Number 102- Mr Sandman- SJI Holliday

 A quick cheat read and a very good one at that.

Sophie is bored of her safe and predictable boyfriend Matthew. When she meets the eponymous Mr Sandman, a Haitian priest, on a boring day out at the beach that Matthew has arranged, she makes a wish for him to be less boring.

As is par for the course in these stories, be careful what you wish for is very quickly an appropriate piece of advice (albeit delivered far too late).

This is a fast moving and entertaining novella with good pacing, nicely drawn characters and an amusing sense of natural justice. The ending is very darkly funny.  

Holliday's prose is uncluttered and easy to read, and her imagination is nice and twisted.

I had great fun in the 82 pages of this novella, and I think most sensible people will too.

Number 101- House of Slaughter Scarlet- Tynion et al

 

A new miniseries set in the house of Slaughter, and some of the best artwork so far.

We learn more about the running of the House as one of the Scarlet masks, normally a backroom worker, is sent out on a mission.

The artwork has been changed up again, and is again a vast improvement on the art in the original series.

All nicely done and a good way to kill 45 minutes or so.

Number 100- The Institute- Stephen King

I realised I'd gotten 100 books into the year and hadn't read a King, so I had to fix that.

This has been on my shelves since it came out so I know I'm very late to the party in reading this one.

The story opens with an ex-city cop Tim Jamieson choosing randomly to take a payment to leave an overbooked  plane and travel by rail up the country. he stops and settles in a small town in the arse end of nowhere in South Carolina, getting a job with the local police force.

Meanwhile, across the country, a genius boy, Luke Ellis, is kidnapped in the middle of the night and his family murdered.

He wakes to find himself in The Institute of the title. His intellect is not his only gift.  His other gift is the reason he's been chosen. There are half a dozen similarly gifted children here in the front half of the Institute. The staff perform cruel experiments on the children for reasons that become horrifyingly clear as the book moves on.

When a new child joins with extraordinary telepathic powers, the scene is set for a situation the management of the Institute had never predicted.  

When Tim's and Luke's paths cross, the shit really hits the fan. The last 200 pages of this are amongst the most action packed sequences I think King has ever written.

I'm not one of these people who thinks King has never written a bad book, but his hit rate is incredibly high.  I  think this is easily another hit. Tim and his fellow captives in the Institute are some of his most sympathetic and mistreated protagonists to date.  The staff at the institute are more complex than just bad guys doing bad things. They genuinely believe they're doing good for the world and if they can get their sadistic tendencies out once in a while, that's just gravy.

The story moves at a cracking pace for  King novel. I found it difficult to put this book down in the closing stages. And all in King's traditional, easy reading style.

He really is one of the great storytellers and this is one more example of why

Number 99- BRZRKR - Keaunu Reeves et al

 

Second time this year I've read this story. The first time was in the China Mieville novel a few months ago.

This is volume 1 of the comic that started it all off.

I wondered how closely China had followed the storyline, and it turns out so far that it's very close indeed. there are a couple of plotlines that haven't appeared yet, but it's very early day days.

instead of the stylised flashback chapters, we have B talking to a therapist and his memories coming to the fore.

Instead of Mieville's luscious prose, we have some efficiently violent artwork. it all looks good, the story is easier to follow than in the novel (how much of that is familiarity with the story, I'm not sure) and it's a satisfying read.

I'm still not sure if Keanu writing about an immortal warrior and killing machine that happens to look like an idealised version of himself is a sign of hubris or not, but it's entertainng enough I will be picking up the follow on issues.

Number 98- Orbital- Samantha Harvey

 Another Booker winner.  This was the book group read for this month. 

It's very short.  It follows one day in the life of a group of 6 astronauts in a space station, watching the Earth below as they orbit it several times in a day.

It doesn't really have any plot or story.  It's literally just a day in the life of these astronauts.  Nothing they do is different to any other day. 

They're asked to take pictures of a developing weather system on the planet below them.  that's about as much plot as this book contains.

