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1CarlGreatbatch
Ahem, note to self - don't press return to move the cursor from the subject bar to the message body...
Ok, I've always failed to keep a list of books I've read so maybe my love for LT will keep me on track. If I set the start date as last Saturday, 6th September 2008, then I have read, or at least finished -
In The Name Of Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy
A very odd book really, Roman history told via the battles of fifteen of its greatest generals. I enjoyed it immensely, alternating passages with geekily playing Rome: Total War on my PC, but there's a lot of repetition because of the fragmentary nature of the historical records. I think the politics of Rome come through much more strongly than does the composition and ordering of the military. Highly recommended none the less.
Have A Nice Doomsday by Nicholas Guyatt
A very interesting, if not particularly original, look at millennial belief in the US and how it may affect its responses to other countries especially the middle east. A bit like a cross between Deer Hunting With Jesus and What's The Matter With America?: The Resistible Rise Of The American Right, though not quite up to the standards of either.
The Science Of Discworld I by Terry Pratchett et al
A re-read brought on by the tabloid stupidity around the starting of the LHC, I needed a good solid science book that also made me laugh and under those circumstances nothing can really compare to the three books that Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen have produced. Mixing chapters of a story set on the Discworld, that more explicitly than usual is set in comparison with our 'real world', with chapters of really quite hard science with at least one genuinely eye-opening explanation of science per chapter. Even better than I remembered it being, which is saying something!
All of which is mostly non-fiction, oddly. No doubt there'll be plenty of trashy fiction to follow!
Ok, I've always failed to keep a list of books I've read so maybe my love for LT will keep me on track. If I set the start date as last Saturday, 6th September 2008, then I have read, or at least finished -
In The Name Of Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy
A very odd book really, Roman history told via the battles of fifteen of its greatest generals. I enjoyed it immensely, alternating passages with geekily playing Rome: Total War on my PC, but there's a lot of repetition because of the fragmentary nature of the historical records. I think the politics of Rome come through much more strongly than does the composition and ordering of the military. Highly recommended none the less.
Have A Nice Doomsday by Nicholas Guyatt
A very interesting, if not particularly original, look at millennial belief in the US and how it may affect its responses to other countries especially the middle east. A bit like a cross between Deer Hunting With Jesus and What's The Matter With America?: The Resistible Rise Of The American Right, though not quite up to the standards of either.
The Science Of Discworld I by Terry Pratchett et al
A re-read brought on by the tabloid stupidity around the starting of the LHC, I needed a good solid science book that also made me laugh and under those circumstances nothing can really compare to the three books that Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen have produced. Mixing chapters of a story set on the Discworld, that more explicitly than usual is set in comparison with our 'real world', with chapters of really quite hard science with at least one genuinely eye-opening explanation of science per chapter. Even better than I remembered it being, which is saying something!
All of which is mostly non-fiction, oddly. No doubt there'll be plenty of trashy fiction to follow!
2CarlGreatbatch
On with the latest reads -
Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon
When I find myself re-reading McCammon books I know my post-apocalypse run is getting out of hand... McCammon was often referred to as a poor-man's Stephen King, and it was hard to argue with that description back in the eighties when this was written as he seemed to just be churning out bad re-writes of King's books, Swan Song being his version of King's The Stand. This was never a patch on The Stand at the time and it has aged badly in the decades since. If anything King's apocalypse from weapon grade virus research seems more apposite than ever while McCammon's bog standard cold war nuclear standoff seemed dated even at the time. There's part of me that wants to find something to recommend about this book, but that's just nostalgia speaking as I've owned it since it was published 21 years ago. Just imagine 956 pages of dated, pseudo-spiritual cold war paranoia with sub-Koontz bad guys and avoid.
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johan Rudolf Wyss
I loved this book as a child and after recently re-reading Robinson Crusoe I snapped up a copy when I saw it in a second-hand book shop. The problem is that Defoe's masterpiece has a lot of interesting thing's to say about loneliness, self-reliance and the need of humanity for companionship, whereas The Swiss Family Robinson is a kid's book where a moron would have struggled to suffer either physically, spiritually or mentally. The Robinson's end up an island, much more mythical than anything dreamt up by Swift, where every useful, tasty, nourishing and helpful plant and animal from around the globe is gathered together for their delectation. Always return to childhood favourites with caution...
