Number 31- The Book That Wouldn't Burn- Mark Lawrence

 

I was sent this book as a review copy last month, signed by the author. Volume two of the trilogy was released a couple of weeks ago and, on the strength of this one, I’ve already gone out and bought it.

In the grand tradition of fantasy epics like Gene Wolfe’s New Sun and King’s Dark Tower, this is set in a world based on ours, but in a possible far distant future or another path on the beam (to borrow a King-ism). This book is easily a worthy companion to both of those series. Not having read many of Lawrence’s books, I might well be missing links to his other trilogies.

Livira has lived her short life in the dust, a huge desert that surrounds the city of Crath, home to an enormous library. When Sabbers, a race of doglike warriors, destroy the settlement she lives in, killing all the adults and taking the children hostage, she starts on a perilous journey. The Sabber raiding party is ambushed by human soldiers and Livira and her friends are taken to the city where she is taken as an apprentice by a senior member of the Library staff.

Evar has lived his entire life in a sealed chamber of the Library. His only company are his two 'brothers' and one 'sister' and a pair of mechanoids which provide food, assistance and protection. He and his 3 “siblings” have never known another place. He’s desperate to escape.

Eventually of course, their paths cross and there will be consequences for almost everyone.

Every chapter is headed with an epigraph from a selection of real and fictional books, including amusingly amended quotes from real works (with amusingly changed author's names)  and a pair of cheeky entries from one Mark Lawrence and Jorg (the title character of Lawrence’s Thorns trilogy). Quite what Enid Blyton (or Enanand Byton) has done to upset the author is unknown, but there are a few wickedly funny jabs at her body of work.

The gradual reveal of the nature of the Library is masterfully handled. The storyline grows from personal to epic in scale and contains one of the best hidden-in-plain-sight reveals I’ve seen in years. A week further on and I’m still kicking myself for not seeing it. The Library spans many realities and times but Lawrence handles the rules of moving between them seamlessly, without causing any gaps in logic.

If I was to pick any fault, I would say that the story of Evar’s and his “siblings’” past and how they came to be stranded together in the chamber is repeated a little too often in the opening chapters. However, that’s a minor niggle and the book is totally absorbing, exciting, enthralling, with flashes of humour, deeply rooted satire, and some important thoughts on the cyclical nature of history and why we should learn and break the cycles.

The first thing I did when I finished this was to rush out and buy book 2. This is easily one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. Go out and buy it. Then buy the sequel.

Numbers 29/30- Hamnet- Maggie O'Farrell/The Thoughts of Chairman Miaow- Andrew Davies

 This month's book group read was this historical novel based around the short life of Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, after whom the play was of course named.

Historical fiction is not normally in my comfort zone.  Too much of it feels dry and tedious with the author showing off their research over the plot.

This however is a pure character piece that follows Hamnet and his mother Agnes (pronounces Annyis) over the days leading up to the tragedy, and the aftermath.

As the book opens, Hamnet is desperately trying to find help because his twin sister is ill. Agnes is off in her herb garden a mile away and the house is otherwise empty. 

The chapters in the first section alternate between the days where the children are ill, and flashback chapters to the initial meeting and subsequent courtship and marriage of Agnes and the unnamed young Latin tutor. 

 It's an odd stylistic choice to never call William Shakespeare by name, but one that works for me.

One comment made at the book group was that Hamnet is the wrong title since the book is much more centred on Agnes. I'm not sure I agree because the central event of the book is obviously his tragically foreshortened life. 

The style of writing is excellent. It drops you right in the head of the character she's following at the time.  We get to know and love these people deeply. Agnes is a complex and quite mysterious character.  The prose flows smoothly, long sumptuous descriptions, beautifully detailed, but after the tragedy, it breaks into short paragraphs indicative of the broken nature of their world.

I thought it was stunningly written and was sad when it ended.  i don't think I can pay much greater a compliment. I will certainly be reading more by O'Farrell 

This is a bit of fun that I read to try to come up/down from the emotional trauma inflicted by Hamnet.

lots of pictures of cats in uniform with pithy communist slogans translated to feline. For example "Wise is the man who has two loaves and sells one to buy a squeaky mouse"

You could say it's a Commiaownist manifesto.

There's not much else to say about it.  It was amusing and I always love pictures of cats. If these couple of lines about it have made you smile, it's probably your type of book.