The prose is gorgeous, verging on the poetic. The monotony of living in a space station is captured brilliantly without ever feeling monotonous.  You could possibly argue that there is some repetitive content in this book, but only in the same way that Beethoven's 5th could be considered repetitive.  It's variations on the theme, which sound similar but just different enough to keep the interest. In the case of  any direct repetition, it doesn't sound wrong, it's because its the right thing to do at that point and it all sounds beautiful anyway. 

I actually thought of that particular comparison a couple of pages before that tune was specifically referenced as one of the pieces of music included on Voyager for alien species to potentially enjoy at some point. The direct reference makes it quite an appropriate analogy IMHO.

It's meandering and plotless and filled with philosophical musings.  But thanks to the prose, it's never actually boring. Don't expect action packed sci-fi where the brave astronauts solve all our problems and relax into the mood of the writing and this book becomes a relaxing spa bath of a read. 

There are warnings about the way we're treating the planet, and the super-tornado they witness is explained as a result of global warming, but it never feels like the writer is preaching to the reader. 

Harvey has a remarkable ear for language and a similar skill at transcribing it to the page.  Whether she can write a story or not, I'm not sure. But this is a book you experience rather than read. If you'd told me before I read this that I would like a meditation on infinity, man's place inside it and the impact we're having on our environment as much as I enjoyed this, I'd have laughed at you. A true triumph, in the best possible sense of the word, of style over content (although that said, she does make the content rather thought provoking and interesting in any case).

As per my previous comments about Booker winners, this is not necessarily an easy read. You have to let the mood of the writing take you, then it will take you to orbit if you let it.

Number 97- Kala- Colin Walsh

 

I was a bit nervous about this book.  The plot did not sound overly promising.  Small town, teen friend group, one of them disappears, friend group blown apart. Years later, all of them back in the town and things start happening again, yada yada yada.

So far so tropey, verging into cliche.

Once I started reading it, all my worries were wiped away.  This is one of the top three books I've read this year. 

The plot is not as simple as summarised above. Obviously, most stories do rise above the tropes if they're competently written.  this isn't just competently written though.  there were times reading this that I had to stop and read a paragraph again, not because I didn't understand it, but because it was so well phrased i needed to read it again.

This is just gorgeously written.

A group of 6 childhood friends are blown apart when the eponymous Kala disappears without trace. Life in the town of Kinlough continues as always. Fifteen years pass.

Joe has returned to Kinlough to open a nightclub.  He's a successful music artist and famous in his own right but still has issues with confidence.

Helen has been living in Canada and returns to the town for her sister's wedding. She's had moderate success as a journalist and has exposed a few major controversies in the last decade.  She might not be doing as well as she lets on. but she knows how to investigate when things are wrong. So she thinks.

Mush has never left the town. he still runs the local café with his mother. His face is horrifically scarred for reasons we don't find out till very late on.

Soon after Joe arrives back in town. human remains are found in a building site in the woods on the outskirts of town. Events start to build which draw the three of them together again.  The town's ugly secrets will soon be laid bare.

What makes this book stand out is the prose, the characterisation and the unexpected twists and turns of the narrative. Colin Walsh is an absolute genius when it comes to foreshadowing. the hints dropped through the narrative are so enticing it's almost impossible to put this book down. What caused Mush's scars?  What happened to Kala? Has there been another unexplained disappearance?

This is a crime novel without a policeman at the heart of it.  These are beautifully drawn characters. each chapter is told from the perspective of either Joe, Helen or Mush. Their voices are so distinct you can tell in a couple of lines which character is the focus of any randomly chosen page. Joe's narration is a great example of second person writing.  two books in a row that nailed it....

The tension Walsh builds is remarkable. The treatment of the new disappearance is absolutely perfectly handled. the savvy reader knows something has happened a long time before the  characters catch on and the delay in taking action feels so real and adds to the atmosphere.

