review | Gav Reads

12Jun 2013

WPfF Review: Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple

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Synopsis

Bernadette Fox is notorious.

To Elgie Branch, a Microsoft wunderkind, she’s his hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled wife.

To fellow mothers at the school gate, she’s a menace.

To design experts, she’s a revolutionary architect.

And to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, quite simply, mum.

Then Bernadette disappears. And Bee must take a trip to the end of the earth to find her.

Comments/Thoughts/Analysis

Before I dive into Where’d You Go Bernadette this might be good time to talk a little about the Women’s Prize for Fiction and fiction written by women. OK, it’s probably not but I’m going to do it anyway.

There a three books on this years shortlist that I really wanted to read: this one, Life After Life and oddly the winner, May We Be Forgiven. And from the longlist I’d also have gone for Gone Girl, and The Marlowe Papers. What attracted me to them? The author (Kate Aktinson), other people (Simon and Gone Girl), the quality and reader buzz (Life After Life), x factor (May We Be Forgiven), the world needs more good prose poetry (The Marlowe Papers)…

What I’m saying is that no book had the same reason for me wanting to read it but one thing that didn’t enter my head was I can’t read this because a women wrote it. I understand there are people out there who do? I can’t even comprehend that.

I’d say that women and men do write differently, and you can debate that with me if you like, but neither is better at it than the other. There are stories by both sexes that appeal to both sexes and some books that will appeal to one sex over the other. And sometimes you won’t know if a book is going to appeal to you until you try it.

And that brings me back to Where’d You Go Bernadette. I thought from the blurb that this would be my kind of book as I was hooked by the mystery element. And there is a mystery. But there is also a family drama, disputes with neighbours, and a holiday. The mystery is a consequence of the drama of the other elements rather than the centre of the of book.

The thing you immediately notice is that it’s made of up of a patchwork of personal reports, emails, faxes, letters and a few other things - basically all the different ways that people communicate though throughout the focus is Bernadette but the voice is centred around her daughter Bee.

And as I was reading it I forgot I was waiting for the mysterious disappearance and when it happened, well, it was a surprise.

In fact, the whole book was a wonderful surprise partly because it is a fantasy, at least to me as I don’t live in Seattle in an expensive house, with a husband that is very high up in Microsoft with a genius daughter but I was completely enchanted. Part of that is the snark that Bernadette unleashes, it’s the actions of her ludicrous neighbour and Bernadette’s interactions with those around her and it’s partly how well Maria Semple has planned everything. She needs to as there are all these different sources and view points that need to hang together for the bigger picture to become clear.

As it is also a family drama Semple does a very good job of not completely demonising any character completely, even the husband is seen in his entirety. But it’s Bernadette that takes most of our attention. And she’s not really what you first think. Or at least how she got to be where she is isn’t what you might think it is.

But Semple is skilled at releasing the right information at the right time through the various ‘evidence’ presented though accurate is sometimes hideously biased just like real life.

Summary

I laughed and I cried though I only cried once. There is a strong message about feeling trapped and trapping yourself and hiding from the world and what happens when you go through the motions in life. And this is what makes it a strong book, yes it’s funny but the characters all have identifiable problems even if they do take place in a fantasy location that most of us will never experience directly.

I highly recommend it and I can see why it made this year’s shortlist.

10Jun 2013

City Watch Re-Read: Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

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Synopsis

Another wild romp through Discworld! Corporal Carrot, a young dwarf, is newly in charge of the recruits guarding Ankh-Morpork. Edward, the 37th Lord d’Eath, has just discovered that Ankh-Morpork, kingless for generations, has a sovereign ruler, who must be convinced that he is, in fact, the King. The fate of Ankh-Morpork rides on a young man’s courage, an ancient sword’s magic and a three-legged poodle’s bladder.

Comments/Thoughts/Analysis

You know what? Re-reading the City Watch books was an outstanding idea. There is something comforting about it. I know it’s taken me a little while to get through the next one after Guards! Guards! but I have been reading it off and on (between other books or when I’ve just wanted a book cwtch) over the last couple of months (slow reading isn’t a bad thing but I’ve told you that already).

I like this one as it expands the stage for the City Watch. We have new recruits. They are also ‘diverse’ being drawn from dwarfs, trolls and there Angua, who is human most of the time. It’s also the one where Captain Vimes is to become Mr Vimes due to retirement and also about to get married.

That’s not a spoiler by the way is it’s one of the threads of the book. It’s how he copes with those two things that is interesting. Though it’s not all about Vimes. It’s about Corporal Carrot. It’s about dogs. And lots of other things..

