Number 32 - The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

 

Nearing the end of the cats on the cover theme…

The Master and Margarita is a classic of Russian literature and Mikhail Bulgakov’s most famous work. It’s not an easy read. Any Russian novel written between the two world wars is going to be a challenge for a casual reader and this is no exception (and I admit that, even though I keep this blog, I am a casual reader and read for pleasure. This blog is merely an attempt to tell people which books achieve this aim or not, and why).

The Devil has come to Stalin era Moscow and he’s brought some troublesome friends. We first meet him when he encounters a poet and an editor arguing about the existence of Jesus in the street. He tells them the “true” story of Pontius Pilate passing sentence. He goes on to predict the imminent violent death of the editor, and the incarceration in a mental hospital of the poet. These predictions rapidly come to pass and he moves into the deceased man’s apartment, from where he starts his reign of chaos over the city.

The style of writing is convoluted, and every character has at least three different names they’re known by, and these names are used completely randomly which makes things occasionally difficult to follow.

Fortunately, last week I was away and removed from all normal life distractions, so I had most of the week to sit and read. If I hadn’t, I would probably have taken 4 weeks or so to get through this. As it was, it took me 4 days.

I won’t lie. I did struggle to get into this one. It took till about page 200 before the style finally clicked. From the séance in the theatre onwards this was a pleasure to read. Prior to that there were flashes of brilliance, but it was difficult. 

Despite this I do think that this is a work of genius by most metrics. It’s surreal. It’s funny. It’s occasionally shocking. It seems to have quite a modern sensibility despite being a 90-year-old novel. As it’s a contemporaneous satire on Stalin’s Moscow, I probably did miss out on a lot of jokes and references, but there are sequences in this book that are timeless. A naked witch flying through the air on the back of a large pig that used to be the downstairs neighbour is an image from the book that particularly stuck in my mind for brilliant and funny surrealism.

This is as mad as a box of frogs when it gets going. It was constantly surprising and at no point could I predict where the plot might lead next. Even in the very difficult opening chapters the plot carried me through. I had no idea what I was reading, but it kept me interested. Once the style clicked with me, it was actually a weirdly easy read.

I'm very glad I read  it despite the early struggles. Do I recommend it to anyone else?  If you like densely written, strangely plotted Russian novels that confuse and confound, definitely. 

number 31 - The Cat Who Saved Books - Sosuke Natsukawa

 

Running a little bit behind on these at the moment.  I finished this last week but haven't had a chance to post here. 

First of all, that's a very pretty cat on the cover, and it's shiny, and that's the entire reason I bought this.  Yes, I am that easy to persuade to buy a book.

This is another Japanese fantasy novel in the form of four linked novellas. This time, the theme is the value of books.

Rintaro Natsuki is a teenager who runs a bookshop, Natsuki books, with his grandfather. When his Grandfather dies he's considering closing up the shop and moving away to live with his aunt, (both parents having died when he was a very small child).

He's visited in his shop by a ginger tabby cat that talks.  It takes him through a labyrinth that appears at the back of the shop on quests to save books from undignified fates.  One man who imprisons books, one who destroys them and one who betrays them.  The fourth quest is a far more personal odyssey for young Rintaro.

It's written in a very similar style to Before the Coffee gets Cold as well as being an identical format.  I don't know if that's a common format in the Land of the Rising Sun, or just for the books that publishers deign to translate for the English audiences.

 This was a nice easy read with some good points to make about the value of books and the trend for simplifying and bowlderising works of literature.  Rintaro makes for a sympathetic protagonist and his developing relationships form a nice emotional heart to the story.

All in all a solid little book, a quick read with a great cover.

Number 27a- Delicatus - SP Somtow

 

This was a review copy i was sent in exchange for the usual fair and unbiased review. 

This is 27a because I started this whist still reading book 27, partly because I realised i had to leave feedback before the end of the month, and partly because cat's Cradle was such a bad book, I needed some quality fiction at the same time.

Fortunately it still fits with my "cat on the cover" theme I've been using to select books this month - look between "Deli" and "Us" in the title...

I'm always happy to review a Somtow novel since he's been an absolute favourite writer of mine for decades.

This is part one of a new sequence and I hope the next part comes out soon.  It's based on the remarkable true story of a slave boy in ancient Rome who became Empress to two Emperors.

The story is told in flashback n a conversation between Sporus and a make up girl making him ready for a very public execution. This makes for an unusually dramatic framing device that made the book speed along at a rapid rate of knots.

