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    Sixty-One Nails: The Courts of the Feyre, Vol. 1
    Unavailable
    Sixty-One Nails: The Courts of the Feyre, Vol. 1
    Unavailable
    Sixty-One Nails: The Courts of the Feyre, Vol. 1
    Ebook583 pages9 hours

    Sixty-One Nails: The Courts of the Feyre, Vol. 1

    By Mike Shevdon

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    THERE IS A SECRET WAR GROWING BENEATH THE STREETS OF LONDON. The immense Sixty-One Nails follows Niall Petersen, from a suspected heart attack on the London Underground, into the hidden world of the Feyre, an uncanny place of legend that lurks just beyond the surface of everyday life. The ancient peoples are at war - but is Niall really the one who can wield the dark magic of the Untainted, and save them all?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOsprey Publishing Ltd
    Release dateAug 31, 2010
    ISBN9780857660299
    Unavailable
    Sixty-One Nails: The Courts of the Feyre, Vol. 1

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    Reviews for Sixty-One Nails

    3.5/5

    158 ratings10 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Re-posted from raygunreviews.wordpress.comBack in the mid ’90s I was finishing up my time in grad school and entering into the professional arena. Without having to read lots of dry academic tomes anymore, I turned back to my first love of SF/F literature. It was a good time to re-enter the genre, in no small part because what was at that time going under the rubric of urban fantasy. This was before the paranormal romance subgenre began masquerading as urban fantasy; de Lint, Windling, and most importantly, Gaiman were writing some great stuff, taking the tropes and ideas of ‘standard fair’ fantasy and dropping them in the middle of modern cities — or, in the case of Gaiman’s Neverwhere, under them. This was fresh and exciting, breathing new life into a genre that had become a bit stale and tired.And then, like all such innovations, urban fantasy itself started to become a bit stale and tired. It’s been years since I have read an urban fantasy novel that grabbed my attention. Luckily, thankfully, quirky new publisher Angry Robot has changed that with Sixty-One Nails, Mike Shevdon’s first volume in “The Courts of the Feyre.”The book opens with main character Niall Petersen suffering a heart attack on the London Underground, only to be brought back to life by the intervention of Blackbird, a Fey who ‘just happens’ to be there at the moment. It does not take long before Niall learns that he also has a Fey background and is being hunted by two killers from the Fey Seventh Court, the Court of the Untainted.It turns out, though, that Niall himself might be from the Untainted himself, making things difficult as he and Blackbird set out on an adventure first to find protection for Niall (who has been given the nickname of Rabbit), but eventually to stop the Untainted from breaking through uninhibited to the mundane world.In some ways, this is about as standard as contemporary fantasy fare gets. A lot of the world-building here is re-used from the hey-day of urban fantasy. We’ve got all the expected fey — the pixies, the trolls, the goblins — living underground or walking in and out of our everyday lives. We’ve got a plot centered around the danger of the fantastic breaking in to our world.But as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t see this as a detriment to enjoying a book. What’s important is not that all the ideas be new (or old, for that matter). What’s important is how the author uses those ideas in telling his story, and Shevdon does a wonderful job at making this a fun and exciting story at a number of levels.Shevdon brings in lots of folklore and historical facts and weaves them intricately into the plot so that no one can tell where reality ends and Shevdon’s fictional world begins (that is, until you read the afterword where he explains the historical basis for the sixty-one nails of the title among other important plot elements). He also gives us two enticing lead characters — Rabbit and Blackbird — who develop a relationship as they search for answers while on the run from the Untainted.The similarities to Neverwhere are here, but they are at the most only superficial. Shevdon shows considerable skill in moving within the tropes of urban fantasy of the ’90s while definitely taking those ideas and making them his own. This is what good writing is about: being both traditional and progressive at the same time.I already have the sequel, The Road to Bedlam, and have moved it to pretty high up in my queue of books to read.
