Number 41- The Fish Ladder- Katharine Norbury

 

This blog has been quieter than usual over the last couple of weeks.  That’s mainly because it took me more than two weeks to get through this book.

Since this is only a slimmish volume (a shade under 300 pages), that’s not the most encouraging sign.

I chose this for the book group for this month, so I was obligated to finish it.

It’s an autobiographical account of a summer in Katherine Norbury’s life when, after losing a baby, she started following assorted rivers to their sources, along with her tweenage daughter. We also learn of her past, how she was abandoned as a baby and adopted, and her mission to contact her birth family after she finds she has breast cancer and she needs to know the family history.

Katherine Norbury is the wife of the ever-splendid Rupert Thomson. This was actually the main reason I selected this book, to gain more of an insight into the man himself. On that basis it was a partial success at least, as I could see how some of the themes in his books were influenced by events in his real life.

It’s not actually a badly written book.  There are some fantastic descriptions of the landscapes she encounters. The last 70 odd pages had true emotional depth. I just struggled to motivate myself to pick this up when I put it down.

The problem with this book is almost certainly a me thing rather than through any fault in the book itself. I found it a little bit dull and repetitive. The prose is nice, in some places it's really quite beautiful, but it just never grabbed me to drag me through the story.

I should have realised when the best review for the front cover is something as bland as "A lovely book" that it wasn't going to be a page turner.

So overall, nicely written but the story was less than inspiring for most of the book. It picked up in the last third, but too little too late.

Number 40- Ascender Volume 2- The Dead Sea

 

Much the same sort of comments as volume 1

It makes much more sense after this volume as to why the galaxy is so changed after 10 years.

Some more very welcome returning characters from Descender, narrow escapes from death, and mind-bending action.

The flashbacks are incorporated brilliantly into the story, so even while we're technically getting info-dump in places, the plot never lets up.

The art continues to be excellent to match Lemire's twisted imagination.

Number 39- The End - Gary McMahon

Mack is an architect from Yorkshire, in London for a business meeting when all hell breaks loose. Suddenly, people start committing suicide and taking the unfortunate people nearest to them with them.

It seems like an extinction level event has started. Mack leaves London with a pair of near strangers. He needs to get to Yorkshire to be with his pregnant wife.

As you can probably tell from that plot description, and the fact that this book is by Gary McMahon, this is not the most cheerful book you might ever pick up.

Gary's usual nihilism is on its highest setting this time around. the writing is smooth and compulsive.  This is like watching a car crash in slow motion. It's almost impossible to look away.

This book delivers some real emotional gut punches. Mack isn't the most instantly likeable narrator but he's very recognisably and relatably flawed. His struggle to hold onto his own sanity in the increasing madness around him is well portrayed. His quest to get home to his pregnant wife and the sanctuary of home isn't much of a plan but with no way to stop the slaughter, it's as good a plan as any. His phone conversations with his wife show a love that transcends almost anything.

This is vintage Gary McMahon. The glimmers of light through all the darkness pull the reader through the story in the hope that we'll find some kind of new start at the end of this particular End. Whether he does or not, you'll have to find out for yourself.

Number 38- The Cassowary- James Sabata

This is the third in a sequence of loosely connected books.  It started with The Roo by Alan Baxter - when Baxter wrote the book based on a cover drawn by Keelan Patrick Burke of a demonic kangaroo. From the online group where that all started, other writers decided to join in.  there was Playing Possum which I read last year, and this one.  There's one more called The Buck Stops here that I feel compelled to buy for all the wrong reasons now.

The Roo was the book that hooked me on Alan Baxter.  It's a great book, and the silliness works because it's well written.

Playing Possum was not great. Sadly, I'm not a great fan of this one either despite a promising start.

A zookeeper in the Toscano Wildlife preserve in Arizona tries to feed the resident cassowary. Unfortunately for him, it chooses to grab hold of him, drag him into its enclosure and decapitate him. Then it jumps over the wall and escapes

So far so good.