We start his story with his kidnap from an unnamed village and his experiences on board the pirate ship transporting him to Rome. Once in Rome he finds a kindly master in the form of Petronius, writer of the Satyricon. We find out he bears a stunning similarity to one of the most beautiful women in the land, the Lady Poppea, the wife of Senator Otho. She has her own eyes on the position of Empress and Sporus quickly becomes a pawn in her game.

This is compulsive reading and all the more remarkable for being broadly speaking a true story. All the key players in this story are genuine and the story follows real events in their lives. The book feels very well researched but the research is used to fuel the story rather than slow it down.

Somtow's writing has rarely been more compulsive than this. It's a fast, and incredibly easy read despite the complexities of the politics woven into  the narrative. 

The only negative I have about this book is that it finishes on an enormous cliffhanger, both in the flashback storytelling, and the discussions with his make up artist. Book two needs to come out sooner rather than later... As well as the cliffhanger, there has been a lot of foreshadowing towards events in the next volume/s and I need to know what happens!

Number 26 - Before the Coffee gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi

 

The first book in my "Cats on the cover" theme for this month is this.

In a café in Tokyo, it's possible to go back in time to whenever you like.  However, there are a lot of rules attached. you cannot leave your seat, nothing you do will affect the present, and you must drink your coffee before it gets cold.

This book tells four stories about regulars at the café and their trips back. One last chance to see a dead relative, to speak to their spouse before the onset of Alzheimer's disease or confront a lover who left them.

It's a gentle and thoughtful novel dealing with some of the eternal themes of life. The central conceit and method of time travel is  uniquely Japanese and probably wouldn't work in any other culture.

No explanation is ever given, which is a good thing. It works, that's all we need to know.

The translation is smooth a very easy, even soothing, read. This is as far away in tone from many of my typical reads as it's possible to get, but I still enjoyed this book immensely. 

The characters are drawn nicely. The links between the stories are cleverly placed.  There are no surprises in the story, but that's not an issue. This is a moving and emotional set of vignettes around an interesting theme. I recommend it without any reservation. An easy 8/10.

Number 24 - Bitters - Kaaron Warren

First things first - check out that gorgeous cover.  I read this as a preview file from Cemetery Dance but I'm definitely going to buy a hard copy for the cover alone.

Luckily, the story inside is just as good, and just as mind-blowing, as that cover.

The Man towers above the local area, at least 90 foot high. It's head is tilted back and the mouth is open. A staircase winds around the legs and torso and leads up to the mouth. Whenever a person dies and is declared pure, their body is carried up by a man who has known no other work and deposited into the Man.

At his feet, more specialist workers tap the residue from all these bodies and provide the Bitters of the title, a preventative medicine that keeps the town healthy and illness free. This book gives a whole new meaning to Toe-tapping...

One of the carriers has noticed a recent increase in dead girls who've suffered violent deaths to be fed to The Man. Will his conscience override his duty to the Man? 

This is high concept storytelling at its best. Warren's style is compelling and an easy read despite the sense of What-the-hell that permeates the first half of the book where we have learn what exactly the set up of this town is. She does an amazing job of building this surreal world and all its attendant quirks, whilst still moving the narrative at a cracking pace. And this is just a novella.  She doesn't have much time to build this world.  That it feels so complete and real is a masterclass in writing.

My only negative about this book is where we're told the girl on the bus is travelling without her parents, despite her mother being on the bus with her. That just needs one paragraph excising to fix the error and this book is almost perfect.

This is the second book I've read by Kaaron Warren (the first was Slights) and they're both easy 9 out of 10s.  I really need to track down anything else she's written.

This is available through Cemetery Dance website Bitters, by Kaaron Warren: Cemetery Dance Publications

Number 18 - Lungdon - Edward Carey

 

Concluding my continuing series theme for now is my long awaited read of the final volume of this mind-expanding trilogy. 

Edward Carey has to be the best author I discovered by accident. When I saw the first book in this series I thought he was another Edward (Edward Gorey).  However, the sheer inventiveness and true originality in his stories won me over in a few pages 

After the events of Foulsham, the Iremongers are now on the loose in London. People are disappearing. Random objects are appearing everywhere. The police are baffled and call in help that may be worse than the threat. Queen Victoria and parliament itself are under threat.

Whose side is Clod on? Is he a true Iremonger at heart, or will he fight against their schemes for revenge? The stakes are raised further than ever before in this final volume.

Despite the 500plus page count, I stormed through this book in a couple of days. Edward Carey is insanely easily readable. He still manages to throw surprise after surprise at the reader even in the third part of the trilogy.

It's not entirely flawless. The finale of the book does rely on an old fantasy trope that is somewhat overused, but this is a YA novel, so that's easily forgivable. This is one of my favourite trilogies and this book keeps up the standards of the first two to provide a suitably dramatic close to the story.

