Mark Charan Newton

I rather like being Punkadiddled. It’s one of those genre privileges, up there with Thog’s Masterclass. The mighty Adam Roberts has reviewed City of Ruin [warning: contains spoilers], and has gone into some splendid detail. I love his thorough engagement with the text, even if it is not entirely complimentary; it’s reassuringly rigorous. Now, this [...]

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This one is at A Dribble Of Ink. It’s a fair review, engages with the book splendidly, and tries to put in some context regarding the New Weird. Also, he got a lot of what I was doing, about the prose and the clash of aesthetics, which for any writer is highly rewarding. There are [...]

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I realise a lot of people come to this site for the discussions rather than the hard sell, but tough: I’ve written some books and they’ve been reviewed. So here’s a round-up of coverage from the interwebs. I promise you it will be quick and easy: The Agony Column gives a splendid write-up of City [...]

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They’re coming in thick and fast now. Here’s prolific UK blogger The Wertzone on City of Ruin: Newton successfully achieves a feeling here of a vast history stretching back a quarter-million years with successive waves of civilisations rising and falling until the present day, whilst simultaneously expanding the scope of the world and story to [...]

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Some more thoughts on City of Ruin have started to emerge across the blogoshpere, so I thought I’d share them, because you know what I’m like by now. First up, the mighty Speculative Horizons: Verdict: City of Ruin is the kind of book you’d expect an established author to turn out whilst writing at the [...]

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Publishers Weekly gives a starred review to Nights of Villjamur: Newton opens a complex epic fantasy series with this impressive debut. The ancient fortress city of Villjamur is filled with human and nonhuman inhabitants, many of them refugees seeking shelter from a predicted decades-long ice age. The untimely death of the mad emperor Jamur Johynn [...]

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Permit a little indulgence. Nights of Villjamur is but a fresh-faced babe to the American market, and Kirkus Reviews, important lit journal, has got its paws on a copy: The first book of a promising fantasy series… The novel is fast-moving and intricately plotted, though sometimes a bit gory; one character is ripped apart by [...]

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Science Fiction legend Peter F. Hamilton (two million books sold!) dropped me a quick email to say he enjoyed Nights of Villjamur, which was rather lovely, because I didn’t even know he was reading it. Genre labels just don’t apply here. With Nights of Villjamur Mark has managed to incorporate so many wonderfully varied ideas [...]

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File this somewhere under ‘happy fanboy’: “Newton combines strange and vivid creations with very real and pressing concerns with estimable commitment and passion.” — China Miéville on City of Ruin Share:

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Esteemed South African newspaper, the Mail & Guardian, cracks open Nights of Villjamur: Nights of Villjamur is as much about the city of Villjamur — its squares, cafés and quartiers — as it is about situation or characters. Newton’s distinctive voice evokes a claustrophobic sense of place, as powerful as that of Jeff Vandermeer’s Ambergris, [...]

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A few comments starting to roll in already for City of Ruin. Between Two Books says: in this second book of Legends of the Red Sun series, Newton is braver. He mixes the same ingredients he let us taste in Nights of Villjamur but his elixir is bolder this time. I imagine there’s a risk [...]

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The mighty Adam Roberts has gone to town on – or more specifically to – Villjamur over on his Punkadiddle blog. At its best, though, this novel is doing something really quite interesting, stylistically speaking. Where Fat-Fantasy convention requires clear, kinetic bright-colour satisfactions, he is aiming for something more alienated, snowed-in and bare. Take this [...]

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