imyril steps up to 2014

Having only just found my way into the Green Dragon, I feel a bit cheeky setting up a thread - but this is such a lovely group, I can't help but wonder how it's taken me so long, so I hope you don't mind me taking a seat over here in the corner. I've had a reading thread over on Books Off the Shelf for the past year (and have already set one up for this year), but I'll duplicate here (as that's also a lovely group, so I won't abandon it). Fantasy has been my heart's home since I was a child, but I've found myself reading much more widely the past couple of years, and struggling to find new fantasy that I am engaged by - I'm hoping to correct that by listening to the recommendations of the good folk of the Green Dragon!

I typically read about 50 books a year - more or less one a week, mostly whilst commuting. Last year I got a bumper read of 74 under my belt as I had several months off work! This year should be back to my weekly levels, and I've decided to set up a bit of a random challenge of one non-fiction (and/or professional development) book per month and at least one book off both my physical and Kindle shelves each month (with a total goal of 36 books off the shelf by year's end), and adding a dash of completism to round it off. My completist streak hasn't been indulged in a while :) I'll satisfy this by setting random mini-challenges through the year. First up: completing all my SantaThing and Christmas gifts, and joining the Culture group read.

Total read: 50
Total off the shelf (phys / Kindle): 12 / 23
Total acquired: 50 (excluding Kindle duplicates)
Mount TBR score: -15 (sliding quickly downhill)

Jan (8 - 2/3/3)
Lev Grossman - The Magicians (physical off the shelf, fiction)
Tom Rath - Strengthsfinder 2.0 (non-fiction, personal development)
Iain M. Banks - Consider Phlebas (reread, Culture completism)
Robin Sloan - Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore (Kindle off the shelf, fiction)
Jane Harris - The Observations (fiction)
Mark T. Barnes - The Garden of Stones (Kindle off the shelf, fiction)
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451 (physical off the shelf, fiction, SantaThing 2013, classic SFF)
Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels (Kindle off the shelf , fiction)

Feb (7 - 1/5/1)
Donna Tartt - The Goldfinch (kindle off the shelf, fiction, Tartt completism)
Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination (physical off the shelf, fiction, classic SFF)
Iain M. Banks - The Player of Games (fiction, Culture completeism)
Charles Palliser - Rustication (Kindle off the shelf, fiction)
Lloyd Alexander - The Foundling (Kindle off the shelf, fiction)
Catherynne Valente - Palimpsest (Kindle off the shelf, fiction)
Paul Antony Jones - Extinction Point (Kindle off the shelf, fiction)

March (8 - 1/6/1)
Iain M. Banks - Use of Weapons (fiction, Culture completeism)
Dana Stabenow - Second Star (Kindle off the shelf, fiction, women can too write SFF)
Sally Gardner - Tinder (physical off the shelf, fiction)
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-five (Kindle off the shelf, fiction, classic scifi)
Jim Kelly - The Water Clock (Kindle off the shelf, fiction)
S. G. Redling - Damocles (Kindle off the shelf, fiction, women can too write SFF)
Diane Setterfield - The Thirteenth Tale (Kindle off the shelf, fiction)
Dana Stabenow - A Handful of Stars (Kindle off the shelf, fiction, women can too write SFF)

April (7 - 4/2/1) (and 1 partial)
Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake (physical off the shelf, fiction, SantaThing 2013)
Jose da Fonseca - English as she is spoke (physical off the shelf, non-fiction)
Michael Marshall - We Are Here (fiction, physical off the shelf)
Jeff Vandermeer - Annihilation (fiction, physical off the shelf)
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen - The Rabbit Back Literature Society (fiction, Kindle off the shelf)
(Iain M Banks - The State of the Art) (partial; Culture completeism)
Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit (fiction, Kindle off the shelf)
Janny Wurts - Curse of the Mistwraith (fiction, women can too write SFF)

May (6 - 1/2/3)
Andre Norton - Plague Ship (fiction, women can too write SFF, classic scifi)
Anne Rice - The Witching Hour (fiction)
Robert O'Brien - Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh (fiction, group read)
Sarah Moss - Names for the Sea (non-fiction, Kindle off the shelf)
Kate Danley - The Woodcutter (fiction, Kindle off the shelf)
Jeff Vandermeer - Authority (physical off the shelf, fiction)

June (4 - 2/1/1)
Louise Penny - Still Life (physical off the shelf, fiction)
Melissa Scott - Burning Bright (Kindle off the shelf, fiction, women can too write SFF, group read)
Katharine Kerr - Polar City Blues - (fiction, women can too write SFF)
Peter Collyer - Rain Later, Good (physical off the shelf, non-fiction)

July (5 - /2/3)
Guy Gavriel Kay - The Summer Tree (fiction)
John Sweeney - Elephant Moon (Kindle off the shelf, fiction)
N. K. Jemisin - Killing Moon (Kindle off the shelf, fiction, women can too write SFF, group read)
Iain. M. Banks - Excession (fiction, Culture completeism)
Louise Lawrence - The Warriors of Taan (fiction, women can too write SFF)

August (4 - /2/2)
Lauren Beukes - The Shining Girls (fiction, Kindle off the shelf, women can too write SFF)
N. K. Jemisin - The Shadowed Sun (Kindle off the shelf, fiction, women can too write SFF, group read)
Jared Diamond - Collapse (non-fiction, group read)
Tamora Pierce - Alanna (fiction, women can too write SFF)
Nick Harkaway - Tigerman (physical off the shelf, fiction)

Reading

and planning
all these

Male / female authors: 28 / 22
Culture completeism: 5 / 10
Tartt completeism: 1 / 3
Classic scifi: 4 / 12
Women can too write SFF: 12
SantaThing 2013: 2 / 3
Non-fiction and/or personal development: 5 / 12

1) The Magicians - Lev Grossman

I can see why this gets labelled as Harry Potter for grown-ups - an unhappy teen with a towering intellect and an interest in sleight of hand stumbles into the magical college of Brakebills after finding his Princeton interviewer dead in his study, and much of the book is given over to his escapades as he learns magic at the only school for magic in the US. Quentin is self-absorbed, sorry for himself, pathologically unhappy, lacking in confidence, but magically competent - so he fits right in. Brakebills students are the elite, but Quentin is soon catapulted forward a year, reinforcing his outsider status and pushing him ever closer to his gifted classmate Alice. When they join an exclusive group that appears more dedicated to drinking than cantrips, the cloying atmosphere becomes ever more similar to that of Hampden in The Secret History - but here the students will lead themselves astray without any help from their professors. The latter part of the book deals with Quentin's attempts to deal with the real world after graduating, and drifts ever further from Potter even as the author suggests that Quentin's childhood Narnia-analog may in fact be both real and within reach. The novel is far more about the brutal realities of life (even as a magician), Quentin's alienation and his self-regard (or lack of it) rather than any heroic arc (sorry Potter fans), and on this level works reasonably well.

Nonetheless, this is an odd mess of a book to me - I'm not convinced the various parts hang together, and while the characters are convincing (or at least familiar) they're not very appealing. I also wasn't enamoured of the occasional random pot shots at geek and goth culture, which didn't ring true at all coming from Quentin, and Fillory - a blatant Narnia clone, complete with religious affectations, but with added surreality - felt like a cop out. I'm not sure why Grossman didn't come up with something a bit more original - because if he meant to attack Narnia, that didn't really work either; it just felt like a bad caricature rather than a meaningful criticism (and Fillory made a lot less sense than Narnia).

It's a curiosity, but the jury is out on whether I'd be willing to make space on the shelf for the sequels. It might grow on me as I digest, but for now the final quarter has left a slightly bad taste in my mouth.

I don't think anyone around here is too picky about how long you've been around the Green Dragon before starting a thread. We just want to know what you're reading. Books...more books...beautiful books...need books...

Not cheeky at all, imyril! We're always happy to find people who share our love of books.

Welcome!

Total Acquired: 7 (ahem, oops)

Anyone who can admit to this openly will clearly contribute well to a reading thread! Welcome to the pub and pull that chair up a bit closer to the table. Any minute now, someone will offer you a glass of wine and cheese or else a cup of tea with a biscuit.

Have a star shaped biscuit. Looking forward to read about your reads (can never get enough of reading :P).

More book talk is always welcome, especially from one whose reading tastes overlap with mine!

I've had The magicians on Mount Tbr for a while, and hope to get to it this year. Your comparison with The secret history has me more intrigued than the inevitable references to HP and Narnia. But I will bear your uneasiness at the ending in mind and be warned ...

4,5,6> Thank you :)

7> oooh, biscuits! Yay! Right, who's for tea?

8> There's an argument that saying 'HP for grown-ups' implies the self-interested and slightly grubby hothouse atmosphere of a college campus, but somehow it doesn't for me. But say The Secret History and back come the memories of alcoholism, lab rats cooking up meth in a basement, frat parties and off-the-wall 'special interests'... and those definitely fit with The Magicians :) I think when I finish digesting I'll decide I like it for all the good stuff up front, and give the second volume a go. Probably.

Aaaand today is the day I realised that Strengthsfinder 2.0 and Strengths-based Leadership are two different books. The clue was in the name, right? Oops. Guess I get to read both of them this year now!

To be fair, they're both really quite slight - it's the dip-in-as-relevant resource sections in the back that take up most of their size - and both are relevant to me.

We like a bit of cheekiness in the pub. ;) Welcome!

I lurk on all the reading threads, but only comment occasionally, so, hope you enjoy this year of reading!

This looks like an interesting thread! I absolutely hated The magicians, by the way. I got the feeling that the author wanted to show that fantasy can also be depressing and literary (sorry, one of my prejudices showing). I thought it was pretentious. I really liked some of the bits about magic, but I detested the 'fantasy can also be like real life, and real life is morose and depressing' vibe. Yuk. If you want fantasy that is like real life, take Robin Hobb. Her books are more realistic than most fantasy, but they're not depressing, and real life doesn't need to be depressing either.
</ranting mode>

Good luck with your book diary!

Hehe, I can absolutely see where you're coming from :) I don't like my fantasy to be like real life either (I didn't like Assassin's Apprentice and its sequels at all - I found them frustratingly unrewarding). But I'm definitely still processing on The Magicians - jury's out on where I'll land. It does feel a bit like something I might read several times before I realise I didn't (or did!) like it all along - but oh! it's been a relief to jump into Consider Phlebas instead. The contrast in shameless enjoyment might say it all thinking about it...

That said, I didn't consider The Magicians might be trying to show fantasy can be depressing - I thought the point was fairly strongly made that the only reason Quentin was unhappy was that he chose to be (and he's an asshat, amply illustrated). I think that was what I objected to at the end though - he kept choosing to be unhappy, which if it had been literature I might have accepted on the grounds of depression, but as it was fantasy it felt like he was betraying Alice. Yuk!

13 (@imyril): I can see why someone might not like Assassin's apprentice, but compared to The magician, I would definitely go with Robin Hobb. Of the two, I actually think Robin Hobb creates fantasy that is closer to real life than Lev Grossman. She shows a world where not everything goes as planned and where people make mistakes. Grossman shows the world though the eyes of someone who is depressed, and while of course, there are people who are depressed, I don't think the view on life a depressed person has is the right one or real one.

Anyway, I'm amazed you think you might read this again when you didn't really like it! I would definitely prefer to spend my time with books I do like...

Oh don't get me wrong - I may never revisit it, because life is too short for all the amazing books out there :) But when I have a mildly negative / distasteful reaction to something, I occasionally do (some years later), if only because I didn't hate it enough to get rid of the book. So I get to thinking it wasn't all bad / there must have been something about it and have another go.

And sometimes I've changed, and I suddenly get it and love it (Excession - arguably another one dealing with themes of self-hatred/self-absorption and depression, thinking about it) and other times I can see all the problems clearly and remove the book from my collection (Chris Wooding's Braided Path). I often get sucked into narrative on my first read, and it takes a reread with knowledge of the arc to really get my responses clear. Same deal with movies.

Either way, if I go back, it won't be soon! I'd rather go reread The Secret History :)

@imyril, welcome. Your thread looks like it will be very interesting and a source of more books for my wishlist.

Good luck with 2014 reading.

15: What was wrong with The braided path, @imyril? I own book 1 and 2, but haven't read them yet...

The first time I read it, it felt awkward to begin with, then I got swept along by the plot, but by the end it felt like such a muddle I couldn't decide what I thought about it. I reread it several years later (although about 4 years ago now!) when I'd forgotten a lot of plot detail but knew enough fundamental outcomes that I paid attention to the journey.

My problems with it started with the writing (variable); the setting (because I felt the author was more comfortable/successful when describing the original parts of his world, and lost his way with things he'd borrowed from the real world); and the politics (we're told how Machiavellian they are, but actually this is rarely shown - the politics we get to see are fairly simplistic).

Then there's the Weavers themselves - is it really necessary to rape, murder and skin people (repeatedly) to make the point your Evil People are Bad and Wrong? There was a moral lens opportunity here about what the upper echelons of society must suspect is going on and therefore turn a blind eye to, but given the setting - where class means you don't give a damn about street kids or servants - it's completely bypassed. The point is only being made for the readers benefits. They're EVIL kids. REALLY EVIL. FOR REAL. Wait, let me have one of them do something unspeakable to another innocent just in case you missed the point. It doesn't end spelling out, and it doesn't need revisiting to the extent - or in the detail - that it is. It's just nastiness for the sake of nastiness - /rant :)

And then there's the protagonists. There are some really interesting characters and concepts in the books (and interesting female characters to boot - lots of the main characters are female, which I was really excited about), that I felt were underserved in the final delivery. Too much was told not shown, so it didn't feel convincing, and there's a number of problems in how the female characters are served that make me angrier in retrospect even than they did at the time. I accept sexism as chosen part of a setting - it's a patriarchal society; that's fine - but I do have a problem with the old trope that with great power comes great responsibility, but if you give it to a woman she'll get it wrong and become evil; and the even older trope that a woman - no matter how independent or powerful - will never be truly happy unless she has a baby.

So it was a riproaring challenging social order / rebellion / magical war story, but in the end I couldn't enjoy it and never want to reread it - there were too many points that bothered me and too many others that I enjoyed more. And for the borrowed setting (I'm not a massive fan of Japanese or Korean historical settings when written by westerners; although I'd be curious to read something in that setting written by a Japanese or Korean author), I'd rather revisit Across the Nightingale Floor, which I really (and somewhat unexpectedly) enjoyed.

2) Strengthsfinder 2.0 - Tom Rath

I'll leave my main review / comments over on Books off the Shelf for this one. This is essentially Gallup's test for identifying your talents - it explains the theory and background, lets you take the test online, and helps you interpret the results. I found it fascinating and it felt remarkably accurate (I often don't agree with profile tests, but there's a reason this one is well respected!) and I'd recommend it if you're interested in an unbiased, positive appraisal of what your strongest traits are - and some thoughts on how to apply them / get the most out of them.

Of course, I meant to read Strengths-based Leadership instead, which would have specifically talked about how those traits play as leadership qualities - since not all strengths are obvious leadership traits! e.g. one of my strengths is Input, which means I love to learn stuff and collect stuff and am a complete bookworm - but it's worth thinking about how useful a leadership quality that is, as you want to appear knowledgeable / informed / trusted source of information, but not come across as a knowitall or make other people feel stupid.

As with any such test, your mileage may vary, and there are other considerations (introversion, environment, etc) that play into how the strengths may play out for you. For me, this was mostly a validation exercise (am I good at what I think I am? - mostly, apparently) and a learning / reflective exercise (how can I capitalise on that? what should I do differently?) - and as such, it's been helpful. I'm looking forward to reading the leadership book to finish the exercise!

18: Wow, that's a really extensive answer! Thanks! Some of the issues you mention are things that would annoy me too, but somehow your analysis has made me curious. I won't throw them away just yet...

I might have checked my old reading journal for my notes at the time ;)

I'll be curious to hear how you find them when they climb down from amount TBR :)

Hi Imyril. Welcome to the Green Dragon :o)
We're a pretty casual bunch, happy to chat about most things.

I keep vacillating about whether or not to try The Magicians. I tend to stay away from reads that are too grim or depressing (especially if the POV for the whole book is from someone whose outlook on life is bleak, and it's not just the situation), so at the moment I've no urge to read it.

Looking forward to more of your bookish thoughts!

I am being amused that although the Culture books are fun, it's hard to accuse them of being cheery - but after The Magicians Consider Phlebas seems positively upbeat ;)

I enjoyed revisiting Consider Phlebas (no great big thoughts here as a reread, but enjoying the group read chat!), and have been charmed instantly by Mr Penumbra and his team. It's been on my Kindle for a little while, but thank you Green Dragon for persuading me now was the time to get to know it!

(Edited: touchstone fairy and grammar pedant)

4) Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan

I have chortled through Mr Penumbra. When a desperate young designer takes over the night shift at an obscure San Fran book shop it's even quieter - and weirder - than he expects. He takes to modeling the comings and goings to pass the time, and starts to see patterns in the store's eccentric visitors that merit further investigation.

From the tech delights of Google to the dusty restrictions of the (anti-)aging book cult, the story bounces along with charm and humour, which I found irresistible. The characters may not have had a lot of weight, but they were sketched with fun and I liked that the hacker got to be a girl for once (as ever, see Scott Lynch for comments on wish fulfillment).

I live at an intersection of books and tech too (by random juxtaposition of my preferences and career/ friends), so I guess I was always going to enjoy this, although I may now have to find out whether the visitors queue at Google really is labelled External Dependencies.

As commented elsewhere, I'm not sure I believe Clay was a real fan if he'd only read his favourite book 3 times since he was 6 ;)

Excellent summary of Mr Penumbra! The combination of tech and characters/friendships reminded me of Microserfs which I read at the end of last year; it doesn't have the books but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway, for many of the same reasons that I did Mr Penumbra.

I too really enjoyed rereading Consider Phlebas; I had forgotten just how funny Unaha-Closp is. I imagine him speaking in a voice rather like C-3PO's!

25 @imyril, I am avoiding reading your comments on Mr Penumbra as my copy arrived yesterday and I want to read it without any preconceptions of the story.

Between yourself and @Sakerfalcon I will be re-reading Consider Phlebas at some time. My memories of it are so positive and the comments about it on LT are pushing me towards a re-read.

25: like your summary of Mr. Penumbra!

I spend much less time in the Green Dragon than I should, but I'm glad to have found your thread, imyril! I considered starting a thread here too, but it would be my third reading log thread...although I'm keeping up with the other two fine, so perhaps I should start one.

#27: @pgmcc, I'm running a Culture group read over on the 75 book group, and would love to have you join us for one or more or all of the books!

>25 imyril: I have to say that "hacker gets to be a girl" piqued my interest where it was not previously piqued (books with down-on-his-luck young everymen in mysterious situations ostensibly taking place in the real world US not generally being my cup of tea). However, is she also a. quirky/eccentric/childlike in a manic-pixie-dreamgirlish way and/or b. the hero's love interest?

Not that there's anything really wrong with characters being either, they just don't fulfill my particular wishes.

I also really must try Banks sometime.

#29 @kgodey, thank you for the invitation. I think I might just follow your suggestion and join you.

30: She is definitely not childlike, @sandstone78, but I'm not sure about the eccentric and quirky. She is definitely a character, but I don't think there was anything manic/pixie/dreamgirlish about it. So I can't really say whether you'll like her. As for the love interest, SPOILER she has a relationship with the main character in the beginning of the book.

30> she's dream girl for ticking the beautiful / clever / talented / single / interested in what's going on boxes. She skips manic pixie (thankfully; I'm not wild on the archetype either). And she's got her own thing going on, which I liked.

Just thinking a bit more - I think flatmate Matt may in fact have claimed the manic pixie dream(boy) attributes, but as peripheral platonic association, he's welcome to it ;)

>34 imyril:: I really liked Matt, and Matropolis was awesome. And his low-key romance was nicely done too.

>34 imyril: yes, for sure. I also liked that it established early that the characters have lives separate to that of the protagonist and his doings, and that his bizarre job gives him a very narrow glimpse of them. They're not just useful adjuncts to him (with the possible exception of Nee, which is a shame).

I am zooming through The Observations by Jane Harris, which a friend loaned to me months ago. It's entertaining light reading, but I sometimes wonder if all Victorian (set) fiction needs to involve ghosts / dark secrets, unhappy marriages, and threats of asylums. Maybe just all the ones I happen to pick up - like Dr Watson, it's all my fault.

#37 like Dr Watson, it's all my fault.

As long as you accept that then everyone, except yourself, will be happy.

Have a lovely weekend.

38> This was an in-joke amongst my friends at one point (that everything was my fault) - although I can't recall why; possibly because as a teacher's daughter I was always on best behaviour as news got back to my mother so fast! - so I have little trouble embracing it. As long as the unhappy secret-ridden lunacy-stalked marriages are entertaining, I don't mind ;) ...and it's better than the patch I went through where every book about a boy on a boat turned out to be about cannibalism, which was rather disheartening.

#39 Ah, so that's how the 'spoiler' feature looks.

I started The Life of Pi but got bored. Sorry. I know, it's my fault...for not seeing the deeper meaning.

40> don't apologise :) I was bored to tears pretty much the whole way through and only finished it out of sheer stubbornness (I wanted to understand why everyone raved about it). The deeper meaning isn't obvious until it's explained, and my reaction ultimately was 'oh, well that's an interesting thought on storytelling, religion, and the human condition, but I never ever want to read that again'. The payoff doesn't make up for the rest as far as I'm concerned - I'm still not convinced it wouldn't have worked just as well as a short story ;)

#37 if all Victorian (set) fiction needs to involve ghosts / dark secrets, unhappy marriages, and threats of asylums

I believe the answer is no, if the story is set in the wilder, outer reaches of The Empah, though I can't think of an example that was written after the demise of Our Late Great Queen And Empress. But if you allow the period writing, almost anything by H. Rider Haggard would serve as a counter-example.

#41 Well, thank you. You have made me feel better.

By the way, I feel the same about Joyce. I have made the effort with Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and I cannot see any value in either of them.

I have asked people to explain them to me and the only thing I have received in return was that Ulysses was based on Homer's work (the not-Simpson one) and that it was one of the first, if not indeed the first, stream of consciousness novels. All well and good, but I do not see that a stolen plot and a new way of writting necessarily qualifies a book for greatness. I can understand people from Dublin and of a rather delicate nature, i.e. from polite society, liking it because of all the references to places in Dublin and the slightly risqué handling of topics like going to the toilet and sexual arousal.

