Number 48 - Thumbprint - Joe Hill/Jason Ciaramella/Vic Malhorta

 Another day, another graphic novel for a cheat read. 

Joe Hill  is always a reliable source for a good story and this is no exception.  Mallorie Grennan did bad things when stationed in Iraq, things she'd rather forget. Whilst working in a dive bar back home, she starts receiving strange notes - just thumbprints in the middle of a blank page. 

It's very short but packs a punch. there's strong commentary about the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq.  the mystery isn't difficult to solve but the cast is limited by the shortness of the story. The very end of the graphic novel is a bit strange.  the last panels don't make too much narrative sense.

The artwork is pretty good. No complaints there.

On top of the graphic version, we also get the original novella by Joe Hill. This has a few marked differences to the graphic version and gets us closer into her head. this makes for a slightly more sympathetic character as her guilty feelings are much clearer, although her actions are actually less forgivable.  For example, a heartless petty theft that occurs in both versions is committed by Mallorie in the novella, but by the other bartender in the graphic version. The emotional impact of the war and the despicable acts she joined in with are seen to impact harder on her with the closer look at her psyche. The ending of the text story is a great improvement on the other.  

We also have a third story - Kodiak. a fun little diversion which seems slightly out of place with the anti-war commentary of the main story.  However, I've been looking for a copy of this since I saw it was listed in a Joe Hill Graphic novel compendium.  It wasn't worth my while buying the compendium because I already owned copies of three of the other stories.  

The artwork in Kodiak is top notch, much better than the main feature. The story is very slight though.

 

Number 47 - Under A Raven's Wing - Stephen Volk

First thing to do is thank PS Publishing for sending me this as a review copy.  It truly is a thing of beauty. As you'll notice when you scroll I've even included pictures of the artwork on the inside. 

The designer Pedro Marques deserves a special mention for his work here.  It is a fabulous looking book.

 Is the meat of the book worthy of such an amazing looking skin? The answer is "hell yes!"

I'm not a great fan of mash up fiction in general. It normally feels gimmicky and not particularly imaginative. However, this book shows how it should be done.

It's a collection of seven novellas (two previously unpublished) featuring Sherlock Holmes as a young man, training with his mentor in Paris.  His mentor is none other than C Auguste Dupin, the original master detective created by Edgar Allan Poe.  

Of course, even in the Sherlock Holmes reality, Dupin was a fictional character and is referenced in at least one of Doyle's original stories is handled in a brilliant and unexpected way.

These are told from Holmes' point of view in a series of manuscripts sent to Lestrade. With  Holmes as the apprentice to Dupin, this puts him firmly in the Watson role in these stories. 

With the very strong Poe influence, these stories are very much horror stories as much as they are detective stories. Other influences that appear are Jules Verne, Victor Hugo, Gaston Laroux  and others. 

The research that's gone into these stories is obvious.  There are many Easter eggs for fans of the original Poe and Doyle stories. Origins are given for some of the more famous attributes of the older Holmes. Not having read widely in the original Conan Doyle stories I feel like I've missed out on several in jokes, but I picked up on enough to appreciate the love for the source material.

There are scenes in this book that I found frankly terrifying - particularly in the Three Hunchbacks story. Those who've read it will know the scene I'm talking about.

Volk's prose suits the voice you'd imagine Holmes to write in. There's a humanising element of self doubt and fallibility, as you'd expect since he's the apprentice this time around and learning his craft from the master. 

If I was to make any criticism of the book, I would just say that the Celestine Blot story should maybe have been the fourth or fifth story because something that happens in it seems to place it later in the timespan. But that's a very minor matter and the stories are in the order they're in because that's the order they were first published. 

To conclude, this is a great collection from a great writer.  This is how mash-up fiction should be written, intelligent, witty, intriguing and well thought out and researched. 

Avaialble through PS Publishing 

https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/under-a-ravens-wing--hardcover-by-stephen-volk-5170-p.asp

 

Number 46 - Outcast Volume 2 A Vast and Unending Ruin

 

Doncha just love a cheerful title like that?

Volume 2 of this Kirkman scribed series continues in much the same vein as volume 1.

The demonic forces surrounding Kyle are closing in, attacking more of his loved ones. His quest to discover what his abilities actually are takes a turn for the worse.  Is he actually helping some of the people he casts the demons from, or is his cure worse than the illness?

This series is much more dialogue driven than TWD ever was.  It needs to be though.  The action would be pretty confusing otherwise.

The artwork is mostly excellent and the stroyline continues to intrigue.

It's a very quick read with no real hidden depths, so this is a similarly short write up.  I should have done it yesterday, but I got sidetracked trying to update the music on my iphone after it randomly decided to grey out half the songs so they couldn't be played.

Dealing with iTunes really is a nightmare scenario. It's the most bug-ridden piece of shit software ever written.

Number 45 - Lean, Fall, Stand - Jon McGregor

 

The award for worst book cover of the year so far goes to this book.  If I hadn't been following Jon McGregor's career since we read his debut novel If No One Speaks of Remarkable Things at my book group several years ago, I would never have given this a second glance. It doesn't stand out on the shelves and from a distance the title is remarkably difficult to spot. 