The Science Of Discworld II by Terry Pratchett et al
Well, I couldn't read the first one without continuing. I do realise other people can but I like to put this mildly OCD alike tendency to have to read through a whole series when I've read the first one down as an attractive quirk... In short I love the science writer's theories about the evolution of the mind a lot, who can disagree that we are story-telling chimps rather than wise men? But the Discworld story that frames it is a little less interesting this time as far as I'm concerned. Still very highly recommended.
Wolf Of The Plains by Conn Iggulden
Speaking of my little issues around series'... I've just bought the sequel to this, Lords Of The Bow, and so I had to read the first one again. Obviously. I bought Wolf Of The Plains in Leeds Airport on my way to the in-laws' Spanish villa, airport book-buying being an integral part of my holidaying itinerary. Needless to say I've ended up with some appalling reads through this practice and my hopes weren't high for this book, at least in part because I've studied Mongolian history, culture and language and am prone to some level of snobbiness where fictional representations of such are concerned. Snobbery was justified in that this is a very westernised take on the early life of the Great Khan, both in attitude towards language and names and in understanding the mindset of 12th and 13th century nomads. For all that, I enjoyed the adventure aspect of the story immensely. By keeping my critical faculties disengaged I found I could let this story, that is hung loosely on selected facts of history, drag me along too quickly to get annoyed at its misconceptions and elisions. I don't know if that's a recommendation or not!
And that takes me to seven books so far.
Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon
When I find myself re-reading McCammon books I know my post-apocalypse run is getting out of hand... McCammon was often referred to as a poor-man's Stephen King, and it was hard to argue with that description back in the eighties when this was written as he seemed to just be churning out bad re-writes of King's books, Swan Song being his version of King's The Stand. This was never a patch on The Stand at the time and it has aged badly in the decades since. If anything King's apocalypse from weapon grade virus research seems more apposite than ever while McCammon's bog standard cold war nuclear standoff seemed dated even at the time. There's part of me that wants to find something to recommend about this book, but that's just nostalgia speaking as I've owned it since it was published 21 years ago. Just imagine 956 pages of dated, pseudo-spiritual cold war paranoia with sub-Koontz bad guys and avoid.
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johan Rudolf Wyss
I loved this book as a child and after recently re-reading Robinson Crusoe I snapped up a copy when I saw it in a second-hand book shop. The problem is that Defoe's masterpiece has a lot of interesting thing's to say about loneliness, self-reliance and the need of humanity for companionship, whereas The Swiss Family Robinson is a kid's book where a moron would have struggled to suffer either physically, spiritually or mentally. The Robinson's end up an island, much more mythical than anything dreamt up by Swift, where every useful, tasty, nourishing and helpful plant and animal from around the globe is gathered together for their delectation. Always return to childhood favourites with caution...
The Science Of Discworld II by Terry Pratchett et al
Well, I couldn't read the first one without continuing. I do realise other people can but I like to put this mildly OCD alike tendency to have to read through a whole series when I've read the first one down as an attractive quirk... In short I love the science writer's theories about the evolution of the mind a lot, who can disagree that we are story-telling chimps rather than wise men? But the Discworld story that frames it is a little less interesting this time as far as I'm concerned. Still very highly recommended.
Wolf Of The Plains by Conn Iggulden
Speaking of my little issues around series'... I've just bought the sequel to this, Lords Of The Bow, and so I had to read the first one again. Obviously. I bought Wolf Of The Plains in Leeds Airport on my way to the in-laws' Spanish villa, airport book-buying being an integral part of my holidaying itinerary. Needless to say I've ended up with some appalling reads through this practice and my hopes weren't high for this book, at least in part because I've studied Mongolian history, culture and language and am prone to some level of snobbiness where fictional representations of such are concerned. Snobbery was justified in that this is a very westernised take on the early life of the Great Khan, both in attitude towards language and names and in understanding the mindset of 12th and 13th century nomads. For all that, I enjoyed the adventure aspect of the story immensely. By keeping my critical faculties disengaged I found I could let this story, that is hung loosely on selected facts of history, drag me along too quickly to get annoyed at its misconceptions and elisions. I don't know if that's a recommendation or not!
And that takes me to seven books so far.
3CarlGreatbatch
I need to post this more often, I fear I'm missing some here...
Homicide A Year On The Killing Streets by David Simon
A journalist spends a year with Baltimore homicide detectives and ends up writing quite simply one of the best books I've ever read. Up there with HST's Hell's Angels or Mailer's The Fight in demonstrating that at it's peak journalism becomes art. This recent re-issue is particularly good because of the Post Mortem at the end where Simon explains the background to the book and what has happened since. It goes without saying that any fan of The Wire or Homicide: Life On The Streets should read it (and if you are not a fan of The Wire I doubt your sentience), but it should also be read by any fan of crime fiction or by anyone interested in US politics and culture. I can't decide whether to buy an old copy of his next book, The Corner, straight away or wait for the re-issue early next year.