Rant over.

Have a nice weekend. :-)

5) The Observations - Jane Harris

A very good friend loaned me this last summer, and I've only just got around to reading it (cleansing TBR guilt, hurray!). I'd class this alongside Sarah Waters - a convincing Victorian setting (in this case a village in lowland Scotland), a colourful heroine (Bessy Buckley, a brash young Irish girl with a string of lies to tell), and an increasingly silly/melodramatic set of less-than-shocking denouements in lieu of meaningful character progression or plot (I loved Tipping the Velvet, but I did have some credibility issues with some of the emotional arc it encompassed; and the last third of Fingersmith actively annoyed me).

Bessy is taken into service by Arabella Reid purely because she happened to show up at Castle Haivers (a country house rather than a true castle) within minutes of the previous girl being dismissed. Lying about her name, her age, and her background, she eventually realises that Arabella hasn't been taken in by any of her stories and has reasons of her own for taking the girl in: she is conducting a private study of the traits of the servant class to try and identify what makes a perfect servant. When Bessy realises she is being manipulated by her odd but adored mistress, she decides to wreak havoc and taken revenge - with unexpected consequences.

This starts as almost stream of consciousness from Bessy - erratic punctuation and sentences written as they would be spoken - and slowly develops into a more coherent narrative (intentional control of style, mirroring narrator Bessy's growing confidence and practice with writing); it is scattered throughout with colourful dialect for you to either know or guess from context. Some of this style bothered me initially (including the adoption of flip for f*ck, which I didn't entirely believe in BUT reminded myself that this is 1869 - I'm not familar enough with just how coarse lower Glasgow language was then as opposed to now), but I soon found myself racing through.

This is easy enough reading - colourful, entertaining, and not in the least bit challenging. However, this is ultimately my criticism of it too - it's too simple. There are very few real secrets or plot turns (although I had trouble believing in Arabella's insanity - she was eccentric but sane, and then suddenly foaming-at-the-mouth hallucinating insane; this seemed very Victorian but not very realistic); the secrets are rather less horrifying than Bessy or Arabella believe (although it's fair to say they would have entirely outraged Victorian society, we're left with the challenge that this is a modern book read by a modern audience); and as there's absolutely no need for Bessy to reveal most of her own secrets in order to further the story we must also believe that our colourful liar actually has a confessional streak (she's Catholic by birth, but not a churchgoer, so this isn't an obvious trait).

I'd class it as fun but not particularly satisfying.

The Garden of Stones - Mark Barnes

I picked this up on a whim in one of my occasional surveys of Amazon recommendations. On the surface, it's a straightforward fantasy epic: an ancient Empire is riven by civil discord when an ambitious but sick high lord sets his sights on recovering lost technologies to save his own life and gain the imperial throne. There's a bit more to it than that, however, and quite a lot to like.

The setting is hinted to be somewhere across the galaxy, at some unknown point in the future. The Shrian Federation is the remains of the once-almighty Awakened Empire, itself a descendant of previous and greater things. The Avan, an aggressive humanoid race engineered by ancient race the Seethe (humanoid/avian), rule with a sort of democratic feudalism - the nobility control absolutely, with a caste system that can see a lesser being killed for insulting a greater, but elect an Asrahn on a 5 year cycle to lead the Federation. If social inequality is present, gender inequality is surprisingly absent - in spite of the overtly Arabic-inspired trappings of the culture - with female warriors, magi (or Scholars as they're known in Shrian) and leaders going unremarked.

The world is largely shown not told - Barnes drops Unnecessarily Capitalised references in without much explanation, letting context generally qualify anything not immediately obvious with fairly (if not consistently) light touch exposition (there are some rough sections early on). Characters likewise largely reveal themselves, although I found it difficult that everyone was a Mary Sue - smart, athletic, gifted - and had to remind myself that perhaps this is permissible from an engineered race - why engineer flaws?

The tale itself is fast moving and diverting, mixing warcraft, magic, and politics whilst playing with themes of racial integration, honour, loyalty and responsibility. It's colorful and fresh enough to pass muster, not least because of the many engineered races that inhabit the world (and the clarity that Shrian is one nation - and not a particularly secure one - amongst many others that aren't Avan-dominated). There's a clear sense that this tale is a small part of a much larger world stage.

Oddly, I felt that the villains got more page time devoted to their doings and motivations than the heroes - although it wasn't possible to confuse the two, and there's possibly a more interesting version in which the villains were presented as the hero protagonists they perceive themselves to be. But this is fairly straightforward right and wrong, with dark magic, racism and murder clearly wrong.

One beef I was left with was that for all the society ( appears to) consider gender equal, the author doesn't treat them equally in terms of outcomes. Only one female character (Shar) is unequivocally positively presented, and she's defined by her unquestioning friendship with the male hero. Mari is an intriguing character (warrior poet, protector of the current Asrahn, wayward daughter of the villain), caught between loyalties and with her own arc - but I felt her moral choices were undermined by her romantic involvement with her House enemy, Indris, hero of the piece (and I found it unbelievable that she didn't recognize him, when she had been intended to seek him out and kill him in battle). The women of rank lack the drive and agency of their male counterparts. Overall, the context felt gender neutral, but the story remained male dominated, although this may shift in future novels.

Lastly, I had a slight nag that for all there were nominally many races, they might as well have been different human tribes. They didn't feel Other, with the marginal exception of the Scholar Femensetri, whose magically extended lifespan gives her a distance and perspective others lack and makes her feel slightly alien, and possibly Far-ad-din, who comes across a bit Tolkien Elvish as he disengages from a society that struggles to accept a former racial overlord as a co-citizen. But fundamentally, the odd reference to having two hearts (the Avan) or quills/feathers instead of hair (the Seethe) or animal body parts (hybrids abound), everyone felt human.

Generally though, I was diverted and entertained. I'm not rushing out to buy the sequel, but I may explore this world further when there are fewer exciting options on Mount TBR.

Oops, Sword at Sunset fell into my Kindle. January sales, eh? I've been wanting to read this for ages - ever since I twigged (as an adult) that of course Rosemary Sutcliff wrote more than just the Eagle of the Ninth Chronicles. Somehow it never occurred to me as a child, even though they were amongst my favourite books!

I got a couple of Rosemary Sutcliff books in hard copy for Christmas - Brother dusty-feet and Simon. Like you, as a child I thought all her books were set in Roman times so it's good to finally discover some of her other writing.

7) Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
I haven't read this since it was on a school reading list over 20 years ago. I recall it as my lesson that just because a book was on the list didn't mean we would actually study it - so the crafty students didn't buy books until we got to them. Me, I bought everything up front and mostly secondhand; this one was dog-earred and torn, and I raced through it before school even started.

Fast forward 20 (25?) years, and I'd mostly forgotten it, and long since lost that poor dying copy. So when SantaThing brought me a copy I was delighted. Reading it as an adult in the reality-TV explosion of the conformist inane, the vision is all the more terrifying for being 60 years old.

Montag the professional book burner is a rubbish (anti)hero, a perfect product of his world. Even when he is moved to save books rather than burn them, he hasn't the courage to read them. The saving is an almost unconscious action, but one that continues even as his guilt grows. When he is pushed into engaging with what he has done by three terrible events in rapid succession, he doesn't know how. When he seeks guidance, he can't resist his socially-trained urges to simply react, lash out, live in the now rather than think and plan for the future. The outcome is inevitable, although the ending wasn't what I expected (or remembered - I seem to have mixed up another robot dog story with my vague memories; possibly Snow Crash or something by Jeff Noon).

The details of media, even technology (unlike so many, Bradbury assumed wireless communication), social pressure, tv society, lack of consideration of consequences, media scapegoating and pressure to conform are all horribly relevant. It's not easy reading, although the very familiarity makes the ending seem less neat, less likely, more the rapid close-out of a short story that has made its point (and itself prefers not to focus on consequences).

As ever with classic scifi, women are woefully under served: the fragile muse, the distant wife, the shrieking harridan, and ultimately the entirely invisible - the educated hobos with their memorized literature are all men.

It's still a great read and a beautifully written novella. I can't imagine it on screen, so I hope it's still on the reading lists - and perhaps actually studied, not just one of the also-ran inclusions.

Love your summary of Fahrenheit 451. I wonder if it is more relevant and terrifying now, when so much of the technology, etc. that you list has come to pass, than when it was first published and seemed a remote scifi fiction? I had not read that during my school years, and only got to it last year or the year before. I loved it, even with its faults.

I have Fahrenheit 451 on deck to read this year. It was also an almost-read for me in high school. We had several books to choose from at one point, and I read the first couple of pages of this and nixed it. At that time, it just didn't grab me, but I've been wondering since what I've been missing. I skimmed over the main portion of your review, and will come back to it when I finally read 451, but glad to see you enjoyed it.

Yes, it's still being taught (not just read)--all my kids had it in high school.

49> I think it's much more terrifying now, although I have to put part of that down to being an adult rather than the imaginative but fairly limited in world view child I would have been on first reading :) quite a bit would have gone over my head back then...

50> I look forward to comparing notes :)

51> oh good!

8) The Wine of Angels - Phil Rickman
I found Merrily Watkins when buying a gift for a relative who likes crime novels a lot more than I do, then picked it up for me on a Daily Deal as she always seems faintly annoyed when I haven't read books I give as gifts.

I pegged it as fluff - single mum parish priest solves religiously-related crime! - Midsomer Murders with a priest - etc - and I wasn't wrong, but given my disdain for Midsomer this thankfully turned out to be a lot more fun.

Merrily and her daughter Jane move to a historic Herefordshire village for Merrily to be installed as priest. Tragedy strikes with an unexpected death at a controversial wassailing organized by towny newcomers the Cassidys, but Merrily is otherwise enchanted by her new home. Old forces are stirring though; Merrily is haunted by the enormous old vicarage and nightmares of her dead husband; Jane is drawn to the ancient orchard beyond the church walls. When the Cassidys wayward daughter disappears, things come to a head and Merrily must find a way to reconcile the village with its deep-buried past.

Expect some recognizable British village character tropes along the way (and the inevitable tension between natives and incomers), but Merrily herself and her daughter Jane are delightful: bright , stubborn, independent, and human. Merrily's slightly mystical faith, unpopular in the modern Church, make perfect sense in the knowledge that the sequel sees her become an exorcist.

The plot is frequently by the numbers, but there was the occasional twist and turn I didn't see coming, and it never flagged or grew dull. It's lightly written stuff, easy to fly through.

Great literature it ain't, but it was a lot of fun. I think I've acquired a new guilty pleasure for the dark winter nights when I'm not looking for a challenge.

I don't read mysteries very often - it's not a genre that appeals to me - but the Merrily Watkins series does sound good. I'll have to look for them at the library.

I don't read many, but every now and again I find one I really enjoy - although I always think of them as guilty pleasures. I loved some of the early ghosty Barbara Erskine novels (Midnight is a a Lonely Place gave me the shivers), although they rapidly became cookie cutter exercises in Mills & Boon with Ghost and History so I lost interest ;)

I liked Merrily Watkins because it reminded me of Simon Serrailler - there's suggestion (and I'm curious to see if it gets followed up) that the scope will be as much about village / family life and Merrily's relationship with her job as about Haunting / Exorcism / Crisis of the Week. I may be wrong - but I liked the focus on Merrily/Jane's relationship (which as a single child raised by a working mum I could recognise to a degree; I wouldn't have got away with some of that language!) and on the village politics. For all the stereotypes, there's also a bit more :)

9) The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

My, this was a bit of a slog. My real problem with it - having done the slog, metaphorical legs aching and body tired from the headwind - I can neither say I loved nor hated this book. I admire it as a piece of work, and am left untouched (and slightly frustrated at just how much time I had to devote to it). It is interminably slow, every scene - every facet of every scene - built up stroke by careful stroke, layer upon layer of observation, repressed emotion, nuance until the overall effect is stifling.

It is, without a doubt, great writing - proper literature if you will, fascinated by the way in which our pasts colour our present and define our future, and the way in which we perceive, respond to, interact with beauty. In The Secret History, Tartt said beauty is terror... a fire that defines - in The Goldfinch, pure beauty is a trap... that must be wedded to something more meaningful. To my mind, that meaning is never found - Theo's epiphany in Amsterdam and his nihilistic reflection at the end left me cold, just as many of the books other motifs are drawn from the bag of things I just don't enjoy (I've got a particular dislike of alcoholism and drug abuse in fiction; I've never got over a forced reading of A Million Little Pieces).

Theo Decker spends his wayward life hoarding beauty - The Goldfinch itself, stashed in a pillowcase or a storage locker for half his life; his memories of Pippa; Hobie's masterpieces - and destroying it, whiting it out in a haze of drugs and alcohol that leave him reeling; the only response he has left to the self-destructive urges and survivor's guilt that hound him following his mother's death. No blame ever attaches to The Goldfinch - arguably the true cause of her death as it is the reason they are in the museum the day of the bombing - because it is his own misdemeanour at school that has resulted in them being free to go see it on that day in particular. Like Boris, the mercurial Russian who repeatedly leads him astray and further astray, Theo loves The Goldfinch without reservation, without reflection; he defines himself through his possession of the stolen painting.

So - I appreciated the artistry on display in The Goldfinch. I loved the prose - every bit as enveloping and satisfying as The Secret History. But while the characters were brilliantly depicted, inhabiting the imagination beyond the page, leaving you with no doubt of their reality, there wasn't much to like about most of them (although the cameo by Francis Abernathy made me smile) or the story itself, so the pace dragged at me. Ultimately, I respect the author and the novel, but I'll happily leave it on the shelf from now on.

10) The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester

My problem with classic scifi is the awful attitudes of the time it was written in, that many authors struggled to escape. This bothered me less with Fahrenheit 451 (which is more or less of an age with The Stars My Destination), although the way women were treated still got demerits, but was inescapably awful here.

Gully is trapped in a dying spacecraft, with limited resources and no way out - although humanity has learnt to teleport (although hello holes in logic, and hello a poor excuse to treat women badly), nobody can teleport across space. When another vessel sails past for the first time in months, he fires off distress signals, but the other craft sails on. His rage at their abandonment sparks what his futile survival has failed to - the drive to patch his ship up and get back to inhabited space - in order to take revenge on those who refused to rescue him.

So my problems start early: I struggle to accept that the drive for vengeance is stronger than the drive to survive. Gully has been willing to drift for months. Only when he is snubbed does he suddenly work out how to fire up the engines. Really?

It goes down hill from here for me. Gully is casual about potentially committing if not genocide then certainly mass-murder (turns out he hasn't, but he's prepared to); equally casually rapes a woman just because he can; and later tortures people he holds accountable for his abandonment. Along the way, he becomes educated (in stages); but it is only when he discovers that someone he insta-loves (GRR) is responsible for his abandonment that he begins to show anything remotely resembling remorse (and then it looks more like remorse that he is unwilling to complete his vengeance, and guilt about what he has done only because he is not able to complete his self-imposed mission, rather than genuine recognition that he's a monster).

Tacked onto this is a coda in which Gully liberates mankind by giving them an uberbomb, taking the decision of whether to go to war out of the hands of the security forces / megacorps / government and putting it in the hands of the people - which is a lovely sentiment for the 50s, but does feel randomly added at the end. Gully has had the bomb throughout; it is collateral to him; when he finally recognises what it is capable of he has coincidentally grown to a point where he can understand the implications - although it takes a faulty robot (no implications of AI here!) to tell him what the right thing to do is. Some personal growth.

There's a way of looking at this as an early take on the Everyman vs the MegaCorps, and the rights of the many as individuals (to education, to choice, to a meaningful life) vs the way in which government and corporations reduce the individual to a statistic who can't be trusted to make decisions for themselves and must be kept in their place. I think the intent is probably there, but I can't get past the packaging - and it certainly doesn't drive the narrative for the bulk of the book.

Coupled with the appalling handling of female characters throughout (even the supposedly capable criminal doesn't get a scene without either tears or hysterics), I found all this hard to swallow. I recognise that it was doing something new and different for its time, so it is a building block that great things have been built upon - but, urgh.

Uh oh. I bought The Goldfinch for my Kindle, so I have to read it now.

I agree about the Bester. What I've read so far does seem terrible dated to me, and it has not aged as well as Fahrenheit 451 at all.

58> there is a lot to enjoy in The Goldfinch. Lately I think I've become a bit lazy about long reads, and I wasn't quite prepared for the investment it demanded. It's beautifully executed, just soooo very sloooow (and I didn't realise going in that alcohol, drugs and nihilism were major devices in it - and I've come to recognize I react badly to all three).

Okay, I won't be as terrified to start it then. Thanks.

#58 - You READ the books on your Kindle? I secretly hoard them there while I work on clearing the unread books off of my shelves. ;)

61> Hah! I was doing that for a while, but I started to hear funny gibbering noises coming from under the cover so I thought I should relieve the pressure ;)

#61 - I do! Well, I read and hoard. And then I borrow more from OverDrive and from Amazon. I really need to read more PAPER.

I ILL'd The Stars my Destination but I've become more and more hesitant to pick it up. I really like the premise, but from reading the GD threads, I'm 99% sure I'll have problems with the execution. But I do feel a little guilty about not reading it, since I put the library to the trouble of getting it for me :o(
OTOH, if I wait just a few more days, I wouldn't be able to finish it before I had to return it anyways (and ILL books are not renewable here).

65> on the plus side, it's not very long and it's quite an easy read stylistically. On the negative side... well, the execution ;)

Good luck with your conscience! I honestly can't recommend it - although my face got a good workout from the grimacing...

My conscience looked the other way while I returned the book unread.

#66 There is nothing more satisfying than an obedient conscience.

12) Rustication - Charles Palliser

I remember a friend making me read Quincunx when it came out, because she thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I found it slow, overwrought, and unrewarding (but I don't enjoy Dickens either). Nonetheless, I thought I'd give the much-slimmer Rustication a go, with its take on the Gothic novel of social manners.

Presented (unconvincingly, although I've not done any research to invalidate the claim) as a true story - or rather, an actual historical document and unsolved murder - the novel is a 'copy' of the torrid diary of Richard Shenstone, written over a few weeks in December/January.

Rusticated (sent down / thrown out) from Cambridge, Richard joins his recently-widowed mother and domineering sister in a lonely house on the marshy southern coast. Unaware of the circumstances of his father's death, unwilling to divulge his own secrets (the Rustication and the reasons for it), confused by the family's sudden lack of means and fall from social grace, he records his teenage sexual fantasies (Victorian vanilla, but all-encompassing in terms of the women he meets - he 'falls' for everyone of suitable age / station, however briefly), his failing battle to ditch a university-acquired opium habit, and his vivid imaginings of what is actually going on around him.

Richard is a wildly unreliable narrator - all illogical leaps and sex-driven conclusions (she looked at me = she loves me; she scorned me = she's writing the poison pen letters circulating in the neighbourhood) - so it's hard to know how much to take at face value as the plot twists and turns (or his understanding of it does, at least). The small community is ripping itself apart with envy as various marriageable girls ( including Richard's sister) try to ensnare the earl's nephew, and hideous letters start circulating, accusing everyone of torrid behavior. When death threats and animal mutilations are added to the mix, the stage is set for social carnage.

We're told from the outset that a murder will occur - the questions are who will die, and who was responsible - but I found it hard to care about the characters even as I raced through the pages to get through the plot. The overwrought circumstances lacked credibility to me (not so much the small-minded backbiting community, which rang true, but the animal mutilations as escalation), and there's nobody other than the most peripheral characters (Betsy, Miss Biddlestone, Mrs Guilfoyle) who is remotely sympathetic.

This is car crash fiction in period dress; entertaining enough in places and atmospheric to be sure, but Richard's hot and sticky imaginings and the explicitly awful poison pen letters (reproduced in quantity) are pretty off putting - the sheer level of misogyny was hard for me to deal with, however period-appropriate it probably is. The relentless hatred of women (by Richard, and by the women themselves) made it fail for me.

Edit: wow I managed a lot of randomly misleading autocorrects in this :)

Ooph. I've spent the last 3 weeks with a rather low spoon count, and I'm really struggling to stick with anything. I'm loving the lush atmosphere of Palimpsest, but also finding the sheer density of imagery overwhelming - it's like reading a sequence of minutely detailed paintings or tapestries, and while I'm appreciating it (and oh I'm going to want to revisit this with a clear head!) I find it easiest to treat each chapter as a short story then come up for air.

So I'm going to raid my shelves for some familiar low-effort comfort food tonight to curl up with over the weekend.

13) The Foundling - Lloyd Alexander

I first read Lloyd Alexander as a school book club purchase 30 years ago. It was one of several series that I jumped into the middle of (I think I started with The Castle of Llyr and then The Black Cauldron, but it may have been the other way round), and then spent time and effort to eventually acquire the rest.

I had no idea that there was a collection of Prydain short stories, all set before the Chronicles begin, until I was given it as a perfect birthday gift. Perfect comfort food reading, and I have delightedly devoured the slender volume today.

This is pure joy for any fan of Prydain - a chance to revisit some of the stories mentioned in passing in the Chronicles but never explored (how Fflewddur gained his harp; how Coll rescued Hen Wen from Annuvin; how Orddu, Orwen and Orgoch raised Dallben; how Dyrnwyn came to lie in the bowels of Spiral Castle) and some weaving of Celtic tales into the familiar setting. My favourite by a mile tells how Eilonwy's mother Angharad chose her husband, which essentially reaffirms that storytelling is enchantment and is just delightful.

These are fairy tales, with traditional structures and relatively simple outcomes. It's a very slim book, and if you're not a fan there's arguably nothing new here - you'd be far better off picking up The Book of Three. But it was exactly what I was after, and I'm a much happier person for reading it.

Great to hear that these are so good - I'd never heard of it until a few months ago when a friend was saying that it was her favourite book, so I added it to my wishlist. Seeing another favourable review will tempt me even more (I can resist the lure of the wishlist until I'm a little further down Mount TBR)

They are simple and simply lovely. Some feel even more fairy tale / simplistic than the Chronicles (eg Coll's adventure doesn't chime with the way he's portrayed as one of the great heroes of his age in Chronicles; he's been inserted into another Welsh myth - but it's still charming). And Orddu, Orwen and Orgoch are as misleading, dappy, and threatening as ever. I was in stitches, and then it got serious. Morva. Same every time ;)

If you were reading them for the first time would you start with the Chronicles or with these stories?