That's the negative over with.

As mentioned, McGregor is one of those writers I've been following since his debut over a decade ago.  I own all his books and there isn't a bad one in there.

This one is no exception. 

It opens in Antarctica where, on a quick trip out from the research base to get some photographs, things start to go horribly wrong.  A storm descends quickly and the three members of the party are separated. to compound the problem, the most experienced member of the team (Doc) falls very ill.

The story shifts from there to follow Doc's recovery.  This is told from the point of view of his wife initially before expanding in the final section.

As usual McGregor's prose sings from the page. His writing truly is a thing of beauty. When I say it sings from the page, think ethereal heavenly chorus rather than dodgy karaoke bloke down the pub after seventeen pints. 

In this book, in addition to the beauty of the writing, we have his strongest narrative to date. in most of his other books, he tells big picture stories. In his debut, he painted the picture of a very normal street and made the mundane seem magical. In Reservoir 13, he followed the lives of an entire village in the wake of a tragic disappearance, but crucially, never definitively tried to solve it, just showed us the impact on the people affected.

Here, he manages to follow the ripples of the events in in the first chapters but keeps it personal, and aims for closure at the end of the story. It's the closest to traditional beginning, middle, end that he's written.

He manages to keep up with his usual playfulness with structure and form and word choice. 

The book is split into three parts, called Lean, Fall, and Stand. The separators used to denote time shifts between paragraphs in each of the three segments of the book are \, _, and | in that order. it took me far longer than it should have done to make the connection.

The depiction of the onset of Doc's illness is shocking and brilliant in the way his language becomes more and more confused.  

When he finally returns home we truly feel the exhaustion of his wife. She's a career woman who's used to spending anywhere from 4 to 12 months of the year with her husband pretty much as far as he could possibly be away from her.  Now she's his full time carer. 

For several chapters nearly every line begins with the same phrase, "She had to", hammering home the impact this is having on her. This lessens off as he gains his independence again.   

This is a real contender for best book of the year. A beautifully told told story of disaster and recovery. He manages to be moving and funny and sad all at the same time, frequently in the same sentence.  That's how good McGregor's writing is.

Buy. 

Read. 

Enjoy.

Number 44 - Outcast - Kirkman and Azaceta

 I'm allowed to post this review straight off. 

This is the first volume in a series by the writer of the Walking Dead comics.  Issue 1 was included as an extra at the back of one volume of TWD so I knew that this was a newish take on the old demonic possession trope.

The lead character appears to have the ability to cast demons out of people but it ain't pretty so he isn't well liked and tends to keep to himself as a result. He's an outcast in two senses.

I do like a good play on words so that's always a good sign.

There's probably more dialogue in this one volume that there was in the last dozen TWD volumes.

There's a conspiracy building around poor Kyle, our Outcast. the demons have been following him since childhood, possessing his nearest and dearest, leading to his self imposed exile. He's returned to his home town at the same time as the demons seem to be widening their reach.

The artwork is top notch. The story is suitably gruesome  and violent. It's a good deal more intelligently written than TWD. The storyline looks like it could be much stronger than the standard post apocalypse fun that made up that series.

The cast is much smaller at the moment, so there isn't as much scope for killing off lead characters. This could lead to tighter plotting, or an extended cast. We'll see what happens.

Overall, a cracking start to the series. I will be picking up vol 2 ASAP.

Number 43 - insignificance - James Clammer

 

This is the latest book from one of the best small presses in the UK. From the books I've read so far from this publishing house, their roster is made up of some of the most talented writers at work in the UK today.

James Clammer is another completely new name to me.  This edition comes with no cover blurb so I basically went in completely blind and not knowing what to expect.

Insignificance is the story of one hellish day in the life of a down on his luck plumber in an unnamed town in middle England. He's recovering from a nervous breakdown, the reasons for which become abundantly clear as the narrative continues, and he's out on his first job since his recovery. We also meet his born again Christian wife and their estranged son. To say much more about the story would be a spoiler.

Clammer writes in an unusual and almost poetic style, and it's that that makes this book so compulsively readable. If you'd told me that a man trying to drain a boiler could be as immersive a reading experience as this, I would have laughed in your face.  But the power of Clammer's prose makes the mundane seem strangely significant and meaningful. The sentence structure is deeply unusual and wrongfoots the reader (in a good way) on a regular basis.

The early part of the novel puts us firmly in the man Joseph's head. It's not the happiest place in the universe to be. this is an unimportant man who things just happen to and he knows it. his recovery is not yet complete. The writing is so good we feel his physical and mental wounds equally.

 

For a book with a distinct lack of real action, this really put me through the emotional wringer - especially in the latter half of the book. The man Joseph is an everyman and totally relatable. His relationship with his wife and son are heartbreakingly rendered.

Being just a snapshot of one day in his life, this book does leave many threads hanging in the air.  Fans of a closed narrative with a clearly defined resolution to any drama will probably find this frustrating. Fans of good, intelligent writing about people who feel real will love it.