The Caves Of Steel & The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov
Yet more re-reading, although I only really wanted to read the second book. As I have mentioned previously though, I always feel the urge to read in order and it paid off for once! I originally read the first one a number of years after The Naked Sun and disliked it quite a lot, in retrospect I think I was simply annoyed that the setting for this was Earth rather than one of the more exotic Spacer planets. In fact they are both fascinating mixes of SF and Detective fiction that presents as a coherent whole and once you can get past the anachronistic attitudes, particularly towards women, they do a better job of integrating Asimov's ideas about robots into a fully realised story than do many of his other books. I need to get the next two books in the series to see where else he went with the concept.
Lords Of The Bow by Conn Iggulden
Oh dear. I tried to stick to just viewing this as an adventure loosely hung on the historical story but in this second book it goes so far off course as to be an outright fantasy. Frankly I would rather read a fantasy book from Iggulden, he can write genuinely exciting battles and interesting, if stereotypical, characters. However this loose basing of his stories on historical events has rapidly become irritating. I'd like to pretend that means I will wisely avoid becoming annoyed by the next sequel, but no doubt I'll be adding it to this list soon...
The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula k. Le Guin.
Rubbish. And to be fair, at least in the edition I have, the author herself warns the reader as much in an introduction. Not a single believable character in the whole book, each one simply being a symbol for a particular kind of human rapaciousness or cowardice as Le Guin saw it during the period in which she wrote the book. The Vietnam War threw up a lot of interesting SF, The Forever War being a good example, but this isn't one of them.
Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
From the ridiculous to the sublime. I thought this was a re-read but I have absolutely no memory of this book so perhaps it was the first time I have read it. I don't know where to start with this review, I simply loved all of it. I haven't read any Hemingway for a while so perhaps the most important thing was the simple, spare beauty of the prose. There is just no effort involved in reading this book, although the impressions it leaves behind have provided me with more food for thought than most writers manage to engender in a career. I was left practically smelling the dusty plazas of Spain and considering how we depend on others for our view of ourselves. A stunning book, and hard to believe that it was his debut novel.
Viking Odinn's Child by Tim Severin
Another disappointment. In its favour it is quite evocative of its times and the descriptions of the travels of the main character are well done. However the other characters are rarely well drawn and at best just read like a collected who's who of the sagas. I think my main problem is that in the midst of this exciting mayhem and warfare the main character is a bookish weakling who spends his time running from massacre to massacre while mooning over assorted teenage girls. Perhaps the series will pick up as Thorgils enters adulthood.
The count now is fourteen books.
Homicide A Year On The Killing Streets by David Simon
A journalist spends a year with Baltimore homicide detectives and ends up writing quite simply one of the best books I've ever read. Up there with HST's Hell's Angels or Mailer's The Fight in demonstrating that at it's peak journalism becomes art. This recent re-issue is particularly good because of the Post Mortem at the end where Simon explains the background to the book and what has happened since. It goes without saying that any fan of The Wire or Homicide: Life On The Streets should read it (and if you are not a fan of The Wire I doubt your sentience), but it should also be read by any fan of crime fiction or by anyone interested in US politics and culture. I can't decide whether to buy an old copy of his next book, The Corner, straight away or wait for the re-issue early next year.
The Caves Of Steel & The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov
Yet more re-reading, although I only really wanted to read the second book. As I have mentioned previously though, I always feel the urge to read in order and it paid off for once! I originally read the first one a number of years after The Naked Sun and disliked it quite a lot, in retrospect I think I was simply annoyed that the setting for this was Earth rather than one of the more exotic Spacer planets. In fact they are both fascinating mixes of SF and Detective fiction that presents as a coherent whole and once you can get past the anachronistic attitudes, particularly towards women, they do a better job of integrating Asimov's ideas about robots into a fully realised story than do many of his other books. I need to get the next two books in the series to see where else he went with the concept.
Lords Of The Bow by Conn Iggulden
Oh dear. I tried to stick to just viewing this as an adventure loosely hung on the historical story but in this second book it goes so far off course as to be an outright fantasy. Frankly I would rather read a fantasy book from Iggulden, he can write genuinely exciting battles and interesting, if stereotypical, characters. However this loose basing of his stories on historical events has rapidly become irritating. I'd like to pretend that means I will wisely avoid becoming annoyed by the next sequel, but no doubt I'll be adding it to this list soon...
