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 54 - Death on a warm wind - Douglas Warner

 This was a cheat read randomly chosen from my TBR shelves mainly for the thickness of the book and the rather interesting cover.

I think I found it in the charity section at the front of my local Tesco a couple of years back.  After reading it, it's going straight back there.

Douglas Warner died in 1967 apparently. This copy must have been printed in the early seventies since the price on the back cover is in decimal currency (25p in case you're interested). 

He's a bit of a forgotten author and wrote 4 books whose titles started Death On A ___. It's fair to say I will not be seeking out any of his other books. This one was more than enough.

This is a clear contender for worst book of the year so far.  Maybe the past several years. I would rather read the Louise Penny/Hilary Clinton book again than this one.

It's a shame because the opening couple of pages of this are very good.  The opening sentence is a corker "Robert Colston died three times, though only the last one was for keeps"

It goes downhill rapidly from thereon in.

The story follows a newspaper editor - Ian Curtis - who witnesses the final death of Robert Colson, shot dead in front of the newspaper offices where he (Ian) works whist attempting to deliver an urgent message.

Curtis decides to investigate and uncovers a terrible conspiracy. 

When I say a terrible conspiracy, I don't just mean that in the world these characters inhabit, the consequences could be dire, I mean the conspiracy is badly thought out, implausible and totally stupid.

It all links to five years previously when Robert had predicted an earthquake that was going to strike the town of Arminster before it happened.  Of course, he wasn't believed and 95,000 people apparently died in the tragedy. 

This is where things start to get really silly. We find out the details of the earthquake in chapters 3 through 8, a good third of the book. This is supposed to be in the form of an article about the earthquake commissioned by Curtis from his star reporter called Holt. These chapters are supposed to be the article Holt wrote.  Characters refer to phrases used in this segment later on.  Therefore, you would expect it to be written as per a newspaper article.  

However, it's written in close third person, swapping between about 7 characters (including Colston even though there's no way Holt could have talked to him). The language used is unlike any ever in any newspaper ever published. It's 40 pages long - and it's the worst depiction of an earthquake ever set to paper.

The first one bunch of characters know about it is when the chandelier in their ballroom starts swinging like a pendulum. Take note that this is apparently a force 8.7 quake, but the characters haven't felt the earth move at this point. The fact that an earthquake of this magnitude is so localised as well seems rather implausible.

We also hear about one pair of young newlyweds and their sexual misadventures just before the quake hits (she is refusing his advances because she's never done it before, just before the room collapses on them killing her), because obviously this would be included in an article written for publication in an evening paper, and something that the surviving member of the couple would tell the journalist in the first place. 

Colston is living in this town even though he knows what's happening.  he knew ten hours before the quake the time it would happen and the epicentre. However, when his warnings fell on deaf ears, he went back to his boarding house and didn't clear off out of the town. Therefore, he's caught in the quake, loses his memory because of a blow to the head, and regains his memory 5 years later when he's assaulted and hit on the head a second time.

The reason Colston knew the earthquake was going to happen?  It had been hot weather for five weeks and there was a warm wind from the south... That explains the title at least. Even for the time it was written the science is hokey and unbelievably badly thought out.

The political intrigue he tries to instill into the plot is a damp squib. A couple of shouting matches between two equally tedious characters.

If this hadn't been only 133 pages, I might have given up on it. The contents of the message that Colston was trying to give to Curtis is so obvious, and such a coincidence that he got his memory back just in time before the events of the last section of the book.

All this is told in a deathless prose that barely held my interest and it was a struggle to carry on with it. This isn't a so bad it's good book. It's just bad. It's close to unreadable.  It's a couple of hours of my life that I wish I could have back.

I read this so you don't have to.

Number 53 - Dead Water - C.A. Fletcher

 

This was a NetGalley read provided for a fair review.

C.A. Fletcher is another completely new name for me.  It wasn't until the rather brief author bio at the end of the book that I even knew he was a he. There are no previous publications listed so I assume this is a debut novel.

On a remote Scottish island, trouble breaks out when an ancient curse is released. The water becomes a source of terror, and the islanders are pulled into a struggle between life and death,

Stated that way this sounds like standard fare, but Fletcher is a damned good writer, and this feels like a totally fresh, original and frankly, bloody terrifying, read.