I would definitely start with the Chronicles. They were written first, and although they'll give away the outcome of half the short stories , they'll also better introduce the world and characters.

Thanks for the advice :D It's much appreciated.

You're very welcome :)

Still slowly slowly working my way through Palimpsest in bitesize chunks. It's a glittering gem of a novel, all rich imagery and oblique characters, full of apparently throwaway marvels. I'm not sure I entirely like the references back to The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland (which is introduced as a fictional novel by a fictional author of another name, which happens to inspire one of the 4 protagonists), but I'll give it a chance to see where this thread goes.

Given the state of my head / ability to grapple with anything at the moment, I'm making no effort to try and decode the novel (or indeed even decide whether it's all tinsel or all metaphor and meaning that would benefit from interpreting), I'm just (mostly) enjoying the ride.

77: I actually got the impression it was the other way around, re: Palimpsest and the Fairyland book--she wrote about it as a fictional book in Palimpsest, then decided to write it for real. Certainly the first Fairyland book was published significantly later than Palimpsest (2011 vs 2009).

>77 imyril:,78 That's my understanding as well, that Palimpsest came first.

(Also, I'm really liking your use of "tinsel" there, and adding it to my vocabulary.)

78> Aha! I hadn't checked publication dates yet so I fell foul of the old trap of the order I'd read them in ;) My bad.

14) Palimpsest - Catherynne Valente

This sensuous, richly-detailed, quietly horrific fairytale explores the parallel world of the city of Palimpsest, and the difficulties faced by those of our world who wish to get there. It's easily dismissed as a fantasy novel in which shagging the right person will grant you a passport to another world, but there's more to it than that.

It touches on some obvious themes - immigration (legal and illegal); multiculturalism and blending in; obsession and faithfulness; sacrifice and selfishness - and slips in others by the by, from the politics of education to the role of literature.

Valente has a tendency to tell as well as show, but in an offhand manner that barely underlines the point, leaving you with more to think about (Nerezza; Hester; Clara). At the same time, she seasons her tale with so many additional images and concepts that it became impossible for me to get hold of it all.

I'm not honestly sure what I make of it; I found it quite overwhelming, and I think I'll need to reread it at some point when I'm properly well. Intriguing and unusual; arguably subversive (if you have very strict ideas about sex and love); and often unpleasant. Only poor mad Oleg and woeful Hester acknowledge that Palimpsest is madness. I remain slightly upset at the willful self-deception of the would-be immigrants, determined that Palimpsest is paradise, refusing to acknowledge the ways in which it is needlessly cruel, and that so many of its pleasures are taken at the expense of others. But then, I think this is another point Valente is making - we choose what we perceive.

On the plus side, my head is letting me read again. On the down side , the book (Extinction Point) is making me shout (in my head) at the protagonist or the author every few minutes.

not a steampunk reader then? (hmm, the reply feature didn't work. This is in ref your comment regarding Victorian books always involving ghosts and asylums.

83> heh. No, not a steampunk reader. I gave The Affinity Bridge a whirl and it was okay, but not brilliant, so I didn't pursue the series. I'll admit it's not really a (sub?)genre that interests me very much to read, although it makes for fab visuals in movies.

15) Extinction Point - Paul Antony Jones

Hands up who loves a good apocalypse novel? Yeah, me too. I grew up reading Wyndham, and I've sought it out ever since. Sadly, Extinction Point isn't a good apocalypse novel. The writing style is laboured - regularly veering into 'what I did today' levels of tedious detail - and sadly some of those details are just so wrongheaded that I found myself repeatedly yelling at the book, much to my bloke's amusement (bless him, he joined in towards the end when the wrongheadedness strayed into a territory close to his heart - cycling).

The core concept is familiar: an unexpected thing happens (blood-red rain from a clear sky), and 8 or so hours later, everyone dies. The rain travels the world from east to west, so New York City knows what's coming thanks to news reports out of Europe - people in the US have time to go home, or try to flee - and worse, time to consider their fate. Chilling.

Finding herself the lone survivor, heroine Emily must come to terms with the trauma of seeing her beloved city die around her and makes plans to travel across the country in search of safety. And this is where it all unravels. Emily doesn't leave New York until about three quarters of the way through the novel; it largely focuses on her unnecessarily prolonging her stay in an increasingly dangerous environment on the basis of fairly weak excuses.

Add in the overwhelming details (her shopping list; how to make coffee; what order she packs her backpack in), the random details that don't ring true (she cycles to work across Manhattan and gets no other regular exercise, but expects to cycle across the US - and cover 150 miles in 2 days. My friends are keen cyclists; they train to be comfortable over 50++ mile distances - a short daily hop won't do it. Or when - although my bloke tells me I'm being unreasonable on this one - she casually pops a pint bottle of water in her jeans pockets. I can't remember ever owning jeans that would let me get away with that) and her appalling survival instincts (attacking an alien with a knife with her mouth open?! Cycling through a forest that she can't see the extent of rather than skirting the lakeside edge or finding a route around it?) and it begins to feel very very forced.

2 side-notes - apparently this was self-published, which explains some of the stylistic issues. Also, I think I'd have forgiven more of the style and decision making if Emily had been younger. However, Emily is a working adult in her 20s (although a throwaway comment about grandchildren make her sound like she's in her 30s) - so unforgiven it shall remain ;)

Needless to say, I won't be reading the sequel (or: the second half of the novel, which would be more accurate - the first ends abruptly having really not got very far). The core concept and the imaginative details that grow from it are intriguing, but the execution is unbearable.

Gosh, I feel like I've whinged all through February after some juicy and entertaining reads in February. Sorry about that! Here's to a happier, healthier March full of good reads :)

hope you read some much better books soon!

#85 - I borrowed that one to read from Amazon last year and screamed my way through it as well. Most of what i was yelling was "Come on! Seriously?" I did try to read the sequel, mostly because I was hoping a decent editor might have been found, but I only made it about 20 pages in before I gave up.

88> ah, I did find myself wondering about editing improvements (the alien invasion was quite intriguing), but based on your comment I'll steer well clear :)

87> I'm finding Iain M Banks particularly refreshing. I'd forgotten that Use of Weapons is whimsical as well as dark!

#89 - It was truly awful. You're wise to do so.

> 85 - Hands up who loves a good apocalypse novel? Yeah, me too. I grew up reading Wyndham, and I've sought it out ever since.

I got so excited by that first sentence, because I grew up on Wyndham too ... and then ppfffftttt! Good review of Extinction Point, though. I think I'll safely avoid this one, and the search continues.

Adding my hope that March brings better books your way!

Hurray for good books and cheesy entertainment!

I have devoured Use of Weapons, and I still like it more than Phlebas or Player of Games (although I still like both of those a lot). I'll keep my comments over in the group read thread other than to say how much I'm loving rereading the Culture books so close together (but not back to back) - it's been easy to see the evolution and the interconnections in this first trilogy, and a delight to revisit the exploration of ideas. Also, I'd forgotten how much fun Use of Weapons is (I just recalled it as dark, and something about a garden) - far less serious than the first two, even though it deals with equally dark subject matter at heart.

17) Second Star - Dana Stabenow

This was a recent Green Dragon book bullet - sort of - as it came from following a link during a discussion of female authors in SFF, where I gleaned a whole host of new titles for Mount TBR (and a new challenge for the year: for every classic scifi, there must be SFF written by a woman. These may be one and the same, or I might just say to hell with my original Challenge list for 2014 and read a helluva lot of fantasy and scifi. I'm totally cool with that).

I read A Cold Day for Murder last year (Stabenow also writes Alaskan-set crime thrillers), and pegged it as lightweight fluff (although I'm not keen to read more of the Kate Shugak novels - it was fine, not good, and I'm a tough sell on crime thrillers), so I knew more or less what to expect and wasn't disappointed.

Esther (Star) Svensdotter is in charge of getting Ellfive habitat commissioned - Earth's last great hope for managing population explosion is to move up into orbit. She's a tough Alaskan (of course; she's a Stabenow protagonist) who isn't afraid of tough decisions, doesn't much like politics, and leads from the front (but has a big soft heart). With just weeks left before the big day, she must keep her motley crew of brilliant but wayward senior staff pointed in the right direction, break in her new security chief (fnarr fnarr), deal with the Luddite faction who'd like to see Ellfive literally fall out of the sky, avoid a military takeover by her ex-lover, and figure out whether there really are any aliens out there. Thankfully, her crew are right behind her and several of them know how to cook up a good dinner.

Stabenow likes her female protagonists independent and ornery (so do I), so my only beef with this otherwise entirely entertaining diversion is that she also likes to saddle them with unnecessary romance. It isn't the main story, it doesn't ultimately get in the way, but it didn't add anything to have Star go "kneak weed" (in her sister's words!) over a bloke who was behaving utterly inappropriately. It doesn't matter if he's hot as fresh toast, if he's flirting - let alone making physical overtures - you don't let him get away with it on the job. You put him in his place fast and take it off-duty. It was macho bullshit, and Star didn't put up with it anywhere else. To be fair, I'm objecting to one scene and it's mild stuff - but it really bothered me, even though I ended up liking the guy.

It's not brilliant literature by a long stretch, it's almost old-school in feel, and it's too neat in places, but I enjoyed it (once Star got her head out of her pants and her mind back on the job - she figured it out in a couple of chapters, so this really didn't take long). I did like that space is egalitarian. Ellfive is full of capable women heading up functions and just getting the job done; even Space Patrol casually includes female officers without a deal being made out of it. Star reflects at one point that space has attracted women rather than men because men have it easier 'downstairs' - women aren't giving up any opportunities to head up into the sky.

Overall, good not great, but good enough that I'll probably seek out the sequel at some point when I want some popcorn reading.

18) Tinder - Sally Gardner

This was a gift from a good friend, who thought it sounded intriguing and up my street. It's a gorgeous book, painstakingly illustrated - barely a page that doesn't have some ornamentation - that benefits from being read in one sitting with a roaring fire. Gardner's afterword mentions that she was horrified growing up to realise that books for adults didn't have pictures; but as this is a retelling of a Hans Christian Andersen story (The Tinderbox), it's probably best thought of as YA rather than all grown up.

Reset in Germany during the Thirty Years War, eighteen-year-old Otto is on the losing side in a battle. Fleeing into the forest as his comrades die, he meets a mysterious man-beast who tends his wounds and gifts him with some dice. The dice take young Otto on a dark adventure with werewolves, witches, and the ghosts of his own past.

This is beautifully written and enchanting in presentation - the illustrations are striking and far from comforting - and if Gardner has added detail to soften the fairly unpleasant source material, she hasn't strayed too far. Her hero is younger and more naive, but still a soldier; her villains are more clearly evil; her heroine needs a good rescuing but is fierce in her own right (and unlike Andersen's tale as I understand it, she is complicit in her love affair). This is fairytale as nightmare rather than dream, and in considerably more detail than the original. Gardner has woven in themes of PTSD and how soldiers cope with a return from the front, which are relevant here but give young Otto a lot more depth and despair than Andersen's soldier. But this is still fairytale, so the usual tropes are in evidence: most notably female characters are almost all stupid or evil (although to be absolutely fair - so are most of the men). Crucially, none of the characters rise above fairy tale, remaining very simple and flat.

However - if you embrace the format (and I do like a good fairytale, for all their faults) - this is very well executed, and I liked Gardner's take on the ending. This merits a place on my shelf for the haunting artwork.

Well, I'm clearly in the mood for light entertainment, because I find I can't resist the second Merrily Watkins (Midwinter of the Spirit) and Star Svensdotter (A Handful of Stars). Amazon has them both on special, and the first installments (The Wine of Angels and Second Star respectively) were about what my mushy brain can cope with at the moment!

In the meantime, reading Slaughterhouse-Five by Vonnegut because I never have, and feel I really ought to polish off this and Catch-22 at some point. And Slaughterhouse-Five is shorter ;)

Second star sounded like a fun read from your comments, so I looked it up on amazon and saw that it is free ... it's now waiting on my kindle for me to have the time to read it!

19) Slaughterhouse-five - Kurt Vonnegut

I picked this up as my March classic scifi novel, knowing it is also hailed as one of the great anti-war novels, but I didn't really know what to expect. It certainly wasn't what I got ;)

Billy Pilgrim is hapless. A trainee optometrist, he's drafted as a chaplain's assistant, and the novel opens with him behind enemy lines. Gangling, inept and sick, it's a marvel he doesn't get his 3 companions killed or captured sooner; but soon enough he is in enemy hands (where he remains for the rest of the war). His experiences as a prisoner of war in transit, in a camp, and finally in Dresden during the Allied raids are scattered throughout the novel.

20 years later, Billy Pilgrim is a successful optometrist with an unexpectedly successful soldier son and a domineering daughter (I'm not going to whinge about the portrayal of women in this one; I'd be here all night. This is very much of its time, so they barely feature and when they do it's not to their credit, but at least - unlike Bester - they don't get casually raped). After surviving a plane crash, he takes it into his head to finally start telling the world that he was abducted by aliens from Tralfamadore and trying to relay their perspective on time.

The Tralfamadorian perspective on time is the framing device for the entire novel: they experience it all at once. Whatever happened, has always happened. Whatever is happening, always happens. Whatever will happen, will always happen. Existence is structured around these events, and there's no point getting upset about it; it's just the way it is, was and will be. Everyone is absolved of all responsibility (you can't change anything), and as long as you focus on the good bits it's absolutely fine. Sure, there's the bits where you're not alive, but... well, you're just not alive. That doesn't hurt.

So although Billy is described as time-travelling, slipping from war-torn Germany to Tralfamadore to his own comfortable future, technically he's just learnt to view his life in almost as non-linear way as his abductors, zoning out from one time to another. Chronology and structure go out the window from the start; the novel is at best a series of excerpts from Billy's life. True to the Tralfamadorian philosophy, he is one of the most passive protagonists you could care to read about, witnessing rather than partaking in his own life (with the possible exception of his single infidelity).

There's many ways to write an anti-war story. Time-travelling and alien abduction don't normally feature, but even Vonnegut's handling of Billy's wartime experiences aren't entirely typical. The novel is written with a light detachment that I mostly found surreal rather than laugh-out-loud funny; but there's no denying that the message that comes through loud and clear is of the powerlessness of the common soldier. Billy and his comrades are preoccupied with staying warm; finding a place to sleep; getting enough to eat. They have no control over their destiny (which is reinforced by the Tralfamadorian view), and have what is objectively a fairly miserable time - although Vonnegut's portrayal is far less unpleasant than many other anti-war novelists'. Still, the casual powerlessness and meaningless sinks in. There's no glamour here, no good guys or bad guys; just people getting by until the bombs come down.

There's two ways to read Slaughterhouse-five. Either it's a scifi story - with alien abduction and time-slipping - or it's a psychological novel about PTSD and the way in which we cope with extreme trauma. Poor Billy was bullied, abused, and exposed to horror - he can be forgiven for seeking to escape the real world and dreaming up a philosophy in which this is somehow less painful, because it's simply how things are. The narrative is seeded with plenty of suggestions that the Tralfamadorians are a hallucination. If anything, this increased my sympathy for him - as a time-slipping abductee, he eludes responsibility and is a non-character in the grip of greater forces (which is how Vonnegut initially describes him); as a traumatised veteran, his hallucinations are a response to his experiences - and it's at least possible to give him credit for being a decent person in spite of his awful circumstances, running a successful business, and raising two ultimately fairly decent kids. Having the odd daydream about a pornstar on another planet seems forgivable.

Of course, I may be overly influenced by having just read Tinder, which also deals with PTSD themes - I do seem to have a knack for randomly reading books close together that I don't realise share key themes (I also do it intentionally from time to time - but, like cannibalism, PTSD isn't a theme I'd normally choose to dwell on across several reads!)

20) The Water Clock - Jim Kelly

I picked this up as a random Kindle cheapy, probably attracted by the setting (the Fens in winter). I struggled to get into it initially, but I think that was me rather than it - it's a perfectly serviceable crime thriller, the writing is okay, and the setting is indeed interesting (although it may just be a combination of my long affection for The Nine Tailors and this winter's severe flooding that makes it work for me).

Philip Dryden is a former Fleet Street reporter, back home in the Fens following a car accident 2 years ago that left his wife comatose. Cynical, detached and unconvincingly cowardly (and I'll come back to this, because it bugged me), Dryden is a good investigative journalist and seems to relish his job on the local rag. When a body is found in the boot of a crashed car, he's got the biggest story in years on his hands - and it soon becomes apparent that the killer is far more concerned about Dryden's investigation than the inept police efforts.

What Kelly does well is evocation of place. He's got a nice turn of phrase from time to time, and he gives you a clear image of the wintry (and flooding) Fens. I was less impressed by his cast of characters - I don't mind not having a clue who the killer is, but I really object when literally nobody in a crime novel is unconnected to either the crime or the protagonist. Whilst the characters felt credible, they were fairly thinly drawn (I've seen other reviewers who felt they were rich and deep; mileage clearly varies). And notably, for all that he brought the landscape alive, it felt unpeopled - the background of life at large was a very very thin veneer (compare and contrast, say, Merrily Watkins' parish, with its bustling pubs, unpleasant youths, and local busybodies - none of whom are anything but window dressing, but they made the village feel lived in).

Still, the thing that bugged me most was the author's insistent reiteration that Dryden was a coward. He's apparently scared of everything - the dark, dogs, water, heights - but he repeatedly does things that put him in the way of his fears. So I'm sorry, he's not a coward. He's afraid of those things, but he doesn't let that stop him - technically, that's courage, not cowardice. When fear does eventually get the better of him, it's the least convincing passage in the entire book.

But that bugbear aside, this was fine. Not great, and I'm not rushing out to read the sequel (there are several), but fine.

21) Damocles - S. G. Redling

This was an Amazon impulse buy. I wasn't familiar with the author, and I had a moment's fear when I realised it was published by the same Amazon imprint responsible for Extinction Point, but thankfully this is much better stuff.

S. G. (apparently people struggle to spell Sheila. Really? Or is it easier to be a gender-neutral genre author?) has done a fine job turning out a reverse first contact. Mankind has reached the stars, settling the solar system and beyond. Stasis and chelyan crystal technology have made interstellar travel a possibility; when an ancient message is decoded that suggests man kind from the stars, it's the impetus to send a 6-person crew into deep space aboard the Damocles in search of our ancestors.

The novel is very simple: it begins with the crew awakening in orbit around the planet of Didet, and it focuses on their first contact with the locals and the intricacies of trying to establish communication when you have no common frame of reference. It's charming and I found myself sucked in, for all that the characters are very thinly drawn. Much of the charm is derived from the Dideto perspective - specifically Loul Pell, a geeky young man in a back-end job, who bungles his way into becoming the primary interpreter. He is vulnerable, enthusiastic, self-aware, lacking in confidence and utterly entranced by the alien visitors, and it's hard not to like him.

Unlike old favourites of mine like The Sparrow, you never get under the skin of the human characters - or even much coverage of the back story. There are never more than hints of how history has shaped Earth, or even of the alien message that prompts the journey. Much like Loul and Meg's conversations, this novel only scratches the surface - but it's set for sequels, and I'd happily read them if they appear.

Redling gets bonus points for portraying gender-neutral societies on both Earth and Didet (although there's not many female Dideto in the cast): the crew is 50/50, and if the captain is male, the pilot and the engineer are both female (as is the primary character, the linguist Meg). That said, there's not a whole lot of female:female conversation or friendship, and one of the women barely appears as she stays in orbit on the Damocles, so it's not a perfect future. Still, it's refreshing and it took me half the novel to notice - but I liked it more when I did.

22) The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield

I had no idea that this was a novel about twins, any more than I knew that twins would feature in Damocles, but this little coincidence made me smile - I do have a knack for reading books with shared themes in unexpectedly close proximity. Needless to say, other than twins, these two have nothing in common!

The Thirteenth Tale may have just catapulted to the top of my list of reads so far - an instant favourite, the sort of utterly satisfying read that brings tears to my eyes at the close because it just works. This is a modern gothic novel, in which Margaret Lea - surviving twin, bookseller, reader - is invited to become the biographer of England's 'best-loved novelist' Vida Winter, an eccentric octagenarian (who also turns out to be a surviving twin) famous for lying about her history in every interview she's ever given.

As Miss Winter's tale unfolds, I couldn't help but reflect that she is one of the least reliable narrators going. She weaves in eccentric landed gentry, a leaning towards violence, a suggestion of congenital insanity, a hint of incest, twins, ghosts, an ancient housekeeper, a reliable gardener, the well-meaning doctor, and an efficient and entirely scientific governess. It is wild enough that poor Margaret must surely doubt everything - but in demanding three facts that are public record, she finds evidence that the bare bones of the story check out. But being wise in the ways of the gothic novel, she's wise enough to realise things may not be what they appear...

This is brilliantly immersive, the sort of book that benefits from torches under the duvet, sucking you in and demanding one more chapter before sleep. It is a ghost story without being a ghost story; no horrors or terrors here beyond the loneliness of those who survive. And it is a book about writers, readers and lovers of books - beyond the recurring theme of Jane Eyre, there is the constant call and response of a passion for reading.

I do love a book about loving books. Apparently the BBC televised this recently and I missed it; I'm very glad I did, as I think it would suffer from a shorter form. But I might have to seek that out now to see how it bears up.

I too enjoyed The thirteenth tale when I read it a few years ago. My parents recorded the BBC adaptation for me at Christmas but I haven't watched it yet. I'll let you know my thoughts when I do (although I might have to reread the book to refresh my memory of it to know how the two compare!)

I checked it out today and the cast looks brilliant - sadly it's not on iPlayer, but I'll keep an eye out for it.

23) A Handful of Stars - Dana Stabenow

After the unexpected entertainment of Second Star, sequel A Handful of Stars is a bit of a mess. Picking up a couple of years later, the focus is on the Ellfive/Terranovan mission to the asteroid belt to find raw materials. The setting (and some of the characters) is closely modeled on the Alaskan gold rush, which starts out rough, ready and fairly amusing.

However, it lacks pace and focus, as it's all very episodic. If the first 2/3 of the book meanders slowly nowhere, the last turns and kinks all over with no sense of direction, commitment or interest in exploring consequences. And then it just stops.

All in all, this is diverting but dissatisfying after the promising first installment. I'll probably still read the third and final book for completeism (and in hope of the resolution missing from book 2).

24) Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

I remain ever so grateful to my Santa this year, as she selected a fabulous trio of apocalypse novels in spite of not considering herself a scifi reader. This is the second of the three, and my first foray into Atwood since The Blind Assassin came out: somehow I'd forgotten how easy it is to fall under the spell of her prose.

Snowman lives in an indeterminate near-future, a bedraggled and half-naked wild man with no civilisation and little sanity left. Self-appointed guru to the Crakers - genetically altered proto-humans, simplistic and charming - he sleeps in a tree to avoid predators and relies on his adopted tribe to bring him a fish a week as protein. Dreaming or waking, he is haunted by his past, and the novel evolves a split storyline that alternates his decision to go on a mission in search of supplies with his memories of growing up and - ultimately - the apocalypse that has brought down mankind.

I devoured the first half in a dreamy day at a spa, where I was as hazy as Snowman and could drift through the meandering first third without thinking too hard about what was going on (or seeking any form, rhyme or reason to it) - I think I might have found it harder going if I'd been reading it on a commute, but by that first day's end I'd stumbled into Oryx's backstory and from there on in the narrative gains direction and purpose.

Snowman is a necessarily unreliable narrator - he is under-fed, hydrated, sleep-deprived, and probably suffering from PTSD (not even 'post' - the trauma is ongoing) - and there's a suggestion that he has always drifted along the spectrum from wilfully naive to deliberately (self-)deceptive: his childhood habits of making up wild stories to be the centre of his classmates' attention; his indulgence of Crake's fascination with games that focus on megadeath and civilisation collapse, and his lack of consideration about what his signifies for Crake's choice in career; Oryx's insistence that she is not the girl Snowman/Jimmy this she is, and his willingness to believe the stories he suspects she's only making up to keep him happy; his fiction-fuelled relationships and break-ups with his various lovers. Snowman/Jimmy has always created his own reality, and now he creates that of the Crakers, who rely on his wisdom to explain the world to them. Lonely and self-absorbed his whole life, he isn't particularly likeable, although it's easy to feel sorry for him.

Still, the story works taken at face value - although I'm curious to see how (if) the sequels suggest his version of the past may be less than accurate. Ultimately, this is apocalyptic satire, and satisfying on both levels: the hellish corporate vision of the (uncomfortably believable) near-future, with its treasonous crime of hampering the dissemination of commercial products, and the apparently unlimited freedom with which the CorpSeCorps could gun people down. The unsubtle suggestion that all genetic modification is bad, m'kay (the velociraptor-like pigoons, shrewd and aggressive; snats and wolvogs), although I do tend to agree that corporations aren't the best judges of consequences - profits don't dovetail well with sensible, ethical decision-making. Crake's late assertion that art is the start of human downfall (and like war, is the product of repressed sexuality and frustrated testosterone - his views on female artists are less than positive). It's dark, it's well executed, and if it's unpleasant (and it is, sometimes very) it's also fascinating.

That said, this isn't a book that's kind to humanity (or gender), and it's sufficiently harsh in its satire that I'm going to make sure I'm in a positive frame of mind before I tackle Year of the Flood.

I have Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood in my TBR pile. How is the violence level? I like apocalyptic fiction, but can't stand graphic violence. With Margaret Atwood, I would expect it to be more intellectually/emotionally unsettling than overtly violent.

>106 SylviaC: the good news is that there's barely any. Most of the book takes place either significantly after or significantly before the apocalypse - and Snowman is well out of harm's way during the apocalypse itself, so while there is a little violence near the end it is over in a rush and not described in detail (as he's just not that sort of person - it's survival, and I think not focusing on it is part of his survival mechanism). As you say, the damage Atwood is dealing in here is far more intellectual and emotional than physical.

There's nothing like a good apocalypse that leaves the violence off-screen.

That's why I've always loved Wyndham :)

>109 imyril: Wyndham! I'm a total fan of Wyndham, even though I'm not generally a fan of post-apocalypse (or during apocalypse) books.

My mum has an awesome tale of being caught reading scifi under her desk in maths class. Her teacher tutted, took the book, and when he returned it at the end of class asked her whether she'd read Wyndham, as he thought she'd enjoy him too :)

Kraken and Triffidsare two of my all time favourite books. Jolly hockey sticks optimism as the world burns.

The Kraken Wakes is also in my TBR pile. I've loved Triffids since I was about 12 years old. Nevil Shute's On the Beach has got to be the ultimate stiff-upper-lip apocalypse. Everyone is just so very civilized.

>111 imyril: Great story, imyril! Kraken is not my favorite, but Day of the triffids is, as well as The Midwich cuckoos, and I really liked The chrysalids as well.

I was very excited to realize recently that his other first novel Plan for Chaos (written at the same time as Triffids, but never released) was finally released a couple of years ago. Apparently it's not very accomplished, but I'm keen to get my hands on a copy.

I'm also very fond of Cuckoos and Midwich - and Trouble with Lichen, although that arguably thinks even less of humanity than the others.

>112 SylviaC: ooh I shall have to look out On the Beach!

>112 SylviaC: I read my first Wyndham at 12 as well. It was The Chrysalids, and I was totally hooked on him after that.

I have read The Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos and enjoyed them both. I am looking forward to reading his other works.

>115 sangreal: My first encounter was The Chrysalids as well - it was a school text - I've actually just recently located and added a copy to my TBR pile (it looks like the same edition we used so many years ago) for a re-read as I don't remember the story properly. I never got around to reading anything else by him then - but if I enjoy the re-read I may well try to track down some of the other titles mentioned.

>117 Peace2: Hopefully you do enjoy the re-read, and go on to some of his others. I've found that his work stands up quite well to re-reading.

25) English as she is spoke Jose da Fonseca

This charming reprint is a jest at the expense of a 19th century instructional, originally written with the intention of helping Portuguese students learn English. The English editor (James Millington) presents excerpts from the phrase book, selected for their comic value - as it seems the original authors didn't actually speak English but French, and prepared their guide on the basis of their knowledge of French and a French:English dictionary.

Millington isn't afraid to make it clear that he finds it all hilarious and slightly hypocritical - as the authors in their own introduction make no mention of their methods, and claim their book is 'clean of gallicisms' (rather than being predominantly French phrases badly translated into English). The authors also claim 'scrupulous exactness' rather than 'a literal translation; translation what only will be for to accustom the portuguese pupils, or-foreign, to speak very bad any of the mentioned idiotisms'. The stage is set for a good old laugh at how badly we speak each other languages, at early Babelfish levels of fidelity.

Some mistranslation highlights:

• Kindred: the gossip mistress, the quater-grandmother
  
• Woman objects: the paint or disguise
  
• Servants: the coochmann (obviously a typo, but I watched Carnivale recently, with its cooch tent - something very different!)
  
• Parties of a Town: the sink, the low eating house, the obelisks (some town!)
  
• For the table: some groceries, some crumb (um, yes, well, I guess this is technically accurate)
  
• For eatings: some wigs(!), a little mine(?), hog fat (yum)
  
• Quadruped's beasts: a dragon (wow!)
  
• Fishes and shell-fishes: a sorte of fish (well, yes), a hedge hog (err, no), a torpedo (wait, what?)
  
• Chivalry orders: Black eagle, Elephant, Very-merit (ah yes, the Very-merit Order of the Elephant!)
  
• Degrees: a harbinger, a parapet (vs say, a great admiral or an army general - the mind boggles)
  

Once you get into the phrases, the comedy gets exponential. I grew up abroad, so have spent a lot of time around those who have learnt English as a second language, and have some familiarity with the grammatical contortions that result. I also speak a little French - which vastly helps in making sense of how some of the English translations were arrived at.

• Clear but curious: This ink is white and Dry this wine (I assume the second is meant as a descriptor not an instruction!) - not to mention Take attention to cut you self (I don't think you need the 'not' in Portuguese or French; missing it in English changes the meaning substantially)
  
• Fine in Portuguese: Where are their stockings, their shoes, her shirt and her petlicot? (the author has applied Portuguese rules onto the pronouns - making them match the nouns - and has unintentionally described a torrid disrobing ;)
  
• Garbled but clear: These apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in mouth and He does me some kicks (that would be fine... in French) and the rather unfortunate I have mind to vomit
  
• Wait, what? That are the dishes whose you must be and to abstain

...and then you reach the 'familiar' dialogues. These are often hilarious to the modern reader because of content as well as Babelfishing: the master complaining to his servant that his shirt is too cold; the diner eating bread as he is unsure if the meat is good; two gents complaining about the quality of servants these days; and - tellingly - the section on whether or not you speak French. Quite a specific target market in terms of social status ;)

The English (mis)translations of familiar letters and anecdotes also betray the French origins as they're largely between and about French people. These are almost but not quite impenetrable - the meaning you can (easily) divine is often not the one that was originally meant - but left me impressed that there weren't more European wars on the basis of diplomatic misunderstandings!

All in all, this was a fabulous little birthday present - an oddity and an entertainment. And certainly, do not might one's understand to speak...

26) We Are Here - Michael Marshall

I really enjoy Michael Marshall Smith. I was bemused when he became Michael Marshall, and the more MM I read the less clear-cut the distinction seems to be. He is prone to a number of gender tropes that are going to annoy many readers (male-dominated cast; women tend towards feminine mystique, especially intuition, and provide emotional rescues in return for physical ones; they are unlikely to save the day), but he has a narrative voice, a sense of humour and a love of cats that I can't resist.

That said, some of his recent books fall flat. The Intruders was the first, and Bad Things compounded it. I didn't bother buying Killer Move for years, as I'd had my faith shaken. When I eventually did - and loved it in spite of its flaws - it put me back on track to read We Are Here as soon as a paperback appeared. I didn't realise it was a sequel of sorts to Bad Things, or I might have hesitated.

Thankfully, We Are Here stands alone. It adheres to the MM template of a recognisably real, modern-day world (in fact, I suspect all his novels take place in a single mirror world, and the point is that our world is more mysterious than we like to think) and solid, everyday characters who come into contact with a mystery they cannot explain and are compelled to solve (and although two of those characters are survivors of Bad Things, there doesn't seem to be any other link).

Intuitive, independent Kris(tina) is drawn to mysterious Lizzy, who is caught between her need to stalk Kris' posh bookclub pal Cathy and her desire to move on. Lonely author David is unnerved and confused by the reappearance of his childhood friend Maj, but Maj has his own problems - and his enemies are quick to take advantage of this unexpected link to Maj's past. Fierce, impetuous John is far too down-to-earth to see things that aren't there, which is making it difficult to keep tabs on any of it - or handle the unseen's invasion into his life with Kris. Ruthless criminal Reinhart and driven visionary Golzen have their own plans, although it's unclear whether they have world domination or paradise in mind, but aren't going to let Maj, John or Kristina get in their way. It can't possibly end well.

The twist here is more MMS than MM - half the cast may or may not be real. Do they have the talent to fade into a crowd or do they actually become invisible? Are they the lonely dead or the lonely ghosts of forgotten ideas? Can a figment of your imagination hurt you? (clue: yes of course it can)

This starts and builds well - paranoid, suggestive, the sort of thriller that has you yelling 'DON'T SPLIT UP' and 'IT'S BEHIND YOU'. The tension ratchets well (the sequences in which David is stalked by Golzen's siblings are particularly chilling) although the stakes remain unclear. And then - for me at least - it all comes apart at the end. The novel trips over its own pace; Kris/Lizzy reaches a satisfying conclusion, but the Reinhart/Golzen/Maj/John climax left me cold and felt unresolved - Reinhart had been a threatening shadow, and his motivations were perhaps too unclear for the showdown to make a lot of sense.

There's a whole intriguing shadow world that I'd happily revisit though, so if the friends are explored further in a future novel, I'll probably pick it up.

27) Annihilation - Jeff Vandermeer

The first in the Southern Reach trilogy, Annihilation wasn't what I expected, and I was about halfway through when I realised I needed to adjust my filters to really get engaged. Southern Reach is a shadowy (government?) organisation that is investigating the mysterious, abandoned wilderness Area X. The novel follows the twelfth expedition sent in to probe its secrets, an all-female team of a psychologist, surveyor, biologist and anthropologist. Narrated by the biologist, a very cold fish who keeps the world at arm's length and then some, the novel drops clues from the start that things are not what they seem, and rapidly transforms from a mystery/thriller seeking answers and instead focuses on ideas of identity, perception and understanding. I think a reread will make it a very different book for me, and I'm looking forward to that. However, this isn't quite a 4* read for me on first encounter, because the prose isn't quite accomplished enough. I can see why it's compared to Atwood by one reviewer, but I can't help but think she (or Michel Faber, actually) would have elevated it with the stark beauty and control of their writing.

The team are inserted into Area X under hypnosis, the first clue that everything we know may be false. Later we learn that Southern Reach 'took their names' during training (and in extremis, this finally bothers the surveyor, who seeks to prove her companion's humanity by begging for her name); eventually, we find out that all previous explorers have died in the Area or on their return. The team themselves seem unconcerned by this last point - or perhaps only the biologist is. She, we come to realise, had no attachments to keep her in the world and lost her husband with the 11th expedition.

Emotionally aloof, more interested in ecosystems than people, her narration keeps the reader at a distance. She is a harsh judge of her fellow explorers, but we slowly realise through her inclusion of episodes about her childhood and her marriage that her internalisation of her emotions doesn't make them less strongly felt. Equally, that her apparently objective account is about as unreliable as they get - not only because she herself soon realises that she can no longer trust her perceptions.

Annihilation is about transitions - geographical, physical, emotional - explored through Area X, the lies of Southern Reach, and the tranformative alien presence living within it. It's weird and includes elements of Cthulhu-esque horror, but the biologist's cool narration shields you from the impact of almost everything - her account of her experiences is numb, possibly an attempt at scientific objectivity even though she knows she cannot possibly explain most of what she has seen. But it's mostly (for me) about the biologist's emotional journey. It's going to make a stunning, haunting and hopefully far from mainstream movie (I found it cinematic before I read it has already been optioned).

As an aside, the choice to make the entire cast female is interesting. In the absence of names or personalities (they're not there to study each other, and as an introverted outsider the biologist has little interest in the humanity of her colleagues) they could just as easily be male. Or alien. They are deliberately two-dimensional, with hints of depths that the narrator simply skims over. All this being true, it was just nice that the (male) author had chosen to make them all female - because why not.

I've just read the synopsis for the second Southern Reach book, which promises to provide a lot of those answers. And oddly, I'm slightly dismayed by this. I'm not sure I really want them after all ;) Contrary, me? Um, yes.

However, I think I trust Vandermeer at this point. I'm clearly dwelling on the themes and symbolisms of Annihilation so he's done good!

28) The Rabbit Back Literature Society - Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen

This was a recent discovery and bargain buy, and I'm really glad I picked it up. It had a few aspects that I found questionable / unnecessary, but overall it was lightly told, entertaining and a lot of fun. Ella Milana is a literature teacher, on a temporary placement in her home town when she comes across a copy of Dostoevsky that doesn't end the way she expects - she's fairly sure Sonja shouldn't shoot Raskolnikov. I'm not going to go into plot from there - one thing trips neatly into another as the book takes unexpected turns and rambles its way through the forest of local mythology, literary society and aspiring (and disappearing) writers - and when it manages to stay away from Ella's lips and nipples (seriously, why are they a repeated theme?) - it's delightful. Like Oskar's notebook, the novel ends up a little treasure trove of concepts that could each stand alone at the heart of a novel, strung together by Ella as she explores the mysteries of the Society and founder Laura White.

For all this gets tagged as magical realism, the town of Rabbit Back never feels real (it's a bit too contrived) and I felt the magical elements were strictly supporting cast - and arguably only a matter of perspective. For me, this was a novel about perception, conscience and inspiration - regular themes in my reading. I loved the differences in the various authors memories and interpretations of their shared past, and the strong implication that reality is what you choose to believe in. That's always an idea I can get behind :)

I powered through in an afternoon, although it was Do Nothing But Read Day!

That last books sounds intriguing, imyril. Am I correct to understand that there really are magical or supernatural elements to the story? Not just an 'oh, it was all suggestion, it wasn't real' kind of trick? (Hate those!)

And does this book require knowledge of classics and literature?

Absolutely no knowledge of literature required - most of the authors it refers to are fictional, and they spell out the problem with the Dostoevsky :)

There are genuinely mysterious elements that are never explained, suggesting that famous author Laura White and her home town of Rabbit Back aren't entirely 'normal'. Most of it could be suggestion and the chosen perception filters of the audience (but you're never told to accept this as truth; it could equally be supernatural); and there's one sequence for which there's no rational explanation at all. Two, actually - sure, there could be a mischievous printer messing with the classics, but as Ella finds books across different publishers that have been changed, it's wildly unlikely :)

Thanks imyril, that sounds good. I'm curious about it, it's going on my wishlist...

I too picked this up as a 99p kindle bargain, and am really looking forward to it.

>123 imyril: That one sounds really good. Precariously balanced atop Mt. TBR now!

I hope you all enjoy it :) I think it's a good'un!

I'm slowly progressing through Curse of the Mistwraith, with its beautifully dense prose. Sadly, my ongoing headache problems make it really difficult for me to concentrate for extended periods of time (and to follow dense prose, natch), so I know my enjoyment has suffered for the wrong reasons in places. However, I've made sufficient progress now for the unfolding drama to be taking shape, and it's certainly keeping me coming back for more. I think I'll need to keep tackling it in doses (hooray for chapters), although I've whistled through the second quarter during a couple of clear-headed days (on the bad days I can barely make a couple of paragraphs).

I have put The Cloud Roads aside to make hay while the sun shines on the Mistwraith (so to speak); it's a lot easier reading, so I'll keep it handy for when the clouds gather inside my head again.

In the real world, it's snooker world championship time again - I find it absurdly comforting to ignore in the background while I focus on something else, and this year am more impressed than ever by the powers of concentration on display (not least because my own are hopelessly impaired).

I enjoyed Curse of the mistwraith when we read it here in the Dragon a couple of years ago. But I'd agree, it requires a lot more concentration than many fantasy novels - but I'd say the rewards are greater too! I do need to start on the sequels but I've packed them away somewhere, or hidden them under the bed and I can't find them now!

>130 imyril: My sympathies on the headache situation; it's one I'm entirely too familiar with :(

On a better note, I picked up The Rabbit Back Literature Society! Don't know how soon I'll get to it, but it's there tempting me!

>108 SylviaC: & >109 imyril: I have a thing for post-apocalyptic fiction, and I'm afraid to examine my obsession with it too closely.

Enjoyed both of the Wyndham's I've read, too. I must get my hands on The Chrysalids but it isn't available for Kindle right now. I started Oryx & Crake and I just couldn't get into it for some reason. I usually love Atwood so I plan to try again at some point.

>133 clamairy: I did find Oryx and Crake a slow burn - I was glad I had such a quiet day with no distractions so that it could creep up on me.

I'm thinking about picking up a Wyndham next as a nice light digestif. I'm sure apocalypse fiction isn't supposed to work that way, but I don't plan to think too hard about that ;)

>134 imyril: *smile* Good point about Wyndham, but I also find his work relaxing.

29) Midwinter of the Spirit - Phil Rickman

As I took a mental nosedive at the end of the week and had reached a good hold point in Mistwraith (things have gone horribly wrong in Etarra; time to change focus from wraiths to warfare I suspect), I popped it down for a couple of days until I get my concentration back. In the meantime, it was back to Merrily Watkins for some easy reading.

Midwinter is set perhaps a year after The Wine of Angels - Merrily has lived down the more colourful aspects of her first months and settled into her rambling vicarage in Ledwardine. Daughter Jane is now 16, and still interested in a non-Christian spirituality (behind her vicar mum's back). Merrily herself has pursued her awakened interest in the less mundane aspects of her belief, and trained as an exorcist, supported by the radical new Bishop of Hereford.

If Angels was about village life, local politics and the prejudices against female priests within their congregations, Midwinter picks up with the three main characters (Merrily, Jane and damaged former singer Lol Robinson) and moves the story onto the bigger stage of Church politics, prejudices against female priests within the clergy, and the sharp pointy end of dealing with the occult. The supernatural elements are dialled up to 11 here, and the story is about as cheerfully over the top as you might expect - hauntings, blood sacrifices, possession, sex magic, and terror in holy precincts. Yes, it gets very silly, although I liked that evil here is the work of the living, not nebulous terror from beyond the grave (although I'd have liked a more even-handed portrayal of non-Christian spirituality, which I think got rough treatment here vs in book 1; one to keep an eye on in future novels).

I raced through this and enjoyed it as a guilty pleasure, but after this second outing I'm flagging my emerging issues with Rickman's Herefordshire (now they've cropped up in 2 books):

- the focus on Merrily's physical attributes. I get that he's trying to make the point that it's tough being a female priest, and being a young and pretty one makes it even harder, but the focus on her looks sometimes feels prurient. Thankfully this is dialled back after the initial couple of chapters, but I'm not kidding - some characters passes comment on her looks at least every 50 pages.

- Merrily's lack of confidence, specifically her tendency to turn to a male authority figure to validate what she's doing (and I don't mean God). Merrily seeks guidance from her male tutor and her uncle in book one; from her male spiritual adviser and the Bishop in book two. Given how terrible their guidance tends to be, it bothers me that it always takes her so long to dig out her own spine and do what she wanted to do all along. Because she's not credibly political so this isn't about ensuring consensus; she just lacks conviction. On the flip side, part of the arc of these books is her realising that it's all on her; her getting over her crises of faith; and having her come good regardless of what's at stake - rising above her insecurity.

- the recurring archetype of the dangerous female temptress (how many good Christian men get led astray by sex with evil women in book 2?!) and the muddied horror movie trope that sex = death. I'd like to not see a subtext of subversive female sexuality in future instalments.

I also felt Merrily got let off the hook a bit here, when she supports Dobbs in the Cathedral, but his appearance means she doesn't need to take full responsibility herself, and Huw later strongly implies it was all unnecessary anyway thanks to the (male saint's) holy relics.

What I'm looking for in the next instalment (as there's enough entertainment here that I've not been put off; just putting the series on notice): more focus on people and relationships than occult plot (I missed the village life of Ledwardine here); more conviction from our heroine; no sexy teenage girls; and if I were really lucky, an emerging friendship between the inimitable Annie Howe and Merrily. Merrily struggles with DCI Annie Howe, but I think she's awesome - she doesn't put up with any of the patronising nonsense Merrily accepts, she's hardnosed, competent and no-nonsense: just the sort of friend a female exorcist needs.

