Number 33- Crosswind Volume 1- Simone & Staggs

 

Cason Ray Bennett is a contract killer, and quite possibly a snitch for the FBI.  Juniper Elanore Blue is a housewife with an abusive husband and a bullied teenage stepson. She once had a dream of writing crime fiction for a living.

One day, their souls inexplicably swap bodies. it's Freaky Friday time with violence and guns. How is Cason going to survive the suburban lifestyle?  Can s/he properly organise a dinner party for his/her husband's boss? How will Juniper survive in the world of real gangsters and killers?

Cason definitely has it a lot easier in the swap. Juniper's life issues are easy to solve compared to the mess that Cason has just left behind. 

As their new lives start to intertwine, Cason's foes become a danger to Juniper's loved ones and the tension starts to build.

I bought this at a heavy discount at my local Forbidden Planet just because I liked the artwork when i flicked through it. It was well worth it.  

Cat Staggs' artwork is top notch and matched by cate Simone's scripting. This is a violent and unpredictable take on a well worn theme. It's witty, tense and exciting.

Despite this stating Volume 1 on the cover (and dating back to 2017/18) I don't seem to be able to find a volume 2 online which is a disappointment since I'd like to read a follow up.  I really liked the characters and the way they rose to their challenges, and the ending was left relatively open for the sequel.

Number 32- Earwig- B Catling

 

This was my first taste of a B. Catling novel. I’ve had the first two books in the Vorrh trilogy waiting in my TBR for a while now and this seemed like a nice taster for Catling’s prose style.

The first, second, third, fourth, and fifth words that spring to mind when I think about this book are weird, weird, weird, weird, and weird. You can fill the rest of the top ten with that as well.

Aalbert, aka Earwig, is paid to watch over a young girl in a flat in Liège shortly after WWI. She wears dentures made from ice which have to be replaced every 3 hours. That’s the starting point of the book. After that, things get strange.

On a rare trip out to a local bar, Earwig runs into a mysterious gent with magical powers who engineers a horrendous accident. This somehow leads to an evil immortal cat with the worst case of fleas in history being delivered to the flat to share their lives and a trip to Paris.

As I said, weird.

I think I enjoyed this book. I was certainly never bored, but I haven’t the faintest idea what it was about or why any of it happened. The prose reminded me very strongly of Mervyn Peake with his habit of never using one word where three paragraphs will do instead, and the cast of well-drawn grotesques behaving in grotesque manners. Luckily, the word choices are extremely good and frequently very funny, despite the longwindedness.

I'm slightly disappointed that the evil cat aspect promised by the book cover doesn't really live up to the expectations raised by the blurbs.

I can't deny it's well written, frequently funny and never boring but I’m almost nervous to start on the Vorrh trilogy now. This book is so strange, but only 150 pages. Will over 1000 pages of this same style be readable?

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.