Numbers 26 27 & 28- Descender Volumes 4,5,6 - Lemire & Nguyen

 

Lemire is fast becoming one of my go-to names in graphic novels.

Once again, I only intended to read volume 4 when I picked it up the other day.  I ended up reading to the end of the series instead.

The plot never went in any direction that I thought it would. The multiple strands were beautifully handled and came together in a truly satisfying and epic conclusion.

The artwork by Dustin Nguyen is stunning throughout and the water-colour styling makes this one of the most distinctive series I've read. 

I have volume 1 of Ascender- the sequel series to this all ready and lined up for a near future read.

All comments I made on previous volumes still hold here so this is a shorter than usual entry.

I highly recommend this entire series. Great characters, unpredictable storyline, epic yet deeply personal with musings on the nature of sentience. 

I believe there is a big omnibus edition coming out in the near future.  That will probably be the easiest way to read it if you wish to take my advice.

Number 25- The leaves forget- Alan Baxter

This is a new novella by the ever reliable Alan Baxter. He's a very versatile writer. The first of his I read was the Roo- a comic horror about a killer Roo.  Since then I've read a really excellent Lovecraftian cosmic horror novella, a pair of novella collections that were truly chilling and put me off mushrooms for life, an action packed supernatural thriller, and now this, which is different again.

Craig's sister Olivia went missing six months ago. When a neighbor returns from a long stretch abroad and gives him 15 letters from Olivia which had been addressed to the wrong flat, he finally has a clue where to find her, and he travels with his family to rescue her.

This is a novella of two halves.  the first half is the letters, and the second half is the rescue mission. Olivia has been taken in by a cult and is in very deep danger. The clock is ticking as to whether they can find her in time, if she's still alive.

It's a fast paced read, I got through it in just a couple of hours. The opening chapter turned my internal narrator Australian and it stayed that way throughout. 

The supernatural elements are nicely incorporated piecemeal into the narrative. They help the story build to a violent and shocking dénouement. 

It's a good fun read that will keep you entertained for a couple of hours. The characters are well drawn and sympathetic. Their relationships feel genuine which adds a whole nother level of nuance to the story.

This is a typically good Alan Baxter book.  I have  a growing selection on my TBR pile so there will be more in the near future.

Number 24 - Factotum - Charles Bukowski

 

The first Bukowski quote I ever read was “How the hell could a person enjoy being awakened at 6:30 AM, by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”

And now I know the source.

It comes in about two thirds of the way through this, the second volume about Hank Chinaski, a slightly fictionalised version of Buk himself.

That quote sums up the book in many ways.  We follow Chinaski on a downward spiral, and he isn't exactly starting on a high. he moves from job to job and city to city as the whim takes him.  

He's an archetypal bum and down and out.  He's not the sort of person you want to meet. he has a bad attitude and comes across as a distinctly unpleasant type, the sort of garrulous drunk who'll corner you in a bar and talk at you, then offer to fight you on an imagined slight.

But by god is he a fascinating character.  It's like watching a train crash in slow motion. And  Bukowski's no nonsense almost poetic prose makes it so you can't look away. This book really does look into the darkest corners of humanity and offers little in the way of hope. 

There is a droll humour underlying most of the book.  Chinaski, despite his many many unforgivable faults, is a witty character. His observations on life are frequently profound. He might be a repulsive person, but he has insights to offer on life from an angle we don't see much.

I can understand why a lot of people would truly hate this book. The narration is disjointed and rambling. it's a loosely connected series of anecdotes about assorted jobs he held down, bars he drank at, and women he was abusive towards. It doesn't so much end, as Bukowski just stopped writing. but I found it effortlessly and compulsively readable. You might feel you need a bath after reading this, but you'll see life from a different perspective while you're reading it. 

Recommended for those who can read different viewpoints even if you don't agree with them.

Number 23- All The Fiends of Hell- Adam Nevill

 

A new Adam Nevill book is always a highly awaited prize in my world.  here is the limited edition hardback edition, beautifully modelled by a fiend of my own (his name's Bluey and he's sweet natured really)

To start with, look at that gorgeous cover. This book is a thing of beauty before you even open it. The attention to detail that goes into these Ritual Ltd special editions is exemplary. They all feature great artwork on the covers and are printed on really high quality paper. And, considering they're on a small print run, they're remarkably cheap.

When I heard that Adam was writing an alien invasion/apocalypse novel, I have to admit I was a little worried. He's always tended to folk horror or haunted places (with one exception) and I wasn't sure if his style would suit a more science fiction setting.

