Number 69- A Cruel Fate- Lindsey Davis

 

You can see from the front cover why I picked this up.  I was looking for a quick read, and i have read one of Davis's Didio Falco book and really enjoyed it, so this looked like a great choice.

However- I'm going there sorry- its A Cruel Fate indeed if someone makes you read this book.

I am grateful for having read it because I now understand what people mean when they make the "show don't tell" criticism.

It tells the story of a captured bookseller in the English Civil War and his time interred in a dungeon in Oxford Castle.  This is mixed in with the story of a woman looking for her brother, a captured soldier, also held in the Castle.

I know Lindsey Davis CAN write, and she can do it well. I have no idea why she doesn't here. This is told in the simplest terms possible.  There isn't a single simile or metaphor in the entire book. There's no imagery, there's no style to the writing.  

It's as if the writers of  Peter and Jane (or Janet and John depending on which country you read your preschool books) got together to tell a story about a torturer in the English Civil War being mean to his prisoners.  

The present tense narration makes it feel worse. I never realised how much prose is improved by comparisons and slightly more complex language than the Tiger Who Came to Tea. In fact The Tiger Who Came to Tea is a much better book than this since the writing has a rhythm to it which this book doesn't.

The editing on this book s sorely lacking too.  How else could writing as poor as this sneak through?

Given power, Provost Marshal Smith uses it with no restraint. Why should he? He behaves like this because nobody stops him.

For that "Why should he? to make the point the author wants to make, the previous sentence should say "Given power, Provost Marshal Smith makes no effort to show restraint." or words to that effect. 

Instead of showing us how letters were sneaked out of the prison, she tells us that "Somehow letters were delivered".  It strikes me that there might have been an interesting chapter regarding getting hold of writing materials and smuggling the letter etc. but instead we get one line to TELL us it happened. The whole book is like this.

I know that this book was written for a cheap giveaway, but she could have put some effort into it. If I'd never read anything else by this writer, I would assume she just couldn't write.  

This will be dropped straight back in the charity box I picked it up from a few weeks back. 

Number 68- Barrowbeck- Andrew Michael Hurley

 

From the author of Starve Acre comes this collection of loosely linked short stories all set in the Northern England town of Barrowbeck.

I wanted to love this book a lot more than I did. Hurley is a great writer and I love the weird town set up normally (witness Malerman's Goblin, CL Grant's many forays to Oxrun Station, King's Derry/Castle Rock etc)

Unfortunately this is a very mixed bag. Some of the stories are brilliant, but others are merely quite good and feel unfinished.

There are a variety of writing styles on offer, matching the shifting timeframes. We start with a strong folk horror aspect to the founding of the town, things living in the ground granting permission for the settlers on the run from Viking raids.

We move through the middle ages and witchcraft trials before hitting the 20th century and finish off in the near future with environmental catastrophe.

My favourite in the collection is Natural Remedies set in 1938 where a childless couple is offered assistance of a supernatural nature. This was shocking and quietly heartbreaking in only a dozen or so pages.  The Strangest Case- telling about a murder trial in 1792 was another highlight.

The biggest problem with the stories being themed around the town is that there seemed very few links between the tales other than the town. Given the dramatic nature of the founding of the town, it would have been reasonable to expect those powers at work to be referenced again but they didn't seem to be. s the stories were set closer together in time in the latter half of the book, there was an occasional namecheck, or a mention of driving past a location from an earlier story, but that was pretty much the limit of it.

Overall I really enjoyed it.  there isn't a bad story in the book, but the standouts are good enough to make the others pale a bit too much in comparison. With several of the stories I was hooked throughout, with great character build up, great momentum and then they just kind of stopped rather than ended. I can't fault his style of writing, just his endings don't always land for me in these stories. When they do, they really work brilliantly. 

Number 67- The Night watch- Sarah Waters

 

This is the last of the 4 books I read last week. This one took about a day and a half when I had nothing else to do.

I read Fingersmith a few years back. After a twist I didn't see coming a third of the way through, I thought it descended into entirely predictable melodrama and was underwhelmed. I did like her writing style, but the story was somewhat lacking.

It's taken a while to try her writing again. 