Chapter 2, we meet another shreddie (tm) who dies in a fun way as is the fate of all shreddies. In chapter 3 we finally meet some characters to start following. Three more zoo employees are sent to chase down the Cassowary (known as Cassie) before it kills again.

They don't really do a very good job of that. A couple of dozen people are torn to shreds on the page before they finally catch up. I think this is one of the only books where I thought there were too many shreddies and can he please just get on with the story. 

The biggest issue with the number of shreddies in this book is that the deaths aren't varied enough and it becomes repetitive.  I started a drinking game, having a drink every time he described Cassie's claws (especially the size and shape of her central claw) but had to give up when I ran out of whisky three chapters later and was too drunk to keep reading.

Some of the deaths are really badly done as well.  I know he was aiming for comedy, but it wasn't particularly funny. The human villains, in the shape of a small crew of mercenaries trying to catch and kill the bird, are so over the top that it's laughable in the wrong way. Sabata struggles to give his characters as many as one dimension each.  They're barely cardboard cutouts. This also affects the quality of the Shreddie kills. A Shreddie needs to feel like a fully fleshed character before they die.  Instead we have the most basic "look at this guy/girl- they're dead now" on repeat for probably more than half the book.  

The editor should be sacked for the number of errors that made it through to the final edition.  For example, whilst trying to escape from one of the human bad guys in the book, a girl tries to "severe" his arm with a machete instead of severing it. A few pages later the writer uses "Breathes" as a noun.  There are a few homophone switches flying around too.  I can normally let a couple of errors slide, but there are so many in this and they detract further from the already fairly poor writing style.

One thing I did like was the explanation of what was happening and why Cassie was now on a killing spree and apparently immortal. That was quite cleverly woven into the story.  If only his writing was as good as his ideas, this might have been a good book.  As it is, the only book in the series that I would recommend people read so far is the Roo. 

The money raised from the sales of these books is donated to animal charities so it's not a complete waste of money.

Numbers 36&37- Symmetry (Hawkins + Ienko) & Ascender (Lemire + Nguyen)

This one was worth what I paid for it.

The artwork by Raffaele Ienco is excellent.  There are some beautiful page designs going on, even if there's nothing groundbreaking or experimental.  It all looks great (apart from the wolves which don't seem to be in proportion to any wolf I've ever seen in photos).

The story is not so good.  It starts off interestingly enough.  A future Utopia where everyone has an AI implant in utero which is their lifetime companion, all citizens choose their gender and name at age 13, ao diversity is certainly encouraged in most facets of life.  But all races are kept segregated because apparently this will cause issues? No one finds out about people with different skin tones until they become an elder at age 50... In a society where it's stated explicitly that longevity is normal, why are elders as young as 50, and why do they look 70 in the pictures?

There are too many deep flaws in the narrative for this story to work, It's written across two timelines, the current and 5 years ahead, but I don't think Hawkins has the skill to pull off the multi-stranded storytelling and it's frankly a little bit confusing. 

I know he's aiming at an anti-racism plotline, but the way it's written, with all the gender identity being celebrated, and sexism no longer existing, making race the issue that could break the Utopia is itself a pretty racist concept.    

Apologies to anyone that liked this series, but I thought this volume missed the mark by a huge distance.

And as an antidote to that volume, here is volume one of the follow up to Descender. 

Back in the dependable writing skills of Jeff Lemire, and the distinctive artwork of Dustin Nguyen. 

It's all change in the galaxy since the events of the Descender finale. Ten years have passed and now magic rules in the place of science.

Andy, one of the survivors of the first series, lives with his daughter Mila in seclusion from the city nearby.  They have refused to worship Mother- a powerful vampire type creature who has assumed control. When Mila finds a familiar piece of robot tech, a chain of events is set in motion which could change the galaxy yet again.