I needn't have worried. This is possibly the scariest thing he's written so far. It appears to follow on from one of the stories in Wyrd in which a town is totally deserted. 

Karl wakes up after a bad case of flu left him bedbound to find that everyone has vanished. Waking up after illness into a post apocalypse world is not the most original of openings, but I've never seen it done in such an unsettling manner as this. The opening of the story and his exploration of the deserted towns is so eerie and off-putting, it left me genuinely nervous.  This only got more intense as the horrors appeared.

Karl is an everyman, He has no special skills or aptitude for surviving in an apocalyptic landscape.  He has no special knowledge of what the hell is going on and no way to fight the alien creatures that have descended to clear up the last pockets of humanity left behind after the mass slaughter on the Night of Bells. He finds himself in charge of a pair of orphaned children (who he's also not equipped to deal with) and together they must navigate the new world, trying their best to stay alive.

The set pieces in this book- and there are an awful lot of them- are amongst the most terrifying sequences Nevill has committed to paper. The nebulous horrors that hunt the survivors are unstoppable killing machines.

To say this book is bleak is an understatement. There is a sense of hopelessness that permeates every page, exacerbating the dread that comes with each new appearance of the horrors. I found myself unconsciously holding my breath for pages at a time. The writing is so tense I've almost left gouge marks on the cover from gripping it so tight.

There are shades of many previous works, War of the Worlds, Day of the Triffids, Nope, etc., but this is distinctly Adam Nevill's story and it's probably the best of it's type that I've read. I love that Karl doesn't have a clue what's going on or what he can do.  I love that there are no magical explanations of what the aliens are or why they're doing this.  Humanity is gone with a whimper not with a bang, and those left behind might have been better off if they'd been taken on that first night.

If I read anything else as scary this year I'll be very surprised (although Josh Malerman has a new one coming out in June which is the strongest contender I know of).

You can order a paperback copy through Amazon or through the Ritual Ltd website if you would prefer to not line Mr Bezo's pockets any more than necessary. The link to the shop is here All – Adam LG Nevill

Numbers 21+22- Descender Volumes 2+3= lemire + Nguyen

This should just have been number 21, but at the end of volume 2, I had no choice but to move on to volume 2 immediately.

That should be a pretty good indication of the quality of the story.

The story of companion droid Tim-21 in the post-harvesters civilisation continues apace.

After giant robots called Harvesters decimated the population of the galaxy, the survivors waged war against all robots with any type of intelligence. 

Sought by robot hunters after his presence was detected on a distant mining planet, Tim-21 and a rag-tag band of droids and humans are looking for the boy Chris (now a man) that Tim was companion to,

After their close escape at the end of the precious volume, Tim and two human companions have been taken to the Machine Moon- headquarters of the robot resistance.

 Danger lurks from all sides and there are betrayals and double crosses that threaten to destablise the entire galaxy, maybe even sparking a full scale war.

 Volume 2 ended on such a cliffhanger I had no choice but to continue into Volume 3.  Lemire has done that to me with two different stories this year now.

Volume 3 doesn't actually do much to resolve the cliffhangers, but provides a lot more background detail on each of the central characters through expertly interweaved flashbacks.

The storytelling is epic yet on a personal scale.  Dustin Nguyen's artwork is stunning throughout- The watercolour palette is so distinctive and gorgeous to look at.  You could find so much to love in these volumes even if you hated the story (which you won't because that's great too).

This is building up to be my favourite of his stories so far. 

Number 20- Blood Mist- Robert James

Yet another of those novels with the sort of subtle and understated cover you don't see often enough these days.

When picking these old paperbacks from the depths of my collection, it's always a bit of a gamble.  For many of them, the cover is the best thing about them,

This one is as good as the cover. 

When building works uncover the tomb of an ancient evil, it rises to spread terror on the populace. lots of shreddies meet their doom and the evil fetishises endlessly over our brave hero's girlfriend.

There are some strange narrative choices in this book, particularly the fact that in all sections from the point of view of the ancient evil creature,  it refers to humans as Homos. Even when the book was written, that was odd.

This is better than many books of this type despite that. The prose is workmanlike and packed full of typos (I'm guessing spellcheck didn't exist back then), but the story stays mostly coherent, and once its internal logic is in place it sticks to it.

