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Conflagration
Conflagration continues the story, begun in Kindling, of The Four, which alone can challenge the invading might of the Mosul, a ravening horde directed by a fanatical priesthood who can control other-world beings and use them as weapons of war. The Kingdom of Albany fights a decisive battle to take back the Virginia Freestate, infantry and cavalry clashing on the ground while The Four wage their own war on the supernatural plane.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
397 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 30, 2006
About the author
Mick Farren
71 books87 followersFarren was the singer with the proto-punk English band The Deviants between 1967 and 1969, releasing three albums. In 1970 he released the solo album Mona – The Carnivorous Circus which also featured Steve Peregrin Took, John Gustafson and Paul Buckmaster, before leaving the music business to concentrate on his writing.
In the mid-1970s, he briefly returned to music releasing the EP Screwed Up, album Vampires Stole My Lunch Money and single "Broken Statue". The album featured fellow NME journalist Chrissie Hynde and Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson.
He has sporadically returned to music, collaborating with Wayne Kramer on Who Shot You Dutch? and Death Tongue, Jack Lancaster on The Deathray Tapes and Andy Colquhoun on The Deviants albums Eating Jello With a Heated Fork and Dr. Crow.
Aside from his own work, he has provided lyrics for various musician friends over the years. He has collaborated with Lemmy, co-writing "Lost Johnny" for Hawkwind, and "Keep Us on the Road" and "Damage Case" for Motörhead. With Larry Wallis, he co-wrote "When's the Fun Begin?" for the Pink Fairies and several tracks on Wallis' solo album Death in a Guitar Afternoon. He provided lyrics for the Wayne Kramer single "Get Some" in the mid-1970s, and continued to work with and for him during the 1990s.
In the early 1970s he contributed to the UK Underground press such as the International Times, also establishing Nasty Tales which he successfully defended from an obscenity charge. He went on to write for the main stream New Musical Express, where he wrote the article The Titanic Sails At Dawn, an analysis of what he saw as the malaise afflicting then-contemporary rock music which described the conditions that subsequently gave rise to punk.
To date he has written 23 novels, including the Victor Renquist novels and the DNA Cowboys sequence. His prophetic 1989 novel The Armageddon Crazy deals with a post-2000 United States which is dominated by fundamentalists who dismantle the Constitution.
Farren has written 11 works of non-fiction, a number of biographical (including four on Elvis Presley), autobiographical and culture books (such as The Black Leather Jacket) and a plethora of poetry.
Since 2003, he has been a columnist for the weekly Los Angeles CityBeat.
Farren died at the age of 69 in 2013, after collapsing onstage while performing with the Deviants at the Borderline Club in London.
In the mid-1970s, he briefly returned to music releasing the EP Screwed Up, album Vampires Stole My Lunch Money and single "Broken Statue". The album featured fellow NME journalist Chrissie Hynde and Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson.
He has sporadically returned to music, collaborating with Wayne Kramer on Who Shot You Dutch? and Death Tongue, Jack Lancaster on The Deathray Tapes and Andy Colquhoun on The Deviants albums Eating Jello With a Heated Fork and Dr. Crow.
Aside from his own work, he has provided lyrics for various musician friends over the years. He has collaborated with Lemmy, co-writing "Lost Johnny" for Hawkwind, and "Keep Us on the Road" and "Damage Case" for Motörhead. With Larry Wallis, he co-wrote "When's the Fun Begin?" for the Pink Fairies and several tracks on Wallis' solo album Death in a Guitar Afternoon. He provided lyrics for the Wayne Kramer single "Get Some" in the mid-1970s, and continued to work with and for him during the 1990s.
In the early 1970s he contributed to the UK Underground press such as the International Times, also establishing Nasty Tales which he successfully defended from an obscenity charge. He went on to write for the main stream New Musical Express, where he wrote the article The Titanic Sails At Dawn, an analysis of what he saw as the malaise afflicting then-contemporary rock music which described the conditions that subsequently gave rise to punk.
