A is for Authors - introducing Eric Bergreen and Grace Hudson

I like these alphabet thingies. I'm starting a new one, although I don't promise to do it every day. But here goes.

This cycle won't be concentrating so much on writing techniques as the last. That's primarily because I'm having a little holiday, and not writing anything at present.

Today, a word about two authors I've been reading lately - Eric Bergreen and Grace Hudson.

Eric Bergreen

This series will be a delight to anyone who loved King's IT. Each book has different characters, and the unity is provided by the setting, which remains the same throughout. The protagonists are children of various ages, ranging from quite young in the first book to fifteen in Charter Grove. 

Despite the youth of the characters, these are by no means children's books. The material dealt with is dark, and the ways in which the children solve their problems almost more dark. Notwithstanding this, the books manage to give an overall impression of wholesomeness; the boys are all, we feel, essentially good, even when driven by force of circumstances to terrible deeds. 

Fellow writers may, like me, find the constant homophone errors in these books an irritant; a good copy editor, one feels, would be a wise investment for future editions or further books in the series. Nevertheless, the story is in each case good enough, and engaging enough, to keep one reading right to the end.

Grace Hudson

This emerging author shows great promise. Of her two published works, one (FERTS) is a darkly dystopic science fiction story of a truly horrible society, and one woman's emergence from brainwashed conditioning into a functional personality. 

Open Doors, published earlier this year, is a light-hearted urban fantasy set in our own city of Melbourne. The authentic Melburnian flavour of the characters is delightfully portrayed, and there were times when I shrieked with laughter. It's a wonderfully entertaining read, and I hope to see more in this vein. 

It is a rare pleasure to read something that's actually Australian; our smaller population means that our literary output, as a country, is minuscule compared to those of Britain and America, and when someone really talented comes on the scene it is truly cause for celebration. About like Collingwood winning a Grand Final.