If you do buy these books, don't read the back covers of books two and three since they give away the endings of the previous volumes.

I recommend these books with no reservation whatsoever. The whole trilogy is an easy 5 star read.

Number 14 - Titus Alone - Mervyn Peake

 

And my continuing series theme continues with the final part of the Gormenghast trilogy.

At the end of book 2, Titus left the crumbling towers and struck out for adventures new. Those adventures are detailed in this, the slimmest of the three volumes.

He finds himself in a strange city, washed up on the banks of a river and is recued by the exquisitely named Muzzlehatch. Thus begins what is probably the strangest book in the series.  

Also the least satisfactory.

Peake was dreadfully ill when writing this and this book was pieced together by his editors and it shows. It feels bitty and somehow incomplete.  It's obviously not the completed draft that Peake would have wanted.

That's not to say it's a bad book because it isn't.  But compared with its predecessors, it falls short.

Gone are nearly all the characters that made the first two books so wonderful, no Prunesquallor or Flay or Steerpike, or any of the schoolmasters. Of course some of those characters couldn't have appeared in book 3 regardless, but you get my point.

Instead we have Titus and a brand new cast of supporting characters.  However, since the book is half the length of the first two, they don't seem as fully fleshed out as those in the first books. 

This started well.  Muzzlehatch is the best of the new creations, but his motivations are not what I would call crystal clear. Indeed, none of the new characters have clear motivation except for the fact that they all develop a deep devotion/love for Titus for no particular reason. This then leads them to fight for him or plan his downfall for non-reciprocation. 

From being a fantasy series with no magical elements, this book turns into a weird science fiction tale about a third of the way into the narrative.

Most of the more potentially interesting conflicts happen off camera and we only hear about them later on. I feel that Peake would have fleshed these scenes out fully and described then for us in detail had he been fit and well. The book would have been twice as long and all the better for it. 

What was happening in the factory?  We get the briefest of glimpses and need more. Who are the helmeted figures following Titus and why?  There are so many unexplained factors in this book. Given that the levels of detail in the previous volumes could almost be argued to be excessive, this marks the tone of this book as drastically different.

The prose seems to be lacking compared with the others. He's still capable of some truly alarming turns of phrase (Chapter 102 starting with "Under a light to strangle infants by..." being a particular favourite of mine - '"But you are very poor and very ill," said another voice, with the consistency of porridge' is another favourite), but this book just doesn't have the feel of the rest of the series. It's a faster read than the others, not just because of the lesser word count, but because the writing just isn't as dense or poetic as before. 

I wanted to love this book but I don't. It's very good. But the particular weirdness in this book feels out of place with the rest of the series.  It's not the same type of weird and just feels wrong. 

And I still want to know how Titus knew what a car is when I don't recall any motorised transport in the first books.

Number 13 - The Song of the Quarkbeast - Jasper Fforde

 

And continuing my theme of "next book in the series" here we have book two of Jasper Fforde's young adult series.

The follow up to The Last Dragonslayer takes place a few weeks after the events of book one.  Magic is slowly increasing, but not that much, and is still not trusted by a fair percentage of the population.  It's subject to many rules and regulations.

However, a rival firm (iMagic) want to monopolise magic use in the kingdom and take over as the sole suppliers.  There's lots of lovely moolah to be made if they can force our heroes out of business. They challenge Kazam to a magical contest and will stop and nothing to win.

Jennifer Strange and her friends can't let this happen, obviously, and face many obstacles on the way to the duel, including random curses, arrests and general incompetence (their own and other people's) and a wandering Quarkbeast that could spell cause a catastrophe all of its own.

On the way our cast is expanded from the first book, and the history of this version of Britain is fleshed out still further.  

This is a hysterically funny read. Fforde has an almost unique gift for giving a genuinely good story along with all the jokes. His Nursery Crime novels offer proper who-dunnits alongside the surreal mayhem. This book is no exception. We (I do at least) genuinely care whether Jennifer and Tiger Prawns can bypass bureaucracy  to keep Kazam open. I was genuinely upset when one of the funniest running jokes in the series came to an unexpectedly dramatic and moving end. As the plot unfolds we can see how carefully the various threads have been layered into the story.

The story moves with lightning speed and I raced through this in just a few hours. It's never less than amusing and is frequently laugh out loud funny.

If you want a quick, easy and brilliantly funny read, try this series - but do it in order.  Things might get a touch convoluted.

Number 10 - Quichotte - Salman Rushdie

 

This month's book group read, and the meeting had to be postponed last week because only one person had actually finished it.

This is the first time I've read a Salman Rushdie novel. Obviously I've known the name ever since the Satanic Verses inspired the slight overreaction from some groups, but I'd never got around to reading any of his books. Apart from something highbrow, I had no idea what to expect.

