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The Honjin murders by Seishi Yokomizo
I was looking for a new murder mystery experience, and noticed the Yokomizo novels advertised or commented about somewhere. So I got this one, and also The Inugami curse, which I believe is his first detective novel, setting him on the road to success. I have to admit to not being all that impressed. The detective, Kosuke Kindaichi, doesn't seem to do all that much detecting. His main attribute is that he rubs his hair all over the place when he gets excited, which seems to offend everyone in the vicinity. I presume this is the way we get to 'know' the character, but it doesn't work all that well. The plots are convoluted and events are often described more than once, in a recapping sort of way, which gets a bit tedious. I suppose the one interesting thing in the books is that you get a picture of Japanese life in the previous century. But as an absorbing murder mystery? Not so much. I don't really recommend these books unless you are truly desperate for a murder mystery read.
The Inugami curse by Seishi Yokomizo
See my review of The Honjin murders by the same author.
A memory called Empire by A Martine
This is a good story... perhaps a bit of a slow start... but (you knew there was a 'but' coming, right?) for some reason the author or the typesetter or the editor has decided to italicise loads of words. This spoiled the reading for me. When I see an italicised word I mentally emphasise it. And then to discover that most of these words hold no special significance is a bit off-putting. I don't think I've ever seen this in a novel before, and it's a shame, because otherwise this is a well thought out, complex story with interesting characters. On balance, I'd recommend it. Maybe my adverse reaction to over-italicisation is extreme, and other readers won't be so bothered.
Haints stay by Colin Winnette
Some time ago I found a list of ‘modern westerns’, and Haints Stay was on it. It’s a strange book, with very strange characters, a large proportion of whom fail to survive. The book has been compared with No Country For Old Men and there are certainly similarities. The story in this book is perhaps not quite as strong, or as layered, but at least it uses proper punctuation which, for me as an editor, is a bonus. If you can stand a bit of gruesome weirdness in a western setting, you’d probably enjoy this. Otherwise, you’d better steer clear. .
The left hand of darkness by Ursula K leGuin
I saw this book mentioned in a post somewhere, and remembered that my father was a fan of Ursula K. So I got it off the bookshelf to give it a try. Maybe I’d read it a long time ago, but I certainly didn’t recall any of it as I read it this time. It’s a great book. It hasn’t really dated at all, even though it was written in the 1960s. The world-building is terrific, so is the devious plotting that goes on. By today’s standards, the characters are possibly the weakness of the story, but they’re pretty good even so. So, if you can find a copy stashed away somewhere, I certainly recommend this book.
Athabasca by Alistair MacLean
Now, I’m a great fan of the early Alistair MacLean thrillers. For my money, the start of Fear is the Key is one of the best starts to any book I’ve read, and HMS Ulysses is an underrated masterpiece. However, the later books by MacLean definitely tailed off. And I’m afraid Athabasca is one of them. It’s really not very good, full of exposition and superficial characters, and an extremely thin plot. Sorry, Alistair. I can’t recommend this one.
No country for old men by Cormac McCarthy
This is a well-known book, of course, widely described as a masterpiece. An unsettling masterpiece. Does it live up to the hype? Well, yes and no. It is very bleak, and the chief antagonist, Chigurh, is a chilling character. The story bowls along quite quickly - in fact, a bit too quickly in a couple of places, as the author deliberately misses out some of the story and you have to figure out what’s happened (easy enough; it doesn’t pretend to be a mystery story). So, ho-hum, okay. But what puts me off is the lack of punctuation. No doubt Cormac and his fans think this is super clever and cool, to omit speech marks and apostrophes but, as an editor, I disagree. I think it’s a bit silly. What’s the point? So I give this a reasonable score for plot and character, but sub-par for presentation. You pays your money and you makes your choice.
Aching god by Mike Shel
This is apparently the first in a series called Iconoclasts, so the bottom line will be: will I buy the sequels? Let’s see. Son no.1 bought me this book as a birthday present, saying that he had read a copy and enjoyed it. It’s an above average swords and wizardry type of story, with good world building and good characters. The plot is fairly sound (bar a coincidental finding of a sword that turns out to be a major part of the hero’s quest). There are a lot of swords and wizardry books out there just now, but this is better than most. So yes, I’ll probably try to get hold of the sequels, however many there are. If you like this genre, you could do worse than Aching God.
2 x P.D.James
I was feeling in the mood to read a murder mystery, so I picked up A Taste for Death. Then I enjoyed it so much I picked up The Murder Room as well. I must have read these before, but so long ago that I had no recollection of the plots. I did have a recollection of James’ standard of writing, which is streets better than most murder mystery novels. Dalgleish is a well established detective in the genre and I enjoy reading about how his steely but gentlemanly resolve sees him through to the end, earning admiration from his juniors en route, even if he has to chastise them occasionally. One thing I did notice is a similarity between the plots of the books, not least in the use of a child as one of the main characters. But I’m saying no more. You can read these for yourself - in fact, I recommend it.
Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman
Weirdly, I had never heard of Joe Haldeman until son no.2 mentioned him. And yet he’s a Hugo and Nebula Award winner and apparently has written classics. Then I saw that I had Mindbridge on my shelf, no doubt passed on to me by my father, so I picked it up rather curiously. It’s a slim, slightly old-fashioned Futura publication, and truth to tell I wasn’t expexting much from it. But I was wrong. It’s rather a clever vision of humans meets aliens, with some text layouts that must have looked special back in the day. It’s very much plot-driven. Yes, there’s some attempt to bring out some character traits, but it’s a bit thin compared to today’s SF. Still, I enjoyed it. Goodness knows where you might see this book (published 1977) but if you do see it, you won’t go far wrong if you buy it.
The witches of Wensar by Barbara Hambly
Barbara Hambly is one of my favourite authors, so when I saw this on my shelf and thought, ‘I don’t remember this one,’ naturally I grabbed it down to read it. I must have read it before, but I confess I don’t remember it at all. It didn’t disappoint. Hambly effortlessly draws us into another world, effortlessly builds up characters for us to support or hate, effortlessly slides along a plot which delivers few surprises but is satisfying for all that. I don’t know why she isn’t better known in the SF, and indeed in the literary, world. The Darwath Trilogy is one of my favourite series of all time, and so is Dragonsbane, which I review elsewhere. Very mysterious. Anyway, The Witches of Wensar is up there with the others, so I recommend it wholeheartedly.
The first book of swords by Fred Saberhagen
Fred is pretty well known in the SF world: certainly I have known about him for a very long time. But for some reason I didn’t remember this book at all. I seem to be going through a spell of seeing books on my shelf that I don’t remember. I can’t think why that might be. The first Book of Swords is a solid, enjoyable read. Fred obviously makes an attempt to create empathetic characters and, in my view, doesn’t quite succeed, but there’s a strong storyline and the reader is drawn along by that, if nothing else. It’s the sort of book where you can tell the broad direction it’s heading after a few pages or so - but no spoilers here. You’ll have to find an old copy to find out what happens. And I’m going to have to search out Book 2, which is on my shelves somewhere.
Billy Summers by Stephen King
What can I say? I almost always enjoy Stephen King novels, and (I’ve said this before) I think he’s one of the most underrated writers of our age. He has an uncanny knack of drawing you into whatever story he is narrating: you can see in your mind what he is writing, almost as if it is real, and experience a shock when you stop reading and have to think, hell, it’s only a story... In Billy Summers he does this not once, but twice. In a sense that I’m not going to explain for fear of posting spoilers, this is not one book, but two, and both have the Stephen King immersive reading mark. It’s only out in hardback as I write this (I got it as a birthday present), but when it appears in paperback, I recommend you add it to you collection.
Dune by Frank Herbert
I hadn’t read Dune since round about the time it first came out, in the late 60s, so I thought, given all the chatter about the upcoming film, I’d better read it again. Most of the chatter seems to be about two things: 1. Is Dune one of the best, if not the best, SF book ever written? and 2. It’s unfilmable. Well, I think I can confirm it’s one of the best SF books ever written. It’s way ahead of its time. Characters are reasonably developed, perhaps not as well as by today’s standards, but certainly much better than other SF books of its time. The characters are a little superficial, clearly there to fulfil parts of the plot, but still better than other earlyish SF novels. The plot and the world-building are brilliant and certainly stand the test of time. And Herbert doesn’t make much use of tech, so that hasn’t dated. Thinly described spaceships, force-field body suits and laser guns are about the extent of it. So yes - one of the best SF books ever written. I don’t know how the upcoming film is going to pan out, despite good advance reviews. This is because a great deal of the book is predicated on the thoughts of various characters. In fact, it’s unusual in that the thoughts of almost all the characters are given, often in the same pages or paragraphs... which shouldn’t work, but it does. How you can film all these thoughts is... difficult. I shall certainly be interested to see how the director has managed to do that. He needs to do it somehow, otherwise the plot will be unfathomable. The special effects required will, I suspect, be easy-peasy by today’s standards. So the jury’s out on whether the book is unfilmable. We will all have to watch it and make our own minds up. But as for the book: read it if you haven’t already, or you’ll be missing a treat.
Gideon the ninth by Tamysn Muir
This is a great read. It’s really weird, full of mainly incomprehensible characters, and takes place in a strange multiple-world view that’s full of different sorts of (mainly gruesome) magic, swords, and cutting dialogue.How can you dislike a book that includes, ‘She shivered like a maggot next to a dead duck’?There’s a sequel on the horizon, and I shall be getting hold of it if I can. Tamsyn won’t be reading this but if she did, I’d ask her to make sure vol 2 is out before 20 August.