This one is set in 1947, 1944 and 1941 in that order. It follows a loosely connected group of characters in the aftermath of WWII in London, and then takes us back to the events which shaped their lives.

This leads to some quite major narrative issues.  Because we never return to the 1947 timeline, I would have liked to see some endings to their storylines. Duncan has a loose ending to his story, but he's the only one. All other characters are just left at random stages in their relationships with no resolution to any plot points.

The reverse chronology is interesting in that it lets us fill in gaps as we read, but it's the only real point of interest in the narrative. Run in the usual order, this would be a perfectly standard story of assorted relationships. I was never bored reading this, but I did find myself wondering, about 200 pages in, when the story was going to start.  When I got to the end of the book, I'm not entirely sure it ever had done.

The section with the backstreet abortion is shocking and graphic in its detail and really does open a huge unanswered question about why she is still with the father of the baby in 1947. 

One of the biggest questions running through the book is why was Duncan in prison? In 1947 he's been released, in 1944 he's incarcerated but near the end of his sentence. The section in 1941 that explains it should be a dramatic highpoint of the book.  Instead it's one of the most ridiculous things I've read in years. It is truly farcical on what, in skilled hands, should have been an emotionally charged finale to his storyline. When dealing with the subject matter at hand in a serious novel, this chapter is almost offensively played for laughs.

People talk about men not being able to write women. This book pretty much demonstrates that Sarah Waters is very bad at writing men.

Her prose is nice. Her stories so far have done very little for me. I'm not sure when, if ever, I will return to her books.

Number 66- Watching Evil Dead- Josh Malerman

 

Last week I read 4 full books in 5 days.  This week I'm struggling to find the time to read one short book, let alone catch up on doing the write ups.  This was book 3 of the 4.  It was also the quickest of the week.

When I heard about this book (I follow Josh on his socials, so that was well over a year ago) I did wonder if I would like it, or even find it interesting.  But Josh has a habit of taking subject matter that I think doesn't sound promising and turning it into great stories by force of his writing. (who else could make a telepathic killer pig into one of the most terrifying literary villains I've read in recentish years?)

This is non fiction. Its the story of the night he introduced his then girlfriend (now wife) to the cinematic treat that is The Evil Dead. 

Part love story, part treatise on the creative process, part commentary on the genre, part confessional, part film analysis, part relationship drama, all driven by a manic energy that drags the reader (this one at least) through the book at a rate of knots.

The only thing I can really compare this with is Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing. King's Danse Macabre is a close relative but not really comparable IMHO. I actually felt the prose was reminiscent of Bradbury quite frequently while I read this. That's one of the greatest compliments I can pay to a book.

A life affirming story of the roots of creativity. I loved this far more than I ever expected to.  Once again just down to the power of Malerman's writing. This is probably going to be in my top 10 for the year. An easy 8.5 or maybe 9/10

Number 65- Written On The Dark- Guy Gavriel Kay

I somehow managed to go from the middle of June until last week with this book on my selves without reading it. That's the longest a GGK book has lingered unread on my shelves for a very long time.

It was well worth the wait as usual.  This time the setting is based on medieval France. 

Thierry Villar is a poet in the taverns of the city of Orane. He finds himself conscripted by the King's Provost into helping investigate the sudden violent death of the Mad king's brother and regent, the Duke De Montereau. Because he is a well known face in the taverns, he is ideally placed to ask questions and people will answer him.

He finds himself entangled in the political fallout from the death of such an important member of the aristocracy.  Combined with a possible invasion from nearby Anglcyn and the threat of civil war, he's in deep over his head.

This is written in Kay's usual smooth and hypnotic prose. There is virtually no traditional fantasy element in this book. There's no magic or mysterious powers or unexplainable events further than one character with visions.

It's shorter than many of his recent books, but no less effective for it. A worthy addition to his volume of work.

Number 64- Oktober - Stephen Gallagher

This book has been waiting around in my TBR for several years. For obvious reasons I had to, at the very least, start reading it in October. I started on the 29th (playing catch up here on quite a scale) and finished on Monday this week - 3rd November.

I love that cover, but it has almost nothing to do with the story inside.