There is something endearing about this novel. There are little touches that only Pratchett do. It’s all about people, as always. But it’s also a crime novel with a mysteries to solve.

It’s not a very good mystery if I’m honest, though it does have some good twists and turns, as it’s more a device to get the characters to interact and do something. We get to see what happens if you push Captain Vimes too far and the effect of strong coffee. We see why myths of Kings returning are strong motivators and what that means in reality. We get to see what happens when you cool a trolls brain and what happens when a troll and a dwarf become friends.

There are some real touching moments that come from all that.

We have the jokes and the fun too, of course.

Basically, it’s everything I love about Pratchett.

Summary

I’m not doing well at selling this, am I? I might be but I’m getting a bit frantic fanboy about it all. This the novel where the Watch expands and becomes more than a sum of its parts. We see what happens when you put good people under pressure and what heroes are and what the Watch does to those that join (though I think it might confined to the Discworld).

I really can’t wait to crack on with Feet of Clay.

04Jun 2013

Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

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I’m going to do the unusual thing of starting with the summary. If you want to read on you can but I can’t promise that your expectations or enjoyment won’t be spoiled from here on in.

In a nutshell, The Ocean at the End of the Lane sees Neil Gaiman at his rawest. He takes us back to a childhood moment, which could have seen something very different happen, and uses it to explore stories, reality, childhood, loneliness and learning to make the most of your life. Read it in one sitting if you can. I promise you’ll be glad you did. And don’t let the size confuse you that this a light tale. It’s deeper than the ocean.

You’re still here and you want to know more? You sure? Well, if you’re curious lets go deeper. But I’ve warned you already you probably don’t want to know.

Alright then, are you ready? Don’t say I didn’t warn you….

I’ll start with a bit of a confession. With any prolific author I think there are works of theirs you’re going to get on with more than others. I say this as I didn’t connect with The Graveyard Book as much as everyone else. I loved the concepts and ideas but couldn’t quite connect the main character. I liked American Gods and he’s written a lot of my favourite short stories. So I was a bit nervous about The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

I needn’t have worried. In comparison I couldn’t have felt more connected to the narrator telling us about an event in his younger self’s life. It could be partly because it’s written in first person that I found it easier to feel for him but I know it’s much more than that.

Here’s one reason:

‘I lay on my bed and lost myself in the stories.
I like that. Books were safer than people anyway.’

I’m sure all lovers of books escape into stories but when you’re a lonely child that escapism is a new reality. A world that isn’t like your own. It makes you feel different about yourself and the world:

‘I liked myths. They weren’t adult stories and they weren’t children’s stories. They were better than that. They just were.’

Moving back to what this story is about. It’s about life and living. When we first meet our narrator he has just been to a funeral though we’re unsure whose and it doesn’t really matter because his subconscious reaction is to go back to his childhood haunt and the farm at the end of lane. And there he remembers the moment when he met the 11-year old Lettie, who introduces him to the world behind the veil, though the veil is already lifting when he meets her.

There are moments of ‘reality’ that are heart stopping like a moment when his father gets angry. That scene drove me right back to being young and powerless and when you realise the world isn’t as safe as you first thought.

It’s full of observations about life and living but it doesn’t feel like moralising. Like reading Terry Pratchett you learn a lot about human behaviour but because this is first person you get it a bit more directly:

‘Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way hundreds of times, or thousands, perhaps it never occurs to step off the paths…’

It’s true when you put it like that.

And one final observation:

‘I wondered if it was true; if they were all children wrapped in adults bodies, like in children’s books hidden in the middle of dull, long books. The kind with no pictures of conversations.’

As for the fantasy, well, reality turns on a knife-edge. Our immersion is clever and complete. And in a way I’d like an ocean at the end the lane too.

I really don’t want to say too much about the story itself. I will say it is short as it focused on one event, one wrong that needs to be put right. And because of that focus Neil Gaiman is free to explore the minor but significant details as well as look at the grander parts of life.

It made me smile, it made me sad, it made my heart ache and it made me think.

What else could I ask for?

Read it.

Out 18/06/2013 in hardback and ebook.
Buy from: Amazon Hardback/Kindle , Waterstones, Book Depository UK/US, or your local bookshop.

03Jun 2013

Review: Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan

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Synopsis

The cover says, ‘THE AGE OF KINGS IS DEAD…AND I HAVE KILLED IT,’ which is quite a statement to make. And to be fair it’s not an understatement. Field Marshal Tamas’s coup in of the nation of Adro, one of the Nine kingdoms, results in the death of the monarch and the layer of aristocrat. But it also results in the death of his royal kabal of Privileged, magic users who are there to keep the King safe (they didn’t do a good job on this occassion). Though they aren’t the only magic users there are lesser users like powder mages and those with a knack.

