Number 44- Fever Beach- Carl Hiaasen

 

Florida's greatest satirist returns with one of his most polemical novels to date. I can't imagine any Trump supporters reading this and enjoying it.  The depiction of the MAGA crowd is somewhat less than complimentary. 

Twilly Spree, last seen rampaging the everglades with Skink, dishing out justice to those who defile the environment, is back.  This time he meets the beautiful Viva Morales and soon finds himself embroiled in a plot involving corrupt congressman, a white supremacist militia group who would struggle to find three brain cells in their entire membership, a fake charity exploiting children, and a pair of rich zealots funding the whole shebang.

Dale Figgo, leader of the Strokers for liberty, is one of the funniest creations in Hiaasen's entire catalogue. When I saw the name of his white supremacist group, I thought strokers must mean something different in American slang.  But it doesn't.  Figgo was kicked out of the Proud Boys for a feces related incident on January 6 and formed his group as a competitor. 

Hysterically, the Proud Boys genuinely have rules preventing their members from pleasuring their own members. In Figgo's group, his soldiers can play with their privates all they want, he even provides them with sex toys he steals from his day job. 

This book is not what you would call subtle.

What I would call it is brilliantly funny. I'm guessing that the congressman is a very easy to recognise interpretation of a genuine congressman if you know more about US politics than I do, so i am probably missing out on a few jokes, but it doesn't matter. Clure Boyette is one of the most memorable characters in the book.  His utter incompetence is rivalled only by Dale Figgo. 

Hiaasen's targets in this book are very easy to hit, but he scores bullseyes with every shot.  There is a lot of low hanging fruit here that Hiaasen has plucked and served as a gourmet meal. I don't normally find a book entertaining on the basis that it will make a lot of people angry, but this will annoy all the people that deserve to be annoyed. 

And that pleases me immensely.  It's the gravy on top of a veritable feast of top class comedy writing. Basically, if you take this book personally and feel offended by it, you probably are the intended object of the joke. 

This is easily the best thing he's written for a few years. Go out and buy it. 

Number 43- Coyotes Vol 2- Lewis & Yarsky

 

The second volume of this unusual feminist take on the werewolf legend.

I actually found this much more entertaining than volume 1.  Packed full of violence rendered in gorgeous artwork, combined with great thoughtful storytelling.

This manages to hammer home its messages without ever feeling preachy about it. 

So, thought provoking, beautiful to look at and entertaining, what else do you need from a graphic novel.

Number 42- Starship Titanic- Terry Jones

Book 42 as ever has to be Hitchhikers related. 

This is one of the few that I'd not already read.  Based on one line from HHTTG (about the Starship Titanic undergoing a Sudden Massive Existence Failure (SMEF) a mere ten minutes out of space dock), Douglas Adams took the idea and used it for a computer game.  The novel of the game was handed over to Monty Python's very own Terry Jones.

So story by Adams, words by Jones, should be a recipe for success...

Sadly, the most remarkable thing about this book is that it was written entirely in the nude. This was the condition Jones made when he was offered the writing task.

It starts extremely well.  We are introduced to a cast of aliens involved in the building of the ship, including the genius architect behind the design. Also the corrupt politicians who've been cutting corners and planning an insurance job.

The problem with the book starts once the ship has suffered the SMEF. At this point the action switched to Earth and a cast of tedious humans.  The Starship suddenly appears in the atmosphere and crashes into a building they've just bought and they're taken on board as passengers while the genius architect is left on Earth. This is a third of the way through the book and a sudden complete change of cast.  A couple of the original characters pop up but not for a long while.

The biggest problem with this book is that it isn't really all that funny. It also doesn't fit in with the HHTTG universe since the Babel Fish isn't a thing and translation from alien to human is done through the ship's computers. The humour is very broad and nowhere near as clever as Adams's writing. 

It's very readable.  I can't say I was ever bored reading it, but it never rose to the ranks of classic like the original series.  It also falls into the same trap as many novelisations of games, where the characters keep getting moved onto side quests before returning to the main plot.

I think this one is for completists only.

Number 41- Memoriae- SP Somtow

 

At long last, the fourth book in Somtow's remarkable trilogy about the real life slave boy who became Empress of Rome under  Emperor Nero (quite literally).

Book 3 finished with Nero and Sporus returning to Rome after their eventful trip to Greece. Nero has lost support of the Senate and his time as Emperor is now limited.

Is there anything Sporus can do to help himself in the Post-Nero Rome?  From the entire structure of these books, with Sporus telling his story to his make up artist before being sent into the Coliseum to be viciously murdered, we know the answer is probably a resounding No, but this book manages to remain compulsive as it moves to the inevitable conclusion.

The research that's gone into this series feels meticulous, but rather than feeling like info-dump which can be a danger, it feels like atmospheric world-building. The city of Rome is so well portrayed you can almost smell it.  