The characters are one dimensional, but that's one dimension more than the characters in something like Cat's Cradle that I read a few months back. The romance between Robert Welman and the beautiful Jane Kelly borders on the saccharine but from the wrong direction. I don't mean that travelling from sour through to sweet to saccharine it stops short, I mean, whatever is on the other side of saccharine...

The sex scenes are laughably bad. The humour is hit and miss. The final showdown and the sting in the tail are well delivered (mostly).

One thing I did appreciate was that the characters didn't instantly go along with the supernatural explanations. The writer does make them argue against it until they have no choice but to believe.

It is definitely a product of its time with some of the attitudes and stereotypes on display, but I can ride with those.

Overall it's a fun piece of hokum. I'm not rushing out to find more of his books, but I'm not disappointed with this one.  My expectations weren't high, and it met them easily. 

Number 19- Baumgartner - Paul Auster

 

This book can be filed in the very rare category of Time Thief.

You pick it up to read a page or two, ten minutes later you're 70 pages in and an hour has gone past without you noticing.

Plot wise, there's nothing much to it.  An old man reminiscing about his life and his marriage, still coming to terms with her loss still ten years after she died in a freak accident on the beach.

What makes this book is the prose and the character of Baumgartner.

We meet him on a bad day.  He's trying to get around to phoning his sister, but life keeps getting in the way. From burnt and broken pots to a stumble on the basement stairs, he is not having a good time. This opening chapter is hilarious and moving. 

Apparently the book was born when he tried to write a short story (which became chapter one) and he realised there was more to tell. 

This may be his last novel as he is battling cancer, but if it is, it's a great finish to a long and distinguished career. 

My only gripe about the book is the extremely open ending which I found rather unsatisfying. Although part of that might be that I didn't want it to end.

Some things I found frustrating in The Assault, I thought added to this. It jumps randomly through the two years of his life that it follows. In The Assault, it felt bitty and fragmented.  However, this book feels like a cohesive entity. The slices of life here are well chosen, an, more importantly, beautifully written.

Baumgartner is a philosopher by profession, so the book contains a fair amount of his thoughts on the meaning of life and its assorted challenges. This fits in with his character and ties in with the storyline. There's a repeated comparison between the loss of a loved one and phantom limb disorder that really strikes home.

Auster's prose is as magical as ever and the prime cause of the time-thievery.

An ealy contender for best book of the year.

Number 18- The Night eaters Book 2 Her Little Reapers- Liu & Takeda

 Milly and Billy Ting are back.

In the previous volume they discovered their parents weren't quite as human as they'd always assumed, and, as a result, neither were they. They found this out while battling evil dolls and vile creatures from a hell dimension in the house across the street from their mother.

They have a lot more to learn about themselves.  they know they have powers but not necessarily what those powers are or how strong they might be.

In this volume, the evil doll is back, this time bringing a ghost in tow that begs the twins for help to avenge her killing and to save the lives of all possible future victims of her killer.

Ipo and Keon, their parents, advise against helping, even while they themselves are being drawn back into the world of the supernatural.

We learn a lot more about the family and their background. It turns out the events of the previous book were only a herald of things to come.

Strange secret societies and vicious monsters abound. The worldbuilding is every bit as good as the Monstress series. The scale of the story is much wider than the first volume, and this time the threat is world-threatening. There's a cliffhanger ending that has me on tenterhooks for volume three.

The artwork is stunning, reminiscent of Manga but distinctly Takeda's work.  The detail on every page is incredible. Liu's script is equally good, providing laughs along with the gruesome deaths.

This is a great little series.  I can't recommend it highly enough.

Number 17- The Assault- Harry Mulisch

 This was this month's book group read. I'd never heard of it before but it sounded interesting and that's an intriguing cover.

In wartime Holland, a local police chief and collaborator is shot dead in the street outside a row of houses. The owner of the house he died in front of runs out and moves it down the road to the front of Anton's house, Anton is 12 and lives with his family. 

When the Nazis arrive shortly after the shooting, Anton and his family are dragged out of the house and, not long afterwards, Anton is the the only survivor and the house is razed to the ground.

The story follows Anton into his middle age with the last section being set in 1981, 36 years after the events of that fateful night.

I'd love to say that this was a great book, but I can't.  Something in the writing just didn't gel with me. It started well, the story of the shooting and subsequent events of that night are well told and believable.  I felt real sympathy for young Anton as his world crumbled around him. 