On the plus side, still no running around with guns, which is a total off-putter for me. Crucifixes and flower pots, absolutely fine.

30) Curse of the Mistwraith - Janny Wurts

Woohoo, I finished! :) I don't feel I did this justice on this read, and I'm glad I ended up reading in stages - the fact I enjoyed certain parts of the journey so much more than others may well reflect on the state I was in rather than on the twists and turn of the story itself.

Janny's epic demands and deserves much more brain than I could apply to it - it's beautifully written, in lush prose that makes the most of the riches the English language has to offer. When I was in a good place, I really enjoyed the precision and depth of the language; when I wasn't, I didn't, which is utterly unlike me and became a sure indicator that I should put the novel down and come back when I was feeling better. In terms of the story itself, there's an epic scale to the tragedy that I needed to be in the right health and mental state to enjoy rather than just appreciate the execution of (sadly, I wasn't).

My main problem, though, was that I basically disliked everybody in it.

I had hopes for Lysaer when he was outraged by Arithon's treatment and stood up to his father, but all that went by the wayside in favour of irrational prejudice when he was banished through the Gate. Once on Athera, he sometimes seemed petty, often prejudiced, and embraced the sort of Lawful Good version of justice that makes me bare my teeth (spot the barbarian northerner over here). As an aside, I don't understand how Lysaer's father appears to have escaped his hereditary trait. He was tyrannically unjust - specifically, the threat to kill the healer if he failed to heal Arithon (and frankly, his need to torture Arithon to death rather than just let him die) seemed to me at odds with his supposed s'Ilessid heritage.

Arithon, on the other hand, was generally right up my street (magician, musician, swordsman, wit) - but gosh, so sulky! While I generally approved of his actions in the end, his begrudging embrace of necessity and his efforts to avoid it wore a bit thin. I also felt the narrative was weighted in his favour, and I'd have felt better about that if he didn't repeatedly do things that annoyed me (especially with reference to the clansmen and his musical angst). It's not that he doesn't feel real - it is all utterly credible - it just made me like him less.

So there they are, hamstrung by hereditary traits that set my teeth on edge, and then they get cursed to behave badly at each other to boot, and Lysaer is utterly unapologetically awful. I'll admit I smacked my own nose for thinking that if I were Sethvir and Asandir I wouldn't have bothered trying to save his life in Etarra (given what they knew would result); he'd banished the Mistwraith, so I'd have been sorely tempted to just let him die and give Arithon a war he could win. Clearly I've read too much GRRM.

...which brings us to the Fellowship. The almost but not quite omnipotent Fellowship, whose moral choices are far beyond the judgement of mortal man. The Fellowship clearly feel they are the moral arbiters of Athera, but they're not objective at all (although still, apparently, more ethical than me ;) and are willing to let the world burn if it will fix their precious Fellowship - the loss of the Paravians was unacceptable, but it was the restoration of the Seven that seemed to justify the risks they would countenance.. However, in CotM they have the moral high ground and the upper hand in the narrative - their actions only criticised by antagonists who are portrayed in a negative light (the Koriathain; the townsmen) - so I hope they are undermined in subsequent volumes.

I didn't like the Koriathain either, which is unfortunate as they're the principal female characters (unlikeable Talith and fabulous but far-too-briefly-seen Maenalle and Dania are peripheral at best). I understand there is more even representation for women (hooray!) later in the cycle, which is promising - for all the negative way in which they were portrayed in CotM, I felt I could grow to at least understand and sympathise with Morriel and Lirenda; but didn't get a chance in this first outing. Elaira likewise has promise of being the spunky provocateur, although I've got an enormous issue with insta-love.

At the end of the novel, I'm left torn. There was much to appreciate here, but I didn't enjoy it very much - although as noted above, I do feel that this is partly because of my illness. I will continue exploring the War of Light and Shadow once I am in better health, although seeing that Dakar is a major character is almost enough to put me off - I liked him least of all, which is quite an achievement given some of the nastiness other characters get up to!

I love this series. Yeah, the women are thin on the ground but one does step up. And indeed they are dense. And I love how twisty Arithon is as the series progresses.

>138 majkia: if I get more clansmen and see the Fellowship trip over some humility at some point, I think there's enough meat in the dish to keep me happy. I do like the ingredients, and I love the hints @jannywurts has seeded about the many layers the tale will reveal.

Janny does a great job of seeding hints that things are not always what they seem. As the books progress the world is revealed to be far more complex and complicated than it seems at first.

I have to admit, I had a serious wish to smack the Fellowship up the side of the head in that first book, as well.

I had some of the same issues as you, imyril, with Curse of the Mistwraith, but the hints and clues of things to come made me pick up the second book recently. I found I could plunge straight into it without needing to rack my brains to remember stuff from the previous book, and am finding it a far more gripping read overall. I totally agree that the narrative seems to have set up Arithon as the hero and Lysaer as an antagonist - at least, I certainly can't find any sympathy for L at present. We spend more time with A who is much more positive and proactive so far than he was in CotM. I want to smack Dakar and can't understand how the appeal he seems to hold for women wherever he goes. But it is interesting to see how his attempts at plotting rebound against him. I'm definitely hooked at this point.

>141 Sakerfalcon: that's very promising :) I'll follow in your footsteps later this year.

We're off to Iceland in 2 weeks, so I need to pull out some Sagas and finally get round to Names for the Sea: strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss (which may turn into a good reason to pick up her new book - I do enjoy her work!)

>137 imyril:, >138 majkia: & >141 Sakerfalcon: I agree with all of you. I did, ultimately, feel the book was well worth the slog, and I plan to keep reading. I didn't have illness as an excuse for finding the writing too dense for me in places, though. I did notice that if I'd had a couple of glasses of wine over the course of an evening I couldn't follow the book as well at bedtime. LOL

>143 clamairy: I find many things more difficult to follow after a couple of glasses of wine :)

>144 imyril: True. That's when having some YA books around is a big plus.

>144 imyril: and >145 clamairy: *snort* I ought to have thought of that as a rationale behind the robust number of adults reading YA.

>146 jillmwo: ah but is it the wine driving us to YA or the YA driving us to drink? ;)

>142 imyril:: Iceland is high on my wishlist of places to visit. Another book set there that you might enjoy is Burial rites - it's a bit bleak but beautifully written and really brings the landscape to life.

>142 imyril: Have you read Dreaming of Iceland by Sally Magnusson? The author is the daughter of the famous Magnus Magnusson, and the book is the story of a family journey from their home in Scotland to the ancestral part/s of Iceland. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would dig it out of the library (ETA:) again if I were ever so lucky as to go to Iceland.

>148 Sakerfalcon: I bought my Mum a copy for Christmas and hope to borrow it from her :)

>149 hfglen: ooh. I shall have to look out for that!

Currently debating whether to buy a new camera for the trip. I'd really kinda like (ie utterly desire) the new Lytro but a) expensive! and b) not out until July. So we are considering a hybrid digital compact / SLR. Because I suspect Iceland will be utterly worth it.

I hope you post some of your vacation pictures here, so we can all dream of distant lands.

>151 SylviaC: I can happily do that. I promise not to bring back any rotten shark though, delicacy or not.

>150 imyril: Don't know if it helps any, but I bought a new Pentax DSLR a few days into my November trip to the highveld just 2 days before going to the Kruger Park. Pentax because I have half a ton of legacy kit of that make, some of it 50 years old-and-still-going-strong, and the adapter to use the screw-in lenses on bayonet-mount bodies. I was a tad worried about using the new 'un straight out of the box far from help if something goes wrong, but it performed beautifully. (Give or take that I still haven't read, much less understood, all 300+ pages of the manual.)

ETA: after said DSLR and the office compact, I'd go for the one that has more bits that can be detached, replaced or switched off, thereby gaining maximum flexibility.

>151 SylviaC: I'll second that, but hope for a full trip report in a separate thread!

Woop woop! Finally got to see the consultant at the hospital today, and she has confirmed that the original GP wasn't listening to a word I was saying and will actually give me some medication to hopefully get a handle on the headaches. Hooray! There's a few more tests to follow to be sure there's nothing else going on, but in the meantime there's at least a chance I may go back to being pain free. Words pretty much fail me on quite how exciting this is after the past 4 months. Fingers crossed for the useful side effect of weight loss and none of the funky ones ;)

So glad you got good news, @imyril!!

That sounds wonderful, imyril!

Hoping for all good outcomes (including the happy side effect) for you!

31) Plague Ship - Andre Norton

I picked this up on Gutenberg as I realised I've not read any Norton in years. It's a slim slice of 50s scifi - traders in space, negotiating the intricacies of alien cultures, dodging the traps of human corporate politics, and trying to stay alive as the stakes escalate and the rookies are left in charge. I liked the casual multiculturalism of the Solar Queen (no women, naturally - it's the 50s), although I assume the opening scene wasn't meant to be quite as Brokeback as it was in my head (but: gruff blokes rubbing perfumed oils into each other? I don't care what the excuse was ;)

This was a fairly low-key affair - while it was nominally high stakes stuff, I didn't feel the tension and I wasn't sucked in, I just rolled along with it. The focus was more on the nuts and bolts competence of getting the job done; it was remarkably under-sensationalised, which made for an interesting, but workmanlike execution. Still, there's something quite appealing about it; the crew feel real precisely because they get on with what feel like real jobs, and worry about day to day concerns. But it's not very exciting, so it's really easy not to go looking for the various sequels. It's a bit like reading a bunch of books about reasonably interesting car mechanics with silly names (Dane Thorsson - obviously looks like Chris Hemsworth in my head - but Captain Jellico. Really? Really??)

>158 imyril: I think I have that one on my e-reader, along with the couple of hundred other free books that I downloaded in my first burst of enthusiasm. I have a whole lot of other books to read before I get around to that one.

>159 SylviaC: likewise. And y'know, I really wouldn't rush. It's interesting for having a black dude and and a Muslim as 2 of 4 main characters, and while I praise Norton for doing that, I also note there's only brief passing reference made so you could practically miss it. But still pretty wild for the times.

Otherwise it's less lurid than pulp, less accomplished than a true classic. It's just fine.

32) The Witching Hour - Anne Rice

A visit up memory lane. The Mayfair Witches were my preferred flavor of Rice as a teenager, and I thought I'd go see if the suck fairy had paid them a call in the intervening years.

Michael Curry is pulled from the sea by a mysterious woman on a boat, gaining a mission that he can't remember and a power in his hands that he'd prefer to dismiss. When he eventually finds his rescuer - brilliant, beautiful neurosurgeon Rowan Mayfair - he finds his soulmate. But she is heir to an occult legacy that can only come between them.

It's every bit as silly as it sounds, and it's well-stocked with problematic tropes that I'd find utterly unforgivable if I were reading it for the first time now: Curry is old enough to be Rowan's father; it's instalove - and she's crying to have his babies within about a week; they're married within months; there's a little too much perfection and far too much money sloshing around; and then there's an awkward set of references to rape and abortion that are dubious at best. Very dubious.

It may be the ultimate antidote to show don't tell though, with - I'm not kidding - several hundred pages of exposition in the middle. And this is technically the good bit: the 400 year history of the witches and their intangible familiar Lasher, source of their wealth (if not their paranormal powers). At least the historical exposition is less repetitive than the modern day prose and dialogue.

Bizarrely, although the tale revolves around strong women who wield all the power, it still feels like it's dominated by strong male characters thanks to the POV time given to Curry and the all pervading presence of Lasher himself. I'm not convinced it would pass the Bechdel test.

But. Guilty pleasure. I can see the problems with it, but some of the writing is atmospheric and I do admire the intricacy of the history section. I probably will read the sequel later this year (which I recall also centres on a good slice of historical exposition ;) but no rush.

Ultimately, the suck fairy has certainly called in, but she hasn't quite ruined it for me. But it's pretty terrible.

Ah, the suck fairy and her wand of doom! She's far too hard-working! :D

>162 Peace2: I wonder if she earns commission? :)

How in the name of everything ever worshipped under the sun did I forget to pack my Kindle?

My beloved other has expressed some concern about bodysnatching and poor infiltration research.

My sympathies to you! How will you cope? Hopefully you'll be busy enough during the day and evening, and exhausted enough afterwards not to miss it too much ... maybe? Your beloved other may have a point though :D

33) Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh - Robert O'Brien

The May Morphy Group read, which I couldn't resist joining in. I can still see why I loved this as a child (and why I hated the film, actually), with its plucky, well-mannered heroine. There are echoes of its time in the narrative (we never learn Mrs Frisby's given name - she's arguably an adjunct to Jonathan, but I think it's more about social politeness of the era) but otherwise this is pretty timeless stuff with good lessons about refusing to accept the status quo and striving to make the world a better place, however small and normal you may be.

As a child, I completely missed that it was rigged for a sequel. I may need to find out what happened next, although there's an inevitable sadness in its future: only Mrs Frisby lacks an enhanced lifespan.

34) Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland - Sarah Moss

I've been saving this, so our impromptu trip north was the perfect time to finally read it (I'll read sagas next time).

Moss is an English academic (English Lit) and novelist, whose first 2 novels (Cold Earth and Night Waking) have been in my top 5 the past 2 years. Entranced by the far north as a teenager, she couldn't resist a job at the University of Iceland and arrived just as the country neared bankruptcy after the economic collapse.

Her narrative is engaging as usual, although it becomes clear how much Nina and Anna (her fictional heroines) borrow from their creator (although I had slightly less urge to shake Sarah herself) as she tries to find her feet in a foreign country with a culture of doing not telling, and where almost everything she took for granted in the UK is unavailable or shipped in at great cost and unaffordable on her academic wage.

Her attempts to grapple with the Icelandic psyche (and learn to love Icelandic food) are entertaining, and made a an interesting counterpoint to the 'truths' peddled by our guidebook and local tourism. She is quick to remind that her own truths may be equally misguided; her experience of being foreign is isolating and peripheral, ignorant of custom and shielded from many realities by her very English lack of confidence in learning a new language (this was familiar to me from my childhood - my mother would send me to ask for things, as I had no self conscious filters about my mangling of my newly-acquired second language).

Moss's own cultural and social (class) prejudices are also on candid display - a couple of offhand comments are almost painfully blind to the harsh truths of poverty - although this leads to an investigation of the Icelanders almost willful ignorance of their poorer citizens.

Interestingly, her husband Anthony is marginalised in the narrative, almost invisible, although her sons get plenty of page time. Given Moss's clear enchantment with her surroundings, it almost feels like a reversal of the spousal relationship in Night Waking, and I (perhaps unnecessarily) felt quite sorry for him.

Fascinating stuff, and the perfect time to dust it off.

...and, as promised, a trip report can be found over here, along with a couple of extra photos on Instagram.

I will take time out later today to learn about posting images here, but first up I have to go meet a lady about some potential work.

>168 imyril: Thank you, the trip report was excellent. I think I might need to travel there sometime to see Gullfoss and the stunning architecture myself.

@imyril Amazing pics from your trip - that's another somewhere to add to my list of places I want to go!

Wonderful trip report! Now I want to do some research on Icelandic agriculture.

>169 LunaticDruid: >170 Peace2: >171 SylviaC:

Thank you :) It's absolutely worth a visit, and doesn't half get you thinking (how do you manage anything at all with just 2 hours of daylight in midwinter?) - I think I'll be reading quite a bit of related fiction and non-fiction in the coming years to try and understand it better.

35) The Woodcutter - Kate Danley

I picked this up as another interesting / respected example of a modern retelling of fairytales. As with Tinder, I recognised that this means problematic fairytale tropes would be in evidence, but I had hoped that - like Sally Gardner - Danley would have woven in original elements that would help her novel rise above its roots. I like fairytales, especially when told aloud by a performance storyteller (or storyteller, as they used to be called), but they are by nature short and simple. Longform, I think you need to add something to make it all work. Tinder had spectacular artwork, beautiful prose, and an interesting thread of PTSD. The Woodcutter has, um, well, I'm going to struggle here.

The eponymous Woodcutter is responsible for keeping the peace between the mighty fae and the 12 human kingdoms about the Wood. The fragile peace relies on 'wuv, twoo wuv' between a king and queen (one of whom must be of faerie descent) in each human kingdom, with the Woodcutter as a sort of referee who steps in when either race behaves badly or wild magic comes out to play. The all-conquering force of love counters human greed, and stops the fae massacring humankind.

So much for original background setting - it's fine, and although I'm unfond of instalove as ever (and this really is love at first sight and the power of love's first kiss to boot) it does at least underline that this is fairytale. And I'm always a fan of the fae as Wild Hunt who mankind should walk softly around.

But everything else is borrowed. The tale opens with a princess (Cinderella) fleeing a monster in the Wood. Distressed by her untimely death, the Woodcutter goes in search of the Beast that killed her, giving him a framing quest to journey the Wood and the Kingdoms to ensure at least half of them remain loyal to the pact and secure the other princesses - Rapunzel, Snow White, Red Riding Hood and so on - from the wicked Queen and her consort who are at the root of the bother.

This is where the whole thing failed for me - he simply meets fairytales and they play out more or less as you would expect (with a couple of gender switches, but don't expect (human) women to rise above traditional Grimm roles - princesses need protecting and accept pain as a measure of their worth; mothers are greedy, malicious, or evil; and crones are magic).

Jack, Rumpelstiltskin, Iron Shoes, Baba Yaga, the Twelve Dancing Princesses and even the Billy Goats Gruff(!) all make appearances and play out their tales, the fae are ruled by Oberon and Titania and the Wild Hunt is led by Odin. It's a hodgepodge at best, and while I think the reader is meant to glory in all these traditional tales coming together, I found myself wincing. There can be no surprises here if you grew up reading the stories, but there's no added depth either - the characters are their one-dimensional fairytale selves, simplistically woven into a single narrative.

I might have enjoyed all this as a young teen (or even younger), but as an adult read it is flat and disappointing - especially when there are a number of more interesting fairytale remixes out there. Should probably be repackaged and marketed as children's fiction (I think even YA is misleading - at 14 I'd have been as dismissive of this as I am now).

I think I'll follow this up with Authority (Southern Reach) by way of something completely different!

Your trip sounds amazing; I'm very envious! Thank you for sharing your report and pics.

I think I was sent an offer to buy the Woodcutter for kindle for not much money, but thought it looked a bit generic. Based on your review I'm glad I didn't bother to download it.

I'm really enjoying Authority at the moment - very different from book 1 but just as intriguing.

I just bought a copy of Names for the Sea after a friend recommended it. Sarah Moss is also one of her favourite authors. Now I'm doubly looking forward to reading it. Iceland is a part of our world I know nothing about; thanks for sharing your trip report and photos. It's starting to become a place I'd love to visit someday.

>174 Sakerfalcon: You're very welcome. I do enjoy taking photos and writing a trip report, so really it's totally self-indulgent ;) I think my copy of The Woodcutter was an Amazon case of 'hey you bought this, you can have any of these 4 for £1' (or maybe even free? they do that too sometimes) so I don't feel too bad about it, but I'd heartily recommend you save your reading time for something better! Very much enjoying Authority so far too.

>175 sandragon: I heartily recommend Iceland unless you're a) vegetarian or b) hate fish. Apparently it is possible to be a vegetarian there, but I have to assume it is both extremely boring and very expensive (as there's not a lot of local food grown, so most things will be imported - and the population is so tiny at 300,000 that options will always be quite limited and/or costly). My cousin is dying to go, but is a meat-eater who hates lamb and fish and has a low tolerance for dairy, which basically makes her a vegan in Iceland. I haven't figured out how to break this news to her. Maybe if she packs food instead of clothes she can still get by...

In other news, I'm finally watching season 3 of The Walking Dead. I don't find it as compelling as Season 2 (which was less compelling than Season 1 for me - I think it worked better short and punchy rather than dragged out and detailed), so needless to say I've got most of the way through it in two days on account of 'Just One More' syndrome. I don't do media owned by Fox / the Murdoch family, so I'll have to wait until autumn to catch up on Season 4. Probably just as well for the sake of sleeping soundly with pleasant dreams.

Ah well, back to work (part time, but still) next week.

Yeah, you got me with the Sarah Moss book too. I sooooo want to see Iceland some day...

lovely photos from your trip! thanks much for sharing!

For other tantalising glimpses of the northern European seaboard, I'm also enjoying Rain Later, Good by Peter Collyer. This begins with snapshots of Norway that make me want to go there in the near future. However, this is a tour of the Shipping Forecast in watercolour paintings, with accompanying travel notes, so ultimately it will touch on Denmark, Holland, France, northern Spain, the UK, Ireland and Iceland - along with the various sea areas. I'm reading a couple of regions a day, to really enjoy the beautiful paintings and the droll notes and pencil drawings that go with them. Collyer has done a brilliant job of capturing the colours and reflected light of the North Sea.

36) Authority - Jeff Vandermeer

The sequel to Annihilation picks up the action outside Area X and inside the agency responsible for monitoring and investigating it, as Central (?Intelligence?) send fixer John Rodriguez into Southern Reach to take control after the presumed death of its director. An outsider, Central are relying on his fresh eyes to help them bring order - but he faces fierce, accomplished resistance from his second-in-command, and soon realises that the chaos and the crazy go a lot deeper than just the former director. It is soon an open question whether it will be possible to bring order to the Southern Reach - or ever understand Area X.

I had far less trouble engaging with Authority than Annihilation, and it increased my respect for Vandermeer's abilities. Where I previously criticised Vandermeer for clunky prose, I now realise to what extent this was a deliberate reflection of the biologist's taciturn, opaque nature - the prose here is more fluid, because Rodriguez is an insecure, introspective manipulator who deals in words. It's great stuff, and I was absorbed from start to finish.

I would still have been happy with Annihilation as a stand-alone novel left open to interpretation, but I really enjoyed the progression here and am thoroughly looking forward to the final installment later this year.

37) Still Life - Louise Penny

The first instalment in the Gamache crime series, set in the sleepy Quebec town of Three Pines. The community is rocked when one of their number is found dead in the woods, shot by an arrow. Inspector Gamache and his team are called in from Montreal to investigate, and must unpick the personalities, histories and relationships of the innocuous inhabitants to find murderer and motive.