I always worry when the build up is so good, is the writer going to blow it all in the final act, but he doesn't.  He lands this ending absolutely perfectly. It's one of the most perfect endings.  None of the characters suddenly develop miraculous fighting prowess to deal with any violence that occurs and it all feels totally real.  The secrets the town is hiding are suitable nasty and there's a reveal that I'm still kicking myself that I missed.

I can not find any issues with this book. The rhythm of the prose (especially for Mush) reset my inner narrator to the cast of Father Ted. That's a good thing by they way. And this is a debut novel! How does someone come straight out of the posts with something this good?

I've no idea what the answer to that is. But you all need to buy this book, or borrow it from a legal source, and read it.  You won't be disappointed.

Number 96- Damnatio- SP Somtow

 

And the story of Sporus and Nero continues. 

This epic trilogy now has something in common with Hitch-Hiker's guide to the Galaxy in that there will be at least 4 parts to it.

Somtow has been unable to complete the series this year as promised for reasons explained in the foreword, but he has given us this volume which covers Nero's time in Greece with Sporus as his Empress at his side to be going along with until the conclusion next year. 

It's an eye opening trip around the Hellenic isles and the signs are growing that Nero's days are numbered. 

This is a fascinating insight into one of the most famous of the insane Caesars of Rome. In this volume he orders the Olympic games to be held in his honour while he's in Greece, just so that he can compete. 

The phrase "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" has never been truer.

The research that has gone into this series is evident but never weighs the story down. It just makes it more compelling.

By this point it's impossible to feel anything but sympathy for poor Sporus. He might be free and an Empress, and therefore a Goddess since Nero proclaimed himself a god, but he's more trapped and enslaved than he was a a slave boy.

From the overarching narrative technique- he is telling his story to the make up girl as he waits to be executed publicly in the Coliseum- we know he is almost certainly doomed, but I'm hoping so much that something might save him. I can only wait for the next volume to find out. 

Number 95 - The seven Moons of Maali Almeida - Shehan Karunatilaka

 

This was the Booker Prize wimer in 22.  Winning that particular prize is not necessarily a guarantee of a good read, and is never a guarantee of an easy read (in my experience).

This book is no exception to part two of that statement. This is written in second person (you did this, you did that) in a freewheeling, almost stream of consciousness style that did not always make it easy to realise what was going on.  Add to that a complex plot involving lots of characters and groups, and lots of Sri Lankan politics from the 80s and 90s, and the potential is there for something totally unreadable.

However this was actually a very good read and well worth the effort. I kind of remembered something about the politics of the book from news reports when I was growing up which made some of the book easier to follow.

Maali Alneida is a photographer.  He's just been murdered prior to the story beginning. Bu who, or what organisation is not going to be revealed quickly. Neither is the why. The list of people with reason to kill him seems to grow with every page.

Despite being dead, Maali has his own problems still.  In the afterlife he has seven moons to sort himself out and try to communicate with those he left behind on the mortal plane. Can he guide his friends and loved ones to the photos he left behind which could change the face of the country? If he doesn't go through the light inside of the seven moons, he could find himself stranded "in between" and prey to demons and worse creatures that roam the afterlife.

This was a challenge to read but well worth it. The second person narration grew on me despite the weirdness of a whole novel in this narrative voice.  It's quite possibly the best complete story I've read in this voice.

The story winds personal struggles and loves with the politics and factions in a horribly violent section of human history. This is gruesome enough to satisfy the horror fan in me. Maali is not a likable character, but he's certainly compelling. there is a reason that so many people have so many good reasons to want him dead. This book also has one of the finest pieces of misdirection I've seen in the final chapters. The solutions to the questions are convincing and totally satisfying.

I'm very glad I read this. It was a worthy winner of the award. It weaved actual events and attacks into the storyline seamlessly enough that the fantastical events become so much more viable. It's a nightmare vision of what might come after, but there is a glimmer of hope present.

If you like a challenging but worthwhile read, this is a very good option.