Number 78- Sweet Tooth- Jeff Lemire

It's a shame this is the TV Tie in cover, but it was cheap. This is a collected edition of the first 12 issues of the original comic and covers much of the same ground as the first season of the tv series. 

This is the most definitive apocalypse I've read yet from Jeff Lemire, who also takes on the artistic duties this time around. Most of humanity has been wiped out by a disease, just known as The Illness. meanwhile, the potential future of the species, the newborn babies, have not been quite normal. 

Since the Outbreak 7 years previously, every baby born has been a hybrid, part human, part animal.  Sweet tooth (aka Gus, our central character) himself is part deer. With no humans born and the Illness coming round and killing more and more 

The TV series follows several plot strands simultaneously, only winding them together very late on.  That's very typical in Jeff Lemire's comics, but doesn't actually happen here. 

For the first two thirds of this, there is only the one storyline, Gus being found in the woods by Big Man and led to safety. When Singh appears in this volume, he is far from the sympathetic character we know in the TV show.

There are other marked differences between the stories, whether the extra characters in the TV show will be introduced in Book 2 remains to be seen.

I wasn't a fan of the artwork initially but it definitely grew on me, especially when it started incorporating the weird tricks with layout that characterize Lemire's comics. The style looks rough and quite ugly but it's consistent and the emotions are clear on character faces, even the animals.  The panels where Sweet Tooth is hypnotized are particularly effective. the story is deeply personal and emotional at the same time as wildly apocalyptic. Lemire does seem to pull this trick off nicely, and here it's particularly well done. I felt genuinely sorry for all the central cast by the end of this compendium.

Book 2 is on my shopping list for when i pop into town tomorrow.

Number 78- Scattered all over the Earth- Yoko Tawada

 

URGH!

I could almost leave this review there. But I do try to give detailed write ups.

I don't know if it's a poor translation, but I really did not get on with this book in the slightest.  It took me nearly a week to read it and its only 217 pages.

I spent the whole book wondering if it's supposed to be a comedy.  If it is supposed to be a comedy it fails entirely.  If it's supposed to be serious, it hits all the wrong notes. 

Each chapter is narrated by a different character but you'd never guess by the narrative voices. Considering that there are 6 narrators over the 10 chapters, they all sound exactly the same. If you're doing multiple narrators, make them sound different. You should be able to identify a character from their voice- especially if they're all supposed to be from such disparate backgrounds as this bunch. The fact that this is supposed to be all about language and how it shapes people, that makes this sin of bad writing all the more egregious. This might be down to the translator, but since I don't speak Japanese. I have to rely on her skills in expressing the book accurately in English.

I read one of Tawada's books a few years ago and was quite meh about that one. this one is a step below meh. I actively disliked it and the whole experience of reading it. Despite the occasional nice image, it sometimes feels like it was translated by Bing translate and not a human.

The characters are uniformly unconvincing. The worldbuilding is poor at best. The forced coincidences are farcical without ever reaching the level of actual humour. The plot is almost non-existent.  A bunch of people who sound the same, despite being from Greenland, Norway, Denmark, India and Japan, wander around a few countries in a "near future" that does not feel even slightly authentic, talking about language and looking for a sushi chef so he can talk Japanese to one of the identikit characters.

Maybe I'm missing some cultural references.  Maybe it's a bad translation.  Maybe it's just a badly conceived and executed idea for a book. Whichever it is, I will not be reading any further Yoko Tawada novels.

Number 76- Reprisal- F Paul Wilson

 

The second from last book in the Adversary cycle until relatively recently. Also the last one published with this style of cover by NEL.  That's a great shame because I love these covers.

Will Ryerson Is a groundskeeper on a college campus. He has a secret past and keeps most people at a distance except for faculty member Lisl. His friendship with her verges on the romantic, but he refuses to get too involved. However his past is catching up to him. Why do phones ring with a mysterious message from beyond the grave whenever he is near one?