But as the book progresses the story loses all cohesiveness, there isn't much of a story.  we revisit Anton at random times through his life at various times that remind him of that night, or shed light on some things he didn't know about. The selections seem random and, in all cases where he learns new information about that night, it's due to amazing coincidences that stretch all creduly.

I don't like to criticise the prose in a translated novel since it's the translator not the original author who's responsible. But in this case I will say that the prose is not great. There are pages of quite dull philosophical musings that either were not good in the original, or have translated really badly.

It took me over a week to read this 200 page novel. It was difficult for me to pull together the enthusiasm to continue with the book after the first time jump.

The last chapter did manage to pull off a true surprise revelation, which obviously I won't share here. Although this revelation came after the biggest coincicidental meeting in the book, which lessens the impact somewhat. There were a million better ways he could have met the person in question.

So overall, this book was a disappointment. It started well, but its lights faded rather quickly despite the occasional bon mot. Too much tedious philosophising and the author talking direct to the reader.

Not one I would recommend, unless you're fanatical about post war Holland.

Number 16- Horrorstor - Grady Hendrix

It has taken me far too long to get around to reading this.  The only other Hendrix I'd read was My Best Friend's Exorcism, which was a highlight of the year I read it. I ran out and bought this one, only to let it languish on my shelves.

The design of the book is pure genius and really adds to the experience. Obviously it's designed to look like an IKEA style catalogue. What's not immediately obvious until you start reading is the level of detail they've gone to. 

If you look close you can see the sofa is labeled "Brooka - see page 8", and the shelves behind "Kjerring see page 78". If you turn to those pages, you'll see the catalogue listings for that piece of furniture (as per the second picture below).
 

Each chapter starts with a picture of this type, but as the book moves on, these become more disturbing and funny.

Those two words- disturbing and funny are a pretty good guide to the whole book.

Amy works for Orsk- a down-market ripoff version of Ikea. She hates her job and her manager and has applied for a transfer to another store, as much to get away from her Orsk obsessed boss Basil as anything else. Strange acts of vandalism have been happening overnight in their store, and with a corporate inspection due, Basil recruits Amy and another member of staff, Ruth-Anne, to assist with an overnight watch in the store to get to the bottom of it.  Two other members of staff have decided to hold an unauthorised ghost hunt in the store the same night. The stage is set for a night of terror.

The early part of the book takes its leisurely time to set up the situation and the characters.  The corporate hellscape that is Orsk is a nightmare incarnate before any of the supernatural kicks in properly. Once the ghostly stuff really starts (with one of the most original and vile séance scenes I can remember reading) the pace never lets up for a second and we're treated to a rollercoaster of terror as the nightly inhabitants start on the offensive.

I loved every page of this book.  The gimmick of the catalogue and corporate forms inserted into proceedings just add to the whole sense of surrealism and fun

Amy is a totally relatable and sympathetic lead character.  One of the other characters undergoes one of the best asshole to hero arcs I can think of.

This book is funny, scary, exciting, often all at the same time. It's beautifully paced and a very quick and easy read. An easy 9/10 from me for this one.

Numbers 13-15- Family Tree- Jeff Lemire et all

This is a short series by Jeff Lemire (Gideon Falls, Descender, Sweet Tooth) who has rapidly become one of my go to names for graphic novels.I fully intended to only read volume 1 and leave it till next month, but once I started, I had to see it through to the end. It's that good. The story starts with Loretta Hayes, a harassed checkout worker at a small town supermarket, being called to her son Josh's school by the  principal.  Her 8 year old daughter Meg has a nasty looking rash on her arm. 

While Loretta is facing ritual humiliation from the principal, a mysterious old man with a wooden hand gives Meg something for her "rash" and leaves. 

That sentence accidentally works in both possible meanings. the old man has left, and at home in the evening, Loretta discovers Meg has leaves growing out of her back and is slowly turning into a tree.

The old man turns out to be her father in law who has news for her about the real reason her husband left two years earlier.

Lemire writes weirdness rather brilliantly and this is no exception. From this distinctly bizarre setup, the story spins into an apocalyptic fantasy centred on a strong family drama,

Lemire manages to juggle 3 or 4 different timelines in the narrative without ever putting a foot wrong.  The future segments are foreshadowing at its best for the present day narration. The past secments provide clarification of what's going on at just the right time.

The artwork by Phil Hester is top notch too. Lemire likes to play with layout to add extra depth and meaning to the story, or just to look cool, and, once again,  this is no exception.  This below is one of my favourites in the three volumes. 

