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Fury by Henry Kuttner
For no particular reason that I can now recall, I decided to read one of the old SFBC books up on my shelves. I remembered reading Fury many years ago (this edition was printed in 1954) and enjoying it, and I wondered whether time had worked its usual magic so that it was seem less dramatic today. Yes and no is the answer. I can see now - as is often the case with older SF stories - that the characters aren’t nearly as well drawn as they are today. The plot is a little skimpy. By that I don’t mean that nothing happens - plenty does - but none of the ‘science’ seems rooted in much reality, and it wouldn’t get past a slush pile today, I fancy. But where Fury scores is in the raw power of the writing. There’s no faffing about with unimportant subplots; the hero is fixated, mean and motivated; there’s no question of being able to draw breath. Everything that happens, happens fast and draws quickly to a climax. Today, an author might write the same story to be two or three times the length of Kuttner’s, but I’m not sure it would improve on it much. It’s dated because the genre has moved on, yes. But it’s still an entertaining read.
Red country by Joe Abercrombie
Father Christmas brought be Red Country, and I was glad to have something to read, to take my mind off the flu I got for the New Year. Oh, I’ve posted about that already, have I? Well, Red Country is a solid effort. There’s lots of humour, some of it very black; and lots of action, most of it very grisly; and lots of memorable characters, most of which get killed off by some of the grisly action. I thoroughly enjoyed it and have only one minor carp - that I was never in any doubt that the ‘goodies’ (a loose description, this, as you’ll see if you read the book) were going to come through all their trials and tribulations and triumph in the end. This they duly did, so no surpises there. Oh, and another faint worry I have is that there seems to be very little that’s good in the world Joe describes. Everything is broken, dark, unsavoury, rotten... you get the picture. I guess it didn’t really occur to me as I was reading the book, but it did occur to me afterwards. But all in all, a solid effort and well worth a read if grisly black-humoured fantasy is your cup of tea.
The saga of the exiles by Julian May
Okay, this is now a fairly old book by SF standards - the version I’ve got was printed in 1984 - but I was curious to see what I remembered thinking last time around would still be true. More of that anon. First, the blurb on the front cover says that the Saga will come to challenge Lord of the Rings and the Foundation series in times to come. Well, no, it hasn’t and no, it won’t. It’s a jolly enough tale but it doesn’t have the skill, weight or depth of either of the other two series. Not many do, of course. I enjoyed the first two in the series, The Many-coloured Land and the Golden Torc. I remembered most of the characters and it was a bit like meeting old friends. There was plenty of plot and action, and I enjoyed them. But then I got a bit fed up in the second two books, because there were just too many factions, too many interrelated things going on, and I just didn’t find myself empathising with any of them. I remember thinking exactly the same last time around, so no change there. I expect anyone reading this has probably already read this series. If so, I’d be interested to know if your views mirror mine. First two books, tick. Second two books, cross. Let me know.
Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
It seems I am behind the times with this book, and maybe even with the genre, because everyone in the Glasgow SF Writer’s Circle seems to have heard of it already. In fact, it’s not even my book; I gave it to son no. 2 at Christmas and then cunningly borrowed it from him. I enjoyed it, with one proviso. I enjoyed the cluster of real and unreal well-known Victorian characters, all juxtaposed on the page together beneath the looming presences of Dracula and Jack the Ripper. Some of the action is truly horrible; some of the humour had me laughing aloud. The characters and the dialogue are strong. The one thing I didn’t like was the inconclusive ending. Some books make a big thing of this sort of ending (The Crimson Petal and the White springs to mind) but in my opinion this shouldn’t have been one of them. I wanted more of a resolution and perhaps more of a pointer towards future stories (which I gather from GSFWC do exist). Overall, if you have a reasonably strong stomach, I recommend this book. I shall certainly keep my eyes open for more Kim Newman offerings.
'Narcopolis by Jeet Thayal
I got this book to accompany me on the long train trips to and from London, seeing as it isn’t quite as heavy as the Neal Stephenson tome I am otherwise reading. Narcopolis was apparently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2012 and to a certain extent I can see why. The writing is very smooth and takes you from character to character without you, the reader, realising how you’re being juggled about. Some of the descriptions are fairly horrific; most of the characters are locked into a vicious cycle of drug-taking; it’s not always a pretty read. At times the slipping from character to character is so smooth and deliberately muddling that I got, well, muddled. I felt the book was sacrificing content for style in these places, and suffered a bit as a result. But maybe that’s just me and the soporific effect of sitting on a train for ten hours. Bearing in mind that it’s not always an easy or comfortable read, I’d recommend Narcopolis; just don’t blame me if you can’t figure out who is doing what at certain stages of the narrative.