The trouble is that it’s the powder mages, who are mostly military and of whom Tamas is one, may have saved Adro from being sold out to their neighbours, but the end of the Age of Kings causes its own problems.

Comments/Thoughts/Analysis

Let’s get this out of the way. I had a great time reading this book. I’m having a really good run of varied reading; Equations of Life, Poison, The Panopticon, The City of Silk and Steel, The Universe of Alex Woods and I’m happy to add Promise of Blood to the list.

What’s different? Guns and magic! I honestly didn’t think I’d get excited about someone else’s gun fetish but McClellan’s narration drew me in. He has structured his story in such a way that it is compelling from the opening chapter. He weaves three main threads; an investigation each of the kabal’s dying words, his son’s hunt for a rogue privileged and Tama’s own struggles in powers. But even those seeds grow and each of their roles change as the story unfolds.

I’m aware that one person’s fresh voice is another’s cliché but I’m also aware that my tolerance for certain epic fantasy stories is low so to be drawn in and excited by a fantasy novel is a refreshing thing. McClellan really does have a skilled storytellers eye for lingering in the right places for the right time before looking elsewhere. It’s a dangerous thing to do to leave one thread just as it’s in full swing only to leap to another and invariably you think you’d like to keep going rather than leave it.

I never felt that. I did think that a couple of times the leaps didn’t flow from one moment in one thread to the same or future moment but instead they felt they were going backwards (I could be wrong). But even so the whole thing held together. Each thread was worthy of the attention it got and each was packed with twists and turns. I enjoyed each of them equally for different reasons. The treat that Tama’s faces leading a country, the underside met by his investigator and the action that his son provides hunting.

All the characters are multifaceted. McClellan is good with giving characters something worthwhile to do. They serve the story. Some more than others obviously but even the minor characters are interesting for example a maid we meet at the start plays an important role at several key moments which are unbeknown to her moments before they happen.

As I was reading I didn’t have any major problems with portrayal of any of the characters apart from a niggle to do with the ’slave-girl’ Ka-poel. She’s a mute, a ‘savage’ and her magic is not understood by those around her. She accompanies Tamas’s son on his missions and when she does she looks after him, mostly via magic. I only had the niggle because of something that happens later on.

McClellan shows women in various roles and strata of society but it does have an old school flavour to it. The society is a conservative one. It’s a book about the men (thanks Neil) and their fights and struggles dominate, though as I said the maid’s story is a powerful in minor thread and could well turn into something else but even that it is about a male character.

So while I didn’t have any issues while reading it on reflection it could and probably should have taken more risks to displace the social model it based itself on. The women have a valuable role in the story but not in their own society, at least that their power isn’t their own as they facilitate the males at each and every turn.

Summary

Where does this leave me? I have a quandary. If I’d read and moved on then I’d have been left with feeling I’d enjoyed an amazing book. And I still feel like that. But the process of reviewing it has made me consider other aspects that I wouldn’t have lingered on. I would have missed the conservative nature of the backdrop. That’s the privilege of being a male reader I guess.

So, I can’t ignore that aspect but neither can I berate it for sticking to a historically social norm. I can wonder why it wasn’t more daring. I can be honest and say that I think that this is a book written for men. And most male readers are going to enjoy the hell out of it without batting an eyelid.

As for me I’m going to read the next one. I’m hoping that McClellan brings to it all his skill as a storyteller. I’m invested in the plight of the people of Adro. I want to know the consequences of Tama’s actions. I want to see what the shocking end of this one means in the bigger picture. But I also hope that there is time for McClellan to tweak his treatment of his female characters. I’m not sure how he’d be able to do it as he’s set the whole world up to be male dominant but there are still opportunities for giving them strength rather than weakness and goals that unrelated to those of the male characters.

This is a traditional feeling story. It’s amazingly well constructed. Its aim isn’t to elevate the role of women in society, so leaves to others. But it does explore the law of unexpected consequences. Its premise feels fresh. It’s exploring an idea about what happens when gods you don’t think are real actually are. It also explores the diminishing of power over time. The role of the church and it’s statements vs it’s actions. It explores truth and lies. Plus it has guns and magic and a passion for that which is infectious.

And with all that said would I recommend this book?

Oh yes, but with all the caveats above.

Buy from:

Amazon UK: Hardback/Kindle

Book Depository UK/US

27May 2013

Mini-Review: Equations of Life by Simon Morden

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Morden dumps us in the middle of London Metrozone, a place where there is some sort of law and order but also gang warfare mainly between Russian and Japanese mobsters. It seems that there has been nuclear fallout in both their home countries leading them fighting for territory elsewhere.