This series came highly recommended, but the first instalment fell flat for me. I'm not a big fan of crime - especially cosy crime - so this was always going to be a hard sell for me. My focus was largely on the characters, and sadly I struggled to find anything to like in any of them other than Armand Gamache himself - and not enough in him to get attached to. Combined with slightly awkward prose style (it is a debut novel, and I imagine the style improves over subsequent volumes), this is enough for me to leave the series here as pleasant enough if you like that sort of thing, but not my cup of tea.

I liked that Penny placed a gay couple at the heart of her community, and that Myrna engaged in some rather pagan rituals in the woods, and nobody bats an eyelid at either - but I didn't like the way Clara was constantly undermined, or just how awful Yolande and Agent Yvette Nichol were. I got the impression I was supposed to like Ruth Zardo for being brash, outspoken and eccentric, but she too fared poorly with me as just downright rude.

I suspect I'd like this better on screen, although given I watch crime even more rarely than I read it, the chances of me finding out (there is a dramatisation) is low.

So - on to Burning Bright for the group read!

When I read Still Life, the message I came away with, particularly with regard to Agent Yvette Nichol, was that listening (Gamache's strong suit) was key to solving crime. Gamache focused on that in his work and Agent Nichol -- for all of her ambition to succeed with the team -- failed in that regard. She wasn't able to suspend her own assumptions long enough to grasp how others involved in the murder were talking about it, what they revealed unconsciously. In fact, most of the secondary conflicts in the story could be traced back to a failure to listen. Now, it's been two or three years since I read Still Life, so I may have muddled some things in my memory, but I do recall that listening was established as the key characteristic for Gamache and that has carried through other books in the series that I have read.

>182 jillmwo: You're spot on - Gamache continually takes time out to listen, either to individuals who want to share (even if what they want to talk about isn't immediately / obviously relevant, he'll listen to learn more about them and the community, as that may help him - and the relationship building does not harm) or just to the village itself (taking time out to stand on the green, sit on the bench or in the cafe and see what comes to him).

Nichol can't hear anyone else over the volume of her inner monologue (and we've all met people like that, I guess!), but it was the emphasis on her repeated wilful misunderstanding of the advice on (?)Ruth's bathroom mirror that 'the problem is right in front of you' (i.e. the person in the mirror) that niggled at me. For all her flaws (not listening; lack of regard for others' feelings whilst super-sensitive about herself), Nichol is a bright, intuitive woman, so by the third time she'd twisted 'the problem is right in front of you' to mean someone / something stood behind her when she was staring at her own reflection, it really bugged me. Perhaps I've spent too much time over recent years around people who can take criticism? :) (I work in a predominantly creative environment, so for all the egos strolling around, they do tend to be fine-tuned for criticism)

I admire Penny for being comfortable putting fairly unlikeable individuals front and centre - typically the rookie is the one who opens the door for the reader, so is very sympathetic, and Penny successfully turns that trope on its head with Nichol - but I can't say I enjoyed the experience.

38) Burning Bright - Melissa Scott

I merrily joined the group read because I liked @sandstone78 's conceit of the trilogy of book names (Tiger Tiger/The Stars My Destination, Burning Bright, In the Forests of the Night ... although from subsequent comments, that last one might get a miss - sparkly vampires have less appeal than they once did) as much as because the plot description sounded right up my street: scifi! heroine! role-play! political intrigue!

...and it didn't disappoint. I won't go so far as to say it made up for my grievances against Bester, but I didn't ask it to; it has still instantly become a firm favourite and in my top three reads of the year so far.

The planet Burning Bright is an independent trading station caught between two superpowers: the human Republic and the hsai Empire; it is also the home of the Game, a networked roleplay game that provides infinite scenarios (if deliberately little closure) in an alternate universe of equal political intrigue and psi powers. For Quinn Lioe, Republican pilot, a forced stop-over on Burning Bright while her ship is repaired is an excuse to test out a new scenario she has written on the Game's home planet and cement her growing reputation in the Game; but winning the attention of Game notables unexpectedly draws her into the political wrangles of the real world.

I used to be a gamer, and the joy of a great session was also the pain of a poor one: the magic of collaborative creativity blossoms based on equal ability and commitment from all involved. Weak links (or self-involved ones) can bring down a session and derail a scenario, no matter how determined or creative the person/people in charge (although the Game appears more tolerant of railroading than gamers I have met). I recognised Lioe's frustration with her players, and Ransome's decision to embrace an art form that gave him total control of his stories - I went from playing to writing scenarios back to writing fiction for the same reasons. Give me one thing that rings so totally true, and I'll swallow everything else more or less wholesale ;)

However, it's worth noting that the Game is really a peripheral element here - it hooked me in, but it's not what the book is really about, and you don't have to give a damn about gaming to enjoy this as fine political scifi. Clashing civilisations, smuggling, smouldering grudges, carnivals and monsoons make for a heady mix in a colourful city where old and new technology merge seamlessly. I didn't find myself questioning gondolas, helicopters or bicycles as means of getting around the canal-based city - I did find myself making assumptions about energy generation, food sources and so on that the text often validated in passing (Burning Bright is an ocean world; the city is on a rare and limited land-mass). I couldn't begin to guess how far in the future this was meant to be; if it's our future at all. It doesn't really matter - it doesn't get in the way of the story.

I also liked that sexuality just wasn't a thing here. Liberal is the name of the game, and non-possessive is the only way to play it.

I'd love to revisit this universe. It's a great creation, with strong characters (of both genders). I spent a good deal of the book trying to decide whether Damian Chrestil was actually a villain or whether my perceptions were being coloured by Ransome's perspective on the Chrestil family in general; I love that sort of ambiguity, and I liked how Scott handled it through to the end.

Great stuff. Thank you @sandstone78!

Random midweek reflection: the more 'Name that Book' romance requests I see, the more they weird me out. There's some seriously disturbing so-called romantic fiction out there peddling some horrible tropes. Eeeuuuuwwwww.

>185 imyril: I've been thinking the same thing! Whether the plot points make more sense in context I don't know, but on the surface they are not what I would find romantic.

I'm about 150 pages into Burning Bright and really enjoying it. Your comments make me wish I had more reading time at the moment. I like your comment about the mix of old and future modes of transportation, it's a very good point. After all, we have not abandoned the bicycle despite having developed alternative "better" ways to get around. And I noticed a remark in the book about the need to save energy; it was describing the velocab, where the driver supplements the motor by pedalling. Very interesting!

>186 Sakerfalcon: I'm not sure which is squickier - that these plots are written, or that that people are so attached to them (altho it's a less-than-virtuous circle - demand drives supply I suppose).

Burning Bright definitely won me over! It's also sent me off Mount TBR for a gambol into Reread Vale with Polar City Blues. Good shared tropes there!

>185 imyril:, 186, 187: I've been noticing that about the Name that Book romance plots, too. I read a lot of older books, so I'm not usually too bothered by outdated sex and gender roles, but I'm appalled at the number of inquiries about books in which rape and physical abuse are considered romantic plot points. It is disturbing that the supply and demand seem to be so robust.

>188 SylviaC: I'm forgiving of others enjoyment of traditional age and class difference love stories too (although not my cup of tea :) - they've been around a long time, and they'll be popular for a long time yet - but the rape, abuse, incest, etc seem to be bewilderingly popular. And some of the details that have been shared along the way as apparently attractively romantic (in so far as someone desperately wants to find that book again) have made my hair stand on end.

Takes all sorts, I know, but...

>161 imyril: I'm late to the party on this one, but I really enjoyed The Witching Hour when I read it back in the 90s. I didn't enjoy the next two in the series as much, though. I have the 4th and 5th somewhere (my bathroom?) but haven't found the time to visit them yet. Love the idea of the Talemasca, too.

>168 imyril: Your photos are lovely.

>190 clamairy: There were a 4th and 5th? Blimey, they passed me by completely! Now my completist streak is itching... maybe for my next Thingaversary ;)

And thank you :) I'm very happy with how the pics turned out - especially as they're just from my phone.

39) Polar City Blues - Katharine Kerr

An old favourite, and I'm happy to say I still love it. Kerr's first scifi outing, this is a fast-paced thriller set on a desert planet that is part of the tiny human Republic poised between two much larger, more powerful galactic neighbours. When a Confederation diplomat shows up dead in Polar City, police chief Al Bates must race against the clock to solve the crime if he is to avoid all 3 governments landing troops to 'keep the peace'. And there are other problems unsettling the city slums: an alien artifact, a mysterious disease, and a rumour of the Devil. Only Bobbie Lacey, ex-spacer, comp jockey and trader in information has access to all the sources to start putting the pieces together. But will a ghetto girl work with the cops?

There's a lot to like here - Lacey is a good female lead, smart, cool-tempered and competent; the world-building reminds me strongly of that in Burning Bright (clever in its supporting detail; light on exposition; very credible; more than the sum of its parts); and the plot bounds along without really pausing for breath. We get 5 alien races, psychics, space-faring and AIs - although AIs aside (and they are getting a bit creaky by modern computing standards - Buddy has to think a bit hard sometimes for a modern Googler ;) the planet Hagar is deliberately called out as being low-tech and most of the action takes place in the slums, which has limited how badly the novel has aged over the past 20 years.

That said, this is one for which mileage may vary. It's told in present tense, for a start, which I know can be a red flag for some, and the characters speak in a future faux SoCal dialect that's easy enough to understand, but can be grating. There's a May-to-December romance of sorts (but given rejuvenation drugs, they look about the same age), although for once the woman is the older.

My main discomfort does centre on the romance, partly with the age, but mostly with Lacey's justification of her choice to her friend Carol at the end. Lacey has decided she wants a man who will look up to her, and is happy to keep her toy-boy (he has no job, and nowhere to live - he really is a kept man). It's made clear elsewhere that she does love him, so it's unclear how big a grain of truth this justification is (as Lacey is quite strong enough a person to tell Carol that she loves Mulligan, end of, however much Carol disapproves). That said, I think Kerr intends for this to be uncomfortable, playing with what is a fairly unpleasant romance trope in much the same way she inverts social status to put Los Blancos bottom of the pile on Polar City to play with racial prejudice (with mixed results, for my money).

So - Burning Bright reminded me of Polar City Blues, and I've loved both. @sandstone78 drew a parallel between Burning Bright and Foreigner, which I picked up earlier this year and haven't read yet, so time to rectify that I think.

40) Rain Later, Good - Peter Collyer

I've had this little gem on the go as a coffee table book for weeks, reading a few pages here and there (often with coffee).

An inexplicable attachment to the shipping forecast - the four daily reports on weather at sea that go out on Radio 4 - is quintessentially British. It doesn’t matter that most of us live inland and some never venture onto a boat in our lives (now that cheap flights are so much easier than ferries); we like to know what’s going on out there. Apparently just changing the time of broadcast resulted in a deluge of complaints - there is no discussion of cancelling it, although most ships have access to up-to-the-minute information on-board from other sources.

This coffee table book is delightful, channelling the national attachment and matching it with evocative watercolour paintings and affectionate travel notes that give you itchy feet to see places for yourself or offer insights into the author/artist. I had no idea that there was an Open Air Rain Museum (tongue-in-cheek much?) in Bergen (or that it rains 290 days of the year there) and there are similarly entertaining notes for most ports of call. I rather regret that the author didn’t follow through on his whim to add food notes for breakfast and fish and chips forecasts for each area.

However, there is a stunning painting of the sea or coast (complete with shipping forecast for the day he was there) and a secondary painting or line drawing representing an aspect of local life for every current (and two past) shipping forecast regions and coastal weather stations. Given the Shipping Forecast covers the broader seas around Britain, this is a tiny view into the coastal life of Norway, Iceland, the Faeroes, the UK, Ireland, France, Holland, Spain and France - as well as our offshore islands - and amply illustrates the incredible variety and beauty of our coasts.

I could wish that the images were bigger or that the book was landscape to match their format (rather than square, reducing their size). But the hazy views of light rippling on waves and suggestions on the horizon are enchanting. Don’t expect anything iconic to separate the sea areas - one patch of sea looks much like another - but for lovers of wind and wave, this is a treat. For the coastal paintings, this book reminded me that I do love watercolours after all (although I wouldn't choose to put them on my wall), and that there's a lot of variety in the type of painting you can produce with them. There's some beautiful work in here, and as it's often of my favourite subjects (cliffs, mountains, sea, clouds), I'm not biased at all.

Hmm. Looking through my library, I suspect my approach to ratings has shifted over the years (as well as, inevitably, my appreciation of certain individual books). I'm left wondering whether I need to be a bit clearer in my own head about where I draw the lines between one star and the next, and whether I've been a bit harsh recently or lenient in the past. Time to mull!

>194 imyril: If your views had not changed over the years it would indicate you had not grown. The difference you see in approach to rating should be considered a positive.

Of course, at some time in the future I might have a different opinion on this matter.

>195 pgmcc: oh, absolutely! But in coming to reassess some of those older reads, I feel like a bit of structure in my rating wouldn't go amiss - you know, just some guidelines that I can choose to ignore when I feel like it :)

>196 imyril: I was in a meeting today when some of the participants started talking about rules they had established for a system they were adapting. One of them made a comment about the rules and I said they were probably more like guidelines. I was so frustrated when they obviously did not get the allusion. (Pirates of the Caribbean just in case you were wondering.)

On a more serious note, I too have felt the need for standardising my ratings. There are some LT users who have described their rating system in their profile and I have read them and thought to myself (and on some occasions said out loud to myself), "Yes! That is the way I would rate books."

Of course, the next book I read proves to be an exception and the rating schema goes out the window.

>197 pgmcc: it's one of my favourite quotes :) As a consultant, I seem to constantly be asked to set rules and can't help but assure my clients that they're more like guidelines, anyway. Depressingly few get the reference, but it's a lot less likely to raise eyebrows than and I thought it would be made of wood (which a friend of mine somehow worked into a conference call. I'm not sure if I wish I'd been on it to see how she did it, or if I'm glad I didn't, as I think I'd have burst laughing).

That said, my other favourite and less-safe-if-sometimes-equally-apt-for-work quote is I have no responsibilities here whatsoever from A Few Good Men. Which sounds dreadful if you don't get the reference and don't realise just how hard the character works to get the right result... in spite of having no responsibilities whatsoever.

...back on topic, it is as you say the all too common exceptions that make it problematic.

I go through cycles with my ratings. Sometimes I get all gung-ho and rate everything I've read in the last few months, then it peters out and I decide that it's no use rating anything because my ratings are so variable. I do find that I have to revisit my ratings a few months after I read a book, because I usually rate high right after reading a book, then look back and think,"It wasn't that good."

It's no good. My head has been a mess again and consequently I've been failing to get even a chapter into anything new, so it's clearly time to revisit something old and beloved. As I fly to a small port town nestled in the foothills of the Pyrenees tomorrow for a few days in the French sun, I think this means A Song for Arbonne. I'm not quite sure what to do with the fact that even the thought of rereading it makes me well up. Tch. Sentimental, me, much?

>200 imyril: Enjoy the Pyrenees. I will be in the Loire valley, just east of Tours.

So, are we saying that guidelines are just wimpy rules?

I would never impugn a rule's honour :)

...but I might be suggesting that there's folk that follow rules (and good on them) and folk that distinguish between the letter and the spirit (not to mention folk that don't ever do what they're told, but they end up hung from a yard-arm unless they're lucky or terribly good at swashbuckling).

Although in the sense of rating ones books, I'd hope there are no yard-arms for bad behaviour.

>201 pgmcc: I shall raise a glass northwards in your general direction!

>204 imyril:...and I shall raise a glass (or two or three) towards the south to you.

41) The Summer Tree - Guy Gavriel Kay


So in the end I decided to forgo the immediate associations of the Roussillon and picked up Fionavar instead, as it's been a long while since I revisited GGK's first world. His first long-form effort is an epic cross-over fantasy in which five Canadian students are taken to the first of all worlds (Fionavar) for the frivolous reason of attending the High King of Brennin's golden jubilee. All is far from what it seems, with political intrigue rife in the kingdom and darker shadows gathering under the noses of the in-fighting factions. As forces beyond time begin to exert their influence on events, the visitors are drawn into a conflict that will ultimately affect all the worlds - including their own.

Weaving together Celtic and Scandinavian mythology with high fantasy tropes (he apparently intended to show you could do more than knock off Tolkien when tackling the genre), Kay manages to largely dodge Basil Exposition and still convey epic swathes of setting and back story in amongst the swift plot progression and witty repartee. If you're after pure originality then this isn't going to be for you, but I have a deep love of this sort of thing when done well, and this is pretty good.

That said, it doesn't work as well for me as it did on first reading 15 years ago. Kay's prose style goes a long way to papering over the cracks and can send shivers down my spine when he hits the right mythic note, but the Tolkien tropes stick out and bother me. Given that Tolkien was also working from Celtic and Scandinavian sources, this is wildly unfair - but just a bit more tinsel would have gone a long way to making it feel less derivative (and it doesn't feel derivative for the most part, which is why those small things stick out so badly for me).

I'm far more forgiving of the more obviously Celtic and Scandinavian borrowings that never appear in Tolkien (the Cauldron of Khath Meigol; the Summer Tree itself; Owein's Hunt; the Cave of Sleepers; the pantheon; and so on), except for the one borrowing that gets no tinsel. Technically, in spite of heavy foreshadowing it doesn't actually appear in this first book, so I won't rant (Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere. Seriously. Seriously?? No, I still can't get past that.), but it has always reduced my regard for the sequels.

What did bother me on this reading is how one note our Canadian heroes and heroines are: they get to be bright, funny, brave, heroic - they're given tragedies (or rather, the menfolk are), but not flaws. I notice it more now than I used to (I think I used to just enjoy them for being so shiny) and they feel less real to me, although consequently I have come to like Dave Martyniuk best after all (with the chip on his shoulder to sand down). This has also got to be Kay's weakest showing for women: whilst well-represented in numbers, they lack depth or nuance and they're far from well-served in roles or agency, although they do get to throw cold water over over-sexed idiots.

On the flipside, the Fionavari are more nuanced: still largely bright and brave, but pride, ambition and arrogance are flaunted to the extent that most of them (not least Prince Diarmuid) are interesting but practically unlikeable until you meet the forthright Dalrei. Complex motivations and slow reveals on back story bring much needed colour and tone - although once again the women are rather flat.

All of which makes it sound like I didn't enjoy it, which simply isn't true. I've still given it 4* - because it's well-written (if not quite as adept as his later works, it's still more lyrical than some authors ever achieve), does create a coherent world and narrative from its many sources (and plays to my preferences in using Celtic myth as its mainstay), is deftly plotted, and generally a good read if not a perfect one - and because 15 years on it still holds a huge sentimental pull for me and still moved me to tears. I'm not going to make a point of completing the trilogy in one sitting, but I may run through it by the end of the year.

42) Elephant Moon - John Sweeney


I was really quite angry by the time I finished this slim novel about the war in Burma. I'd bought it because I'd read that it was based on a little-known true story of the Second World War when a herd of 53 elephants was used by a young English schoolteacher to rescue a band of orphans in Burma and transport them to the safety of India.

What's not to get excited about?

Well, the fact that it's simply not quite true.

The Author's Note (crucially at the end of the book) is careful to point out that the novel is inspired by the true stories of the elephant men of Burma. That's as far as it goes. No schoolteachers, no orphans, although the Bombay Burma Trading Corporation did indeed evacuate women and children over the mountains with their elephants (much to the disgust of the authorities). The misleading lines above, I've subsequently discovered, were penned by the Daily bloody Mail, famous for their pinpoint accuracy. Mea culpa. If only I'd done my research better. I have now, and it turns out that the school of mixed-race orphans did exist in Rangoon - although they didn't escape by elephant, and only 4 appear to have survived the march on foot to India. This is one reason I tend to avoid modern historical novels - it's too easy to spot where the fiction creeps in.

The tale invents the character of Grace Collins, a young schoolmarm posted to Burma by her Whitehall papa to keep her safe from the war. When the Japanese invade Singapore, neither her headmistress Miss Furroughs nor the British authorities seem to take the threat seriously - and as the Japanese get ever closer, not even her beau Bertie Peach is interested in the fate of the orphaned by-blows she teaches. With the last ship sailing, she manages to get the children (and Miss Furroughs) onto an antediluvian bus and flee north.

When Miss Furroughs dies in the firestorm of Mandalay, Grace finds herself an unexpected ally in resourceful Jemadar Ahmed Rehman. But their journey is beset by bureaucratic idiots, the engineering wobbles of the ancient bus and its exhausted (and sozzled) driver, the challenging terrain of northern Burma, and the shameless racism of the fleeing British (not to mention the guns of the Japanese). When they are rescued from despair by a grumpy officer attempting to rescue the last of his elephants from the Japanese by taking them over the mountains - considerably madder than anything attempted by Hannibal in the Alps - she allows herself to hope that she and the children may yet see India.

All of which sounds great even if it has butchered its history, but isn't particularly well executed. The writing is adequate, but wobbly. The characters rely heavily on Empire stereotypes, and while there's a certain joy to reading dialogue with voices straight off It Ain't 'Alf 'Ot Mum, it doesn't make them more credible. There's a splash of insta-love and a streak of misogyny (partly period accuracy, but Grace's looks also become her most important attribute) and the absurd Eddie Gregory subplot adds violence against women plus rape and murder fantasies, introducing an unpleasant and unnecessary subplot that doesn't sit with the rest of the novel - because there wasn't enough going on already?!. I also couldn't help but think that for a book with a theme of racism there's no escaping the problem that it gives the white men names, but the Indians ranks (we learn their names, but they are never used). Indeed, very few of the lower caste Burmans get anything at all - although their elephants are named, so make what you will of the pecking order there.

This may well reflect the attitudes of the time and Miss Collins' relations with the men in question, but in the Jemadar's case stops ringing true as their relationship evolves (and in any case her inner monologue might unbend as far as names?) and doesn't entirely chime with either Grace's or the third person narrative's willingness to adopt the British officers' (first) names rather than remain on formal terms. The narrative isn't exclusively from Grace's perspective, either - so there was opportunity to give us the perspective of the Indian officers and the Burmans to level the playing field, which Sweeney doesn't take up.

If I turned my brain off and refused to let any of my triggers twitch, there's a rapid plot with orphans and schoolmarms and elephants and gallantry and elephants and so on as promised, which does seem guaranteed to appeal to the Daily Mail, but sadly it's mired in so much tripe that I spent the entire novel annoyed that there was a really good story half-obscured by the sensationalised mush. Sadly, it turned out to be two entirely separate stories, but I can at least go find the autobiography of Elephant Bill to learn about the true elephant men of Burma (there appear to be few records of the unpleasant fate of the unwanted orphans of Rangoon).