The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula k. Le Guin.
Rubbish. And to be fair, at least in the edition I have, the author herself warns the reader as much in an introduction. Not a single believable character in the whole book, each one simply being a symbol for a particular kind of human rapaciousness or cowardice as Le Guin saw it during the period in which she wrote the book. The Vietnam War threw up a lot of interesting SF, The Forever War being a good example, but this isn't one of them.
Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
From the ridiculous to the sublime. I thought this was a re-read but I have absolutely no memory of this book so perhaps it was the first time I have read it. I don't know where to start with this review, I simply loved all of it. I haven't read any Hemingway for a while so perhaps the most important thing was the simple, spare beauty of the prose. There is just no effort involved in reading this book, although the impressions it leaves behind have provided me with more food for thought than most writers manage to engender in a career. I was left practically smelling the dusty plazas of Spain and considering how we depend on others for our view of ourselves. A stunning book, and hard to believe that it was his debut novel.
Viking Odinn's Child by Tim Severin
Another disappointment. In its favour it is quite evocative of its times and the descriptions of the travels of the main character are well done. However the other characters are rarely well drawn and at best just read like a collected who's who of the sagas. I think my main problem is that in the midst of this exciting mayhem and warfare the main character is a bookish weakling who spends his time running from massacre to massacre while mooning over assorted teenage girls. Perhaps the series will pick up as Thorgils enters adulthood.
The count now is fourteen books.
4CarlGreatbatch
Not just laziness slowing me down this time, I just had one of those periods when I seem to be reading a dozen books or so at once and never finishing any! Now they all seem to be dropping together so I'm going to log them and add little reviews as I get time...
Bruce Lee And Me by Brian Preston
A book I read thanks to LibraryThing funnily enough, I spotted it in the Early Reviewers list (under its original title of Me, Chi And Bruce Lee) and as it was only available in North America I figured I'd spend cold hard cash on it! A determinedly pacifistic, if not outright cowardly, journalist accepts the task in his unfit forties of taking up a martial art and writing about his journey to his black belt. Thankfully, for the sake of both comedy and veracity, he gets nowhere near such a lofty aim and the story is all the more entertaining and fascinating because of it. Preston as a sharp eyed outsider is the perfect guide to all stops along the martial arts spectrum, from the mysticism of the traditional arts to the hard-nosed business PR of the Chinese Shaolin Temple to the ultra-physical extremes of the UFC. He has also got the good journalist's eye for a telling detail, always able to bring a fresh angle to any of the subjects he covers. As an unfit man approaching forty who is thinking of returning to MA this book has been a bit of an inspiration to me, Preston is very clear on his own failings and difficulties (often describing them in laugh out loud detail) but his sense of achievement also shines through. Highly recommended on many levels.
Notes From A Big Country by Bill Bryson
I don't think Bryson has written a book that I haven't enjoyed. In fact some of them have reduced me to dribbling incoherence, all red-faced from fighting for breath after laughing uncontrollably for what seems likes hours. And this book contains some very funny lines and situations, but Bryson's humour seems somewhat constrained by the format of short columns and this collection suffers because of that. To be honest all of these types of books tend to be a slight disappointment, rather than simply printing these slightly tawdry collections of weekly columns surely it would be better to get the writer to turn the material into a more coherent whole? Anyway, that aside, I found Bryson's often bemused interactions with what he still sees as his homeland generally interesting and amusing. I'd still recommend just about any of his other books over this one however.
Egil's Saga
This one is definitely comfort reading. This is one of my favourite Sagas and Egil is in my top three characters of all time. The ultimate anti-hero yet also the greatest poet of his era, the grim reality of the Viking period shines through the whole story but that doesn't take away from just how funny much of Egil's behaviour is. At least from the distance of several hundred years perspective! Egil's first murder is at the age of eight, an axe blow to the head of a playmate who has disagreed with him, and he is still killing whilst a blind, lame old man staggering towards death. In between he interferes, often decisively, with numerous kings and kingdoms, slaughters dozens, constantly talks his way into and out of the kind of trouble that would destroy a lesser man and is often in a homicidal sulk because he thinks he has been cheated out of money he has deserved. His friends were willing to demonstrate the patience of saints because of his, often bloody-minded, faithfulness to them and for the immortality that he would give them through his poetry. Having a friend that even kings were nervous to attack probably didn't hurt either... Every character in this saga could have had more written about them, especially Egil's father and grandfather, but it is Egil's poetry that makes the whole story deathless. Here's an excerpt written after his son drowned -
Cruel crashed
The curled sea
Wave on the once well-formed
Family shield-wall,
Now broached and battered
Like the beaten boat
Of my son, smashed
By the sea storm.