This is packed with set pieces and action sequences that left me reeling. Some of the imagery is dredged from the scariest of nightmares. 

The plot takes a while to build and become clear, but it's never slow paced.  He switches viewpoints between each of the characters in alternating short chapters. The tension builds from the first pages.  Events may start slowly, but there's a clear set of dominoes that he topples one by one, each time raising the stakes and thinning out the cast still further. 

It's all told in a perfectly rendered present tense, which gives everything a sense of immediacy and ratchets the sense of unease even more. He uses the opening chapters to put flesh on the bones of his characters, giving them all good backstories and motivations. The location is perfectly painted and is almost a character in itself.  The sense of isolation from the rest of the world is palpable.

I loved the way that he credits the reader with enough intelligence to put the pieces together, particularly in the first half of the book.  

The power of the writing raises what could have been a very generic story into something new and brilliant. There's even space for some of the blackest humour I've seen in a good while.

It's a fantastic book. If you like deeply chilling tales of remote communities getting being destroyed by unstoppable supernatural forces, this is the book for you.

Number 52 - We were the Mulvaneys - Joyce Carol Oates

 

This was the book group choice for the early September meeting.

I've heard good things about Oates and was looking forward to reading this and it is indeed very well written.  However, I'm totally conflicted on this book as I don't know if. at any point, I enjoyed reading it or not.

There are a lot of promises made about this book in the blurb and the reviews. I don't think it delivers.

I have almost never used slow as a bad thing when describing a book.  Slow paced is frequently the best way to build your cast and your atmosphere and make us care for the characters.

However, this book is glacially slow paced. I would be reading it for an hour, and realise I'd only read 15-20 pages. Considering this book was 453 pages, quite frankly I'm amazed I finished it in only 3 weeks.  That's the longest it's taken me to finish a book in several years.

The prose is so dense, light bends around it. There are some sequences of great writing, but it's never a quick or easy read. 

The story follows a family - the Mulvaneys, who live in a farm on the outskirts of a small town in 70s America (New York State). The father - Michael Sr - is a successful self-made businessman who runs his own roofing firm.  He's a social climber and one of his proudest achievements is getting accepted into the local country club. His wife - Corrinne - potters about with running the farm and an antiques business from one of their outhouses, which is treated more as a hobby and excuse for her to collect worn out oddities than a serious attempt at money making. 

They have 4 children, Mike Jr (aka Mule), a successful high school athlete, Patrick, the brainy one and possibly autistic, Marianne the beautiful daughter and popular cheerleader in the school, and Judd, the alleged narrator and youngest in the clan.

I say alleged narrator because of the sheer quantity of inner thoughts he describes for the rest of the family that he has no real way of even guessing at and the fact that he refers to himself in third person for most of the book. 

Oates spends a long time setting up this almost perfect family and their rituals before Marianne is assaulted and, bit by bit, the foundations of the family crumble and it all falls to pieces. 

The book was written well enough that I kept reading, despite the snailpace of the storytelling. But on reflection, I can't honestly say I was ever emotionally involved with the story. Everything is so dry and impersonal, even when it occasionally switches to first person.

I'm not sure any of the characters were particularly well drawn except for the mother. The father was particularly one dimensional. Corinne is too cliche mother hen although her complicity with her husband against her daughter makes her slightly more complex (and a lot less likeable).  Mule was shipped off out of the story at the earliest convenience without ever impacting on the storyline. Patrick's story arc is strange at best and unconvincing. Given the level of detail in Marianne's character early on, her later storyline seems to just pick random segments from her life and feels, not rushed, but certainly incomplete.  The story is written by the adult Judd who is apparently a journalist by trade.  However, the book certainly does not read as if a journalist 

The point was raised last night that the attitudes on display in the book seemed to belong to the 50s and not the 70s.  Maybe rural New York state is a few decades behind... i don't know. 

There's a paucity of incident in the book. The only section with any real drama is the section where Patrick plans his revenge. The pace did pick up in this bit of the book, but the revenge is slightly anti-climactic. The chapter headings for the last three chapters give away the ending of the book.

It's a real contradiction. I can find nothing to really praise about the book except the writing, and even that is so dense it makes it a difficult read. I scored it a 7 at the book group last night because I couldn't in good conscience score it lower because of the prose. But if I was to score it on compelling storyline and character, I think it would be a 4. 

