, and one reference to an exile named Yauhtloc. Are these more accurate renditions of characters from the Doctor Who serial The Aztecs?

I'm sure there are lots more references to other things that I either missed or forgot, but those are some that amused me personally.

Obverse Books has produced an awful lot of wonderful stuff. For my money, Against Nature is the best so far; the bar has been raised, and I hope someone sees this as a challenge and is ready to step up to the plate. To mix my sports metaphor even further: this one's a knockout.

Thanks to James for taking the time and effort to set down his thoughts, and for conceding to my reproducing them here, and also to Cody for the strangely philosophical illustration...

Against Nature is available from Obverse Books in print form here or as an eBook here, just in case I didn't already mention that five billion times.