Could my sword stroke take
Vengeance on the sea-surge,
Bitter ale brewer
None can bend or break,
Could my hand kill
The crushing wave,
With god and goddess
I should grapple.
But I've no strength to subdue
The slayer of my son
Nor the boldness to beat
Down my boy's killer:
Obvious to all,
An old man, unaided,
Helpless, unhappy,
Can hold out no hope.
The Saga Of Gisli
Gisli's is a much more serious story, and one with a very Norse sense of the inevitability of falling beneath the hammer of fate. Fate in this case tearing apart and destroying a whole family. To be honest I shouldn't have re-read this straight after Egil's saga because while I like this saga nearly as much it doesn't have the same adventurous reach and malevolent sense of fun as Egil. Instead it's a closely focused story of what happens when vengeance spirals out of control. Perhaps also a warning to all husbands not to eavesdrop on their wives, especially when they are discussing previous loves! I deeply admire Gisli's stoicism in this saga, particularly - "þat mun fram koma, sem auðit verðr" What is to follow, will follow...
Sonny Liston by Rob Steen
Sonny Liston was a hard man to like and also had the misfortune to be Champ when Cassius Clay began his rise to be the best-liked and most popular sportsman in the world. Unfortunately this book does little to shed much light on the mysterious events around Liston life and death nor does it do a particularly good job of defending his character. Steen's writing swings widely from the wildly histrionic to terse sections that leap over giant chasms of time, beyond that he quotes freely from much better writers such as Norman Mailer and Alistair Cooke which just serves to show up his own purple prose. A disappointment.
The Night Mayor by Kim Newman
Kim Newman always has a lot of fun mixing his own characters with other people's fictional creations and even historical figures, but in this short SF novel he adds another layer with his characters trapped in a cyberspace film noir city. In the near future a totalitarian government manipulates two professional 'dreamers' to take on the dream creation of an evil genius in a maximum security prison; a city where it's always raining and always night. This book starts well and just gets better, combining the characteristics of Noir, Cyberpunk and political satire to create a satisfying whole. Short but packed with ideas and gleeful invention.
The Captain Is Out To Lunch And The Sailors Have Taken Over The Ship by Charles Bukowski and Robert Crumb
I can not believe that I hadn't read this until now. It has been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years, sandwiched between some of Buk's poetry, and I had a vague feeling that it was some slight novelty item chucked out posthumously and liable to set my teeth on edge. What it is in reality is the diary captured thoughts of an aging writer who can't stop noticing the vacuity and worthlessness of the lives lived around him. Regardless of the passing of time his eye is as keen as ever, regardless of his need for a cataract operation, and his rage is as pure as ever, even with the compensation of enough money for the first time in his life. As beautifully honest and simple as anything he ever wrote, a fitting coda for my favourite writer and poet.
"The glory is in the motion and the dare. Death be damned. It's today and today and today. Yes."
Robert Crumb's illustrations seem to grow organically from the page, a perfect marriage with the words.
The Savage Tales Of Solomon Kane by Robert E. Howard
I discovered RE Howard long before I'd ever heard of Conan thanks to a cheap seventies paperback containing a couple of Solomon Kane stories given to me when I was a child. I can still clearly remember how I was completely sucked into the adventures of the jungle-exploring Puritan and this collection of all of the Solomon Kane stories ever written does justice to those treasured memories. Not only are these stories as exciting as anything written about the legendary Cimmerian, they also have an fascinating tendency to include a twisted retelling of European myths, such as vampires or the harpies, in an African setting. However it is worth pointing out that these stories are very much of their time and REH was hardly a progressive even for his time. In amongst the casual racism and misogyny it is worth pointing out that the wisest character, and the closest thing Kane has to a friend, is an African witch-doctor who shows up more than once to save Kane's life. Apparently a film is being made and it will be very interesting to see what they do with the source material...