On technical merit, this is a good book.  By almost any other metric, it isn't.

Number 51 - Monstress Vol 6- The Vow

 

Very frustratingly, this is the latest volume available.

It's frustrating because this has one hell of a cliffhanger finish with the biggest betrayal so far.

The next volume isn't out until next month some time.

The storyline continues to intrigue and beguile. the artwork continues to spoil most other graphic novels for me.  they feel so basic when you compare them to this.

Number 50 - The Hollows - Daniel Church

 

This was a NetGalley read provided by the publisher for a fair and honest review.

Daniel Church is a new name in the horror scene and, with luck, it's going to be a big name. He certainly deserves it.

This book is a thrill ride of a horror novel. It starts with the local cop, Ellie, checking into the discovery of a frozen corpse on a hillside on the outskirts of her village.

The dead man is Tony Harper, a local drunk and troublemaker from a particularly nasty family of criminals, responsible for the majority of crime in the village. 

What Ellie doesn't know is that this is just the first of many.  As the winter storm moves in to cut the village off from civilisation, creatures are rising from the barrows beneath the hills to wreak havoc and pave the way for something else.

Church manages to keep the action moving at a cracking pace throughout, with minor pauses to allow the reader a welcome breath or two of relief, before the stakes are raised once more and the action begins again at an even more frenetic pace.

I could easily see this being adapted into one hell of a movie.  It's got everything you need, a cut off location under siege, human villains who are as nasty as the monsters, genuinely scary creatures ripping the townsfolk to shreds,  enough tension to build a dozen suspension bridges and enough action to keep the most jaded fan excited.

It's all written in an easy, unpretentious style. The lead characters are well drawn, even if some of the supporting cast come across as rough sketches.  There were a couple of times when I wondered about the decisions being made, but it's human nature not to get everything right first time, and this book is about a high pressure situation. Mistakes will be made.

The way he manages to up the stakes even more, just when you think the threat is as extreme as it's going to get is something to be applauded.

This is high octane entertainment with a walloping side order of gruesome nastiness and sheer terror. 

When it comes out in the shops, you need to buy it to experience it for yourself.

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 48 - Full of Life - John Fante

 

Since I read 1933 was a bad Year a few years back, Fante has been close to the top of my collect everything you can as you find them list. I must find a better name for that list, it's not the catchiest.

This is the last of his available novels, leaving me with a couple of short story collections to go. With this book I've read all of Fante's novels except for Bravo Burro (which is currently only available online in Italian for some reason)

He also wrote a screenplay for the film version of this book.  At some point I will be tracking that down online. 

This is easily the funniest of his books that I've read so far. His usual themes are all in place. the Italian parents who haven't moved into the twentieth century yet, the borderline abusive father, alcoholism and general dysfunctional family life.

The title refers to both his wife, who's heavily pregnant, and the floorboards of his kitchen, which are infested with termites. I do like a good multi-purpose punny title. 

Our narrator - one John Fante - decides to save money on an exterminator and builder to replace the boards in his kitchen after they collapse under the weight of his pregnant wife, and calls on his father, a retired master builder in San Juan to do the work. After a couple of chapters featuring the most overdramatic mother in history, his father agrees and travels back to Los Angeles with him. Once there John finds himself increasingly ganged up on by his father and his wife.

John Fante's self insert in this book isn't quite as horrible as in previous of his books. The character of his father seems a lot more sympathetically drawn too, despite being something of a monster still.

The comedy is much broader and less cynical than the Bandini novels. His prose reads like free-flowing blank verse at times and is an absolute joy to read.  there are sections where I stopped and reread paragraphs because they were so evocative. I still managed the book in a couple of hours. It is, after all, only 150 pages.

Like everything else I've read by Fante, it's brilliant, disarmingly honest, and a pleasure to read. 

Number 47 - Sorrow and Bliss - Meg Mason

 

This was this month's book group read and it comes with 6 pages of rave reviews before the book starts.  that's not counting the extra two pages of reviews on the inside of that front cover.

It must be good then...

There are some spoilers contained in this review.

It is very well written. There isn't really much of a story, but it more than holds the interest regardless. If you're writing a story with very little of note happening, you'd better make sure your prose sings off the page. And it does. The prose is easy to read, never boring and frequently funny. But... There are a few bum notes happening.