    • 5/5
      What a great book. The author has done a very good job of creating a link between modern day London and the world of the Fey'ree. My only issue was that Rabbit was to quick to become an expert in the world Fey'ree. I would have thought someone would require more then one night at gaining his level of skill in the art of magic. Another solid recommendation from Angry Robot publishing. If you liked Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman the I think you will like this book as well. I am looking forward to reading the sequel to this one.
    • 5/5
      Sitting near the peak of popularity among readers, the urban fantasy genre suffers for its pre-eminent position. As publishers and authors rush to capitalize upon the fresh interest for readers, interesting and critically developed stories tend to fall through the cracks. One bland cover of a hard-bitten model slinging a gun or astride a sleek motorcycle on a rainy night blends into another. The new release shelves, whether wooden or digital, groan under the combined weight of doppelganger stories featuring the same tired-out tropes: quirky investigator, witty girl-about-town with ninja skills, the titanically powerful supernatural love interest du jour. It takes a great deal of talent, aptitude, and incredible social networking or effort to stand out among the jumbled sea.That's not to say urban fantasy does not have its luminaries. With a truly rich tradition of contemporary storytellers and mythweavers in our midst, ranging from the perennially amazing Neil Gaiman and China Mieville or Charles de Lint to a new crop of potent English, Australian, and American authors, the genre is in no danger of dying out completely. The challenge for me as a reader is isolating out works of quality, a cut above the usual derivative Anita Blake/Twilight drivel. Fantasy, folklore, and whimsical flights of fancy based on modern settings influence my own writing. My reading habits certainly favour the best of these authors, so I am glad to see Mike Shevdon and his publisher, Angry Robot, reaching these shores. Angry Robot is very much like Pyr, a niche publisher excelling in finding those touchstone books veering away from the standard fare available on Amazon or in the bookstores. I am consistently impressed by their offerings. I may not like everything they present with the passion of a thousand burning suns, but their catalogue of releases gets a good review from me every season and I eagerly anticipate what new author they bring to my hot little North American hands. I have a special fondness for British wit, humour, and spelling -- being a Canadian myself, I bridge the gap between both giant audiences -- and a deep love for how so many talented British authors tap into two thousand plus years of history and culture to enrich their work. Definitely keep an eye on Angry Robot; their editorial team and agents are well on their way to establishing a reputation for top notch work. Along comes Mr. Shevdon, steeped in Oxfordian and English history, presenting what could be another bundle of bland pablum. Niall Petersen is about as unexciting a fellow as a protagonist can be, a mid-40s divorce employed in the City for a heartless, soul-sucking corporation in one of those inevitably dreary careers of finance, business, and managerial horrors. While fighting off the displeasure of his ex-wife and inevitable teenage troubles with his daughter, Alex, Niall suffers a heart attack on the Underground platform in the early chapters of the book. Game over. Or is it? Niall awakens not just to a little old lady and bemused paramedics, but a whole new world hidden just beyond the veil. Standbys of faerie stories -- nereids and naiads, trolls, piskies and boggans -- from a broad slice of European tradition exist all around mankind, going about their business, trying to hold on against the advance of human society. While this may read like the start of a dozen other popular novels in the genre, Shevdon makes the concept work. Solid world-building never becomes a Silmarillion-sized epic to absorb before you ever get to the story. He uses Niall effectively as a device to peel back the onion-skin layers, taking the reader along and subjecting them to the occasional slap over the head by Niall's guide/guardian, Blackbird, a half-breed fae of considerable experience and sardonic wit. Blackbird is a force in her own right, but she nimbly avoids turning into a completely self-sufficient, uber-princess of the Mary Sue variety like Anita Blake, to name a well-known heroine without many flaws.It turns out Niall's metamorphosis catalyzes his fae background, making him a half-breed. The fae suffer the usual problem with fertility, so interbreeding with humans has been going on since time immemorial, with a few stiuplations. Ancient rituals based on real life traditions of the British monarchy and legal system (which are historically fascinating in their own right; these relics from King John's time have been preserved for centuries unbroken) keep the Fey and humanity balanced, more or less, as a sort of pact for continued survial. Unfortunately for Niall, he learns he belongs to the one court among the Seven Courts of the Fey who have quite the bone to pick with the Fey who sully their bloodlines by intermingling with humans. Calling themselves the Untainted, these