Angels Of Death by William Marsden & Julian Sher
The way that motorbike gangs have developed into mini crime syndicates, some of them with well developed international links, is a fascinating and scary story that deserves to be widely read. Unfortunately this is not the book that will inform anyone because it is a deeply irritating book in almost every way, written in a smugly tabloid manner that is contemptuous of any opinion or way of doing things that disagrees with the authors' opinions in any degree. Hopefully there is a better overview of these crimes out there, one that actually throws some light on the issues rather than trying to turn simple criminal gangs into some kind of universal bogeymen that prove the downfall of western civilisation. Very, very poor.
Which takes me to twenty-three books in nine weeks or so.
Bruce Lee And Me by Brian Preston
A book I read thanks to LibraryThing funnily enough, I spotted it in the Early Reviewers list (under its original title of Me, Chi And Bruce Lee) and as it was only available in North America I figured I'd spend cold hard cash on it! A determinedly pacifistic, if not outright cowardly, journalist accepts the task in his unfit forties of taking up a martial art and writing about his journey to his black belt. Thankfully, for the sake of both comedy and veracity, he gets nowhere near such a lofty aim and the story is all the more entertaining and fascinating because of it. Preston as a sharp eyed outsider is the perfect guide to all stops along the martial arts spectrum, from the mysticism of the traditional arts to the hard-nosed business PR of the Chinese Shaolin Temple to the ultra-physical extremes of the UFC. He has also got the good journalist's eye for a telling detail, always able to bring a fresh angle to any of the subjects he covers. As an unfit man approaching forty who is thinking of returning to MA this book has been a bit of an inspiration to me, Preston is very clear on his own failings and difficulties (often describing them in laugh out loud detail) but his sense of achievement also shines through. Highly recommended on many levels.
Notes From A Big Country by Bill Bryson
I don't think Bryson has written a book that I haven't enjoyed. In fact some of them have reduced me to dribbling incoherence, all red-faced from fighting for breath after laughing uncontrollably for what seems likes hours. And this book contains some very funny lines and situations, but Bryson's humour seems somewhat constrained by the format of short columns and this collection suffers because of that. To be honest all of these types of books tend to be a slight disappointment, rather than simply printing these slightly tawdry collections of weekly columns surely it would be better to get the writer to turn the material into a more coherent whole? Anyway, that aside, I found Bryson's often bemused interactions with what he still sees as his homeland generally interesting and amusing. I'd still recommend just about any of his other books over this one however.
Egil's Saga
This one is definitely comfort reading. This is one of my favourite Sagas and Egil is in my top three characters of all time. The ultimate anti-hero yet also the greatest poet of his era, the grim reality of the Viking period shines through the whole story but that doesn't take away from just how funny much of Egil's behaviour is. At least from the distance of several hundred years perspective! Egil's first murder is at the age of eight, an axe blow to the head of a playmate who has disagreed with him, and he is still killing whilst a blind, lame old man staggering towards death. In between he interferes, often decisively, with numerous kings and kingdoms, slaughters dozens, constantly talks his way into and out of the kind of trouble that would destroy a lesser man and is often in a homicidal sulk because he thinks he has been cheated out of money he has deserved. His friends were willing to demonstrate the patience of saints because of his, often bloody-minded, faithfulness to them and for the immortality that he would give them through his poetry. Having a friend that even kings were nervous to attack probably didn't hurt either... Every character in this saga could have had more written about them, especially Egil's father and grandfather, but it is Egil's poetry that makes the whole story deathless. Here's an excerpt written after his son drowned -
Cruel crashed
The curled sea
Wave on the once well-formed
Family shield-wall,
Now broached and battered
Like the beaten boat
Of my son, smashed
By the sea storm.
Could my sword stroke take
Vengeance on the sea-surge,
Bitter ale brewer
None can bend or break,
Could my hand kill
The crushing wave,
With god and goddess
I should grapple.
But I've no strength to subdue
The slayer of my son
Nor the boldness to beat
Down my boy's killer:
Obvious to all,
An old man, unaided,
Helpless, unhappy,
Can hold out no hope.
The Saga Of Gisli
Gisli's is a much more serious story, and one with a very Norse sense of the inevitability of falling beneath the hammer of fate. Fate in this case tearing apart and destroying a whole family. To be honest I shouldn't have re-read this straight after Egil's saga because while I like this saga nearly as much it doesn't have the same adventurous reach and malevolent sense of fun as Egil. Instead it's a closely focused story of what happens when vengeance spirals out of control. Perhaps also a warning to all husbands not to eavesdrop on their wives, especially when they are discussing previous loves! I deeply admire Gisli's stoicism in this saga, particularly - "þat mun fram koma, sem auðit verðr" What is to follow, will follow...