This is a modern day take on Don Quixote. The eponymous character is on a foolish quest for the love of a woman he has never met, only seen on television. he lives his life according to tv and reality has become a blurred concept for him.

He's accompanied on his quest by Sancho, his son who he has literally imagined into existence. 

The other lead character is Sam DuChamp, a writer of tacky spy novels, who is trying his hand at writing an existential novel about a man called Quichotte who can't tell fact from TV and who is on a quest to win the hand of a beautiful celebrity with the help of his imaginary but somehow corporeal son, Sancho.

Yes, it's gone all meta and Quichotte is a novel within a novel with lots of commentary about the nature of writing and the relation between a writer and his characters.

Of course the lines between Sam's life and his book also begin to blur.

It's all very clever and knowing, but in a way I found to be too obviously trying to be clever. The magical realist elements don't seem to fit naturally into the story when they appear.  It felt overwritten and "try-hard" and for me, it didn't quite work. The mastodon chapter particularly felt ridiculously out of place.

There are sections that are very good indeed.  The chapters from Sancho's POV are excellent, and the emotional highpoint of the book for me was the end of Sancho's journey. The title character though, is vaguely irritating. 

The ending of the book would be better if it wasn't stolen from an old twilight zone episode (also from a joke in HHTTG). It was also foreshadowed far too much, and gave us one of the sources he stole it from.

It may be that if I knew more about Don Quixote apart from the tilting at windmills I might have enjoyed it more... but we will never know.

My first Salman Rushdie novel, and I can't say that I'm overly enthused to rush out and buy his back catalogue. there were flashes of greatness, but overall I'm not hugely impressed. It was a chore to pick it up some days and that's never a good sign.

6/10, don't try so hard

Number 7 - Mr Breakfast - Jonathan Carroll

 

I know my theme for books this month is supposed to be biographies, but a new book by Jonathan Carroll trumps any rules I've set for myself.

Having said that, this doesn't deviate too far from my themed reading.

Biographies are books about lives.  This, although fictional, and fantastical, and magical, is about lives. It's about choices and the paths we go down. It's about what makes a person who they are.

Graham Patterson is, or rather was, a stand up comedian.  He's just realised he wasn't up to it though, and has recently quit. he also recently split with his soulmate and long time love. he's not on a good ebb at the moment.

On a whim he has a tattoo done which turns out not to be the most normal piece of ink ever drawn on someone's arm. As a result of the tattoo, he can now view his different lifelines, lifelines where the things dragging him down never happened. At some point he must choose which of the three lives he wants to live in permanently, at which point the tattoo will vanish and he'll have no memory of the choice.

He soon finds there are other side effects too... but that would be spoilers.

He returns to some old themes from his old books, but from a different perspective. There were definite shades of Black Cocktail in there a few times. There are Easter eggs for many of his previous books.  the Midnight films of Philip Strayhorn ore namechecked.  A character lives in a building designed by the architect lead character from Outside the Dog Museum. the writer from land of Laughs is referenced, we return to Cranes View... and so on.  he's built a full Stephen King type universe where everything is linked.

It's written in Carroll's usual elegant and hugely readable style, filled with observations and philosophical asides that add to rather than distract from the story.  It's totally unpredictable - and after 18 books, the fact that he still blindsides me every time is somewhat astounding - filled with wonder and magic and probably his best book in the last decade at least. I felt a little underwhelmed with the endings of his last two novels, but this one has no such flaws. It deserves a second reading already and would no doubt be equally rewarding, possibly more so.

I loved this unreservedly and I insist you all read it NOW!

It's available from all good booksellers so you have no excuse.

2023 Number 1 - Malarkoi - Alex Pheby

 

The first book I started this year, but the second one I finished... These things happen.

This is the first of a themed set of books for this month. I will be doing a few Theme months this year. This month it's Galley Beggar Press books. Expect to see a few more of these understated yet rather handsome black covers.

This is the sequel to Mordew which I read when it came out in November 2020 and I've been waiting impatiently for this ever since, Mordew ended on one hell of a cliffhanger and this has been one of my most highly anticipated books.

It doesn't pick up the action immediately. It starts by recapping the story so far (with some expansions) from the points of view of several of the secondary characters from book 1. It does this for a whole 150 pages until it moves on with the story properly.

It also introduces a lot of complex ideas into the story and it's fair to say that some sections (especially in the recap) were quite confusing.

However, I've never felt so entertained by a novel where I had no idea what was going on as I did in the opening section of this.