The story follows our first person narrator, Martha Friel as she tells us her life story from age 17ish to her breakup with her current husband Patrick, who's been in love with her since they were both teenagers. 

Martha has been struggling since her late teens with mental illness and the book documents her experiences with this. 

The reviews make it sound like this is a great exploration of life with mental health issues, but in my humble opinion (and most of my book group as it surprisingly transpired) on that level, this book is a big cop out.

The specific mental illness she suffers from is never named.  When it's mentioned in the text it's referred to as ---- ----. 

I thought I was being cynical when I suggested that the reason it's never named is because her symptoms don't actually match the patterns of any particular mental health issue. But during the meeting, it was brought to my attention that, at the back of the book, sandwiched between the list of quotes from other writers used in the text and the acknowledgements, there's a "Note on the Text" that states "The medical symptoms described in the novel are not consistent with a genuine mental illness. The portrayal of treatment, medication and doctors' advice is wholly fictional". In other words I was right.

As one of the book group said, that should be in big bold letters at the front of the book. That should be stated from the beginning. If you're going to pretend that suddenly being prescribed a pink pill when you're 40 is going to cure you of all the problems you've had for the last twenty years, let the reader know up front that this is fiction and that ain't gonna happen if you're experiencing any of  the same sorts of symptoms as she is. It's possibly dangerous and the medical fraternity do not come out of this book very well in the slightest.

Then there's the alcoholic mother, who is immediately cured by being asked to stop drinking by her daughter. Is it realistic or responsible to suggest that a 30plus year drinking habit can end overnight in a book that purports to be a grand statement on the trials and tribulations of living with decreased mental health?

Some more general complaints about the book... She's described as being the life and soul of every party, the person people want to be around in a crowded room.  However, we see little to no evidence of this in the book, and indeed, her behaviour in public is more than likely to chase everyone away.

More importantly, we're supposed to feel sorry for her. The way she treats people, in particular her husband Patrick, is supposed to be beyond her control. She is constantly horrible to Patrick.  She's violent towards him, frequently throwing heavy objects at him.  She emotionally abuses him.  She gaslights him. She lies to him and manipulates him.  However, it's not her fault and we should feel sorry for her because she's mentally unwell.

The biggest BUT of the book comes in at this point. 

Firstly, imagine a book where the sexes are reversed. Would we be expected to feel sorry for the husband who attacks his wife, gaslights her, emotionally abuses her, manipulates her and lies continuously towards her?  No.  it would be a case of feel sorry for her, the victim, and the successful outcome to the book would be that she leaves him. He can't control himself, she's not safe with him.

Secondly, her behaviour towards him continues for several months after she's found her miracle cure and is apparently in control of herself. This suggests that she's actually just a horrible and shitty person.  I so wanted the last meeting they had after the break up to go in completely the opposite direction to the one it took.

My sympathies were entirely with Patrick and not with her. 

There's also the conceit that the book is the memoir she starts writing late on in the story. When a character read a line from the memoir and it was the opening line of the book, I'm surprised my groan wasn't heard in Antarctica. Such a trite and cliched cliché. 

So, despite being a page-turner in the absence of a real plot, with some great use of humour and well portrayed minor characters, this isn't a book I would recommend. The cons are significant enough that I found myself annoyed when it all finished.  I don't want to finish a book feeling pissed off at most of the characters in it. It's supposed to be moving, not irritating. 

That'll teach me for reading a book whose title is just two emotions.  

Number 46 - The Creeper - A.M. Shine

 

This was a Netgalley read, free in exchange for a fair review.

AM Shine is a completely new name to me. but I loved that cover and the story sounded interesting.

And by God does it deliver in spades!

This is one of the best horror novels I've read for a few years. A. M. Shine is a major talent.

As far as I can see, this is only his second novel. Within a minute or two of finishing this book, I'd already ordered his debut, The watchers, and it will be very high up on my TBR pile when it arrives.

Back to this book though.

The story opens with a young woman hiding from something following her. The atmosphere is palpable even in the short prologue. 

We then jump forward a couple of years and we're introduced to Alec Sparling, a reclusive type living in a secluded mansion who's just paid off a detective to deliver him the recording of the last 999 call made by the terrified girl in the prologue.