Sonny Liston by Rob Steen
Sonny Liston was a hard man to like and also had the misfortune to be Champ when Cassius Clay began his rise to be the best-liked and most popular sportsman in the world. Unfortunately this book does little to shed much light on the mysterious events around Liston life and death nor does it do a particularly good job of defending his character. Steen's writing swings widely from the wildly histrionic to terse sections that leap over giant chasms of time, beyond that he quotes freely from much better writers such as Norman Mailer and Alistair Cooke which just serves to show up his own purple prose. A disappointment.
The Night Mayor by Kim Newman
Kim Newman always has a lot of fun mixing his own characters with other people's fictional creations and even historical figures, but in this short SF novel he adds another layer with his characters trapped in a cyberspace film noir city. In the near future a totalitarian government manipulates two professional 'dreamers' to take on the dream creation of an evil genius in a maximum security prison; a city where it's always raining and always night. This book starts well and just gets better, combining the characteristics of Noir, Cyberpunk and political satire to create a satisfying whole. Short but packed with ideas and gleeful invention.
The Captain Is Out To Lunch And The Sailors Have Taken Over The Ship by Charles Bukowski and Robert Crumb
I can not believe that I hadn't read this until now. It has been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years, sandwiched between some of Buk's poetry, and I had a vague feeling that it was some slight novelty item chucked out posthumously and liable to set my teeth on edge. What it is in reality is the diary captured thoughts of an aging writer who can't stop noticing the vacuity and worthlessness of the lives lived around him. Regardless of the passing of time his eye is as keen as ever, regardless of his need for a cataract operation, and his rage is as pure as ever, even with the compensation of enough money for the first time in his life. As beautifully honest and simple as anything he ever wrote, a fitting coda for my favourite writer and poet.
"The glory is in the motion and the dare. Death be damned. It's today and today and today. Yes."
Robert Crumb's illustrations seem to grow organically from the page, a perfect marriage with the words.
The Savage Tales Of Solomon Kane by Robert E. Howard
I discovered RE Howard long before I'd ever heard of Conan thanks to a cheap seventies paperback containing a couple of Solomon Kane stories given to me when I was a child. I can still clearly remember how I was completely sucked into the adventures of the jungle-exploring Puritan and this collection of all of the Solomon Kane stories ever written does justice to those treasured memories. Not only are these stories as exciting as anything written about the legendary Cimmerian, they also have an fascinating tendency to include a twisted retelling of European myths, such as vampires or the harpies, in an African setting. However it is worth pointing out that these stories are very much of their time and REH was hardly a progressive even for his time. In amongst the casual racism and misogyny it is worth pointing out that the wisest character, and the closest thing Kane has to a friend, is an African witch-doctor who shows up more than once to save Kane's life. Apparently a film is being made and it will be very interesting to see what they do with the source material...
Angels Of Death by William Marsden & Julian Sher
The way that motorbike gangs have developed into mini crime syndicates, some of them with well developed international links, is a fascinating and scary story that deserves to be widely read. Unfortunately this is not the book that will inform anyone because it is a deeply irritating book in almost every way, written in a smugly tabloid manner that is contemptuous of any opinion or way of doing things that disagrees with the authors' opinions in any degree. Hopefully there is a better overview of these crimes out there, one that actually throws some light on the issues rather than trying to turn simple criminal gangs into some kind of universal bogeymen that prove the downfall of western civilisation. Very, very poor.
Which takes me to twenty-three books in nine weeks or so.
5nancyewhite
I absolutely loved reading your book list and descriptions, and thought I should let you know that there is an appreciative audience here...
6CarlGreatbatch
Thank you! That was a pleasant surprise, and you're right, it is good to know someone finds this interesting.
7CarlGreatbatch
Starting a new job has bitten in to both my reading and writing time unfortunately! As in my last post I'll list what I've finished, or very nearly finished, and add reviews when I get time...
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
There was a time that I considered this the best work by either author, I loved what each of them did separately but thought that the combination of the two was simply greater than the whole. However in the eighteen years since this was published both authors have surpassed Good Omens by a long way making this reread a slightly depressing one. Taken on its own merits however it is still a fun romp through the mythology of the Christian apocalypse, especially as filtered through the Omen movies, with tons more wit, intelligence and humanity than a fistful of more literary works. It's a shame that the Terry Gilliam movie of this was never made because it often reads more like a script than a book.