To date he has written 23 novels, including the Victor Renquist novels and the DNA Cowboys sequence. His prophetic 1989 novel The Armageddon Crazy deals with a post-2000 United States which is dominated by fundamentalists who dismantle the Constitution.
Farren has written 11 works of non-fiction, a number of biographical (including four on Elvis Presley), autobiographical and culture books (such as The Black Leather Jacket) and a plethora of poetry.
Since 2003, he has been a columnist for the weekly Los Angeles CityBeat.
Farren died at the age of 69 in 2013, after collapsing onstage while performing with the Deviants at the Borderline Club in London.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 6, 2013
A bit of shame that it appears Farren will not be adding no more stories his alternate history series. It was a fun ride nonetheless, as somewhere Philip Jose Farmer is going this is how you write a Wold Newton mashup (go Wiki Wold Newton, I'm not going to describe it here).
About six months have passed since the end of Kindling. The Four have become Majors in the Albany Rangers, and Albany is making its push to kick the Mosul out of Virginia. While that takes place, the reader is brought up to date as to what has happened with Argo, Jesamine, Raphael, and Cordelia (who might be descended from the Scarlet Pimpernel). Cordelia loves her fame, Argo is becoming an alcoholic because he and Jesamine were ordered to end their relationship, Raphael still feels like an outsider but at least he can draw in public (doing while a Mosul conscript would likely have caused his death), and Jesamine from North Africa is constantly reminded she doesn't fit in in Albany, especially post-Argo, so she spent months living with a tribe in Ohio.
This, all takes place in the first couple of chapters.
Before heading to England, and more, throughout the course of the book we get references to Nazi war criminals, Harry Lime, JFK, H.G. Wells, Dumas, and I keep feeling that there are some I'm not mentioning. I'm avoiding spoilers here, but the war with the Mosul is far from over, and hints are dropped about what a post-war world would be like.
Put up your feet, and enjoy this piece of metafiction. If anything the sex doesn't lag, much like the first book. Don't expect graphic descriptions, and do expect B&D. homosexuality, polyamory, and just plain olde fashioned sex.
About six months have passed since the end of Kindling. The Four have become Majors in the Albany Rangers, and Albany is making its push to kick the Mosul out of Virginia. While that takes place, the reader is brought up to date as to what has happened with Argo, Jesamine, Raphael, and Cordelia (who might be descended from the Scarlet Pimpernel). Cordelia loves her fame, Argo is becoming an alcoholic because he and Jesamine were ordered to end their relationship, Raphael still feels like an outsider but at least he can draw in public (doing while a Mosul conscript would likely have caused his death), and Jesamine from North Africa is constantly reminded she doesn't fit in in Albany, especially post-Argo, so she spent months living with a tribe in Ohio.
This, all takes place in the first couple of chapters.
Before heading to England, and more, throughout the course of the book we get references to Nazi war criminals, Harry Lime, JFK, H.G. Wells, Dumas, and I keep feeling that there are some I'm not mentioning. I'm avoiding spoilers here, but the war with the Mosul is far from over, and hints are dropped about what a post-war world would be like.
Put up your feet, and enjoy this piece of metafiction. If anything the sex doesn't lag, much like the first book. Don't expect graphic descriptions, and do expect B&D. homosexuality, polyamory, and just plain olde fashioned sex.
May 8, 2022
When I was a teenager Mick Farren rose to be my favorite author. His vision of how the world works struck a perfect tone, and his semi-lovable losers made for endearing protagonists. I'm surprised that it took me this long to get to this, his final novel, especially considering that I read its predecessor in 2006 - when this one was released.
I found "Conflagration" to be less of a sequel than a continuation of the previous book. The distinction I'd draw is that a sequel tends to include an evolution in the author as well as the story, whereas this felt very much like more of *exactly* the same.
