'Brasswitch and Bot' by Gareth Ward - book review

Hi all!

Now I'm writing books myself, I'm noticing more things about other authors' work. I've just finished reading Gareth Ward's latest book, and realised that one day I'd like my work to be compared (favourably) to his! So here you go, my take on 'Brasswitch and Bot'.

Gareth Ward has already won acclaim for his work, and his third book is even more accomplished than his previous ones.  The writing is tight and full of action, while also creating space for characters to develop. Numerous witty rejoinders and puns (wait till you see his take on G-mail) pepper the prose, and always in a way that doesn’t detract from the action.

It speeds along at a cracking pace. Indeed, if I have any criticism, it’s that sometimes things race along so fast that you might miss something. I imagine that Ward’s hands had trouble keeping up with all the ideas spilling from his brain as he wrote.

The sheer inventiveness is impressive. The story is set in an alternate version of York, populated with “aberrations/remarkables” (people with supernatural powers), mechanical beings, and eldritch horrors.

‘Regulators’ hunt down those with supernatural powers. People like Wrench, a young woman who is falsely accused of creating an accident by using her Brasswitch power to affect mechanical things. Wrench tries to convince the Regulators that Aberrations are people too, and should be accepted rather than feared and shunned. In the midst of this, someone is attempting to summon evil gods from another realm, and Wrench is recruited to help stop them.

Marketed to tween/teen readers, this book will have a lot of adult fans too.

Bottom line: if you like fun, you’ll like this book.

Bing Turkby

Why writing a book is hard

I'm halfway through the first draft of my sequel to The Musomancer, and it's hard work. You know why? Cos I'm pretty lazy, and ever so easily distracted. I actually love writing. Once I get started, I'm happy as an ungulate in sludge. Even just writing that last sentence, I convinced myself I had to search up some words in a thesaurus, which could potentially have lost me down a wordy rabbit-hole for half an hour or so. I'm getting a little better at this writing thing, though. Just like in tai chi, you have to keep doing it, and accept that you won't be great at it to start with because you're a beginner. That's cool, it just means you have a lot of cool stuff to look forward to learning!

In news of stuff I actually managed to finish, here's my latest EP: The Serene Chromatic Assembly of Music Mages. It's an all-instrumental deal, 5 short tunes. The idea was to make the weirdest textures and stereo effects I could. Again, it's a step along that direction. Hopefully I can go much weirder in future!

Thanks for reading. The words would have been terribly lonely without you.

Ngā mihi.

Bing

Locking it down with the 'Nockers

The very first band I was in was called Simnock On Steel, and we were horrible. That's how we all remember it, anyway. And yet, once Covid-19 appeared and swept the world in a wave of desolation, Simnock On Steel took the opportunity to record a new version of our very first song - Mark III Wagon - and it wasn't as ear-abusingly bad as we thought it was going to be.

Our respective parts were recorded separately and then stitched together in a triumph of unity over distance.

Stove, Jay and myself know how fortunate we are to be able to do something like this while other people around the world are having a pretty shit time. So we share this with you in the hope that it gives you a bit of a laugh, or lets you forget some of the bad stuff for a few minutes.

Looking forward to connecting with some of you kanohi-ki-te-kanohi (face to face) in a sunny future situation when the pandemic is hopefully just a memory.