Pheby's prose is an absolute delight to read. And when he eventually does move on with the stories of the survivors from the ending of Mordew, the book moves at a cracking pace and it was a struggle to put this down at night.  I've had more 2am finishes where I can barely keep my eyes open and I absolutely have to put the book down with this book than anything I read last year (or the year before).

Imagine if Mervin Peake wrote a high fantasy set in an alternate Earth - possibly far future - with an exceptionally complex magical system, twisted realities, buried dead gods, talking dogs, and bull headed men and human headed snakes thrown in just to add to the general surrealism and you're partway to this book. I genuinely don't think there's anything quite like it.

This is not a standalone novel. You absolutely have to have read Mordew for this to make a lick of sense. I think the character of Nathan's mother might have had a bit of an unplanned retcon in this book, but it's so skillfully done I forgive Alex Pheby completely. 

This is one of those books that will divide opinion. The prose will be too verbose for many, but I love the rhythms of it and the moods he creates. The dark heart of the first book continues to beat through this one. There are character deaths I would never have guessed and that hit me right where it hurts. Some of them may be reversed in the next book, as the magic system does allow for that, but these books are hugely unpredictable.

The ending on this one isn't as much of a hammer blow as the first book's was, but it's a great set up for the final book in the trilogy.  Sadly, I now have possibly another two years before I can read how he's going to tie up all the floating threads.

I'm still annoyed that I never saw the pun in the title of Mordew until it was pointed out at the end of the that book. A city built over the body of a dead god. OK so the pun is in French, but I still should have spotted it. There are a couple of explanations for the title of Malarkoi offered on the final pages. They're not quite as satisfying as the Mordew pun, but amusing enough. 

Edit - after a quick look at the glossary from Mordew, the expansion on the character of Nathan's mother was planned all along and it's my faulty memory that made it seem like she had been retconned for this book. 

Number 64 - Foulsham - Edward Carey

 The sequel to Heap House which i read at about this time last year, and sent me on a quest for as many of Carey's books as I could find. Warning - discussion of the plot on this book will give spoilers for book 1.

I'll say now that this is even better than Heap House, but you will need to read Heap House for this to make any sense at all. The world built in these books is truly unique. The starting point of this story would just seem very silly indeed if you hadn't read the first book. 

Heap House was a definite highlight of last year and this is almost certainly in my top 3 of the year this year.  it might even be at the number one spot.

I thought there was no such thing as a new story, but Edward Carey has proved me very wrong indeed. I can't think of anything similar to this series in anything I've read. 

It's 1876. Victoria is on the throne of England. The Iremonger family in Heap House are responsible for dealing with all the rubbish London produces. 

Foulsham is the London borough closest to Heap House. At the end of book one, Clod Iremonger was very different indeed and his object, James Henry Hayward, was human again.  Likewise, Lucy Pennant had changed and been thrown out onto the heaps to vanish amongst the rubbish.

Can they regain their humanity? Literally.

Can they avoid the ire of the Iremonger family?

Why are the heaps rising up and threatening to swamp the town?

What is the cause of the illness flooding the town and causing people to change?

All these questions and more might be answered in this book.

I can't remember any book this year so far that had this same effect on me. Not a chapter went by without a new shock or twist or mind-bending turn of phrase that made my jaw drop. It gives a whole new meaning to money talks.  Also to the phrase "he has a way with things". I would expand on those pointsbut... spoilers. 

This might be YA fiction, but it's the single most original and exciting piece of writing I've seen in years. The illustrations are pitch perfect and add another layer of surrealism to the proceedings. 

He expands on the history of the family and their relationship to the town, introducing new members of the family and new dangers. Characters who were briefly mentioned in book one come to centre stage here and form their own threats or alliances with our heroic leads.

It's all just brilliant.  This is as close to flawless as writing gets. Everyone needs to read this series. It's surreal, it's funny, it's exciting, it's disturbing. It's just amzing.

Read it.  it's brilliant!

Number 61 - Monstress volume 7 - Devourer

 After the shocking betrayal at the end of volume 6, this volume is carried by teh supporting cast much more than some of the earlier volumes.

The artwork continues to outshine virtually every other comic book in existence.  Indeed, this volume features some of the best full page and double page spreads of the entire run so far.

The storyline is complex without being convoluted and continues to be as satisfying as most prose novels.  there is nothing lightweight about this story, despite the graphic format.

I have a feeling it's going to be a while before volume 8 appears.  I might need to start reading the individual comics as they come out...

Number 55 - Roth-Steyr - Simon Bestwick

 

I needed something to wash the bad taste of the Douglas warner book out of my mouth, so a quick cheat read from the ever-reliable Mr. Simon Bestwick was in order.