The story continues in a low-magic, low-fantasy alternate Earth where the magic that exists has a sci-fi twang - at one point the story touches on branes in its explanation of the villain's efforts to bring the reality into contact with others. In this world, the US remains a small nation on the Eastern seaboard of North America, the UK became a Norse country rather than the Anglo-Saxon/Norman society we know and totally love today, Christianity is a minor religion, and a non-Muslim Caliphate has dominated half the world. The last are the hated Mosul. The date appears to be around 1965 - Stalin and Kennedy are leaders at the time of these events, and while technology is lagging behind our world, it is analogous to World War II.
The story features the same four reluctant young heroes that are capable of fighting the unworldly demons and Mothmen that serve the evil Mosul empire. Picking up in the war-torn English-speaking American republics, it features a major battle and the conclusion of the fighting there, then heads across the Pond to take the fight to the Mosul.
I found the middle of this story sagged, and for far too long. The author dwells on an extended romp through the permanent parties of the dissolute British elites, and moves on with too little time left for the actual telling of the story. Farren has had this tendency in the past (e.g. the Citizen Phaid books from thirty years earlier, where the psycho-sex at least served a purpose) but by the time we get to the ruins of Paris and its underground society ruled by a crime syndicate we're already in the final twenty percent of the book and the entire ending feels rushed.
As always, Farren's world-building is airtight and his characters are real people. While two of the main four heroes are somewhat underdeveloped this time out, there's never a moment when anyone feels out of character. There are occasions when people seem to do and say things for the sole purpose of moving the plot, and there are some characters that join the story with a splash only to slide steadily into the background. I couldn't tell if this was on purpose.
One small irritant that popped up a few times in this hardcover: proof-reading errors. There were superfluous close quote characters, typos like the word 'a' appearing before a word starting with a vowel, and in one case the wrong word appearing. I've been noticing this sort of thing more and more over the years. I don't know if it's me or a sign that less effort is going into editing published books. Maybe both.
I'd recommend this book for fans of the author or the alternative-reality genre, or for people who've read "Kindling", the previous book.
I found "Conflagration" to be less of a sequel than a continuation of the previous book. The distinction I'd draw is that a sequel tends to include an evolution in the author as well as the story, whereas this felt very much like more of *exactly* the same.
The story continues in a low-magic, low-fantasy alternate Earth where the magic that exists has a sci-fi twang - at one point the story touches on branes in its explanation of the villain's efforts to bring the reality into contact with others. In this world, the US remains a small nation on the Eastern seaboard of North America, the UK became a Norse country rather than the Anglo-Saxon/Norman society we know and totally love today, Christianity is a minor religion, and a non-Muslim Caliphate has dominated half the world. The last are the hated Mosul. The date appears to be around 1965 - Stalin and Kennedy are leaders at the time of these events, and while technology is lagging behind our world, it is analogous to World War II.
The story features the same four reluctant young heroes that are capable of fighting the unworldly demons and Mothmen that serve the evil Mosul empire. Picking up in the war-torn English-speaking American republics, it features a major battle and the conclusion of the fighting there, then heads across the Pond to take the fight to the Mosul.
I found the middle of this story sagged, and for far too long. The author dwells on an extended romp through the permanent parties of the dissolute British elites, and moves on with too little time left for the actual telling of the story. Farren has had this tendency in the past (e.g. the Citizen Phaid books from thirty years earlier, where the psycho-sex at least served a purpose) but by the time we get to the ruins of Paris and its underground society ruled by a crime syndicate we're already in the final twenty percent of the book and the entire ending feels rushed.
As always, Farren's world-building is airtight and his characters are real people. While two of the main four heroes are somewhat underdeveloped this time out, there's never a moment when anyone feels out of character. There are occasions when people seem to do and say things for the sole purpose of moving the plot, and there are some characters that join the story with a splash only to slide steadily into the background. I couldn't tell if this was on purpose.
One small irritant that popped up a few times in this hardcover: proof-reading errors. There were superfluous close quote characters, typos like the word 'a' appearing before a word starting with a vowel, and in one case the wrong word appearing. I've been noticing this sort of thing more and more over the years. I don't know if it's me or a sign that less effort is going into editing published books. Maybe both.
I'd recommend this book for fans of the author or the alternative-reality genre, or for people who've read "Kindling", the previous book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews