What price justice, Mr Grayling?

One day very soon we will see Chris Grayling's dystopia for legal professions come into being.

We've already seen massive Legal Aid cuts. Lost amongst the Daily Mail crowd-pleasing headlines, such as cuts to prisoners' Legal Aid and cuts to Legal Aid available to immigrants, has been the real substance of the cuts: cuts to assistance in housing disputes, to family and divorce aid, to welfare appeal representation, to criminal injuries compensation assistance, to representation at employment tribunals, to help with education problems... Unless your case falls into very limited loopholes, you won't be able to get public funding to help you get a solicitor.

Then there's the cuts to Citizens Advice Bureaux. Many Bureaux across the country have been forced to shut their doors or limit their opening hours as public funding has been slashed. In times of economic hardship, it's been left to communities to fund those centres which help those most desperately in need of free legal assistance.

I hope you've noticed who those cuts really hit. Those in the most need. Those poor and destitute who need financial assistance to help them pursue justice.

If you're disabled and want to appeal against the decision to take away Disability Support Allowance, then tough. It doesn't matter that you might not be able to afford to effectively feed and clothe your family and heat your home; you're going to have to fund your case yourself, or represent yourself in the treacherous labyrinths of welfare law.

Or you've lost your job and want to claim unfair dismissal. You can't have Legal Aid. No matter that you've lost your income and it might not be your fault. Once again, you fund that case yourself or you represent yourself. If the choice is between justice and feeding your family, there's only one choice, and it's not the one that might see you get reinstated.

Even worse: your family is being ripped apart after your partner suddenly ran away with someone else. You want a divorce, but don't have any money after your firm went out of business after you'd worked there for only eighteen months. Again, you fund that divorce yourself. No Legal Aid is available.

Access to justice is something that Legal Aid was meant to facilitate. Its withdrawal leaves potentially millions with no option of going to court or arbitration for redress. It makes legal professionals inaccessible.

You've probably noticed by now that I've yet to talk about criminal Legal Aid. This is in no small part because publicly-funded criminal work is undergoing the most radical transformation of all. Unlike the areas of publicly-funded civil work, I'm an outsider looking in on the criminal 'reforms'. But I watch on with increasing horror as Chris Grayling's proposals look set to destroy the finest criminal justice system in the world.

Firstly, there's the proposals to contract criminal work out to a limited number of firms across the country. Firms will bid to secure Legal Aid contracts. Only 400 out of 1,600 firms will survive this process - possibly fewer. They who can do the work at the lowest cost will inevitably stand the best chance of securing the contracts. However it most certainly isn't the case that those low-cost lawyers will be the best options. It'll lead to corner-cutting as firms try to take on large workloads and keep costs low at the same time in an attempt to generate the biggest profits. The people who will miss out will be the clients.

Then there are the proposals with regards to advocates. You want the barrister of your choice to represent you at court? Tough. You'll be assigned someone who is assessed under the QASA scheme as being appropriate to the level of case you're assessed as having. Your choice of advocate will be taken away. I don't know about you, but if I was in trouble I'd want to be able to choose who represented me. I'd want to be able to talk to my solicitors about who would be instructed. And I'd want to be able to instruct someone else if I felt my barrister wasn't up to the task, or if I wasn't getting the advice I felt I needed.


Which brings me on to another issue: the tapering of barristers' fees. Somehow Grayling has got it into his head that advocates spin out proceedings, so he's suggested tapering fees. Under the proposal, a led junior in a complex fraud case would, at the end of a six-week trial, be earning £2.60 a day. What price justice? Barristers are human beings, at the end of the day. They share the same concerns with regards to finance as most people. If they know they're going to be paid a pittance for several weeks of work, they'll be worrying about how to make ends meet. What's their advice likely to be with regards to your plea, with that in mind? Forget the strength of the evidence. Forget your own protestations of innocence. Even forget the Bar Code of Conduct. Remember that they'll be getting paid £2.60 a day by the end of your trial, which is listed for six weeks. Their advice to you will be to plead guilty.

Is it the barrister's fault that they don't want to work for peanuts? No. And why should they? Their calling - a calling I wish to share - still needs to be founded on solid economic grounds. The Code of Conduct may force them to act fearlessly to promote your best interests, but how much weight does that hold when they're trying to hold a family together on less than £10,000 a year, working long hours every day?

This hasn't been reasoned discourse about the pros and cons of the Grayling proposals which will most likely become reality by 2015 (and which already are reality in relation to the civil matters). It's been my own view. I see injustice and inequality reigning in the legal system for decades if Grayling's reforms come to pass. I see good men and women walking away from the law because they simply cannot afford to continue to promote their clients' best interests, with the running of proceedings left to tinpot advocates from companies like Eddie Stobart. Above all, I see an incompetent arrogant man pushing through his personal crusade at whatever cost necessary, and if that happens to be to the detriment of what could be millions, then so be it.

Staying up, staying up, staying up!

Anyone who bumps into me in the street this week might have to look twice. I may look hangdog. My face may be lined, hair greying and receded. There may be a look of haunted oblivion in my eyes. All because yesterday afternoon I aged 10 years as Huddersfield Town put me and 22,000 others through the wringer.

Surely we couldn't get relegated. We had three points more than our opponents Barnsley, who occupied the final place in the relegation zone. There were three other teams between us and them. All had to better our result - or even win, in two cases, just to get level with us. A year on from a Wembley promotion, all anyone expected was survival. Hence a massive crowd, the second largest League crowd in the stadium's history.

The atmosphere was almost play-off like. Ten thousand clappers had been handed out. The roar as the teams emerged was deafening. Belief flooded the stadium and stayed there for about five minutes, before Barnsley started to dictate play. Town were a Chris O'Grady goal down before too long, having not gotten into the game at all. Then bombshells started to arrive. Peterborough led at Palace, taking them above us. Worse, Sheffield Wednesday also led, and Millwall were drawing. As things stood at half-time, we were in the drop zone with the preposterous total of 57 points.

News filtered through the stands at the interval that Crystal Palace had converted a stoppage-time penalty against Peterborough. Suddenly we were out of the bottom three. And not long after the restart we were doing what we needed to do - Jermaine Beckford latched on to Danny Ward's through ball and lifted it over the Barnsley keeper to equalise. Cue pandemonium. Barnsley's fans were silenced.

Sheffield Wednesday already had their game against horribly out of form Middlesbrough sewn up. Attention shifted from game to game. Peterborough took the lead again, meaning that Barnsley had to score to put us in the bottom three... which they duly did through Jason Scotland. Heads went in hands in sheer despair. It couldn't happen to us again, could it? No side had ever been relegated with more than 52 points, we surely couldn't go down with 57?

The introduction of Lee Novak with nine minutes to go brought instant rewards as he teed James Vaughan up for a second equaliser, dumping Barnsley back in the bottom 3 with 55 points. We had 58; all we needed to do was hang on, something easier said than done with Barnsley throwing the kitchen sink at our defence in their desperation.

Suddenly Crystal Palace were level. There were seven minutes to go at Selhurst Park and veteran striker Kevin Phillips had toe-poked the Eagles ahead. News rippled around the McAlpine. Some measure of relaxation started to go around the ground; even a tentative rendition of, 'We are staying up!' went around the home ends. Still, all it needed to doom us was another Peterborough goal and for Barnsley to snatch a winner.

Two minutes later, news broke of Derby taking the lead against Millwall. Suddenly three goals needed to go in in five minutes to relegate us, one of which had to be against us. But Barnsley still needed a goal - they had to better Peterborough's result, going into the game with the same points but a worse goal difference. They continued to press. Fingernails took a hammering as crosses whipped into the box and Town failed to clear their lines, all too aware that a goal against could be disastrous.

Somehow Town broke out and managed to force a Barnsley dead ball. And that was when the man who sits in the row below turned around and said, "Crystal Palace are winning."

Word passed through the stadium like wildfire. Pockets of celebration broke out in the Barnsley end. As things stood, they were safe and Peterborough were down. We were entering five minutes of injury time. All that needed to happen was for results to stay as they were. For three more fraught, tense minutes Town and Barnsley went at it, hammer and tongs. Both sides pressed for a winner for those few moments, until the news of the score in London finally made its way to the Barnsley bench.

Barnsley had a goal kick. Luke Steele, the goalkeeper, rushed to get it taken, only for the entire bench to erupt and order him to slow it down. They'd done enough, as it was. There was no need to rush. After a moment, the goal kick was taken, and Peter Clarke, the Town skipper, cleared it back to Steele. Under no pressure, he dribbled around his area for just over a minute. 22,000 fans, knowing what was happening, spontaneously burst out into a unified chant of 'Yorkshire! Yorkshire! Yorkshire!' Adam Clayton, the Town midfielder, danced over to the Kilner Bank and started his celebrations a minute early. Jack Hunt, exhausted after a pulsating Yorkshire derby, sat down near the halfway line, waiting for the whistle. The whistle went, and Town had secured the point needed to guarantee Championship football.

A few moments later confirmation of the final score at Selhurst Park came through: Crystal Palace 3-2 Peterborough United. Barnsley were also safe. Results had contrived to send the Posh down.

The scenes post-match were incredible. Town fans had invaded the pitch on the final whistle, and were celebrating. It took a moment for the full Barnsley support to join in, waiting for the moment when Peterborough's defeat was confirmed. The whole stadium was unified in its joy. Every chant was echoed by the supporters of the other side, and time after time it came back to the same chant of  'Yorkshire!'

Both managers addressed the stadium and were greeted by rapturous applause from all four sides of the ground. There was the feeling of a special bond between the two clubs, a mutual respect almost unheard of in football. As Town fans applauded Barnsley's celebrations, so did Barnsley's fans stay to applaud the Town team on its lap of honour.

In almost 20 years of watching football - and almost 600 games - I've never seen anything like it. The atmosphere was something else to start with. By the end it had transcended football and become a statement of solidarity in celebration. It was wonderful to behold and be a part of.

Surface Detail

The news of Iain Banks' cancer stunned me. One second I had been sat in the common room at 39 Park Square on a mini-pupillage, looking forward to a day in court. The next, I was floored by Banks' press release. I love his books. He has a knack of wowing me with his characters, his settings, his use of prose. As a writer, he's what I aspire to be.

It's still five months until his latest Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, goes paperback. My copy is already on order (and has been for some months). But if I can't celebrate Banks' writing with a new book, then I thought I'd go back and read an old one or two. A few weeks back I re-read Use of Weapons for the second time, and found it as tightly-plotted, expansively written and emotionally engrossing as ever.

Next up was Surface Detail, the 2010 Culture novel, and his most recent entry to the series.

For those not in the know, the Culture is a series of connected but independent books set on the fringes of a pan-galactic utopia known as the Culture. Since 1987 and Consider Phlebas, Banks has written ten novels in the series, including The Hydrogen Sonata. Mostly, the stories are set around the goings-on of Contact, the area of the Culture concentrating on making contact with other races, and the sub-division Special Circumstances - or, as it was put in Surface Detail, the dirty tricks section.

Over the years the novels have gotten gradually more complex and ambitious. Consider Phlebas was a fairly straightforward novel in both style and structure. Use of Weapons, the third full novel in the series, was probably the most radical in its narrative structure, but it still had just one central plot. By Look to Windward the series was seeing recurring plotlines and overlaps from book to book. And in Surface Detail we have Banks' most ambitious space opera epic yet.

On one hand, there's the revenge story which drives the bulk of the narrative, that of Lededje Y'breq, murdered on her homeworld and out to exact retribution on her killer. But in reality that isn't the focus of the novel: the true focus is on the virtual war regarding the use of virtual 'hells' to store souls in perpetual agony, and that has multiple plot threads dedicated to it. There's a virtual warrior in the war, an activist who gets trapped in one of the hells, a protester against them... and the Culture apparently standing aside.

If it sounds complex and bloated, that's because it is. There's no denying the ambitious scope of Surface Detail, but it needed a good editor to take his red pen to it. Sub-plots prove themselves to be superfluous, on occasion the story drags, and Banks' usually lyrical prose isn't quite up to his highest standard. At 626 pages, it's no light read, and it proves in some ways that Banks is at his best writing space opera of 300-400 pages, where he can be expansive but restrained. Unrestricted, his mind seems to go wild, and it needs the focus of definitive structure and length to keep his creative juices from corroding the standard of his work.

But. But... But... It has to be said that the Culture, following on from the thoroughly underwhelming Matter, is truly back. Although it's easy to criticise the technical problems of Surface Detail, it's possible to overlook them purely because it's so entertaining. As ever, Banks is overblown with violence and sex and sarcasm. He throws massive set-pieces around like a child throws mud without making half the mess. His characters' motivations may be easily readable, but the same characters are also easy to connect with because they seem so human.

So. Although Surface Detail won't go down as Banks' best work, it will go down as a good entry into the finest space opera series possibly ever written. I've said it before, and I have no doubt I'll say it again: when Banks is average by his standards he's still surpassing the finest efforts of some of the most talented writers also in the field. He still shows the flashes of brilliance that made so many fall in love with his writing in the first place. He's not been at his very best often of late (some of us remember The Algebraist and Inversions), but when he does get to that level he's still the best there is.

GOU (Demilitarised) More Gravitas Than Expected

Thank you, Iain (M.) Banks, for making my life that little bit richer.

I, like many others, love your books. In fact, I'm thoroughly enjoying Use of Weapons for the third time at the moment. There aren't many writers who can release a book I get genuinely excited, but you're one of the few. I'd even go so far as to say I get a buzz even when I pick up something of yours I'm familiar with. I know I'll get interesting characters, an absorbing plot, and a style and structure I can spend hours analysing before realising I'll probably never get to that level with my own writing.

But you give myself and many other aspiring writers something to aspire towards. I could look at any number of other writers who don't write such excellent, challenging prose and settle for writing to their standard. But because of you I don't want to write to that standard. Even when your work hasn't been at its finest it's been better than 90% of others could dream of producing. Why aim for the ceiling when you can aim for the sky - as inhabited by a certain bearded Scotsman?

I wanted to write this while you're still with us because all too often things remain unsaid until its no longer possible to say things. I owe a genuine debt of gratitude to you, the man who gave us the Culture, The Wasp Factory, The Algebraist, and a dozen others. You entertain and inspire this young SF writer, and you'll be missed.

If you should read this, I apologise for sounding like an appalling suck-up.

The Fool's Gambit

Over the last few weeks I've been systematically putting all my writing into folders on my iCloud. After downloading Pages for my iPhone it made sense; I may as well have all of my writing available on the go. I could do some work on a lunchtime, or on the train, or when I'm waiting for someone or something. As I've been going through the process I've been having a brief look at that work, seeing what I could revive at a future date and what I should dispatch to a shallow, unmarked grave right now with the minimum of ceremony. Most of that work isn't great. There's no way the last completed draft of Empire Rising (from circa 2006) would be accepted by any professional publisher, for instance. Even the work I've produced over the last two years isn't up to the standards of the magazine market I want to be published by. I doubt Interzone's editors would think twice before sending me rejection after rejection for work of my current standard.

It's a spur to improve, not least because to impress the professionals improvement is a necessity, not an option. If I want to become a writer who has some form of income from his writings, I have no option but to analyse my work and see where I'm going wrong. Is it my ideas, or is my writing style flawed? Is it just a sub-standard story? The end result of this is that the quality of my writing increases, with my chances of publication rising with each improvement I make. The rigmarole of submitting and rejecting acts as quality control, meaning the readerbase of those magazines will only ever have the very finest work presented to them.

By and large, this is true at the big publishers. Although the ultimate aim is to generate a big profit on any investment made in a writer's work, the quality will be high. A book isn't generally marketable if it lacks in quality. Something riddled with mistakes will more often than not find itself filtered out of the editing process and rejected. It's not to say low-grade material won't find its way to the shelves and sell millions (like a couple of well-known recent examples), but it is safe to say that if someone can't construct a sentence properly they won't sell their book.

Just writing something of novel length is an achievement in itself. I've managed it three times in seven years, most recently clocking in with a 51,000-word Nanowrimo novel in November last year. Anyone who has the patience to manage to reach the end of what could be a two- or three-year process - especially if they have a full-time job or the kids to keep an eye on all the time - deserves respect and no small amount of admiration. Some people write purely for the sense of accomplishment the end of a lengthy project brings. But often at the end of a project the writer will decide to take the next step and look to publishing their work.

Without taking away that initial accomplishment, the big target is publication. Publication brings with it a seal of quality. Someone else thinks the writer's work is worth reading - or marketable, with functional sentences, in the case of paranormal romance - and will get it out there. But there's still a long way to go between completion of a first draft and the shelves of Waterstone's. There's the editing process to complete, hard work in itself, then a potential second draft, and then the next edit. I seriously doubt many writers are so gifted that they could write a 70,000-word novel and have it published without some degree of editing taking place.

Yet the platform exists that means a writer can now do just that. Self-publishing has always been an easy way out, but in years gone by it was frowned upon as a refuge for the desperate and the vain. Thanks to Amazon - and in particular the Kindle - it seems that this is no longer the case. The Kindle marketplace is flooded with self-published books published through Amazon's own service, most of which should never have seen the light of day.

Remember what I said above. The traditional model for publishing has the quality control checks in place. Whilst an editor's second job may be concerned with a book's marketability, their first job remains to edit. A story I heard some time back concerned high fantasy author and teenagers' favourite Terry Brooks and surrounded the time he submitted his second novel's manuscript to noted publisher Lester Del Rey. Del Rey insisted Brooks re-structure and re-write the entire middle third of the novel that went on to become The Elfstones of Shannara. Brooks himself accepts that this made him go back and consider where he'd gone wrong, and credits Del Rey's decision with making him a better writer. Although this is an extreme example (Brooks may have had to re-write 60-70,000 words in total), it demonstrates what editors do. If your work isn't up to scratch, and they consider you to have the talent, they'll throw it back at you and force you to write to the required standard. Even if you personally don't agree with changes they make, they'll make you think about your writing. Where in self-publishing does this quality control exist? The answer is simple: nowhere.

It may be the popular option, but it encourages mediocrity. Having read 20% of one self-published book available on the Kindle, I gave up. This isn't because the fantasy story grated on me (even though it did - an editor wouldn't let so many clichés past him, if nothing else), but because the author had clearly not edited properly, and nor had they thought about what they were writing. Use of 'arctic' and 'Baltic' to describe the weather conditions makes sense in our world, but in a fantasy world where neither the Arctic nor the Baltic regions actually exist using them to describe the weather makes no sense. Give an editor ten minutes with the original manuscript and they could improve it to the point where such stupid errors weren't made.

On a forum I moderate I consistently see people talking about the benefits of self-publishing. Yes, it's easy. Yes, it may mean more money in your pocket in a shorter period of time. But I have to rebut any argument someone makes on those grounds as being rubbish. No one ever celebrated easy achievements. And because of the dirge of self-published works we're seeing at the moment, the argument that it's more money in your pocket is only relevant if you're incredibly lucky and sell thousands - unlike the hundreds of thousands of other novels that end up going for free as people try to encourage reviews that will get people to buy their work.

I don't want to read low quality fiction. It does nothing for me. I want something where I don't notice horrible use of language every ten sentences, and I want to read something with structure and poise and elegance. I want to read fiction of high quality, and for that reason I will only read material that comes through the traditional model. And I will continue to aspire to write something that gets published through that model. At least that way I will have a real sense of accomplishment at the end of one day in the future.

The Dark Tower

I can't claim to be a graphic novels expert. I've read Watchmen, the leading light of the field, made a start on The Sandman, devoured Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, and dabbled with a handful of others including Mark Millar's Kick-Ass (yes, that one) and V For Vendetta, but compared to most I'm still a complete newcomer. I've never read any standalone Superman or Spiderman, for goodness' sake!

Which is why anything I say in this review of Marvel's adaptation of the backstory of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series should be taken with a handful of sodium chloride. What I found to be odd may be standard practice in the field, and may be the best way of doing it. Because there were a few things to criticise, but first I need to give some background.

For anyone unaware, The Dark Tower is Stephen King's magnum opus. It is the tale of Roland Deschain, last gunslinger of Gilead, and his quest for the eponymous Tower, which stands at the heart of time and space and threatens to topple under the duress of the Crimson King and his minions, thus plunging the multiverse back into the chaos from which it was birthed. Starting with The Gunslinger, it took King 33 years to write the seven volumes, and millions of readers (including myself) have devoted hours to the quest down the years. Its strength lies in no small part in the character of Roland himself, the cold-hearted gunslinger with a turbulent past, whom the reader comes to love through the eyes of others. His backstory is gradually revealed, culminating in a 500-page flashback in Wizard and Glass which reveals the tragic origins of the quest for the Tower.

It's from this that Marvel have reaped the basic source material for their prequel graphic novels. The first volume, The Gunslinger Born, is, in essence, a retelling of Wizard and Glass. It's an impressive work, but it lacks the depth and complexity of the original novel. Perhaps this is a necessity - there's a scarcity of words that's required in graphic storytelling - but I felt slightly disappointed by the storytelling, much as I enjoyed the adaptation as a whole.