It follows the story of Valerie Varden, a pathology lab worker in a hospital in Manchester with a secret past.  When a pair of bodies, murdered with an unusual gun, show up on her slab, she has to confront the dark secrets she's hiding from her girlfriend, whilst facing off against dangerous enemies from her much longer past than anyone knows about.

Things take a turn for the weird in this book on about page 5 when it's revealed that she pre=dates the first world war. Indeed, she was an Austrian countess in the first part of her life.

There follows a winding tale of revolutions and revolutionaries and eternal soldiers (till you kill them).

I have to say, I didn't enjoy this one as much as his other books. Whilst the central story is excellent, and the modern-day sequences are tense and exciting, there are parts of the backstory that feel like so much info-dump about the politics of WWI era Austria which didn't feel completely necessary to the storyline.  This info-dump slowed the mid-section of the story down quite considerably for me. It's clear that he finds the politics of 1910s/20s Europe to be endlessly fascinating, but it felt a bit like a history lecture for a few pages rather than a tense thriller. 

Other than that, the book is actually great success.  The trip into cosmic horror close to the end is one of Simon's most effective horror sequences. Val is a mostly intriguing narrator, a complex and sympathetically drawn protagonist, and I didn't want anything bad to happen to her, which says something. 

Apparently there is a sequel in the works, and I will happily be reading that too. 

This book can be ordered from Black Shuck Books - order it direct so Bezos doesn't get a share of your hard-earned cash.

Number 49 - The Last Dragonslayer - Jasper Fforde

 

I've been a big fan of Jasper Fforde for many years. His books are endlessly strange, silly and funny. Normally i buy his books as soon as they come out.

This one came out a decade ago, but, I didn't bother because it's sold in the children's section (not even the YA). I finally got around to buying it when The Troll War  book came out this year (book 4 of this series) and I decided I might as well ch3eck them out.

I wish I'd bought it all those years back.  This is every bit as strange, silly and funny as any of his books for grown ups.  the only difference is that the lead character is a 15 year old girl.

This is set in the Kingdom of Hereford in the UnUnited Kingdoms of Great Britain in an alternate version of 2010.

Magic is going out of fashion with the rise of technology. A wizard can't cast even the smallest of spells without having to sign a mountain of paperwork (or face dire consequences).

Jennifer Strange, the narrator, is acting manager of one of the few wizarding emporiums left in the UUK. When all the precogs suddenly have the same vision, that the last dragon, who lives in its own allocated lands between Hereford and Brecon, is going to be slain on Sunday, around lunchtime, Jennifer's life is about to take a turn for the interesting.

As with all his other books, his worldbuilding is top notch. Even though this is supposedly  aimed at younger readers, he hasn't slacked in the slightest on his plotting, or his biting social commentary.  This is a really tightly plotted and well conceived storyline. You need to pay attention since a throwaway line early on could easily come back as a major plot detail. he slots the pieces of the story in brilliantly.  

Who is playing who? Which of the characters lying to her is lying the most? And what do they have to gain? Who can Jennifer trust, if anyone? Why does she have to be the chosen one? She has nothing special about her. She's an foundling orphan, indentured to the wizarding business until her 18th birthday.  She has no powers. just a sense of right and wrong.  That's not enough in a world where the fate of magic itself might rest on the events of Sunday lunchtime.

It's laugh out loud funny throughout. The humour is surreal, punny, very clever in places, and deeply satirical of corporate greed. 

The Chosen One plotline is nicely subverted and played differently than I've seen it play out before. I genuinely had no idea how he was going to pull the plot threads together in the final chapters, and I was deeply satisfied with the results (and this in a "Children's book"). 

I recommend you check out his website too. Jasper Fforde.com : Grand Central

It's easily the best author website I've experienced.

Number 44 - Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake

 

Another of the series of books I started last year.

Titus Groan was chosen for my book group and I was extraordinarily grateful. It gave me the excuse to finally get around to it and I loved it. 

So onto book two.  We delve deeper into the traditions and rituals of Gormenghast castle. Steerpike continues to murder his way up through the ranks. Titus is now seven years old (at the start of the book) and showing a rebellious streak of his own that can only lead to trouble.

The book follows his schooling under the strangest cast of teachers in fiction, the courting of Dr Prunesquallor's sister, and the rising threat from inside the castle in the shape of the devious and evil Steerpike. 

They don't write books like this any more. Never use just one word when two chapters will suffice. But those chapters are gloriously written. 

The cast of grotesques are beautifully (if that's the right word) drawn. You can practically see Irma Prunesquallor's nose poking out of the pages. You can feel the grime and the dirt of the castle and its environs. You can almost smell the atmosphere. 