He then recruits Benjamin French and Chloe Coogan, a young historian and a newly qualified architecture student respectively, to investigate a hidden village deep in the countryside of Ireland, apparently untouched by the outside world for 200 years.  While they're there, he instructs them to ask about a local superstition known as The Creeper.

You see the Creeper three times, first time, from a distance, the second time he's closer, the third night, he's at your window, after that you won't see much else.

From this fairly simple premise, Shine has created a paranoid and deeply scary thriller. Ben and Chloe are likeable and sympathetic protagonists.  Their mounting terror as they come to believe the superstition is superbly realised, with Ben's skepticism steadily eroding.  

Shine proves he can handle gory detail just as well as he can build atmosphere using shadows and suggestion. His prose is a pleasure to read, lucid and intelligent, and creepy as hell.

he's a name to look out for.  If he's this good on book 2, who knows what heights he'll reach.

Number 45 - Monstress Vol 6

 

This continues to be an endlessly fascinating series, just as satisficing as any prose novel

The artwork in this series is so good it's spoiled most other graphic novels for me.

In  this volume, the war is upon our heroes and the fighting can be delayed no longer. 

The politics are getting somewhat difficult to follow, although that could be because its months since I read the previous volume.

I will be making time at some point to read these back to back. 

As ever, the mix of cyberpunk, old gods and sentient half human half beasts is a stunning feat of imagination. Maika is a badass lead character and I can't wait to catch up on the next volume.

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 43 - The Books of Magic-Bindings - Jon Ney Reiber

 

Collecting issues 1-4 of John Ney Reiber's run on The Books of Magic, this is a reread for me after nearly 30 years (back when I used to buy this particular comic. I wish I knew where the original comics were now)

For a series I  liked as much as this, I remembered absolutely nothing of this storyline.

Tim Hunter is a 13 year old boy who recently was visited by most of DC Vertigo's range of magic users in a mini series by Neil Gaiman.  This was the start of a new continuing series created for Vertigo under the talented hands of John Ney Reiber.

In this volume we discover hidden truths about young Tim's past and, most importantly, his parentage. At the same time he finds himself caught up involuntarily in the affairs of a decaying and withering Land of Faerie, facing a foe who strikes fear into the hearts of the bravest warriors.

The story was as intriguing and magical as I remember (I remember how much I enjoyed it but no details), but the artwork was not as good. In places, the best that can be said is that it's functional.

I stopped buying the comics for financial reasons back in the 90s. I will be trawling the comics fairs for the omnibus editions to try to complete the series.  Then I'll start on the new series that came out more recently which has been confusing my efforts to track down these volumes 

Meanwhile, this is a nice wander down a forgotten alley of memory lane.

Number 42 - The Salmon of Doubt - Douglas Adams

 

Book number 42 in the year has to be HHGTTG related. If that's not actually a law, it should be.

This year, that honour fell to this, the posthumous collection of Douglas Adams's essays, the one HHGTTG short story - Young Zaphod Plays it Safe, and the existing 11 chapters of the book Adams was working on when he died.

It's a fascinating and well researched/compiled collection of Adams's writing outside of the novels.

His trademark humour shines through most of the essays and letters, regardless of how serious the subject matter might be. In some places, he's remarkably prescient in the ways computers would take over every aspect of life.

In others, he's not quite so accurate.  in one essay about the future of magazines, he says that unwanted advertising will be a thing of the past when magazines and newspapers start happening online... Oh how I wish that prediction had come true.

His story about traveling to Australia to try to compare a new personal submersible vehicle to raiding the backs of the local aquatic life (namely the local manta rays) is particularly funny.

The short story has been about for a long while but I'd managed to never read it before picking up this book.  It's everything you'd expect from Adams, except a lot shorter than usual. It's also dated rather badly due to the satirical ending which will probably be lost on anyone who doesn't know about 80's world (USA) politics. 

The novel extract is both brilliant and desperately sad.  Brilliant because it's so bleeding funny. desperately sad because it's unfinished.  It was a new Dirk Gently book, although apparently he was thinking of reworking the ideas into a Hitch Hiker's format. The plot was pretty much insane but certainly involved time travel.  I was really getting into the story, as hard as I was trying not to (because I knew it was only a fragment), and suddenly it just finished. We will never know what the relevance of Desmond the rhinoceros might be to estate agents battling talking kangaroos in the distant future. We'll never know why the femme fatale was missing only the back half of her cat. there's a deep seated tragedy in that.