wraiths and ghosts want nothing more than wholesale genocide against the fey-bred population of humanity right down to the slightest drop of fey blood. Against this larger backdrop, the story personalizes this problem through the lens of Niall and Blackbird's nascent relationship. Established prejudices greatly influence how and why characters act the way they do, with extremely believable reactions and consequences. Shevdon doesn't pull punches, and painfully human errors lead to a string of preventable events that only make matters more difficult in a precarious situation. When the Untainted decide they want to run amok upon Earth, decimating the half-breeds, it becomes a matter of time and a run against the clock to restore the ceremonies which keep them exiled to the Otherworld. Mike Shevdon seamlessly incorporates historical events and details around an elaborate suite of faerie tales and intense, rich characters. He manages to keep all the balls in the air, rarely stumbling or revealing the amount of labour it takes to succeed at the craft. His deft touch does without many of the tools used by other authors in the genre; he doesn't have elaborate, complex fight scenes or one disaster after another, rife with Michael Bey-esque explosions. His greatest accomplishment may be telling the human side of an epic with worldwide consequences, and yet somehow keeping the literary camera tight upon some of the main players. His world reacts to their efforts and the characters, in return, react to what happens around them. His England is a subtle place of many watercolour shades plied atop one another. Sixty-One Nails is a remarkable debut, and deserves a long, slow read to savour all the intricacies played in. Its complement, The Road to Bedlam, I gobbled up the day after reading this. Two more in the series are being picked up by Angry Robot as of this review, and I eagerly anticipate their arrival.
    • 3/5
      You know it’s going to be a bad day when, first thing, someone steps in front of a moving subway train right next to you; and next, when you have a major fight with your ex-wife about your daughter, it’s hard to believe things will get any better. When the third thing that happens is you have a heart attack and die, it can’t really get any worse, can it? But maybe it can get better. Maybe you can come back to life with the aid of a passerby. Things might get confusing in the immediate aftermath — why is the old lady who came to your aid so intent on making sure you don’t get to a hospital? How did she manage to transport you from the back of an ambulance to a grassy plain and back again? And why is she calling you “Rabbit”?It must be hard, after decades of a normal life, to find that you are not entirely human. When you get that information on top of the morning you’ve already had, well, that’s the stuff novels are made of. And it’s quite a beginning to Mike Shevdon’s first novel, Sixty-One Nails.Shevdon introduces his protagonist and first-person narrator, Niall, in a flurry of action. The opening is dramatic, but it immediately points up one of the problems with the novel: a lot happens that has no connection to the rest of the plot, and therefore gets in the way of the story. For instance, the suicide with which the book opens has no relationship to anything that comes after; it is merely a device used to get the narrator moving through the underground hallways of the London Tube with a huge crowd of people intent on getting to work. The extended opening sequence introduces Niall to Blackbird, a principal character, but puts her in a guise that makes later events in the relationship between the two of them difficult to accept. And it fails to make either of the two particularly likeable, tempting the reader to put the book down. It’s worth hanging in, though, because after the reader wades through all this exposition, an interesting plot pops up. Blackbird instructs Niall in what it means to carry Fey blood in his veins just in time to save him from a Fey assassin, one of the Untainted. More importantly, she reveals to him that the Untainted – those who are pure Fey — have a serious vendetta going on with the majority of the Fey, who have interbred with humans. This war has somehow come to be centered on Niall, who soon finds himself enmeshed in ensuring that the Ceremony for the Annual Rendering of the Quit Rents, an obscure rite that is the oldest legal ceremony in England with the exception only of the Royal Coronation, comes off without a hitch. That’s more complicated than it sounds, for one of the knives used in the ceremony is not true, and must be remade. If the ceremony is not properly conducted, the Untainted will somehow be granted greater access to the world, and the lives and futures of the Fey and of humankind will be at risk. Even when Shevdon finds his historically fascinating plot, though, the pace remains a serious problem. There is a fine novella hiding inside this novel, as if Shevdon did not trust his idea sufficiently to set it out straight instead of cloaking it in a great many unnecessary words. Was Shevdon pressured to expand his story to trilogy length? Many problems remain unresolved at the end of the novel, to be taken up in the next in the series, The Road to Bedlam. I’m intrigued enough by Shevdon’s plot in Sixty-One Nails to purchase the sequel.