This is a dense read.  It's very very wordy indeed, but in this case, that's not a fault. Once you tune into the cadence and the rhythm of Peake's writing, you become immersed.

I actually read this in just 3 days.  This edition is quite small print and was still 512 pages. It's not a short book or an easy read by any stretch of the imagination - and this book really does stretch the imagination.  As you can probably gather, I had a lot of spare time for reading in this past week.

This is frequently laugh out loud funny.  Given how dark the humour is, I'm not sure if that says more about me or the writing. For lovers of gorgeous prose, seedy atmosphere and jet black humour, this is an ideal book.

If you want fast moving action and nothing else, stay away.

On a weird note, I read the last hundred pages with BRMC's weird instrumental album - The Effects of 333 - playing in the background.  It really added to the atmosphere and made the build up to the showdown at the end so much more tense and exciting.

Number 35 - All The Seas of The World - Guy Gavriel Kay

 

A new novel by Guy Kay is always going to jump straight to the top of my out of control TBR pile. They always reward their priority spot, and this one was no exception.

This is a sort of a follow on to his two previous novels, A Brightness Long Ago and Children of Earth and Sky.  Indeed it has several returning characters from each of those books. As per the earlier books, the fantasy elements are firmly on the sidelines and don't form the main crux of the storyline.  These are almost but not quite historical fiction/almost but not quite fantasy novels.  A writer of Kay's talent walks that tightrope with exquisite grace.

In this one, the world is still reeling from the fall of one its mightiest cities in the previous book. Political allegiances flow and sway with the tides, trades are made, killings ordered.  Some achieve their aims, others don't.

This is storytelling on an epic scale, as well as the intimate. We follow traders Rafel ben Natan and his associate Nadia bint Dhiyan from their dangerous commission in the opening of the book, and the repercussions of that mission throughout the lands of this almost Europe,

We also see into the lives of dozens of other characters, some with the power to change the known world, some struggling to keep their place, however influential they might be, others of low status but surprisingly important. 

The roles people play in events far beyond their ken is a continuing theme in this sequence of books, along with the power of stories and storytelling. Any book about the power of stories needs to be one hell of a story itself, and this doesn't disappoint on any level.

The story has a relaxed pace. Despite the ever enlarging ripples through the societies in this world, we never lose sight of the smaller pictures contained within. The frequent diversions into the impact of the larger events on the smaller people in the story are beautifully done and frequently deeply moving.  

This is all done in Kay's normal lucid and hypnotic prose.  I was reading this in a crowded pub yesterday and so completely absorbed I barely registered any noise around me.  

These aren't books to rush.  They should be savoured and enjoyed slowly.  There is real complexity and subtlety here that can't be skim-read without doing the world Kay has created a huge disservice. This whole series will reward multiple re-readings.

They will work well as stand=alone novels even though there is such a strong continuity. The returning characters are fleshed out anew for any fresh readers and the fallout from previous books described in detail.  I would still advise to read in order, otherwise you'll go into the earlier books knowing who lived and died and which cities were still standing at the end and spoilers are called spoilers for a reason..

Number 23 - Utopia Avenue - David Mitchell

 

Another book with an incredibly bland cover.  I ordered the psychadelic cover from World Of Books but this is the one they sent me.  More than a little irritating.

However, the contents are the important part. This is a semi contemporary novel so I had high hopes for it (I find Mitchell's forays into distant history to be very tedious, but his writing set in times of living memory tend to be great)

And I wasn't disappointed.  Mitchell well and truly hit it out of the park with this book.  At nearly 600 pages it's a bit of a doorstop but it reads so easily it felt half that length.

I might be a few books behind on my total from last year, but my word count must be a lot higher. This is the 4th book so far that exceeds 500 pages by a distance.

It tells the story of a brief flash in the psychadelic music scene in the late 60s. We start with Dean, a down on his luck bassist who, on the worst day of his young life to date - lost his job, his money and his home - he runs into Levon, a music producer/manager, who takes him to watch a band playing at a venue nearby. Here he first meets Jasper de Zoet and Peter Griff Griffin a guitarist/singer and a jazz drummer respectively. They form a band together under Levon's guidance and are soon joined by Elf Holloway, a folk singer/guitarist/keyboard player.  thus the new band on the block - Utopia Avenue is formed.

The book follows them through the ups and downs of musical life - from a first gig that couldn't possibly go worse to breaking into the American music scene.  They run into many prominent figures of the late 60's scene.

The time period is drawn fantastically. It feels completely real. The characters are drawn equally well.  When their personal lives turn bad, we feel for them.  

On top of all this there are many nods to his other books, some more subtle than others.  Spotting the Easter eggs adds a whole new layer of fun into the book. 