When Lisl becomes romantically involved with a mysterious new student, events start taking a turn for the worse.

Considering how close to the original finale this book is, there's a relative lack of overt horror in this book. Perhaps this is the calm before the storm.

The relationship between Lisl and the satanic young man is the key to the story and her corruption is nicely portrayed.  The middle section, where we flash back to Will's history and his link to the cycle, is the most overtly supernatural part of the story. There is a sense of tension that ratchets up gradually through the book, right up to the finale which blows things wide open for the last book of the series. 

Wilson is as good as King at drawing out the characters. They all seem to have their own personal backstories and feel like they've been in several books previously even if this is their first appearance.

This is how you do a cliffhanger ending in a horror novel. the central plot elements of this story are complete, but the overarching story of the series has reached crisis point. Nightworld has moved several steps up my TBR pile.

Number 75- Recall NIght- Alan Baxter

 

Book 2 of the Eli Carver trilogy that began with Manifest Recall which I read a few months ago.

Eli has been living in exile in Canada since the events of book one. When he finds out it's safe to return, he flies back to the States.  However, a chance encounter on a train lands him in the middle of a turf war between rival New York gangs, and the body count is set to rise once more.

He's still haunted by five smart-ass ghosts of some of his previous victims, but are they just his mind playing tricks on him, or is something more sinister happening?

Baxter doesn't give a clear answer to that question still, although events take more of a supernatural twist than in book one. Carver is great at rationalising all the events surrounding him.

That quote on the front does sum the book up in three words. It is indeed brutal, with a death toll in double figures in a short novella.  It is indeed gritty.  The depiction of the criminal underworld feels deliciously seedy. And it is indeed fun. 

Baxter writes in uncluttered, easily readable prose that rockets you through his books. This series might arguably be low on originality, but the high octane action and sheer breakneck pace of the storytelling makes that really quite insignificant. It's what you do with the familiar elements that counts, and Baxter delivers in spades.

This is a great series so far, and I will be reading the final part reasonably soon. It will make for another very enjoyable cheat read to get my numbers up for the year- with all the satisfaction of a book three times its length.

Number 74- The Outlaw Varjak Paw- SF Said

 

My second children's book in as many months, but this one I really enjoyed.

This is the follow up to Varjak Paw which I read last year after I picked up both books in a second hand shop discount bin. It's about cats and it's illustrated by Dave McKean so it started with two huge plus points.

Since the events of the first book, Sally Bones and her gang have spread their territory and now rule the whole city (the cat population thereof) with an iron paw.

Can Varjak find her weakness? Can he free the cats of the city from her tyranny? Can he regain his powers?

It's as good as the first book.  Once more we have Varjak learning everything he needs to complete his quest in convent dream sequences where he communes with an ancient ancestor. 

Once more, it's all very predictable.  But it's not written for adults who read as much as me, of course it's going to have  a basic plot with no diversions or big twists. 

Once more Dave McKean's illustrations add a whole new level to the book. 

It's surprisingly gruesome for a children's book.  When we find out what Sally Bones's punishment to traitor cats is, it's really rather unpleasant and I can see people who can't read cruelty to animals not being able to read this. No animals are harmed by typing words on a page, so I personally have no issues. It adds a real tension to the book to think that his friends (or even he) might have such cruelty inflicted on them.

It was a quick read and I finished it in a day. If you can handle reading about cats fighting to the death, and don't mind dipping into young people's fiction, I recommend this.  Read the first book first though.

Number 73- English Pastoral - James Rebanks

 

This one fills my annual quota of at least one biography/autobiography. It was my book group read for the group I've been in the last 15 years.

The point of being in a book group is to read things you normally wouldn't look at twice, and this is a perfect example.

In this book James Rebanks tells us about his childhood on a small Cumbrian farm, and how he fell in love with farming.  He also tells us about how farming changed and industrialised over the decades and details exactly what the reasons are that this is not a good thing.