Moonheart and Spiritwalk by Charles De Lint
I don't know why I'm so ashamed of my fantasy reading, but I really, really am. And worse I nearly always convince myself that fantasy books I have enjoyed were worse than I remembered, as though I become temporarily lacking in critical faculties while reading fantasy and I should treat any enjoyable memories as suspect. Bizarre. I picked up Moonheart because I wanted some escapism after the usual mayhem of broken families at work and was instantly recaptured by its lyrical description of a world separated from our own mundane one by a curtain less than gossamer. Charles de Lint's storytelling is a fabulous mix of urban grit and an otherworld of spirits, bards and monsters that feels just as real as his Ottawa of cops, bikers and artists. I stormed through it and its sequel in no time at all and immediately added a load of his newer books to my wish-list. Sometimes a little fantasy can let us see our own world, and its wonders, more clearly. What more could I ask for from a book.
Rubicon by Tom Holland
Genius, plain and simple. I have never felt so clearly as though I fully understood the reasoning that made the Romans the success they were, and why at the height of their success their Republic collapsed. Holland has written the best book I have ever read about the late Roman Republic and the characters in it are brought to life as clearly as though it were a great novel, hardly surprising from the writer of one of my favourite historical/horror/just plain odd novels Deliver Us From Evil. It almost seems unfair to compare it to other history books, the writing is so good. Not only is it more entertaining than seems possible but Hollands acerbic comments on the various egotists and solipsists that make up the cast make him the true heir of the Roman writers themselves. I am determined to read his other two historical books, while mourning the fact that he has shown no interest so far in continuing this history through the emperors to the fall of Rome.
The City And The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
No Retreat by Dave Hann & Steve Tilzey
Nation by Terry Pratchett
Solution-Focused Groupwork by John Sharry
A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
Patriots: Surviving The Coming Collapse by James Wesley Rawles
Unforgivable Stories by Kim Newman
Conan: The Ultimate Guide by Roy Thomas
Which is thirty-five in fifteen weeks.
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
There was a time that I considered this the best work by either author, I loved what each of them did separately but thought that the combination of the two was simply greater than the whole. However in the eighteen years since this was published both authors have surpassed Good Omens by a long way making this reread a slightly depressing one. Taken on its own merits however it is still a fun romp through the mythology of the Christian apocalypse, especially as filtered through the Omen movies, with tons more wit, intelligence and humanity than a fistful of more literary works. It's a shame that the Terry Gilliam movie of this was never made because it often reads more like a script than a book.
Moonheart and Spiritwalk by Charles De Lint
I don't know why I'm so ashamed of my fantasy reading, but I really, really am. And worse I nearly always convince myself that fantasy books I have enjoyed were worse than I remembered, as though I become temporarily lacking in critical faculties while reading fantasy and I should treat any enjoyable memories as suspect. Bizarre. I picked up Moonheart because I wanted some escapism after the usual mayhem of broken families at work and was instantly recaptured by its lyrical description of a world separated from our own mundane one by a curtain less than gossamer. Charles de Lint's storytelling is a fabulous mix of urban grit and an otherworld of spirits, bards and monsters that feels just as real as his Ottawa of cops, bikers and artists. I stormed through it and its sequel in no time at all and immediately added a load of his newer books to my wish-list. Sometimes a little fantasy can let us see our own world, and its wonders, more clearly. What more could I ask for from a book.
Rubicon by Tom Holland
Genius, plain and simple. I have never felt so clearly as though I fully understood the reasoning that made the Romans the success they were, and why at the height of their success their Republic collapsed. Holland has written the best book I have ever read about the late Roman Republic and the characters in it are brought to life as clearly as though it were a great novel, hardly surprising from the writer of one of my favourite historical/horror/just plain odd novels Deliver Us From Evil. It almost seems unfair to compare it to other history books, the writing is so good. Not only is it more entertaining than seems possible but Hollands acerbic comments on the various egotists and solipsists that make up the cast make him the true heir of the Roman writers themselves. I am determined to read his other two historical books, while mourning the fact that he has shown no interest so far in continuing this history through the emperors to the fall of Rome.
The City And The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
No Retreat by Dave Hann & Steve Tilzey
Nation by Terry Pratchett
Solution-Focused Groupwork by John Sharry
A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
Patriots: Surviving The Coming Collapse by James Wesley Rawles
Unforgivable Stories by Kim Newman
Conan: The Ultimate Guide by Roy Thomas
Which is thirty-five in fifteen weeks.