I wasn't 100% certain that Jasper's storyline fitted the overall tone of the novel - especially when it became unapologetically supernatural in nature.  As brilliant and as tense as it was in the final segments, it sat oddly with the realism of the rest of the book.

That was a minor quibble though. I raced through this in just under a week. It's compelling, it's funny, it's sad, it's a fabulous portrait of 50's England seen through the eyes of a very different set of characters, a psychadellic head trip through the late 60s music scene.. What more do you want? 

Number 21 - The Dragon's Child - Janeen Webb

 

A nice little cheat read. Janeen Webb was a complete unknown quantity to me before reading this book that I received as part of a mystery bundle from PS2 Publishing.

It was a very pleasant surprise indeed.

The plot involves shapeshifting dragons who disguise themselves as human and run significant portions of the world economy. After accidentally eating a baby (these things happen), a particularly powerful dragon switches one of her eggs for the deceased infant.

The child learns human feelings, something no dragon has done before.  This can only mean trouble.

Janeen Webb keeps everything in a morally grey area and I was never quite sure which side I should be cheering on. I don't think that's a bad thing though. 

The writing is beautifully done.  I breezed through this in a couple of hours. The characters are sketched as well as they can be in a narrative this short. The world-building is amazing considering the fact it's less than 100 pages.

If I was to make any criticism it would be that this feels like the opening section of a much longer work and not a one off. I was left wanting more, but mainly because it felt like she was abandoning us in mid-story. The fact that I want to know what happens next tells you that I really enjoyed it. I will be looking out for future installments.

Number 102 - I am the Tiger - John Ajvide Lindqvist

 

This is part three of a triptych of books by John Lindqvist.  I'm not sure I'd call it a trilogy as such.  The first two books (I Am Behind You, and I Always find You) are only linked tangentially and whilst this book does tie them together much more tightly, the links between the previous too books are still too tenuous.

The first book was set on a caravan park where a number of vans suddenly found themselves in a strange landscape with an unending green field and a sunless sky.  

Book 2 was set in the real world and followed a young John Limdqvist as he moved to the city for the first time, trying to make his living as a magician and found himself embroiled in a supernatural cult, a strange alien slime that transports people to a heavenly new world,  and a plot to kill a prominent Swedish politician - a real event from Swedish history (the Swedish equivalent of JFK - to this day no one knows the true identity of the killer)

This book follows a washed up crime reporter who starts investigating a new crime lord on the block the mysterious X who is smuggling in huge amounts of the purest cocaine whilst simultaneously persuading existing crime lords to commit suicide.  We also follow his nephew, a teenager who's been selling his ADHD medicine since he was 13 and who is offered the chance to get in on the ground floor selling ridiculously cheap and pure cocaine...

For the first 150 pages or so, this reads like a crime thriller, with very few hints of the supernatural (other than subtle hints as to the cause of the spate of suicides). Even when the supernatural becomes evident, the focus is still very much on the human cost of the crime in progress and the dual viewpoints on the cocaine ring, the rising star in the organisation and his uncle investigating.

The story rattles along at a cracking pace for the most part.  There is one sub-plot regarding Tommy's living arrangements that slows things down in the middle section, but not enough to be a real issue. There are also hints about Tommy's dog being in some way special that never amount to anything. Thinking about it now, it's a little bit irritating how much time he spent on a plot thread as strange as that that went nowhere.

Like Gary McMahon's excellent Concrete Grove, this book builds up a convincing picture of a run down estate and a local boss who is much more than he seems.  There are probably more thematic similarities to Concrete Grove in this book than there are to the first two parts of his own trilogy. However this book isn't quite as scary or freaky as Concrete Grove.  It's far more grounded in reality and doesn't play the supernatural up as much as it could have done. 

The ending was unexpected to say the least, despite the fact that, in hindsight, the clues have all been laid out clearly.  Lindqvist certainly earns a few extra points for that. 

You need to read the first two books to appreciate this one properly.  Some detail could be confusing otherwise. It ties the previous two books in fairly cleverly, but I may need to reread the series again to see how accurate the links are. I'm not sure if the link to book 1 is forced or if my memory is faulty. I won't mind, they're all really good books, at least as good as an average Stephen King. 

There are Easter eggs for his other novels too. Little Star is referenced at one point for definite and some of the background events seem familiar too.

Overall, this is a damned good read, but not perfect.  It could have lost a subplot or two on the way and possibly been that much tighter a narrative but it's never less than very readable indeed and some of the set pieces are genuinely frightening. When he does play up the supernatural, the novel takes off and I think I maybe wanted more of that than Tommy's domestic life. It still kept me enthralled all the way through and delivered some great shocks.  It's done what it's supposed to and then some.