Volume two, The Long Road Home, also lacks depth, with it basically being a story of how the Ka-tet got home from Hambry to Gilead. It isn't until Treachery when things begin to break into Dark Tower virgin territory. All of a sudden, we're seeing things that we haven't seen before, that we've only heard about. This is where the depth of Wizard and Glass really feels like it's missing. There are plots and intrigues that never quite feel as they should - everything feels superficial and lacking in substance. Which isn't to say that it's bad. No one will struggle to enjoy the new chapters in Roland's tale. However what could have been essential reading for all Tower junkies is instead relegated to being an interesting sideshow.

The Fall of Gilead and Battle of Jericho Hill are riddled by the same problems. Things seem superficial. Characters don't feel adequately fleshed out, being cardboard cut-outs of the people whom we grew to love in the novels. But one character stands ahead of all others - Roland's development from duty-bound boy to lovestruck teenager to cold-hearted man is most noticeable. With each casualty of the Affiliation's war with John Farson and the agents of the Crimson King he becomes noticeably more withdrawn emotionally until we recognise the gunslinger who followed the Man in Black across the desert.

This is, to a point, as it should be. This is Roland's tale, after all. Everyone else is incidental, no matter how much of a part they play in his tale. But it would have been nice to see the depth given to Roland also given to Alain, Cuthbert or Aileen in the later stages of the series.

One thing I haven't mentioned is the artwork. And if one thing has to be mentioned, it's just that. Of all the graphic novels I've read, I've never read one with such a bold style as these. It's gothic and dark and detailed in the foreground. It draws the eye to what is meant to be seen. Every character's motivations can be read on their face. Every action seems dynamic. Art buffs would go mad for the style. I'm not an art buff, but I couldn't help but fall in love with it.

The question has to be answered: Did I enjoy the series? Yes, I did. I spent a day working my way through almost 1,000 pages of it, and didn't put it down until I was finished with all five. There's something to be said for something that keeps me reading like that. But is it worth a newbie reading without knowledge of The Dark Tower? I'd say not. It's a series for fans of the novels, which will add to their enjoyment of King's series, rather than something for everyone.

Song of Kali

An American writer is dispatched to India to trace a poet thought dead, but who seems to have made a reappearance with a new manuscript. He takes with him his wife - and cultural liaison - and baby daughter, and becomes embroiled in a cult that reanimates the dead, and has more than a couple of links to the Hindu goddess Kali.

Thus goes Song of Kali, Dan Simmons 1985 début novel. Before he brought the world The Hyperion Cantos he was terrifying it with stories of an Indian underworld that brought out the worst in humanity. There is a lot of familiar ground that anyone who has previously read his work will notice - literary references, strongly-drawn characters, overwhelming bleakness, and out-and-out terror.

India is apparently ripe material for writers to plunder for their horror, and Kali seems to have found herself being used more often than others. Rememeber the bloodthirsty scenes in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? You'll find there's that common ground here - with cults obsessed with death and running things behind the scenes. It makes sense to a point - Indian culture and religion is alien to those with Western sensibilities, even with the constant modernising Western influence of these days, and it's easy to find something destabilising in the unfamiliarity of the land and its customs. It worked for George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg, and it works for Dan Simmons.

As ever, Simmons prose is tight and eminently readable. And on this occasion there's a real intensity to the prose akin to the Father Dure scenes in Hyperion. The intensity comes in no small part from the constant undercurrent of violence that Simmons manages to infuse every scene with. Calcutta promises violence from the word go, and it never loses that level of threat. Add to it the very real horror in the depictions of slum towns, rats running from place to place, children grown up before their time and the admission must be made that the backdrop is superbly painted.

The book always feels an uneasy read, but it's always compelling. There are a few scenes where Simmons skill at making the skin crawl comes through - one forty-page flashback sequence leaves the reader breathless and troubled. And then there's one scene near the end that will haunt you for days - I can't stop thinking about the horror of it. It's not nice, easy reading. It's horror at its psychological best.

But it's not all darkness. Like the ending of Endymion, there's some brightness to be seen. Simmons has that trick of creating a near-relentlessly dark world, but just giving the reader the chinks of light to see a potential happy outcome. Perhaps Simmons is a proponent of the Dark Knight Rises school of giving people hope to induce despair. Whatever he is, it's masterfully managed.

If you're a horror fan, read Song of Kali. The most haunting scenes will stay with you for an age. You may not want to read it again (I don't), but it's a sign that it's done its job. It's a book to get inside your head, and that you'll feel glad to have experienced. Just expect to want to take a shower straight after.