Twenty years on, Adams is still one of the greatest geniuses to grace the world of comic literature. If the heaven he didn't believe in believes in him, I hope he's happy there and keeping the angels amused with his anecdotes about the sheer inconvenience of the afterlife. 

Number 41 - Sallow Bend - Alan Baxter

 

I was sent a review copy of this from Cemetery Dance in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

I was very happy to be sent this review copy, as regular readers of this blog will know, I think the name Alan Baxter is an assurance of quality and he is one of my current "collect everything I can that he's written" authors. It feels good to be reading his latest before it's officially out.

This book, actually the first full length novel I've read by Baxter, continues the tradition of quality I've seen in his other works.

Nestled in a sweeping curve of the river Sallow, the town of Sallow Bend harbours its own dark secrets.

The carnival has just rolled into town. Two local girls have gone missing. When the girls are found alive and well, the townspeople are jubilant. But what they don't know is that something else has come back to the town with the girls, and it has its own agenda. People start dying, and only one man has any idea of what's happening, but what can he do to stop the rising death rate when no one will believe what he has to say?

In a welcome twist to the traditional tropes, the carnival isn't the source of the troubles; they've just arrived at the same time as an old evil has risen in the town, and they're as likely to die by its hands as any of the townsfolk. 

This is a fast paced and occasionally pretty gross horror novel. Despite the presence of so many familiar tropes (small town American setting, ancient evil rising etc) this wrong footed me on several occasions. The way the villain is introduced to the story was brilliantly done and totally unexpected.  

At least one character who I assumed to be an unredeemable bad guy turned into one of the most sympathetic characters once we found out why he was the way he was. Even the villain has good reason for her quest for vengeance against the town.

Baxter creates an ever increasing sense of dread and hopelessness throughout. We're never quite certain who will survive. The final confrontation is as tense as any you'll read in a Stephen King novel. (I know I try not to compare horror writers to King because it feels lazy on my part, but again, this shares enough thematic similarities it's almost unavoidable)

I missed the Australian setting of his other books that I've read. The American setting has a more familiar feel to it and therefore less of the weird atmosphere I found in the two Gulp collections. that's only a minor quibble though. My only other quibble is that some of the characters were so well drawn that I wanted them to play a more active role in the story and it was slightly disappointing that they didn't. 

There's also some well integrated social messaging that comes across as a natural part of the story rather than preachiness. 

The writing is unpretentious and an easy read. Good characters and a refreshing and unpredictable take on some old conventions. The monster is genuinely threatening and almost completely original.

This is a great slice of small town horror. Go out and buy it when it's released. You won't regret it.

Number 40 - Born To The Dark - Ramsey Campbell

 The second book in Ramsey's Bricester Mythos trilogy and the follow up to The Searching Dead (which I wrote up here in February last year if you want to look up my thoughts on that volume)

Firstly, it has to be said that PS Publishing did an amazing job with these books, and Les Edwards (the cover artist and a bit of a legend in the horror field) is as great and eye-catching an artist as he ever was.

The story picks  up in the 80s, 30 years after the events of the Searching Dead.  Dominic Sheldrake is now a married university lecturer with a child of his own. He teaches film study, which allows Ramsey to ruminate on some of his favourite films and their meanings in the course of the book.

In the opening chapter he meets up briefly with Jim and Bobby, his friends from the first book for a long delayed reunion.  This is used to give a slightly clumsy recap of the first book as well as reintroducing us to the cast.

Unfortunately, in the political discussion that ensues in chapter one, we find that Dom is now a poster boy for Thatcherism, which made me dislike him quite intensely. I hope this is done to inject a feel of the 80's rather than further self insertion of the author into the text.

When he returns home to his wife and child (Lesley and Toby even though the blurb on the inside cover names his wife as Claudine who is actually one of Toby's friends). We find out that Toby suffers from seizures in his sleep and they've just been referred to a facility called Safe to Sleep. 

Of course, all is not well at safe to Sleep, and Dominic soon finds himself fighting to reveal the truth about the facility to his loved ones or anyone who will listen. The facility is run by Christian Noble, Dominic's ex-teacher, and the cult leader Dom faced in the first book. What is the Noble family doing in the clinic?  Can Dom do anything to fight?