He finishes the book with glimmers of hope that the damage that's been done could be reversed with the right impetus.

It's a book of three parts.  Part one is his childhood memories as a 10 year old working the farm with his grandfather. This part I found to be exceedingly dull unfortunately. He's trying to be poetic and paint pictures with his words, but it doesn't quite work and comes off as a try hard attempt.

The second part follows the changes in the literal farming landscape that happened between the 60s and 90s, and lays out in clear, uncomplicated terms exactly how much damage industrial farming has done. This part develops an urgency and drops the overly flowery prose that slowed part one down to the dullness that it was.

Part three comes right up to date and Rebanks explains how he is working to improve the landscape and the soil with traditional methods. He offers glimmers of hope that I mentioned earlier. The urgency recedes from part two but fortunately it doesn't turn quite as flowery and purple as part one. 

It's a bit of a curates egg. I found it compulsive after the dull opening section. It opened my eyes to the damage that industrial farming for profit is doing to the land. Whether his measures will help, and his methods will spread is yet to be seen. But we can hope.

An important, if not always interesting book.

Number 72- Morace's Story- Kaaron Warren

 

I’ve read a few Kaaron Warren novels before, and found them almost unputdownable. So this seemed like a good choice for a quick cheat read.

Sadly it wasn’t.  I don’t know if it’s because it’s pitched below YA that I didn’t like it, or because I’ve not read Walking the Tree- the book this is a companion piece to- but I found this to be less than compelling and rather dull to be honest.

The eponymous Morace goes to school, which means walking around the impossibly large tree that fills the land they live on for five years, stopping at assorted villages to learn their customs on the way around.

It’s a bit repetitive and lacks any real drama or impetus IMHO.  Maybe if I was in the age group it’s aimed at I would have thought it was thrilling, but this is a “not my sort of thing” book.

I did get through it in just under an hour, so it’s a fast read at the very least.

Number 71 - Yellowface - Rebecca F Kuang

 

My first RF Kuang book.  Apparently this made a big splash in the last couple of years but it passed under my radar until the end of last month when I found out my local Waterstones has its own book group and this was their choice.

The unlikelily named Juniper Song Bradshaw (normally known as June Bradshaw) is a failed writer.  One of her friends from college is the mega successful Athena Liu.  When June is invited up to Athena's flat one night and Athena dies in a freak accident, June finds the just completed manuscript of Athena's newest book.

She steals it, edits it and sends it to her agent who ships it out to publishers and it's snapped up and published under the name Juniper Song. It makes all the bestseller lists and turns her into an overnight sensation. How long can she keep the secret that this isn't her book?  How much pressure does fame put on a person? Exactly how cutthroat is the publishing world?

All these questions and more are answered in fine style in this entertaining novel.

June is a distinctly unlikeable protagonist but, as you may have noticed from other reviews on this blog, I don't mind that, and actually it can be a major positive for me.

June is a scheming, manipulative character with not so well hidden shallows. But I found her narrative to be an easy and fairly compulsive read. The levels of self justification she manages for the worst of her actions are so twisted she could win a breakdancing contest.

There are no real bon mots or startling insights into humanity on display here.  There's a deep rooted cynicism in its place. And that appeals to my personal worldview. I flew through this book in just a couple of days. 

Interestingly, a fair number of the criticisms leveled at the character of Athena in the book are lifted directly from online criticism of Ms Kuang herself. You can make of that what you will. For me, it added to the satire element inherent in a bestselling expose of the rotten heart of bestselling publishing.

It does raise valid points about accusations of cultural appropriation every time an author writes outside their own culture. The fact that she has genuinely stolen the story makes this an awkward lesson but adds to the satire. 

On the strength of this, I have already bought myself a copy of Babel which I intend to read sooner rather than later. It generated a heated discussion at the book group, which means it's doing something right.