Eric Brown

[Rob B]

There seems to be a growing fanbase for Eric Brown here at SFFWorld. I loved Kings of Eternity and I know Hobbit and chitman13 enjoyed it a great deal, too.

So, I'm sure they'll both be as pleased as I was when I read this:

New Eric Brown title comes to Solaris:

Award-winning SF author Eric Brown is to bring another of his masterpiece novels to Solaris.

Solaris is delighted to announce that it has acquired Serene Invasion, a brand new novel by the celebrated writer. The novel will be delivered at the end of 2012 for a summer 2013 publication. The agent was John Jarrold, and the deal was for UK/US rights.

Serene Invasion spans the first twenty-five years following an entirely peaceful invasion of Earth by aliens who believe they are saving humanity from self-destruction. The novel opens in 2025, with the world plagued by war, terrorist attacks, poverty and increasingly desperate demands for water, oil, resources.

The West and China are sending forces into Africa and South America in order to 'stabilise' regimes, but in reality to garner precious land on which to farm intensively, mine for resources and drill for oil. Much of the global conflict surrounds the dearth of natural resources in an overpopulated world, with the rich West and China doing nothing to alter their materialistic life-style. And then the Serene arrive…

I appreciate his loyalty to Solaris, though I wonder if he'd gain a wider audience with a somewhat larger publisher. Not that I'm knocking Solaris, the publisher has put out some quality titles over the past few years.

[Glelas]

I have Necropath and The Kings of Eternity cued up on my kindle (as I mentioned in the what are you reading thread)...

Not sure which one to start.

[Rob B]

chitman would be the one to guide you, but you're probably sick of seeing how much I loved Kings of Eternity. The only _minor_ thing with Necropath is that it's the first of a trilogy.

[Glelas]

I'll read the first chapter of each and see which one draws me in quicker.

I am kind of juiced since I never read any Eric Brown and he has only come to my attention over the last few months are so. Always saw him on the shelves, just never considered reading his work.

[chitman13]

Not to sound like a complete fanboy, but Eric Brown is probably my second favourite author behind Peter F Hamilton. I love his works because they're not hard SF, more character focused stuff.

I'd definitely recommend Kings of Eternity (probably his best single novel to date), but the Bengal Station books (Necropath, Xenopath, Cosmopath) are, as a whole, better. Penumbra was okay, Meridian Days also good, while Helix and Engineman are worth reading. His shorter stories are usually excellent and worth tracking down, especially the Starship Series (Starship Summer, Starship Fall, two more due from PS Publishing).

Personally I'd say read Necropath first and progress straight to Xenopath then Cosmopath, but I know it's a lot to read. If you just want one to read try KoE. I'd also *highly* recommend Kethani, but it's more a collection of short stories linked by a common narrative - they do all deal with the same group of friends though, so fairly connected.

[Glelas]

Not sure where to start, but I just finished Kings of Eternity. I started it exactly a week ago and I haven't finished a book in a week or less in about a year or two.

In a nutshell it was flat out great.

I don't want to jump on the bandwagon and I don't want to sound like a fanboy - yet - since it was the first Eric Brown book I read, but Rob and Chitman nailed it. If his other works are half as good as this and I enjoy them as much as KOE this guy will quickly move up my favorite author list.

I rarely ever pin point why I like a book (I can always rattle off why I don't like something) and this one is no different, however, most if not all of the things I look for in a book were there.

Writing, characters, sense of wonder, story.

I loved the 1935 setting for some reason. It reminded me of old school sci-fi stories from, well, the 20's and 30's.

The "present" setting was more like a mainstream literary novel which somehow worked perfectly.

His descriptions of people and places put you right there without spending 5 pages doing it.

I did expect something more of twist at the end, but thinking about it now, any other "weird" or shocking ending would have felt forced or contrived.

I will probably move on to Necropath next. Maybe right away. I am curious to see if the characters in Brown's other books drink wine on every other page like the folks in KOE. Those guys were downing glasses of wine in every scene.

[Pennarin]

I ate up Brown's Starship Summer novela published by PS Publishing. That might have been the best introduction to an author I've had in a while, since a sequel of sort, the novella Starship Fall, was not as good (better than many other people's novels, though), and his one novel I read - Helix - was bland. I still have Kings of Eternity in my collection, ready to be read as soon as I forget Helix.