Number 42 - The Restaurant at the end of The Universe - Douglas Adams

 “The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

 With an opening line like that, how can a book go wrong?  In this case it certainly can’t.

The Hitchhikers trilogy (all 5 books) have been a staple part of my existence since I was about 12.  Whenever I hit book 42 in a year, it has to be a HHGTTG related tome – if that isn’t the law it should be, and this year I decided on a long delayed reread of book 2.

Accidentally, I’ve chosen a very appropriate time to post this review as it’s the 20^th anniversary of Adams’ sad death.

This second part of the 5 part trilogy is a very loose adaptation of the last two episodes of the first radio series, and the first 3 episodes of the second. The first book finished with our favourite space travellers boarding the Heart of Gold on the planet Magrathea.

The second starts straight after the events of HHGTTG when Eddie the onboard computer on the Heart of Gold spaceship shutting down to help the drinks machine work out how to make a good cup of tea, just at the moment that a Vogon ship is about to launch an attack.

We're then launched into the events from the first couple of episodes of the second series, where Zaphod finds he's set himself a mission and wiped his memory of it. He soon finds himself at the headquarters of the Guide's publishers where the psychic lifts don't want to take him to the 15th floor.  They know what's about to happen.

After various misadventures involving a sense of perspective, fairy cake, and missing lemon scented napkins, he is reunited with the rest of the cast and they make their way to Milliways.  From then on the book pretty much follows the end of series 1 of the radio show, with a brief diversion to episode 3 of series 2. 

There's not a single page of this book that doesn't contain laugh out loud funny jokes, and/or seriously groan inducing puns.  The wordplay is genius throughout and Adams' natural cynicism shines through all of it.  I always wondered who was to blame for my sarcastic sense of humour.  rereading these points to a very likely suspect.

All 5 books in the trilogy are comic masterpieces.  Please note I don't count book 6 as part of the trilogy.  The end of Mostly Harmless makes it clear that Adams wanted it all to stop so he could write something else for a change. So book 6 was a cash cow and nothing else. 

Not much else to say.  Adams was a comedy god and is sadly missed. 

If you've not read the books, read them now and that's an order.

Number 41 - the Guest Cat - Takashi Hiraide

 

I chose this randomly as a cheat read since it's only 140 pages. It also has a cat on the cover.  That will make me pick books up randomly/  My standards are not always the highest.

Sadly, despite me being a huge cat lover, this book doesn't quite cut the mustard.

The story is basically two writers semi adopt the neighbour's cat that comes to visit. That's it. No drama, not much of anything at all.  140 pages of a man talking about his life in the year that a cat would pop into their garden and house from next door.

The prose is pretty enough for a translation. But it's all just a little bit dull. I didn't find any real hidden depths in this.  Not many shallows either.  A few semi-connected musings on the nature of art and nature crop in. 

The best thing about this book is the cute cat picture on the cover. 

The reviews on the back talk about how profound and moving it is and how you'll want to read it more than once. I disagree. I hoped to lve this book.  I'm a huge cat lover myself, and this book occasionally gives a vague peak into why we like cats, but mostly it doesn't pull on any of my personal heartstrings.  

Pleasant but dull is the best I can say about this one I'm afraid. 5/10 just for the occasional semi-poetic writing. 

Number 40 - Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

 

This month's book group book. It's obviously a popular choice - 5 million copies sold before this printing alone, and most book groups on Facebook, it seems to crop up in someone's listings at least twice a day.

Does it deserve the attention and the sales?

I think it probably does. But there are some definite flaws to the story. Unfortunately, some slight spoilers will be needed to say what these flaws are. I'll try to be vague as possible but you might want to skip this review if you don't want clues.

Kya is better known to the locals as the Marsh Girl.  She was abandoned by her family one by one until she was left alone living in a run down shack in the marshes aged about 9.  Since then she's fended for herself with only the help of one or two friendly locals - from the black people's side of town.  this story being set between 1953 and 1970, means it's deep in the American racist era.

As she grows up aloe in her run down hut, she catches the attentions of two local boys, one nice, one not.

The book opens with the not nice one found dead in 1969, before flashing back to 1953 when Kya's mother walked out.  the chapters alternate randomly between the sheriff's investigating the death, and Kya's growth from child to young adulthood. 

It's all very nicely written. the characters are drawn so well you can almost see them, We have full sympathy for Kya. We understand fully her first encounters with love from her two suitors. there's real tension in the scenes set in 1970. we don't want to see an innocent person suffer.

I really enjoyed this book and was ready to class it as one of the best I've read this year until the revelations in the final three pages which undermine all the messaging in the rest of the book. All the good work up until that point is spoiled.  And the worst thing is, it wasn't necessary.  They could have picked a number of other people, or just left it as a tragic accident and the ending would have been so much better.

It's Owens's first novel, so I will let her off on this occasion. It's a fascinating and moving read with a genuinely sympathetic protagonist. But she fluffs the ending so badly... it's worse the more I think about it. It doesn't actually make much sense as a solution to the events for several reasons.

a generous 7.5/10.  If I think about this much longer, that may slip