The sense of paranoia that develops once the plot starts gathering momentum is masterfully done. How can he fight this evil if no one, including his nearest and dearest, believes a word he says?

It's all written in Ramsey's unmistakable style.  There's something insidious in the prose that slowly nibbles away at your sense of reality while reading a Ramsey Campbell novel. This one is no exception. despite my initial dislike of Dom in the early chapters, I soon sympathised with him and wanted to see him persuade the people around him what was really happening.

One of my pet hates in horror is when everyone just accepts what's happening without a problem. This book certainly doesn't suffer from that. It derives probably half the horror from the fact that only Dom knows what's happening and he just can't make anyone believe him.

It's not a perfect book. The opening chapter was a bit clumsy, and despite the number of times we're told Toby is advanced for his age, he never seemed to speak realistically as a 5 year old child. It was a damned good read nonetheless and those are minor quibbles.  

I have book 3 on my shelves, pulsating and calling out to be read. 

It shall wait it's turn.

Number 39 - Incursion - Alex Paknadel et al

 This was cheap, and has a pretty cool looking cover which is the entire reason I bought it.  I had no knowledge of this title or any of the characters.

Anyhoo... 

It transpires that I'm so out of touch with the comics world that i didn't know that Valiant is a third comics empire, competing with the big two (Marvel and DC) with it's own set of ongoing series and heroes.

They seem to have a more fantasy based mythos, as opposed to the more sci-fi trappings of most superhero faire.  This title is a big crossover event in the Valiant universe, pulling together several of their main characters into one story, an Avengers Assemble type of thing. Even the aliens in the opening pages look somewhat like the Kree.

This would all probably excite me much more if I was a follower of the comics in question.  However, as a casual reader encountering this universe for the first time, I feel some of the finer points of the story were probably lost on me.

The story follows a threat to the existence of life on planet earth when a creature from another world infects the Geomancer - a young girl linked inextricably to life itself. the creature has made a mistake because the girl is protected by an eternal champion who makes it his mission to save her by any means necessary.  The writing does a fair job in letting us know who each of these characters is.  At no point did I find myself wondering what was going on. 

It's all beautifully illustrated and inked.  Visually this is a remarkable piece of work.  The story is possibly less impressive. We're in very familiar territory here.  I know there are very few original stories out there, but at least try to dress your plot in unfamiliar clothes. 

It was entertaining.  It killed 45 minutes yesterday. Kudos to the art team for a great job. Otherwise it's a bit same old, same old. It's not entirely cliched, but I can't award it anything for originality either.

Number 38 - Black Mouth - Ronald Malfi

 

I read this book through Netgalley.  It will be formally released on July 19. 

I normally try not to compare to Stephen King when I review a horror novel as that just feels lazy, but in this case, there is so much Kingism going on it’s almost impossible not too. 

Small American town, a group of friends who bonded over childhood trauma are drawn back to their childhood homes many years later to fight the evil all over again. The flashback structure, juxtaposing present with past. Also- 800 plus pages on the file I read. It’s classic king storytelling territory.

 It differs on the  scale though.  Whereas King would have a huge cast of characters, each playing their role in the story, Malfi concentrates on just the 5 central characters for the whole book, and any other townsfolk are more or less walk on parts.  In a King novel, we'd feel like we'd lived in the town for years and knew everyone that lived there. In this book, we know our central cast and no  one else.

It’s written for the most part in a first person narrative, which limits the scope, but branches out into third person for alternate chapters. All the flashbacks are told by Jamie, our first person narrator.

Jamie Warren is a loser. As the story opens he’s in enforced rehab for his alcoholism, suffering some truly horrific hallucinations. Just after his release, he learns of his mother's death and has to hightail it back to Black Mouth to look after affairs, including his cognitively impaired brother Dennis.

Also on her way back to Black Mouth is his ex-best-friend and crush, Mia. She's had a strange encounter with a woman who knew far more than she should. She's also just seen the Magician, the mysterious stranger who came into their lives when they were children and changed them forever.  Completing the quartet is Clay, a social worker spurred on by the photo of the Magician to look into similar crimes to the one they were involved with.

Following them is Stull, another of the magician's ex-apprentices. in his first chapter he commits an act of animal cruelty that marks him out as one of the most reprehensible villains I've read in many a year. He's a remarkably scary character.