    • 5/5
      Most enjoyable London-rooted urban fantasy. The idea of a story spinning off from the actual Quit Rent ceremony was the hook that had my downloading the sample chapter, and then I had to come back for the rest. Good, solid stuff, enhanced by being set in specific parts of London I know well - I was at Embankment station as I started reading, in fact. I suspect the next book in the series will have to be a very different sort of story, but am nevertheless looking forward to spending more time with these characters.
    • 3/5
      One of the things that I really enjoy in fiction is when an author can take reality and weave a new narrative around it - sort of a midrash approach, with the real world as the text. As horrible as "The DaVinci Code" was, that was the one aspect that I thought Dan Brown did well.Shevdon has done that here, as well, with much better writing. The parts of reality that he riffs off weren't as familiar to me, but maybe they are to British readers, so I didn't get that little frisson. However, he has thought it out well, and created a consistent, viable narrative.The biggest weakness was that I thought the bad guys gave up too easily, and that the protagonist pulled his bright idea out of nowhere, and that it was too simple to work. There were several points where I thought that characters and plot points needed a little more depth or embellishment to really work well.On the plus side, it was fast-paced, everything everyone did made narrative sense, the world-building was well-done, and there is a great set-up for the rest of the series.
    • 1/5
      Ugh. Forced myself to read thru book with boring plot and unsympathetic characters and cliched writing because so very well reviewed and recommended thought it had to get better.
    • 3/5
      An interesting mix of urban fantasy, the fae, and old British legends and traditions of the monarchy. Fantastic supporting characters from Claire Raddison to the Highsmiths.
    • 4/5
      Faerie fantasy set in modern London. When 40-something Niall has a heart attack mid-commute, he is rescued by Blackbird, a little old lady who is demonstrably more than she appears. She introduces him to the Feyre, who live in parallel with us, and none-too-gently informs him that he is part-Fey - and consequently on the Untainted's death list. Niall must come to terms with his heritage, master his talents, dodge the Untainted, help Blackbird save the world (for the barrier keeping the wraithkin at bay is about to crumble), and earn the protection of a Feyre Court if he and his daughter are to have any sort of future.I liked the Feyre - suitably ambivalent, with their own code and no clear-cut good guys and look forward to future meetings with Raffmir in particular. I also enjoyed the core plot (save the world to earn your place) and the new-boy device worked neatly to introduce the reader to the world and magic. There's plenty of good ingredients in the mix, and the writing is reasonable.However, Niall was as interesting as his day job suggested (middle management for faceless City corporate) and the novel would have benefited from some wit / charm / grace that is largely lacking (Raffmir excepted, and all too briefly). Consequently the romance subplot didn't work for me at all and a number of aspects relating to it left a very bad taste in my mouth.
    • 4/5
      Compared favourably to"Neverwhere", I picked up this novel some time ago, and have finally gotten around to reading it. It is an appealing urban fantasy, with similar characterisation to Gaiman's work - the rather befuddled man whose life is turned upside down when he realises that the world is rather different, and less safe, than he had imagined. In this case, after a rather rough day, Niall has a heart attack and is saved by a mysterious elderly lady. Calling herself "Blackbird" she then reveals to him that an ancient darkness is about to rise and engulf the world and he is the unlikely saviour. Fast paced, quite entertaining and a little bit different, this makes for an enjoyable read.