It's a unique story, mixing genres and timelines and heartfelt family drama. The pacing is nigh on perfect. The villains are suitably nasty,  yet relatable. There are enough shades of grey to keep them multi-dimensional. 

It was compulsive reading and i was so glad I had all three volumes close at hand.  It would have been too frustrating to try to find the follow ups if I'd had to leave the story after either of those cliffhangers. collecting the 12 volumes of the original comic must have been a special type of purgatory with the wait between each issue.

 

Number 12- True Confessions of Adrian Mole etc- Sue Townsend

 

The first two Adrian Mole books are amongst my all time favourite reads, but somehow I had never quite got round to reading any of the others.

So here is volume 3.

As far as story goes, it's more of the same.  Adrian is now 18 years old and working his first job.

It starts promisingly enough with some good laughs in the first segment. However, the format changes from the usual diary entries not far into the book and for me, the change of format doesn't quite work.

There's also an issue that, as a child, Adrian can be excused his behaviour to a large extent, but he hasn't changed or matured in the slightest in this volume, and the same childish self-centred assholery (my god, the autocorrect isn't flagging that, it's an official word apparently) comes across as just him being an asshole and all-round unpleasant tosser.

His snobbery doesn't feel funny once the format of the book changes. It just comes across as a guy with a superior attitude and he becomes more irritating than amusing. A lot of the humour in the first two books comes from how blissfully unaware he is of what is actually happening around him. That's been replaced by a disdain for everything and that just isn't as funny or appealing.

We hear monologues he apparently made on Radio 4 and see letters sent to Barry Kent before we return briefly to the diary entries. 

It has its moments but I found the Mole section of the book to be disappointing.

The Mole section is followed by snippets from the POV of one Susan Lilian Townsend. Specifically, a travel diary of a trip she takes to Majorca, and a trio of essays.  The Majorca section and the writing for TV essay are wryly amusing. The description of her trip to Russia feels like a what-I-did-in-the-summer type essay rather than a short story and, whilst it was an ok read with a couple of laughs, I was not enamored with it.  Her final essay is quite poor.

The third section of the book is a fictitious diary of a real person- Margaret Hilda Roberts- better known by her married name of Thatcher. This is an all out snark attack on Thatcher, who definitely deserved it.  There are very few figures in politics I despise more than her. but the humour didn't land for me other than a few wry grins. I don't know if that's because this section isn't particularly witty- replacing wit and cleverness with snark- or because I'm not as up to date with 1989 politics as I was back then and I'm missing a lot of references.

I should have loved a vicious takedown of Thatcher, but I didn't.  It could also be that such a direct piece of political satire doesn't feel like it belongs here. I know the Mole books contain plenty of political comment, but it's folded neatly into the story in the first two volumes. This just feels like a bad fit to me.

Overall I was disappointed with this. there were a few laughs and it was never less than readable. but it's a far cry from the comic heights of the first two books.  Is it diminishing returns setting in? If so, I'm not sure I want to venture as far as book 8... I will read the next one and hope it's a return to the successful format of the first books, and that she allows Adrian to actually grow as a person, rather than keeping him in this adolescent mindset his whole life.

Number 11- Phobia - Thomas Luke- aka Graham Masterton

If only Graham Masterton was as popular as Stephen King.  This book would be the equivalent value of a Richard Bachman copy of Rage.  Sadly, he’s not and this isn’t. But check out that glorious cover.

Thomas Luke is a pen name for the aforementioned Mr Masterton and this is his novelisation of an almost forgotten film in the very early 80s.

Graham Masterton is not an author you read if you’re looking for subtlety, depth of meaning and high literature. He does however produce some rather entertaining low budget horror based on assorted demons of world mythologies. He can be very formulaic, but some of his ideas are good and he can be depended on for some well thought out shreddie goodness (see my post on the noble art of the shreddie here)

In this case his hands would have been somewhat tied in that the plot was handed to him with all the twists and turns and character deaths already written by the screenwriters. So any failings I found story wise are not his fault. And there are some serious story failings.

The ending is particularly bad, I’ll detail the reason for that at the end so spoiler alert if you read the final paragraph of this review.

Basic story- Dr Ross is apparently a brilliant psychotherapist with a radical new treatment to help people overcome their phobias.  He’s working with a group of five convicts who each committed crimes because of their phobias. One by one, his test subjects start dying in ways related to their phobias.  That’s what the back cover says.  I’d argue that the first death is not connected to that character’s fear, or death number 3 for that matter. But, as previously mentioned, that’s the fault of one of the 5 people listed as being responsible for the story/screenplay rather than the novelist.