The complex politics of the Senate are described in an easily accessible and understandable way.  

It's sad to see the nd of this series, and that's always a sign of a good book. It's impossible to feel anything but sympathy for Sporus.  He really has had a tragic existence, even if he was revered as a Goddess at one point.

A fitting end to a great series. 

Number 40- BRZRKR vol 2- Keanu Reeves et al

 

More of Keanu Reeves imagining himself as an eternal assassin with more blood lust than the entire Mongol hordes.

The artwork is pretty damned good and suits the megaviolence of the story.

Everything I said about volume one still applies here.  From reading China Mieville's novelisation of this series, I have a good idea where it's headed and I'm looking forward to continuing.

Number 39- A Song for Quiet- Cassandra Khaw

 

This is the follow up to Hammers On Bone which I read last year and greatly enjoyed.

This one is even better. 

Deacon James is a blues musician travelling across America in search of gigs. He also has something inside him that could be very dangerous indeed.  He produces music that can change the world around him and not for the better, music that produces visions of empty and melting faces, gaping mouths and grasping tendrils rising from the pits of some hell dimension.

He's being followed by an apparent madman called Jim Persons- who we the reader will recognise as the narrator of Hammers and Bone.

Will Jim be able to help Deacon and maybe even save the world as we know it?

The way Khaw writes about his music is almost physical.  I could almost hear the discordant melodies Deacon was playing. His visions were equally evocative and nightmarish.

I raced through this book in one day, partly because it's short, but mainly because Khaw's prose grabs you by the throat and rags you at breakneck pace through to the end of the story. This is almost a flawless novella.  I am in the process of gathering all her back catalogue into my collection, and enjoying every minute of it.  I might give Nothing but Blackened Teeth a reread to see if I enjoy it more now I'm more used to Khaw's writing style.

Number 38- Miss Benson's Beetle- Rachel Joyce

 

Talk about a change of pace.  From the dark gritty historical horror of Otessa Moshfegh, to the whimsical ramblings of Rachel Joyce

When my book group suggested this book I was convinced I was going to hate it. The reviews on the back cover using all the phrases that make my stomach churn in entirely the wrong way.  this sounded like the literary equivalent of a diabetic coma.

However, once I started reading it, I found it an object lesson in not judging a book by its cover.

Miss Benson is a teacher in 1950s England.  When she catches her class passing around a distinctly uncomplimentary picture of her, she experiences a moment of clarity about how much she hates her job and her life, and she walks out on it all to try to fulfil a childhood ambition- to find an almost legendary golden beetle in the remotest part of the remote land of New Caledonia on the opposite end of the world. 

She advertises for a companion to come with her on the journey, but due to circumstances, takes the distinctly unpromising Enid Pretty with her.  Enid is everything Marjorie Benson isn't. At first they clash, but as is the way in these things, they find unexpected depths of friendship on their voyage of mutual self discovery.

Normally this is the type of thing to make my eyes roll far enough to see the back of my own skull and dislocate the optic nerve into the bargain. But Joyce's writing is sublime.  She has a lovely turn of phrase and I can only describe this book as delightful.  I've never used that word to describe a book before, but it's easily the best I can think of for this one.

There is a dark(ish) heart to the story.  Miss Benson has sad reasons for being so obsessed with beetles, while Miss Pretty has a dark secret of her own. Also, Miss Benson is being followed by an ex-soldier with PTSD and a dangerous obsession of his own after Marjorie refused his application for the role of her companion. The ending of the book is a genuine emotional rollercoaster.

This is an easy contender for the best book of the year so far.  I never expected that when I picked it up and read the reviews on the back cover. I am now going to have to add her back catalogue to my ever expanding TBR pile.

Number 37- McGlue - Otessa Moshfegh

It's 1851 and McGlue wakes up from an alcoholic bender in the brig of a cargo ship.  He's told he murdered his friend and colleague (and possibly much more) Johnson.  He has no recollection of having done so because of his drinking problem.

With enforced sobriety, McGlue finds himself reliving the worst parts of his history. He needs a drink more than anything to stop the stream of memory.

This is another historical almost horror novel from the author of Lapvona which so impressed me last year. I'm not sure this one is quite as successful.  It didn't have the same visceral impact on me that Lapvona did.

It's still an excellent read and I fully understand how it was shortlisted for the Booker in 2016. Moshfegh is an unusual writer and she very successfully manages to portray all McGlue's internal conflicts through the fractured nature of the writing.

She makes no attempt to sanitise 19th century attitudes for a 21st century audience, so some readers will take offence to some content in this book.  However, it would be a much lesser book if she  had tried to do so, and the character would have felt much less realised.

It's not her masterpiece- so far I think that's Lapvona- but an excellent character study of a deeply flawed person in a convincing historical context. A strong stomach is required at times, so don't say I didn't warn you.