I loved the way Malfi slowly draws the various plot threads together, keeping the characters in the dark while we the readers can see the oncoming shitstorm. He really does know how to build the tension brilliantly. 

I also loved the way the characters react realistically to the situations they find themselves in. There's no sudden leaping to the far fetched supernatural conclusions, more scrabbling around trying piece together a natural explanation that isn't going to happen.

This was my first Ronald Malfi novel and certainly won't be my last. He takes on Stephen King in his own territory and easily holds his own.  He manages to stamp his own style and themes into the familiar formula. When physical copies of this are available, I will be adding this to my shelves.

Number 37 - Observatory Mansions - Edward Carey

 

As any regular readers of this blog will know, I fell in love with Edward Carey's writing style last year when I read Heap House (which I bought when I mistook him for Edward Gorey based on the artwork).

This is his debut novel, and more adult oriented than the Iremonger books.

It does feature a lot of the themes that run through Heap House. A run down building inhabited by a bunch of grotesques, an obsession with gathering objects other people see as junk etc. However it is still a very different novel.

It is narrated by Francis Orme, a,,, actually, I'm not sure what single adjective could possibly accurately describe him. He works as a statue on a plinth.  He's blessedly oblivious to everything happening around him even as he describes it to the reader.  He obsessively collects (steals) objects for his rather inappropriately named exhibition (which is locked in the basement and no one is allowed to even know of its existence). He has a narrative voice unlike anything else I can remember reading (including Heap House). he wears white gloves at all times and saves them to his own personal museum of white gloves when they get dirty (with a card explaining why they're discarded, including dates from start to end of wearing and the reason for their disposal). He is not your everyday narrator.

Observatory mansions is his home.  It used to be the stately home of the Orme family, complete with opulent furniture and paintings, attendant servants and acres of its own grounds.  Now it stands in the middle of a traffic island and all the grounds and all the luxury contents gone, including the servants.  it's been split into flats to try to raise money for its upkeep but most of the tenants have died or moved on and now there are only 7 residents in the building. Most of them are as strange in their own way as Francis.

Their insular existence is threatened when a new tenant arrives. She shakes up the lives of all the residents, but especially Francis's. 

This is one of those books that can make you laugh out loud and then cry and then laugh again... on the same page. The family secrets that are steadily revealed in the narrative are shocking and funny and tragic and completely unpredictable. 

The cast of almost grotesques is made completely sympathetic by the brilliant writing style. We accept their eccentricities and foibles and sometimes outright nastiness and still feel sorry for them.  

This isn't a happy book despite the number of laughs.  It isn't a depressing book despite the misery inflicted on the cast of characters. It walks that tightrope with consumate ease, performing backflips on the rope, just because Carey is so talented he can do that just for the hell of it.

I chose this book for my book group and I think it will make for an interesting discussion. I know thee are members of the group whose tolerance for weirdness is not as high as mine. I will find out in the next week or two.

Number 36 - The Cockroach - Ian McEwan

 

Before I start, I will apologise,  there will be slight spoillers in this review.  it's almost impossible to discuss the story and the themes of this one without giving away some plot details that can't be gleaned from the blurb on the book.

This opens brilliantly. The first few pages are an almost perfect takedown and reversal of the opening of Kafka's most famous work. 

A cockroach wakes from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic creature, with only 4 limbs (two arms and two legs), binocular vision instead of compound, his skeleton on the inside of a mound of pink flesh...

Yes the cockroach has woken as a human.

Not just any human. the Prime minister of Great Britain... The country is in a fragile state, it recently voted narrowly in a referendum to enact a totally ridiculous and disastrous piece of  legislation which will inevitably isolate the country and destroy the economy.

This is a distinctly unsubtle dig at British politics over the last few years. Can the cockroaches in command force through the results of the referendum regardless of the damage to the country? What starts as confusion into the knowledge the Roach has in his new role gives way to a mix of amusement and an icky disturbed sensation as the explanations become clear by the end of the book.

This book is a short exercise of concentrated chutzpah on McEwan's part. It's a vitriolic commentary on the state of UK politics. It also feels too close for comfort to a genuine explanation of the last 6 years. We now know who will actually benefit from the whole fiasco.

I loved this unreservedly even if some of the political machinations initially went over my head and I had to reread a section to understand what had just gone down.

For the cynically minded, this is a real treat.