Reamde by Neal Stephenson
I admit it, it’s taken me a long time to finish this mammoth (1,000 + pages) book. It took me a while to get into it but once I had, it tripped along merrily enough. I hate to say it, because I’m a fan of Neal Stephenson, but I think Reamde suffered from a couple of weaknesses. Not enough to prevent me enjoying the book, I hasten to add, but I could perhaps have enjoyed it even more... First, it did take me a while to get to grips with what’s going on, and I think this is at least partly due to the author’s attempt to weld real life and a fictional online game together. It doesn’t quite work for me. At the end of the day I don’t think the online game contributed as much to the plot as perhaps NS would have liked it to... and his welding attempts slowed down the novel for me. Second, the characters, while feisty and interesting, all seemed to have the same sort of outlook on life - laconic, dry humour, a little fatalistic. Rather like NS himself. I began to see he characters not as characters in their own right, but as shards of NS’s character. Which takes some of the shine off what is otherwise a polished performance. And lastly, I didn’t find the tension as great as I think it was supposed to be, because I had a clear notion that all the baddies were going to get killed, and all the main goodies were going to survive. Also, it was never made clear what the main baddie was planning to do. Whatever it was, it necessitated a terrorist attack that killed more than a hundred people, but that attack was practically a throwaway line in the context of the book... If we’d had a clearer notion of what the terrorist plans were, perhaps we’d have rooted more for their being stopped and the tension would have been greater. So, I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure it’s for everyone. It’s probably too long and a little self-indulgent. If you have a spare few months to read it, let me know what you think.
The end specialist by Drew Magary
There’s an interesting premise to this book - somebody discovers how to remove the gene that causes ageing - and plenty of dark humour. Giving the premise away isn’t really a spoiler, as you discover that in the first few pages. And the first third or more of the book is given over to snippets, allegedly from a blog, about the various practical and ethical problems that lack of ageing causes. I particularly remember "You know you can never retire, right?" Quite. You might live forever, frozen at age 35 or whatever, but you still have to fund it. I enjoyed the book, but it isn’t perfect. I think it loses its way in the last third or so. It loses its ‘blog appeal’ and starts to read like... well, like a book. And it moves away from exploring the ethical dilemmas and instead turns into a sort of thriller. Sure, it describes the breakdown of civilisation pretty well, but as a book I think it lacks consistency. I certainly enjoyed the first half more than the second. Don’t let those quibbles put you off, though. If you want a vaguely philosphical, humorous future-based blog-cum-adventure story, you won’t find another book quite like this one.
The leopard by Jo Nesbo
You don’t really have to read this. Just screw up your eyes and imagine snow; Harry Hole in dire straits and not wanting to do police work, but getting called back anyway because there’s another serial killer on the loose; despite being half stoned and half drunk he outperforms the entire police force and the Kripos (which I think is the Scandinavian equivalent of the feds); more people are killed in horrible ways; HH goes through painful excitement and gets his man... except of course he gets the wrong man at first... and then he realises that he’s got the wrong man and gets the right one instead. Just. And at the end, he gives up and disappears again, having won numerous small internal battles en route. Yep, you’ve got it. It’s formulaic, but that doesn’t make it a bad book. If you like following the antics of Harry Hole chasing serial killers while everyone else seems to have a combined IQ of about 10, then you’ll enjoy this one as much as you’ve enjoyed the others.
Talking to the dead by Harry Bingham
This is a splendid little police procedural, based in a gritty Cardiff, and featuring a brand new detective, DC Fiona Griffiths, who is not at all your usual detective. I’ll not spoil the story by explaining why, but suffice it to say that the blurb talks about Fi Griffiths filling a space for a new detective that nobody even realised was there until she came along to fill it, and I think that’s a fair description. I think some of the events are a little unlikely, even given the unusual nature of their perpetrator, and I was a little disappointed by some of the personal revelations and resolutions at the end: I would have preferred to be kept in the dark. As it is, some of the mystery of Fi Griffiths has been resolved, which might perhaps detract from the sequel - for sequel there will surely be. But all in all, this was a book I found difficult to put down, and when the sequel appears I will surely buy it. There can’t be a much better recommendation than that, can there?.
The gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye
Set in New York in the 1890s, this book tells the story of the formation of NY’s first official police force. It’s well-written, with a good blend of almost everything: violence, romance, mystery, humour, but perhaps most of all, realism. The author clearly knows her history and the book is full of little snippets that demonstrate just how brutal and gritty life was in those days. I liked the characters, and their dialogue was convincing. Added to the horror of the basic mystery and the realistic depiction of life in the 1890s, I found this to be a thoroughly good read. Don’t get it if you’re faint of heart, but otherwise I can thoroughly recommend The Gods of Gotham.
TRailsea by China Mieville
I always pick up a China Mieville with both a sense of anticipation and a sense of dread. He doesn’t seem to write any ordinary books: they’re either very good or pretty awful. I’m glad to say that Railsea falls into the former category. This is a merry steampunk take on a future world where the land is criss-crossed with railways, moletrains hunt down the Great Southern Moldywarpes and, in particular, the captain of the moletrain of the story is forever obsessively hunting a great white moldywarpe that allegedly took her arm off at the shoulder years ago. Ring any bells? I wasn’t quite sure of the book when it started, but I soon found that I was thoroughly enjoying it, even to the extent that I overcame Mieville’s irritating use of & instead of ‘and’ throughout. Can’t see any point to that, although no doubt the publishers were pleased as it probably saves a page or two. I recommend Railsea quite wholeheartedly. Some of the critics seem to think this is a ‘young adult’ book, but don’t believe them. Yes, you could read this at a tender age, but you can also read it if you are completely grown up.
Taken by Benedict Jacka
I stole this book from my daughter’s room while she was away, so I hope she doesn’t bother to read this post. I thought it might be a book in similar vein to Jim Butcher’s, and indeed Jim has glowingly written, "A must-read" on Taken’s front cover. So is it a ‘must-read’? Well, no. It’s an okay novel. Oi’ll give it five, as they used to say. If Jim’s books are for young adults, Benedict’s are for Very Young Adults, plus you have to have a strong enough literary stomach to read page after page of exposition and painfully detailed backstory. When action happens, it’s quite well described, and some of the teenage interactions are nicely observed, but the whole thing is built on the sand of the author explaining every little thing, which gets awfully tedious. The climax was surprisingly and refreshingly horrible, but I really don’t recommend you buy the book specifically to read the end. Unless you’re a VYA who feels Jim Butcher is just too advanced at the moment, I don’t really recommend you to buy this book at all. Like I didn’t.
The little stranger by Sarah Walters
This is a cross between an old-fashioned ghost story and a psychological whodunit. The interplay between the characters is well observed, and so is the setting. Sarah Walters, as usual, turns in a good performance as far as the writing is concerned. So everything seems set fair for a jolly good read? Almost. Without giving away too much of the plot, it’s clear that the author wanted to leave us undecided whether supernatural things were happening or not, but I find it hard to explain some of the events, as described, any other way. And I found the ending a bit disappointing. It kind of trailed off without any real explanations and... wasn’t satisfactory. But overall, this is a pretty good book compared to many others you find on the shelves, particularly with regard to the standard of writing, so don’t let my gripes prevent you from getting a copy.
Fatal voyage by Kathy Reichs
I bought this book to accompany me on a train trip to London - the same train trip when I failed to watch the Andy Murray final. I remembered reading a Kathy Reichs book before... in fact, I think several of them... and enjoying them. I was surprised to find that this book was written in 2001. I was even more surprised to find how little it has dated, given the pace of technology since then. I enjoyed Fatal Voyage because it represented a genuine mystery right up to almost the end. Dr Temp Brennan turns up at the scene of a plane crash, finds a bit of a body that doesn’t seem to fit anybody, comes under pressure by persons unknown to drop the case. There’s one... not exactly hole, but... weakness in the plot that I’ll keep secret in case you want to read the book from grisly beginning to arguably even more grisly finish. And would I recommend that you do so? Yes, you can’t go far wrong with this if you want a fast-paced thriller full of technical bumph and one-liners.
Devil’s beat by Robert Edric
well, I suppose this is clever enough in its own way, and it appears to be well-lauded by the pundits, but I found it a bit tiresome. It’s absolutely chock full of those conversations that are never quite to the point, and same things that aren’t necessary get said and others that are necessary don’t... and the protagonist thinks hard, accurate thoughts but never seems to get around to doing anything much about them... A little bit of this goes a long way, as far as I’m concerned, so I found a complete novel full of oblique references and half-meanings a bit hard to swallow. A matter of taste? Perhaps. Let me know if you read this and found it marvellous, and maybe I’ll concede that point...