LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
This is an omnibus volume of three short but quite spectacular SF thrillers. I would also guarantee that they are quite unlike anything else you have read before. Striding along the shadowy border between SF and Fantasy, Peter Higgins has imagined something that feels a little like China Mieville writing a John le Carre novel. With a dash of Gorky’s paranoia and Martin Cruz Smith’s edge-of-your-seat plotting. Set in a world that feels like an alternate Russia (but isn’t) the trilogy compresses a sense of Sovietesque history between 1939 and 1969 into a few short months as it follows downtrodden and rumpled provincial police inspector Visassrion Lom, into a plot at the centre of the dark dictatorship that is the Vlast. But there is a lot else going on beyond the cruelties of politics. An alien visitation, the spirit of the land, the press of other realities. As I say quite unlike anything else and sometimes you do feel like you’re running to keep up with its twists and new directions. But stay on board.
With engaging characters and sometimes effortlessly beautiful and poetic prose (Higgins has an amazing way with describing nature) all nailed to a steam train of a plot this is the sort of book where you can afford to forget asking what sort of novel it is and just glory in the ride. With rights acquired for TV this is a trilogy you’ll want to be reading before it hit the screens. If you like David Mitchell this could be a dream for you. ~ Simon Spanton
Simon Spanton
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Wolfhound Empire Synopsis
Peter Higgins' Vlast is a superbly imagined 'other' Russia, an epic land of trackless forest, sentient rain and powers deep in the Earth. Inspector Vissarion Lom is summoned to the great capital city of Mirgorod to catch the terrorist Josef Kantor. He's been chosen because he's an outsider, impartial to the capital's cruel politics - though not for long. His investigation opens his eyes to a city teeming with corruption: a murky world of secret police and revolutionaries, and a conspiracy that extends to the upper echelons of the government. But Lom soon has other concerns. Nature is turning against the city, and the horrors of war threaten everyone within its walls. WOLFHOUND EMPIRE brings this incredibly powerful trilogy together for the first time.
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Press Reviews
Peter Higgins Press Reviews
'Well-paced action... This world of a totalitarian state pitted against equally extremist revolutionaries is gripping... a solid page-turner.' -- John Wyatt The Sun
'We can expect great things of Peter Higgins... his debut novel is uniquely intriguing.' SCI FI NOW
'Wolfhound Century is an extraordinarily accomplished debut from a real master of atmosphere. Peter Higgins has managed to create a completely unique fantasy world with a plot that wouldn't be out of place in a modern day thriller. -- Fantasy Faction The surprises keep on coming ... but quietly and subtly, like a dreaded knock on the door of an apartment in a brutalist concrete tower block in the dead of night. [An] excellent debut novel.' -- David Barnett THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
'[The] vivid descriptions and pulsing action sequences are very reminiscent of Fleming. Add this to a sci fi mystery, blending an alternate totalitarian state with an ancient mythical world and you have a potent mix.' FANTASY BOOK REVIEW
'There is much to admire in Higgins's writing, and his fantastical inventions are compelling and enjoyable. It's certainly an intriguing thriller. The plot unfolds swiftly and with an engaging clarity. You turn the pages, eager for clues. Events happen. People you were coming to think of as major players get brutally murdered. Still there is a mystery at the heart of things. The world Higgins creates is immersive and often compelling. Strange Horizons With a beautifully descriptive style, this imaginative thriller is impossible to put down.' -- WE LOVE THIS BOOK
'Whilst Wolfhound Century may be just the first chunk of a bigger story, it is still a finely-written and compelling story. Higgins has created an engrossing fantasy world which is a million miles away from the more played-out ends of the genre and all the better for it.' -- THE WERTZONE
Author
About Peter Higgins
Peter Higgins read English at Oxford University and Queen's, Ontario. He was a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford and worked in the British Civil Service. His short stories have appeared in FANTASY: BEST OF THE YEAR 2007, BEST NEW FANTASY 2, ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY MAGAZINE, ZAHIR and REVELATION, and in Russian translation in the St Petersburg magazine ESLI. He lives with his family in South Wales.
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