Lemire manages to weave in and out of different timestreams without making anything confusing. Any doubts about the viability of the changes in such a short timespan are washed away by the flashbacks.

Throw in some unexpected character deaths and some great new characters including some pretty scary villains, and we have a great start to the series.  

Volume 2 is on my shopping list today.
 

Number 35- Manifest Recall - Alan Baxter

 Two murderer-on-the-run books in a row… I don’t normally follow like with like. But I haven’t really done it this time either. This is as far as possible from the last book apart from that one plot detail.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I rate Alan Baxter very highly indeed, and in this book, he still hasn’t let me down. It’s another different genre in his repertoire as well, a gritty noir revenge thriller with supernatural overtones.

Eli Carver wakes from a psychotic episode behind the wheel of a car, with a terrified young woman in the passenger seat with her hands bound. He has no memory of how he got there, who the girl is, where they’re going or why.

As his memories come flooding back, the gaps are filled one by one. He’s a hitman, an enforcer for a powerful crime boss. The back of the car starts to fill with the ghosts of his past victims and the reason for his breakdown is revealed. Along with the young woman he kidnapped, he plots his revenge. His body count is destined to grow a lot higher.

An amnesiac hitman searching for the truth followed by revenge is not the most original plotline in existence but with the breakneck speed this story is told at, you don’t have time to stop and think about that. And after you’ve put the book down, you’ve enjoyed it so damned much you don’t care.

The characters are well drawn and manage to be more than the one dimensional stereotypes that can infest noir fiction. Eli’s killer-with-a-conscience has depth and complexity. This is partly due to the ghosts following him around. Whether the ghosts are real or in his imagination is never made entirely clear, but that adds to the tension

It's action packed, well written and I finished it in one day.  I seriously couldn't put it down. He manages to fill the first half of the book with flashbacks without ever letting the breakneck pace of the storytelling falter.  That takes some doing.

it's available through Amazon, but you can order direct through his website like I did, and get them signed and personalised for no extra charge. Books By Alan - Alan Baxter

Number 34 - Rebuilding Coventry- Sue Townsend

 

My second Sue Townsend book of the year and, thinking about it, my first non-Adrian-Mole Townsend read. I found this in the charity section at the front of Tesco a few weeks ago. I didn’t even know this one existed.

The Coventry of the title isn’t the city but a housewife- Coventry Makin. She narrates half the chapters in a droll and extremely funny first-person narrative. The rest of the book is in standard third person and follows the various members of the supporting cast around, her children, her brother, her parents, the in-laws and the policemen tracking her.

She has committed a murder. She tells us this in the opening paragraph, which is one of the greatest openings I think I’ve read in many years.

“1. Yesterday I Killed a Man

There are two things you should know about me immediately: the first is that I am beautiful, the second that yesterday I killed a man called Gerald Fox. Both were accidents. My parents are not good-looking. My father looks like a tennis ball, bald and round, and my mother closely resembles a bread knife, thin, jagged and with a cutting tongue. I have never liked them, and I suspect they don’t like me.”

That truly sets the scene for the story and the tone of the storytelling. Indeed, in the chapters that follow her parents, they’re referred to as Tennis Ball and Breadknife.

She lives a life of tedium, with a boring husband and two teenage children not far off flying the nest. After killing Gerald, she goes on the run and finds herself penniless and living rough on the streets of London. From this rock bottom, she starts to rebuild her life (admittedly through a series of unlikely encounters.

It’s by turns hilariously funny and genuinely quite moving. Coventry is a brilliantly drawn protagonist, and the supporting cast are all perfect, even if some of them are very broad stereotypes. I particularly liked the family she works for briefly in the middle of the book.

She manages to capture a microcosm of Thatcherite Britain and pins it to the page with shocking accuracy. This is a great satire on 80s Britain as much as it is a feminist tale of a woman escaping a life of drudgery.

I recommend it to anyone that likes their comedy with a dramatic edge and a sharp sense of sarcasm.