It’s written in Masterton’s usual no nonsense style. There’s no attempts at high literature, and he does well to obfuscate the truth of events and not making it all too obvious.

 The characters struggle to gain more than one dimension.  They’re literally defined by either their fear, their job, or if they’re attracted to Dr Ross. The cops are particularly cartoonish (although Masterton does call their behaviour out and makes the point that the rest of the cops in the station don’t behave that way any more). 

Ross's alleged expertise is one of the less credible parts of the story. There is no way that Ross's techniques would gain any traction, let alone millions in grant funding. It makes the therapy scenes particularly silly.

The deaths are suitably nasty but tame by Masterton’s standards. Again, not really his fault. It’s a quick fun read despite the flaws in the story.

SLIGHT SPOILER- In the last two pages, we have to wonder how someone can swim strongly while holding a gun in their left hand out of the water to keep it dry. That’s an image that seriously does not compute in my brain. And is particularly egregious as it’s one of the final scenes and supposed to be deadly serious.

Numbers 9 & 10- The Niche & Jack Squat - Charles lambert

It says "two books in one" so I'm scoring 2 for it.

Another new writer for me who I'd never heard of so this was another impulse buy. I'm doing well with these impulse buys, because I thought this book was excellent. 

Billy Lender is the victim of extreme bullying at school. When he finds a small space behind a cupboard to hide in, he starts hearing a voice which promises to help him get revenge on his bullies.

It's very short so any more than that about the plot would be moving into spoiler territory.

Billy is a brilliantly drawn character who I felt full sympathy with throughout. Alongside the bullying he's also dealing with puberty and a burgeoning sexual awakening. This is all dealt with subtly and sensitively whilst building the tension about what the voice and the space behind the cupboard actually is.

A good enough introduction to his writing that I ordered three more of his books while I was reading this story. 

A gay couple living in Italy start selling houses to ex-pats to raise some finances. The first house they sell has very strange architecture.  There are 4 entrances into separate rooms but no joining doors inside, just stairs. 

The house has a dark history- as they all do in this type of story. Soon, the influence of the house is creeping into their everyday lives.

This wasn't as successful for me as the other story, but is still extremely well written. Omar and Gordon feel real as a couple and the escalating sense of dread is masterfully done. 

There's no big monster attacks in these two stories, no gore or extreme violence. Not even any real overt scares. Just characters who feel genuine having their lives invaded and destroyed steadily by strange forces that are never fully explained. 

I guess the lack of explanation will alienate some readers, but I liked it.  It leaves the reader to figure things out rather than handing the answers to us on  a plate.

The lack of in your face horror will not be to some readers' taste either, but fans of the slow burn subtle fright will love these stories.

As I said, before I'd finished the first of these, I loved it so much I was already seeking out his back catalogue. If you like your horror subtle and psychological, this could well be the book/s for you.

Number 8- Dead Body Road- Jordan + Scallera + Dinisio

Another slice of graphic novel goodness.

This one is self-contained and not part of an ongoing series which makes a change. 

When a bank heist goes wrong, ex-cop Gabe Orson's girlfriend is murdered, setting off a chain of violence in his quest for vengeance

This is a fast paced, thrill ride with car chases and shootouts and lots of death and gore.

 The artwork by Matteo Scalera easily matches up to the harsh violence of Justin Jordan's script.  The colouring work by Moreno Dinisio deserves a mention too, adding extra depth and vividness to the already good looking artwork.

There's nothing subtle about this, but some days I'm not looking for that finely crafted bon mot and something like this hits the spot quite nicely indeed.

The supporting characters struggle to move past one dimension, but Orson and Rachel- the kick ass woman who joins him on his rampage- are well drawn (in all senses) and have some depth to them.  

The plot has some nice twists and unexpected turns too.

It's a damned fine piece of entertainment and would make a great movie. A good way to kill an hour of your day.

Number 7- Open Throat- Henry Hoke

This was an impulse buy late last year due to that intriguing cover. that and the blurb saying it was from the POV of a mountain lion living underneath the Hollywood sign.

I love that weird stuff like this is considered mainstream enough to land on the "Look At These New Books" shelves in my local Waterstones.