Jim Harper is a tutor to a spoilt rich girl. When she goes to a ski resort next to an experimental facility run by her family business, Jim tags along. He injures his arm and accidentally wanders into the facility where he's assaulted by a member of staff.  To try to save his life, they inject him with an experimental stimulant they're working on.  This apparently fails and they leave him for dead and try to cover up the incident.

He's not dead though and recovers with no memory of what happened. Unknown to him, the company is still watching him and the drug they gave him may have side effects they never expected.

There are some nice ideas hidden in this book.  However it takes forever to get to them. I wasn't particularly taken by his writing style. The prose is pedestrian in the extreme and very jump-cutty (if that's not an actual word I don't care, it describes how I felt about the writing). Too much of the action happens off screen and mentioned in passing. I don't think he achieved much of an atmosphere for most of the book, where some authors would have the pages dripping with paranoia. 

There is a strong focus on the office politics of the company whose research has led to all of this in the middle section of the book.  Unfortunately, it doesn't make for the most thrilling content.

The ending of the book is rather excellent though. It more than makes up for the rest of the book. This is where pretty much all of the horror appears. If only the rest of the book had been as effective as the final couple of chapters, this would have been an easy 9/10 read. However, I struggle to award this more than 6.5 because of the slog to get through to those last pages.

Number 63- The Fisherman- John Langan

 

Another recommendation from a Facebook group and thanks again to that group.

This isn't a book that makes me realise why I love horror fiction so much, but it is a good solid read that's alternately moving and pretty damned scary.

Abe and Dan are both young widowers who work together in upstate New York. For companionship, they fish together. When Dan hears about Dutchman's Creek, near a reservoir upstate, and the things to be found there other than fish, he persuades Abe to go there on their next trip. 

After 60 something pages of good character development, the two men are told a story of the origin of Dutchman's Creek, mysterious happenings at the clearance of the villages in the path of the new reservoir, and a villainous man known as the Fisherman.  This story takes up the next 200 pages of the narrative before returning us to Abe and Dan for the last 100 pages. 

It's an interesting structure for the book, but could have been balanced slightly better.  Parts of the story within the story could certainly have been trimmed. It did seem to go on for longer than it should have IMHO.

The story moves from personal grief to cosmic horror with links to old testament and earlier mythological monsters. 

I found the Abe and Dan sections were better than the very long middle section. Abe's voice as narrator was affecting, and  could hear the new York drawl in his voice as I read it. The whole book is slow burn and atmospheric horror. When things get scary, they genuinely do raise the pulse rate (mine at least) and some of the ideas and concepts on offer are pretty disturbing.

The only flaw is that the middle section does meander more than the creeks and rivers it describes in such gorgeous detail. On the strength of this I will definitely be reading more by this writer.

Number 62- Your Shadow Half Remains- Sunny Moraine

 

This was a completely random choice for me on the strength of that gorgeous cover. 

The basic plot is a variation on Bird Box but instead of weird creatures , it's humans- specifically the eyes- that send people into their murderous and suicidal rages. 

The story starts a couple of years after the madness took hold. Riley is living in the secluded house by a lake where her grandparents slaughtered each other. She hasn't seen a human in as long as she can think. 

The time is the near future where it seems deliveries and food production have been automated. Deliveries are becoming more sporadic and more expensive, but they are still somehow happening. The electricity supply is still on as is the internet to allow her to order. 

Why there's no reference to growing her own food, I'm not sure.  This is the least self-sufficient apocalypse survivor I think I've read for some time. 

That's not a major fault though, since the book is rather brilliantly written.  The observations I just made did not occur to me in the slightest while I was reading it.

A new neighbour moves into a house down the road, throwing Riley's life into chaos. This is an exploration of grief, survivor guilt and loneliness. With some evil crows thrown in for good measure.

The biggest flaw with this book is that, despite the trips up the garden path on the way there, it did finish almost exactly as I thought it would. Is that inevitability or predictability? In this case, since I did enjoy the journey as much as I did, I'll be generous and say it's more inevitable.

The prose is fluid and Riley is a great creation.  She makes a fully sympathetic and relatable protagonist.

Another great read in my October horror marathon.