Oh well. At least it's short. And it'd probably make a good film, as most of its flaws could either be fixed in the screenplay or are the sort of thing Hollywood embraces shamelessly on screen anyway :P Non-speaking parts don't need names, after all.

43) The Killing Moon - N. K. Jemisin


Argh 3G I hate you for losing reviews I'm halfway through writing!

The short version then: I didn't like The Killing Moon nearly as much as I wanted to. It's a 3* read for me, for good prose and intriguing world building, but it failed to provide a single character that engaged me or whose fate I actually cared about to the extent that I was perfectly happy to think that Ehiru really would reap Sunandi, and didn't get a big kick of anything other than mild surprise that Nijiri was actually going through with it when he finally stepped up at the end.

For some reason I thought it was her first novel, so was more forgiving of what I perceived as the flaws; I've just realised this is her second series, which makes me slightly harder about them. Still, points for being different and interesting, but must try harder.

More comments over on the Group Read thread!

>208 imyril: I got fed up losing things I had half written. Now I write reviews and potentially long post s in Word and then copy them into LT.

I always do CTRL C before I post...

The mistake of writing on my mobile on commute. No Word, and I hadn't finished, so I hadn't copied yet... But apparently I flicked out of signal and the damn page reloaded on me without me requesting it. Bah, humbug.

Lesson learnt: draft in the Notes app and copy across in future!

I'm so excited. My mum has just arrived from Germany (which is pretty exciting; we don't get to see a lot of each other) and she's brought 3 boxes of books that have been lingering in her basement since I left home 20 years ago... I am itching to go through them and see what on earth was buried down there!

She's also brought some of her recent discards to give to charity, so I get first refusal on those too.

Ah, happy days. Old books and a house full of cake...

That's exciting! Buried treasure, cake, and your mother...perfect!

Sounds like a perfect combination. Hope you enjoy your mum's visit and also find lots of treasures in the boxes!

We hope to hear all the details of your Mum's visit.

But seriously, folks, what are the books? We want lists.

;-)

Have a great time.

>211 imyril: Have fun with your mom, imyril!

>215 pgmcc: I can't promise to get them all catalogued before we go to Dorset tomorrow, but so far I've found a complete mixture of Proper Literature What I ForceFed Myself For My EduMaCation In My Tender Years (ahem) (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, To The Lighthouse, A Farewell to Arms - none of which I enjoyed at the time, but which I may revisit, except the Joyce, which I have no intention of reinflicting on myself), some of my favourite childhood books that I'm really looking forward to revisiting (The Little Grey Men, Louise Lawrence, and possibly Arthur Ransome), others that I'll just be really glad to have on the shelf (The Borrowers and The Animals of Farthing Wood) and things that were fairly guilty pleasures even in my teens, which I'm not sure I'd dare open the covers on now (Piers Anthony, I'm looking at you, although The Death Gate Cycle certainly sits in this category too - there's a reason not all my fantasy books went to university with me...).

I've also glimpsed Elyne Mitchell Silver Brumby books (complete with sparkly stars somehow still stuck on the covers 30 years later) from my very young all-things-horse-related-are-good phase, and my Louisa M Alcott and L. M. Montgomery collections (hooray!)

And that's just the first box.

I may be a pig in mud. Lots of wet, cool, gooshy mud. Come on in, it's a hot day!

>217 imyril: The mud sounds very inviting.

I am in agreement with your decision regarding Joyce.

Enjoy Dorset. Are you visiting a particular spot?

>218 pgmcc: My leanings (archaeology degree!) tend to be geological, Neolithic and gastronomic; Mum is easily led astray and has apparently never been, so we'll likely do a ticky tour along the Jurassic coast picking up tourist points and clotted cream.

All recommendations (also for north Cornwall where we head afterwards) gratefully received!

>Ooooohhhh, The Little Grey Men - I've been trying to track down a copy of that (so far unsuccessfully) after something tweaked my memory of having read it when I was at school. I hope you enjoy that one (and the others of course!) - I shall await your verdict on whether it has stood the test of time! (age might be more appropriate as it was pretty old when I read it - almost 40 years old when I read it at a rough guess? So I guess it needs to stand the test of not its own aging but mine *grin*)

>219 imyril: I went on a Geology field trip to Dorset in 1977 when I was an undergraduate Geology student. The things that stand out in my memory are:
- The giant ammonite fossils on the beach at Lyme Regis (Try to get there at low tide. There is a broad rock pavement with ammonites up to a metre across revealed at low tide)
- Chesil Beach at Weymouth
- The Pacific format bays East of Weymouth, the most famous one being Lulworth Cove
- Chalk cliffs with plenty of fossils
- Scrumpy (cider)

I have always wanted to visit Cornwall but have never managed to get there. I would particularly like to dine in Rick Stein’s seafood restaurant in Padstow. I like his cookery shows and his recipes always appears to be very practical and down to Earth, yet gorgeous.

Enjoy the area, the food and the drink.

Wow, you are certainly finding some treasures in those boxes! I still reread some of Louise Lawrence's books and have found them to hold up well - not so sure about the Silver Brumby books though!

>222 Sakerfalcon: if the sticky stars I applied with love can last 30 years, surely the books can too?

...no, no, you're probably right. I mustn't underestimate the modern miracle of glue ;)

I'm really looking forward to Louise Lawrence and to revisiting The Cats of Seroster, which fell out of a bag. I may turn a blind eye to the various Terry Brooks and David Eddings (but shelve them for old times sake), but I'm quite excited to see Alanna again. I've never read the other Tamora Pierce books, which are in the dim future slopes of Mount TBR's aspirations, but in spite of the many flaws I can see in retrospect, the first Tortall books have to be revisited.

>221 pgmcc: oooh thank you! Ammonites and gorgeous bays and beaches are an easy sell :) also scrumpy ;)

44) Excession - Iain M Banks


Ah, Excession, our love/hate affair continues. This was the third time I'd read it, and after hating it the first time and loving it the second, this time I'm just split down the middle: I hate the humans and love the Minds.

Reading the Culture novels in close succession this year, I've thoroughly enjoyed seeing the progression from Consider Phlebas as I've worked my way into Special Circumstances book by book to Excession (and I'll admit that from this point onwards I'm into books I've only ever read once and don't really remember, which is quite exciting) - but it has left me utterly despairing at the vision for humanity.

The problem with a post-scarcity future of complete excess and hedonism is the vapidity that goes with it. This was less obvious in the younger Culture (we met a single SC agent in the Idiran war in Phlebas, and as an agent infiltrating a hostile vessel she wasn't going to be vapid at all and was surrounded by mercenary hardcases, so we weren't seeing the Culture; Jernau Morat Gurgeh in Player of Games was a wildly clever bloke who was despairing of exactly the same traits in his society that are annoying me; and we got only a brief glimpse of Sma's hedonistic excesses in Use of Weapons). In Excession, it's clear the Minds are pulling all the strings - implicit in every book to this point, but now underlined - because the humans couldn't find their way out of their navels with a map and a ball of string. Unfortunately for me, they get a lot of page time.

I'd cheerfully skip the lot of them and just read the Minds. Here we get politics, acerbity, convoluted ethics, self-reflection, poetry, horror and glimpses into the intellectual hierarchies at play within the Culture. Lucky humanity, allowed to play in a future they long since abrogated all responsibility for, because - thankfully - their ancient creations have souls and consciences (of sorts; here we see that even the Minds are far from incorruptible, and that one Mind's necessary outcome is another's black-souled conspiracy). The distinctions between one Mind's conscience and another's (most notably the Attitude Adjuster, the Killing Time, the Grey Area and the Sleeper Service) are fascinating, as are the carefully drawn lines of their monumental egos. The Sleeper Service keeps Dajeil aboard in a sense because it is playing God - however much it shies away from direct interference (which it can afford to do, without any real time constraints). The Grey Area plays God even more directly, sampling the minds of entire planets to pass judgement on uncontacted wrongdoers.

I'll admit to struggling to keep track of which Mind was part of what conspiracy, but... I'm only basic human.

The only interesting aspect of the human storylines (which I'm serious; I'll just skip in any future read - especially Alicia Silverstone Ulver Seich) was the denouement of the Dajeil Gelian / Byr Genar-Hofoen plot. After 40 years of pregnant sulking, Dajeil finally has the opportunity to see her former lover and is unexpectedly reluctant to do so. The slow reveal of the Dajeil/Byr storyline makes it clear that he didn't just abandon her; nor did he just cheat on her - she assaulted him when he was in female form, and sort-of pregnant, nearly killing him and resulting in the death of Byr's baby. Byr leaves, and Dajeil then puts her own pregnancy and life on hold for the next 40 years - sulking, as some observers suggest, or possibly wallowing in remorse, or traumatised and hoping for Byr's return to achieve some sort of closure. Either way, I find 2 things intriguing and whispered rather than shouted through the narrative: Dajeil would have killed Byr permanently, as it becomes clear at the end of the book that Byr has never been backed up and lives on the principle of only getting one shot at life (and Dajeil was aware of this when she stabbed him) and they lost their second baby. In facing a second death, Byr does in fact come to terms with that assault, and in facing her own death (and losing control of her pregnancy), Dajeil comes to terms with giving birth at last; both are able to move on. These very human notes are quieter refrains of pathos that cut across the huge operatic chaos going on ship-to-ship around the Excession, and are almost at odds with the portrayal of humanity in general whilst offering something almost more recognisable in its tragedy. I sort of hate myself a bit for even thinking that, but there you go.

All of which makes the Sleeper Service's actions make a huge amount of sense - it feels responsible; it's not just playing God, it's trying to make amends (and not necessarily to Dajeil) - and it can't take its sensors off the human action even while it tries to figure out what to do with the Excession.

So I can respect the outcome, but oh, I didn't enjoy the journey (on the human side). So it's 3 and 1/2* from me, and somewhat begrudgingly - because flipping back and forth between a slog and a romp is frustrating.

>225 imyril: It is timeI re-read another Iain M. Banks and I think it will be Excession thanks to your review. I will not read all your review until I have read the book again. I read it when it first came out so my memories of it lack detail. When I re-read Consider Phlebas I found levels and themes I had either not seen on my first read or have forgotten with the passage of time. I am all excited with the anticipation of reading Excession again.

The themes of responsibility and moral choices are particularly interesting here - the unprecedented insight into the Minds! - and I'll be keen to hear your thoughts.

I like that I can both feel like an overreacting puppy frothing at the mouth over surface detail and step back and admire the work on multiple levels like a grown up; there's not a lot of authors who can get away with that. And I do think the book succeeds when I stop and think about it, even if I don't enjoy half the execution.

I've never read Banks, but I feel like I should from all of the good things I hear about him- is there a particular one you'd recommend starting with, @imyril?

I checked The Player of Games out from the library ages ago after getting a recommendation that it was similar to Burning Bright (I didn't really think it was in the bit I read, beyond both of them have gamer protagonists and the game is probably going to matter for real in politics), and I tried a sample again recently because it's the book everyone seems to recommend as an entry point, but I couldn't really get into it- I didn't particularly like Gurgeh, he seemed too much like a standard-issue dude who is a condescending jerk to everyone but so good at what he does that people let him get by with it, and I didn't really want to spend a whole book with him...

>228 sandstone78: I've got a tic about starting from the beginning, so I'd always tend to recommend Consider Phlebas anyway, but there are other good reasons to start there beyond chronology: a major one is that Phlebas has (to my mind) by far the most interesting female characters in Yalson (a very capable half-Culture more-or-less human mercenary) and Balveda (a Special Circumstances Culture agent) who play major roles in the narrative as ally and antagonist respectively for protagonist Horza.

The embattled antihero Horza is more sympathetic (or perhaps less unsympathetic) than Morat Gurgeh in Player of Games (which wouldn't be my first choice of entry because I find it a slow starter, and Gurgeh is an asshat; and like you I struggle to draw any but the most simplistic parallel to Burning Bright). He's intriguing in being anti-Culture, so we get introduced to the ideas not only by an outsider but an enemy at war, which makes for a fascinating device.

It remains one of my favourites, and it probably attracted the most discussion of the Culture group reads so far.

>229 imyril: Thanks! I have to admit that Gurgeh being a condescending jerk specifically to a female character who seemed to be his protege of sorts? made me iffy, so I'm glad to hear Banks does have interesting and important female characters. I'm also reassured that you didn't like Gurgeh either. I was worried from the little sample I read that I was supposed to find him admirable and empathize with how put upon he was by having to deal with the inferior people around him...

I picked up a copy of Polar City Blues by the way- I'm looking forward to trying it out! I noticed it's written in present tense, which is hit or miss for me, but the beginning was interesting.

In Player of Games defence, the themes and ideas that come through once the setting moves to Azad and finally (finally!) picks up pace are fascinating... but I think more so if you're already familiar with the Culture - possibly less so as a first encounter. And the first third still drags, every time.

I do think I'm having more issues reading the Culture novels this time around though, largely because I crave good female representation now - which is a problem not because Banks writes bad women specifically, but because Culture humans are vapid dilettantes like Yay (the protege) vs the far more interesting (but less-represented) Minds (but hey, the Minds are properly ungendered), and the lesser civilisations that the Culture meddles with often oppress their women (this is one of the reasons the Culture sometimes meddles with them). I equally find it hilarious that the Culture can more or less solve all my issues with society and still find a way to annoy me ;) Never satisfied, me. That's why my Mum always said my middle name was Awkward.

I note my favourites (Phlebas and Use of Weapons) are sometimes considered bleak (whilst being barely-pause-for-breath adventures), and are the 2 largely narrated by non-Culture outsiders.

...but I'm looking forward to rereading the final 5 books, which I've only ever read once, and really don't remember. Perhaps it will all change my perspective and I'll gain a new favourite.

There's an unstructured year-long group read going on of all the Culture novels by the way, with an organisational thread here - the first three novels have attracted the most comments; I think I'm the only person who has got as far as Excession (or at least commented so far), although there was no commitment to read all of them, let alone in order! But you may find some of the discussion interesting if you do dip in.

>230 sandstone78: I loved Polar City blues despite its use of present-tense narration. I rarely see the point of it, and couldn't in this case either, but the world, characters and story were so good that I ended up not caring. I hope you enjoy it.

>231 imyril: I've heard quite often of Banks (with varying opinions as to whether his works are good or not) and actually came across a couple of his titles Use of Weapons and Matter in a charity shop the other day - nearly new, so I picked them up. I shall keep my eyes open for the others as I had no idea which order they needed to be read in but at 20p a title it was too good an opportunity to miss. I'm pleased that at least one of those counts amongst your favourites (reassures me a little!). It will be a while before I get around to reading them as I'm sure I won't be as lucky as finding the first two in a shop for sometime.

I am a little worried as I tried his Transition and didn't really like that much, but I'm hoping that as it's not part of this series, that it was just a one-off not suiting me.

>233 Peace2: I didn't get on with Transition either, having had high hopes (as I enjoyed Against A Dark Background, another non-Culture scifi title), but somehow it just felt like it never really took off.

I'm all excited.

I seem to have accidentally acquired Tigerman at last. I'd been putting it off, under the self-deception that perhaps I could hold out for the paperback, or wait until the Kindle price came down, and then I went into my local bookstore and they had just the one copy and it was beautiful and needed a home. And I'm not that hard-hearted, and I do like to support my local bookstore with one or two purchases a year, and if I'm only going to make one or two, they have to be things I'll really love or gifts for people I really love, so Nick Harkaway is a good bet, which means I get to lose myself in his crazy imagination this weekend.

And then I happened to glance on Amazon and realised that the final Richard Morgan gets released this year (after a little moment in which I thought it had already been and I'd somehow missed it, as the Kindle pages aren't particularly clear such details). Gritty, brutal and grimdark is less to my taste than it used to be, but having reread and enjoyed his Takeshi Kovacs last year I am still apparently a complete sucker for Morgan's violent noir, so I'm looking forward to rereading The Steel Remains and The Cold Commands in preparation for The Dark Defiles.

>233 Peace2: I haven't reread it, but Matter became one of my favourite Culture books after I first read it. Hope you enjoy your finds!

>235 imyril: I hope you enjoy Tigerman. I liked it.

45) The Warriors of Taan - Louise Lawrence


The first reread from the Boxes of Basement Books - an old childhood favourite (I'm also looking forward to revisiting Moonwind). YA scifi, this is really thinly-veiled feminist ecomentalist propaganda (and I say that as a cheerful ecomentalist with a big feminist streak - looking at things like this and Mrs Frisby I'm starting to wonder how influential my childhood reading was :)

Taan has been occupied by the rapacious Outworlders, who are plundering its natural resources and using superior weapons / technology to pen the natives into reservations. Internal tensions are rising as the warrior caste agitate for a hopeless war in the face of insuperable odds, while the priestesses seek a peaceful resolution. A rebellious young prince is the fulcrum on which native hopes turn: will he lead his father's troops to war or make peace with the sisterhood?

I'm delighted to find the suck fairy has passed this by (although I think I've given it an extra half star for sentimental reasons; it doesn't quite stack up to adult reading). The novel focuses on the build-up to world-changing events rather than their resolution, staying tight on its youthful characters (novice priestess Elana; Prince Khian) who spend a good portion of the novel in out of the way places (farflung outposts; locked up; underground) having character-building experiences and trying to figure out what they should do. It's not perfect, but it's still quite sweet.

Things to like: positive female relationships, character growth, a plot that rockets along at a fine pace, and interesting aliens (the stonewraiths).

Things that are so-so: there's a lot of men being aggressive eejits and women having special instincts and being peaceful, which I'm not a big believer in or a massive fan of. Also, I think it would have been awesome if Khian/Leith had explicitly got it on, given a) how much of a bromance they had going and b) given how gender-segregated the society is (warriors vs sisterhood; all women retreating to Moonhalls twice a month) it feels like same-sex relationships wouldn't/shouldn't be taboo. Given the time of writing (80s) and the audience (YA), it's not really surprising that this wasn't included (and there are some hefty hints - Khian pines for Leith, and there are lots of meaningful glances), but... it would have been a brilliant inclusive gesture. But perhaps too shocking at the time? I don't really remember.

It also closes with what feels like a set-up for a sequel, although I don't believe one was ever written. This feels like a good thing - having chosen not to detail the resolution (we skip from the set-up for the resolution to the epilogue!) it would feel very odd to jump to a sequel.

46) The Shining Girls - Lauren Beukes

It's taken me a while to get round to reading Beukes in spite of hearing many good things, but I'll be back for more. Scifi meets crime as a time-travelling serial killer hunts his victims across the 20th century, and the girl that gets away tries to unravel the mystery of her attacker. It's like reading Michael Marshall Smith with a female lead; it had me at hello, in spite of the squicky POV of psychopath Harper Curtis and always divisive first person narrative.

The success for me here is many-fold, from great prose (in spite of that first person!) and a carefully woven plot through to colourful characters, starting with its villain, who gets fully half the page-time POV: at no point does Beukes try to explain, rationalise, normalise or apologise for Harper. He's just a monster. In spite of this, his POV chapters are compelling. Disturbing, absolutely, and horrific - but never titillating. It's very carefully controlled.

At the same time, she gives us brief windows into the victim's lives. In these glimpses, the women come vibrantly to life, full-formed and three-dimensional - each one becomes a tragedy in her own right and a tiny window into her own time (and the role / concerns of women of her time), not just a statistic (with the exception of poor Julia, whose murder happens off the page).

And then there's spiky, indomitable Kirby herself, who survives her murder and refuses to be deterred from trying to hunt down her impossible attacker. Kirby rejects her physical and emotional damage; it's the rest of the world that can't leave her baggage at the door. She's bright, feisty and she shines - it's not hard to see why she makes Harper's list.

My only real question is how many stars to give it - I think I'll sleep on it, but 4+.

I've already picked up a copy of Zoo City for future reading.

Right - after a couple of weeks of being unwell and struggling to meet a work deadline (now met, hooray!) I get to spend this afternoon finally cataloguing the buried treasure from Mum's basement. The weatherman promised me howling rain, and I really don't care that it appears to have blown over and turned into sunshine already... I've got a date with some childhood friends.

>240 imyril: That looks like fun!

"like"

What a lovely afternoon. Over 60 books so far, mostly epic fantasy that I didn't love enough to take to university with me: Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Dragonlance (don't judge ;) and Alanna (for which I now feel absurdly guilty; how could I leave Alanna behind?) - plus a handful of Proper Literature (Conrad, Laurie Lee, D H Lawrence, Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot) and some historical fiction that I don't really remember (W Michael Gear, Judith Tarr). And I think I'd like to reread all of it. Even the Dragonlance (although I may keep some muscle relaxant on hand to stop my neck muscles from locking up with cringing ;) Then some well-loved children's books that I will keep and love but probably won't reread any time soon (Little Women and all the sequels, both of The Little Grey Men books, and all of The Borrowers books).

That takes care of the books in the bags - I've run out of steam to tackle the sofa for now (that sounds particularly back to front, doesn't it?), but my beloved has been earning that moniker by roasting up a chicken stuffed with leek and ryebread on the bbq. YUM. There's a man who knows how to make a good day better.

you had a great day! enjoy the chicken!

What MrsLee said in 242

239> Shining Girls sounds wonderful!

>246 pwaites: I really enjoyed it. It IS very dark (I made the error of letting Mr B chuck an episode of Luther on when I'd been reading it; perfect recipe for completely messed up nightmares - top tip - only watch really fluffy TV whilst reading this!) but I liked that Beukes made it feel like she did it on her own terms - no easy tropes, and a lot of attention to detail in the rapid finale.

I've read criticisms that the beginning is either too slow or too bitty (it jumps time periods and POVs without context), but I've read enough fantasy/scifi that laughs in the face of chronological order - as I think you have - that this didn't phase me at all. Likewise I've seen people whinge that she never really explains how the time travelling worked, but I don't need my MacGuffins fully explained. It's a device, folks - just admire how she gets the intersecting story lines to work.

>243 imyril: Sounds like a perfect afternoon! It's always fun to discover old friends in book form!

(And I reread the first Dragonlance trilogy not too long ago and it wasn't too bad. Probably better than Brooks in some ways.)