Basic story- a cougar/mountain lion is living in the hills above L.A (Ellay) and underneath the Hollywood sign. When a fire forces him down from the mountain, he ends up in Ellay itself. To say any more would be spoilers.

It's written in short snappy sentences. The only punctuation in the entire narrative is the capitalised "I" that the narrator uses to refer to himself. Otherwise there are no commas, no full stops, no capital letters or quotation marks.  When reporting things said by the human characters, the text is italicised.

It's a very quick and easy read. I'm not sure the lion's POV is completely convincing all the way through- in particular, a dream sequence we're told about shows knowledge it couldn't possibly have, but other than that it seems feasible.  

In the small subgenre of "narrated by animals", this is a worthy addition. Good to see something other than a dog telling the story.

Number 6- Coyotes Volume 1- Sean Lewis & Caitlin Yarsky

 

Women keep disappearing in the City of lost Girls.  You can't help thinking that's the most appropriately named town in fiction.

They're being picked off by werewolves (nicknamed coyotes) and new cop in town, Frank Coffey, finds himself forced to team up with Red, a thirteen year old girl with a katana who's life purpose it is to destroy the creatures.

The coyotes are the menfolk of the town given pelts cut from a great beast.  When they wear the pelts, they transform and hunt. Red is part of a group of magical warrior women and they are on their own hunt for the men creating the werewolf pelts.

There's some social commentary going on in this comic about misogyny and violence. 

The best thing about this is the interesting new way to create the wolves. The rest of it all seems quite generic werewolf fodder with a bit of conspiracy theory thrown in.

I'm not a huge fan of the artwork overall. At first glance I found it quite striking, but there are pages that simply don't work, where none of the characters look even remotely human (when they're supposed to) and the pages are just ugly. The first panel where the great beast appears, it looks like a giant rat rather than a huge wolf beast.

I bought volume 2 at the same time as this, so I will read it- after all as a graphic novel, it doesn't take long.  However, I wasn't taken with the storytelling or the artwork in this one. and I'm hoping things improve in Vol 2. 

The cover spreads are awesome though.

Number 5- Trespasses- Louise Kennedy

 

As I might have mentioned before, romance novels are not my bag.  It’s one genre I don’t get on with.

Therefore, this book, a romance set in the Irish troubles in the mid-70s is almost by definition a book group read.

However, despite the genre I really quite enjoyed this book.

Cushla is a young Catholic teacher in a primary school in Northern Ireland. She has an alcoholic mother.  She works part time at the pub her brother runs where the English soldiers frequently drink and sexually harass her. She has a soft spot a mile wide for Davey, a disadvantaged child in her class.  She also has an illicit lover in the form of Michael, a prominent protestant lawyer nearly twice her age.

That’s pretty much it as far as the plot goes. What makes this book special and kept me reading throughout was the depiction of simply trying to live as a Catholic in Northern Ireland during the troubles. That’s not to say it’s a pro-catholic book, it’s not.  The local priest is one of the nastiest characters in the story.

The struggles the characters face in their day-to-day living are presented in a matter-of-fact way that makes them feel worse than if the book was a melodrama.  Her escape into the arms of a man she knows deep in her heart is no good for her is almost understandable.

Her relationship with young Davey and his family provides a warmth to her character that is missing elsewhere. Cushla’s relationship with her mother is so well described, the sense of frustration over her mother’s drinking is palpable.

It’s not flawless by any stretch of the imagination. Michael doesn’t have much personality. That may be because we only see him through the infatuated eyes of Cushla, so we have to piece together any other details about him, in which case it’s a skilful piece of writing, but still frustrating.

The ending was more than a little bit predictable. I guessed what was going to happen a good 100 pages before it did.  It did confirm one of my prejudices against romance novels and the lack of alternative endings.

The other thing that makes this book as good as it is, is the writing.  It’s beautifully written.  I would read a shopping list for pleasure if it was written as prettily as this. I found my internal voice turned broad Irish for much of the book, although not the Ardal O’Hanlon broad Irish who narrates in my head when I read Patrick McCabe books.

Even with the lack of plot and the predictable nature of what was there, I found myself sucked into Cushla’s world.  It was compelling storytelling and I felt for all the characters I was meant to feel for. The cruelty of the society provided the emotional core for me, rather than the infatuation she had for Michael.

I scored it 7.5 out of 10 at the book group last night, but I think that might be a bit mean in retrospect and think it probably deserves at least an extra half a point.