>248 Sakerfalcon: That's reassuring :) I've spent the morning happily cataloguing ageless childhood classics, so I've reclaimed half the sofa and am now left staring at a small collection of what I suppose I can call pulp fantasy: Piers Anthony and non-Dragonlance efforts by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman that I would have picked up in the American Bookstore in Amsterdam.

I don't have any lingering affection for or curiosity about Xanth, so I think that might be seeking a new young fantasy enthusiast at a local charity shop :) I'm a bit torn about the rest. I remember loving them at the time (I would have been 13 or 14 though!) - and I can remember numerous aspects of them that scream suck fairy down the subsequent 20+ years... but I think I'm going to log the lot and dip my toe at some point for a giggle.

Chuckle of the day: this back cover blurb / review from the seemingly rather rare Toby and the Aqualung (the sequel to Toby and the Treasure, which I never found a copy of). I don't think I've ever come across a children's book blurb with such pointed economic commentary!

Toby goes with his grown-up (and seemingly wealthy, since their yacht has three masts and a crew of six) friends to seek for hidden treasure on an island beyond the Outer Hebrides, and to see if they can explain the apparently supernatural singing that has driven all the inhabitants away. So far so normal, but they take with them two mermaids and a merboy...

It goes on in slightly less judgmental tones, eventually deciding that it is 'an unusual but successful hotch-potch, enhanced by the author's own illustrations'.

Belatedly starring your thread.

>225 imyril: I am reading and enjoying Excession. Thank you for the nudge.

>251 Meredy: For that, you may have cheese, cake or both :)

>252 pgmcc: you're very welcome.

>217 imyril: Did I miss a report on your trip to Devon and Cornwall? Did all go well? Did you have a good time?

>254 pgmcc: Oops! I have been remiss! We had a lovely short break, although we redefined the term in so far as the short break broke me (and for twice as long as we went away for), leading to various jokes about how holidays are bad for me. This is no doubt why I forgot to tell you about it, as I've been a bit haphazard for the last 2 weeks :) But we had a lovely time while we were away!

We had an easy drive down through the New Forest (sticking to the back roads to enjoy the sunlight through the leaves and the ponies on the moor - and trying to sleep in the shade of the villages) and across to Corfe, where we stopped for a hearty Dorset lunch (regardless of what it lists on the menu, we discovered in the next 3 days that a Dorset lunch is incomplete unless it features cheese. Expect cheese).

Mum discovered the little Enid Blyton bookshop, and found a book my grandmother lost several decades ago, so was absolutely delighted - we had a fabulously bookish and appropriately Blytonesque conversation with the lady that runs the shop, who told us all about the local (non-Blyton) bookclub. Blyton lovers take note - Corfe is the place to find old hardbacks to fill up your collection!

We set off across the tiny country lanes (having lived in Somerset, Mum has no fear of high hedges) only to discover the roads to Durdle Door closed for military exercises (oops). By the time we took the long way round it was getting a bit late, so we went to Cerne Abbas and admired a famous gentleman's tackle instead (poor light and of course modesty precluded me snapping any photos of my own you understand).

I can only recommend The Wooden Cabbage as an indulgent and luxurious place to stay if you are in Dorset and can afford to spoil yourself. We splashed out this holiday, and it was wonderful. A much-extended farm cottage half-way down a hill with a view across a valley, this has been renovated with warmth and surrounds you with creature comforts. Literally - we were joined in our spacious barn apartment by a bat on the first night, which doesn't bother me (and is the sort of thing that happens in the country sometimes) although I think my Mum was glad to have an unflappable daughter around to handle it. I was glad of the large curtain that could be deployed to fake out the bat into thinking a new wall had appeared in front of the bedroom space and help divert it towards an open window.

Mr Cabbage (or Martin, as he's more regularly known), takes mischievous delight in helping his guests with personalised itineraries (he will cheerfully do this for every guest, sending each off in a different direction based on what they like to do; his knowledge and patience are inexhaustible). As our breakfast-mates headed off for a day of Hardy delights, we received an Ordnance Survey map and a marked-up tourist map (including which lay-bys to park in) of hill forts, standing stones, long barrows, art galleries, gardens and fresh fish for lunch. Mrs Cabbage (the gorgeous Susie) meanwhile cooked up a 3-course (I'm not kidding) breakfast of food largely from their own garden to ensure we had the energy to tackle it.

In spite of my fragile health and Mum's fragile knees, we still managed a good 10km in careful stages over the day, sustained by amazing fresh scallops at West Bay and an emergency cup of coffee in a lovely woodcraft art gallery at Abbotsbury mid-afternoon. The sun was glorious, so we also managed varying shades of pink, although thankfully we avoided lobster. We almost met Martin's expectations: we surveyed the ramparts of Eggardon Hill (a lesser-known but well-positioned hill fort in very good nick and with great views across Dorset and many wildflowers), found Kingston Russell stone circle (a long walk up hill through nettles in 30 degrees to find a well-preserved fairy ring rather than uprights has been known to get those expecting Stonehenge a little irritable; thankfully my Mum is very excitable about faeries), generally enjoyed walking the hills and fields (nettles notwithstanding), and had the requisite stroll along Chesil Beach. Martin was duly impressed that the only thing we'd skipped were the gardens, so Susie rewarded us with an enormous dinner.


Kingston Russell stone circle

The following day we once again chose back roads to wend through Dorset (via Lyme Regis, which was sadly overrun with excitable families, the school holidays having just started, so we couldn't find a parking place to go find fossils) and up onto Dartmoor for more views and more ponies. We were tucked away at the Pendragon Country House for the next two nights, which I recommend every bit as highly as the Wooden Cabbage. Run by another couple passionate about giving their guests the best possible holiday (and who turn out MasterChef quality cooking), this also features this little chap in the bar (who those of you on EvilBook will recognise):


Would have been first in the queue to be the Green Dragon mascot, but he got held up at the bar

Cornwall was thankfully slightly quieter than we expected, and we were largely unaccompanied in a gentle walk along the cliffs south of Tintagel towards Trebarwith (we turned back on the cliffs above the beach rather than hike down) and back through the fields to Tintagel chapel. A turn about Padstow made us wish we'd gone to St Isaac instead, but an ice cream is a great improver of moods, so we set back off north and found Boscastle in time for cream tea (having somehow failed to have lunch, this was obviously a great alternative) and a wander around the beautiful harbour. This part of Cornwall is unfailingly pretty for its cliffs and tiny harbours - even Padstow is pretty, just predictably popular on a Saturday in August.


The very pretty Gull Cottage in Boscastle - complete with requisite gull on chimney pot (and pretty boat seat by front door). A number of cottages in this row can be rented - I know where I want to stay next time I come to Cornwall...

Sunday we meandered home via Exmoor and paused in Wellington, Somerset, where we lived when I was 5 through 8, to visit an old friend who hasn't seen me since. She avoided the age-old 'gosh you've grown' in favour of 'well I wouldn't have recognised you', and we established that although Wellington has changed in some ways (people get stabbed!) it hasn't really changed in others (I could still direct Mum from the motorway to Jane's house, and find most of my way from her house to our old cottage on foot; Mum's sense of direction remains, ah, loose. Or as she likes to say, she'd make a rubbish homing pigeon).

And then I spent 2 weeks mostly asleep. Holidays. They're bad for me, apparently.

I am sorry you ended up broken but your holiday sounds wonderful. Thank you for the detail and the photographs. You have increased my desire to visit Cornwall.

I hope you are feeling much better.

The dangers of asking me for a trip report - I can't resist ;)

I am improving - it's sadly just a difficult year health-wise. Onwards and upwards; I need a tshirt that says Relentless Optimist (the bright side for me, and if my glass isn't half full I suspect Mr Dragon is to blame)

I loved your trip report.

In relation to the glass half full/ half empty debate, I understand the cost accountant's comment is that the glass is too big.

Sounds like a dream trip! Thank you for sharing it with us. :)

The SW is a lovely part of England and I 'm glad you had a good time there. The guest houses sound wonderful - will definitely look into them next time I'm in that part of the world.

I'm excited to see there's a new William Gibson due later this autumn.

I blow hot/cold with Gibson, tending to love the first book of a trilogy, hate the second, and think the third is okay (with the exception of the two sequels to Virtual Light, both of which left me cold).

As ever, the new book promises to hold my interest: two recognisable near-futures timeslip-collide within the framework of a massive multi-player game prototype, with a female protagonist (here's hoping for a Cayce Pollard over a Molly Millions). And I always seem to like the first one, so that's promising in and of itself ;)

This autumn just gets more and more promising.

47) The Shadowed Sun - N. K. Jemisin


The second half of the duology for the Jemisin group read, and a palate cleaner mid-way through Jared Diamond as his handling of his Greenland case study half-way through Collapse annoyed me and I decided to come up for air :) (also, Collapse is quite long and I needed some fiction in my reading life! ;)

I found this a great improvement on the first instalment (The Killing Moon), although it would be a tricky stand-alone read as it assumes the world-building and recent history of that tale and moves right along.

This second volume addresses some of the weakness of the first - most notably giving space to character development over plot development, with the first quarter setting the scene, but the next half developing characters and relationships as much as (if not more than) plot. The final quarter brings the resolution of the various major plots without feeling rushed (and with only one element feeling a little deus ex machina although because we already know from the first novel that Gatherers are insane ninja-demons, it's not entirely unbelievable that the palace coup is easy once they are released).

I also found the characters more interesting and engaging than the first volume - even Wanahomen (who is childish, cruel and unlikeable to start with) develops into an interesting character (if still arrogant and overbearing) - and Hanani, who carries the weight of the novel - worked well for me from start to finish. I particularly liked that by the end of the novel she was explicitly rejecting the patronising sexism of the Hetawa priesthood, which made me feel a good deal better about it (i.e. that we are meant to both recognise and dislike it). I also liked the 'barbaric' Banbarra - warlike, unapologetically brutal, passionate, but gender-equal, with women very much in control of sexual relations, tribal wealth and inheritance; in many respects they made more sense than the 'civilised' Gujaareen society (which still feels a little muddled to me after 2 books, especially in terms of gender roles, in part I think because we see it through the eyes of the male priesthood, who are largely set apart from it).

I hover between 3.5 and 4 stars - I would have given it a whole-hearted 4 stars if the novel had been romance-free, as this was the element I was least comfortable with and that I think the novel could happily have done without. However, 3.5 feels a little mean. So a begrudging 4 for now and I reserve the right to be meaner later. It does make me feel better about having given The Warriors of Taan 4 stars though (as there are numerous parallels between the 2, which amused me throughout).

I've been away from the threads for awhile, but I come back to tales from a dream holiday and afternoons spent reminiscing over childhood books. It all sounds wonderful!

>263 sandragon: you've got to love summer :) and it's a holiday ReadAThing weekend, so there shall be reading and baking!

48) Collapse - Jared Diamond


An examination of ancient and modern societies that have undergone sudden collapse, and an evaluation of the environmental context in terms of population size, impact and sustainability. Diamond argues from the start that he doesn't believe in environmental determinism - it's not geography or climate change that he believes knocked any of these societies over - it's our responses (or lack of them) when things start to go wrong.

I've been wanting to read this for several years, and @Morphidae's Mighty group read means I've finally done so. And I'm terribly glad I had a group to keep me going, because in spite of this being accessible and interesting (and a subject close to my heart), I found it quite a struggle.

It's probably the most depressing book I've read this year, and I say that as an idealist and an optimist. I'm less optimistic about the broader adoption of the Greater Good over the Greater Profit, and reading this many case studies that reinforce the sneaking suspicion that humanity can be horribly short-termist and selfish doesn't do me any good - especially when so many of the positive role models are dictators! Successful (i.e. sustainable) environmental management seems to depend on tiny, localised societies (Tikopia; Papua) or totalitarian control (shogunate Japan; Dominican Republic under Balaguer). The fact that the First World is swinging around to recognising and beginning to reduce its environmental impact is dwarfed (for me) by the rapid industrialisation of China, India, Indonesia and so on - who have very few qualms about the environmental impact of their rush to the top of the economic ladder.

I'll leave most of my comments over on the group read thread, but in a nutshell - my main issue with the book is that it's just too long. I think ot would have benefited from fewer case studies and less repetition. Ultimately, there wasn't enough differentiation between the issues within case studies, so this felt like retreading the same ground. Add in repetition within chapters - while this isn't a consistent problem, it's sporadically a big problem (I'm going to tell you about X; now I'll tell you about X in detail; having told you about X...) - and you have a recipe for intermittent boredom, which was almost enough for me to give up completely.

Which is a shame, because in between are chapters that are fascinating, horrifying, thought-provoking and interesting. I think a damn good edit could have improved the whole thing, packaged it up a bit better, and actually made the message stronger rather than weaker. I can't recommend it as it stands unless you're interested with a strong stomach; an abridged version should probably be required reading for everyone.

49) Alanna - Tamora Pierce


I fell in love with Alanna when I was perhaps 7 years old (maybe 6), a lonely only child in a small rural town whose friends all lived in outlying villages and farms that couldn't be reached on foot. It was the early 80s, so I was free to roam on my own cognisance, and I spent as many hours in the local library as the local park with the ducks. The librarians soon realised I was no worry (quite the opposite, as I'd help them tidy up and put mis-shelved books back where they belonged), and mostly ignored me almost as completely as the ducks. I remember finding the heavy hardback with its beautiful cover of the Ysandir looming over Persopolis (even if Alanna and Jon's horses were the wrong colour ;) and reading it in the library (repeatedly), as well as carrying it carefully home to curl on the sofa. Alanna was my favourite book for years, and will always have a very special place on my bookshelf (less so the sequels, which I didn't get hold of for years; I was mid-teens before I even knew books 3 and 4 existed).

So there's no way I can revisit her adventures without bias, and I haven't even tried. A few shaky bits of prose aside, it's fast-paced and gloriously single-minded in letting its heroine overcome her challenges on her own. She may need to learn to ask for help, but she doesn't need rescuing. For an adult reader, it's definitely simplistic (it's a children's book - it's allowed to be) - and while the Sweating Fever sequence retains its power, Alanna's adventures in Olau and Persopolis feel a little too easy, without any real question of her survival. The real joy for me though is in Alanna's steadfast refusal to give in to the more mundane challenges of bullying, mathematics and swordcraft, repeatedly knuckling down and finding ways to achieve her goals.

Perhaps the boys don't really feel like teenage boys - they're all very sensitive and mature; perhaps it would be nice if there were other female characters; perhaps the world feels a bit clean and tidy; and of course there's the unfortunate aspect that the climax involves two great white saviours coming to the desert to liberate the Bazhir from their semi-divine oppressors. I'm prepared to ignore all of it and enjoy the ride. I certainly wasn't conscious of any of this when I was 7 (although on that last point, that is the point - representation is important, and this isn't helpful).

I'll admit to finding both The Warriors of Taan and Mrs Frisby more satisfying as an adult reader, although whatever comments I made about their potential influence on me growing up they can't hold a candle to Alanna, who got to me first. I loved her because she resonated, but she was probably also the first female fictional character who reinforced the message that I could be anything I wanted, and I shouldn't let anyone tell me otherwise.

So it's the end of August and I'm about to hit my original 50 book target! I'm celebrating with Tigerman for book 50 and then we'll see where I get to by Christmas :)

>266 imyril: I've never read that book, but thank you for sharing that slice of your life, it was mesmerizing.

>267 imyril: I look forward to your views on Tigrrman. I hope you enjoy it.

@MrsLee posted some lovely quotes about reading over on her thread, one of which was "If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads but what he re-reads." (Mauriac) and it got me thinking. I think I know what I read most - but as I've kept a rough log for the past 8 years, I couldn't resist going and having a look. Cue an hour mesmerised by data and I'm both relieved to find I know myself and surprised to realise that I don't (apparently) have a very good grip on time - my idea of a recent reread appears to last 5 years (I swear I reread Anne of Green Gables last year. Not 3 years ago. I didn't. Huh).

I looked at how many times I reread an author as well as rereads of specific books, which is of course skewed by rereads of certain ENORMOUS epic fantasy cycles.

Taking each read at face value, my top reread authors are: Katharine Kerr, Iain M Banks, Michael Marshall Smith, George RR Martin and Robert Jordan (HA. One bloody reread - and I'm never doing that again, and I skew nearly a decade of reading ;)

Discounting for rereading an epic cycle, this shuffles to: Iain M Banks, Michael Marshall Smith, Jacqueline Carey, Susan Hill and Guy Gavriel Kay, which feels rather more representative of what I think I read.

The surprise for me here though is Banks. I know I enjoy the Culture (and have tried various non-Culture and non-scifi outings over the last decade), but I didn't realise I read his work more than any other author on my shelf - even without adjusting for epic cycles, he's right up there.

Looking at individual books, there are no surprises: The Lies of Locke Lamora tops the list (Yep. Hapless fan), followed jointly by: A Game of Thrones (rereads as new books were released), The Day of the Triffids (no surprises given my love of Wyndham) and Red Seas under Red Skies (I apparently read it independently of Lies, rather than together. But, err, I visit with Locke and Jean regularly). And a further 35 books have been read twice.

These lists aren't foolproof - I know I forgot to keep accurate track in busy periods (I'm pretty sure The Kraken Wakes has been read more recently / more often, for example) - but I don't imagine it would shake up the top of the crop that much.

So - given that quote - make of me what you will :)

Well, except for Anne of Green Gables, I haven't read any of those, so, you are still a mystery to me! I like the idea of going back through my lists and looking at what I actually have reread, not just what I think I want to reread.

>271 MrsLee: it was a fun exercise, and oddly liberating - I have shed any reluctance to reread something 'because I read it recently' now that I know I have absolutely no grasp of what 'recently' means :)

>269 pgmcc: I'm about halfway through Tigerman and finding myself glad for sensibly sized chapters that I can use as easy break points to make me put it down! I'm a huge Harkaway fan, and I'm admiring this as a progression of his work. I'm utterly distracted by plot and the delights of characters, so I may not make any particularly sensible comments about it by the time I'm done.

>273 imyril: I think the comments you have made already are very sensible. I am a huge Harkaway fan myself. I am, however, trying to lose weight.

>274 pgmcc: but but cake! with ninja! And tea with octagenarian spies! Losing weight is just so hard when your reading material keeps planting all these luscious thoughts...

...although Tigerman has offered baked beans as a core food reference so far, and I loathe them. So eat along with Harkaway may have to stop right here :)

I finally got to see the BBC dramatisation of The Thirteenth Tale. It's well executed, beautifully shot (such shot composition! And the colour palettes!), deliciously spooky (shadows and mirrors always are, aren't they?) and there are reliably solid performances from Olivia Colman and Vanessa Redgrave, but I'm glad I resisted the temptation to watch it at Christmas and held out to read the book first. Of course they had to simplify and cut a lot to fit it into 90 minutes, but I felt it still had to move things along so quickly it missed most of the emotional depth. If I'd only seen the film it wouldn't make me want to read the book (still my top read of the year so far, so that would be an enormous shame), although it feels complete in itself - I'd have had no idea I'd missed out, and would at least have enjoyed a fine drama.

Well, now I'm intrigued. I didn't know anyone had done a television version of that. It would be perfect for an October or November evening. Let's hope the BBC tries to license it to US cable or PBS.

>276 imyril: I am lying on the ground calling, "Medic!"

You got with both barrels. The book and the adaptation.

>277 jillmwo: it was originally screened here last New Year - perfect pairing! I suspect I missed out a little on atmosphere by watching it on a summer's evening ;)

>278 pgmcc: oops. Here, let me give you a hand up. I expect there's some plasters and a strong cup of tea around here somewhere...

50) Tigerman - Nick Harkaway


Curled up on the sofa with coffee and toast didn't feel quite appropriate for the climax of Tigerman (which is indeed awesome and made of win), but it's far too early in the morning for whisky and I just don't like strong builder's tea with a mountain of sugar in it.

This is probably Harkaway's least genre outing, in the sense that it doesn't feature global apocalypse, bombs that destroy reality, ninja, cake, steampunk monks or mechanical bees. I remain a bit bewildered by the lady in the bookshop who told me it featured a psychic volcano. I suppose that's one way of interpreting it, but it's far from explicit - although it's clearly her head-canon, and far be it from me to argue if it works for her. It's a bit of a stretch for me. Maybe I misheard her.

In that sense, I hope it furthers his road to a broader audience, because I think it's brilliant. This is Nick Harkaway writing a John Le Carre story. On the Le Carre side, Tigerman is a cynical commentary on politics (dirty) and culpability (deniable), and a touching exploration of the affections of an emotionally-battered sergeant with PTSD, unexpectedly making new connections during the final days of an island every government pretends doesn't exist (and soon won't, because they're going to blow it up). Lester Ferris channels many stereotypes (not least British discomfort with talking about feelings) and still feels real, thanks not least to Harkaway's deft touch in aside (The man had no calluses, and his eyes were perfectly empty may now be my favourite ever condemnation of the modern politician).

By contrast, the boy Lester hopes to adopt is pure Harkaway and draws the narrative firmly back into his preferred domain. A streetwise cipher who speaks Internet, his English is a loose string of enthusiastic gaming, scifi, and comic references that had me in stitches. Anyone who tries to make a film of this will need the perfect casting to pull this off without it becoming twee and cringeworthy, but given free rein in my head it worked just fine. The boy's total attachment to genre entertainment turns the Le Carre set-up into a reluctant superhero story that feels almost credible - far-fetched as spy fiction, but firmly set in a recognisable world.

The rollicking adventure races with a sense of inevitability, twisting and turning through plot development that is almost mythic in its familiarity, but at no point could I assume I was sure where Harkaway would take it (I didn't spot Gonzo Lubitsch, after all). While I'd have been mildly disappointed to find out I was wrong about Bad Jack, I still trusted that the truth would be equally spot on. I did briefly think it was going to break my heart, but it didn't in the end (because I am less emotionally engaged by father/son bonding, being an only daughter who never had a father) - although it was immensely satisfying.

In summary: wheeeeeeeeeeeee and also wooooo. Made of win.

>280 imyril: Great comments on Tigerman. As you have said, "Made of win!"

>280 imyril: I still have to make time for Harkaway's 2nd book never mind this one. I really should get to it soon so I can pick this one up.

>282 AHS-Wolfy: this one is slightly shorter, but worth making time for both - Angelmaker was also made of win ;)

As I've hit my initial 50 book goal and nearly 300 messages to boot, I'm going to punt across to a shiny new thread for my reading through the rest of the year.