As future SF goes Morden’s version is a little bleak but it is not only a backdrop it is also a character in the main adventure. And it is an adventure. From the moment that Petrovich acts the next three hundred plus pages keep you gripped firmly in his hand as Petrovitch runs around the city trying to stop himself getting killed whilst meeting lots of colourful characters along the way.

Equations of Life isn’t all that it seems. It really is a little sneaky. Yes, the main thrust is all about saving the girl but then Morden sticks in a computer programme that is trying to take over the Metrozone so not only does he have to save the girl but the city itself. Oh and he’s not completely telling the truth. And that adds another layer. A question of redemption and good deeds paying off bad ones and what people do to survive.

Don’t get me wrong this is a narrow focused, fun, tale of heroes and gangster villains with a huge SF heart. It’s not going to make you slow you down and think too much. But that’s not to say that there isn’t lots of thought in the background. There is. Lots has gone into making the world as it is and one of those events that is behind the challenges that Petrovich faces.

And that’s what makes it a fun read. It’s a pulp adventure that is only the start to something bigger (two more book in this trilogy and the first book in a new trilogy just released). You can see why The Samuil Petrovitch Trilogy won the Philip K. Dick Award in 2012.

Next up: Theories of Flight.

12May 2013

Review: Poison by Sarah Pinborough (Gollancz)

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Poison by Sarah Pinsborough

The cover promises ‘a wicked, delicious, sexy Snow White fairytale’ so the question is does it deliver?

But before we answer that let’s look at the problem of modern-day fairy tales. In Cinderella, when the wicked step sisters cut off parts of their feet to fit in the glass shoe what was really shocking was the two singing pigeons:

Rook di goo, rook di goo!
There’s blood in the shoe.
The shoe is too tight,
This bride is not right!

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm021.html

What do you mean you don’t remember that in the Disney version? Oh that’s right; they didn’t use it. They sanitised the original and made it more ‘child-friendly’ (whatever that means) though I think a child would like that little bit of gore.

There are lots of issues with the portrayal of both sexes in modern fairy tales. Things that you might not at first see to be issues. If you’ve read the works of Angela Carter especially The Bloody Chamber you’ll know what I mean. Her short stories give you a completely different view about how women are expected to behave and how powerful or powerless they can be.

In Poison Pinborough is in a middle ground between Disney’s interpretation and Carter’s feminism though much closer to the latter than the former. She takes the girl who was saved by dwarfs and turns her into a women and in the process strips away the veneer to show us a warts and all portrayal that is much more akin to reality.

Of course, it is still a fairytale. We have wicked step-mothers, charming princes, poisoned apples but we also have depth and characters that show a range of both emotion and reaction. Something that the stripped down fairy tales can’t do as they are usually delivering simple moral messages (or if you’re Disney ideals that can never, and probably should never, be reached).

Some might complain about the sex (and they already have) as it’s not something that should be used in fairy tales as fairy tales are for children. Oh come on, really? How many adults do you know that secretly love sitting down watching Cinderella or Aladdin or Hercules? (The last two are my faves btw). And what’s wrong with extending that enjoyment into something that addresses adult themes? And then allows the heroines to be women and that allows wicked step-mum to have a range of emotions rather than being token evil. As well as asking who falls in love with an almost dead girl in a glass box?

A few points to note Poison is the first published book in a trio of interlinked but it is also cyclical, which is new technique on me, and it’ll be interesting how these events loop back on themselves. The reason I’m saying that as a standalone it doesn’t make sense. The ending is like an opening to another chapter rather than a resolution. Though the focus will change, next we have Charm and then Beauty, the exploration I hope will be as strong. And I hope to find out how the prince managed to be walking in the woods a bit worse for wear.

What I loved about Poison is it’s liberation. Snow White is what I’d like to see a princess aspiring too – maybe not everything – though pretty much. She holds her own. She resists the ideals of her step-mother as well-intentioned as they are. And the step-mother is well-intentioned, if deluded. You can see where she get’s it from as her own great-grandmother shows up.

Now at this point it’s worth mentioning that there as some things that might grate. Not the great-grandmother I liked her. And I liked what she represented. But she does represent ‘borrowing’ and Pinborough borrows a lot. It can’t be helped. It’s a fairytale. There are conventions and expectations, which kind of spoils my point about Disneyfication, but you can lean too heavily and there are points like the names of the dwarfs, where its source material may feel a little too borrowed from.

That’s a niggle. Another niggle is that some things aren’t as smooth as they could be. The step-mothers moods are extreme and could have had more nuisance in the middle range. But again it’s irritant like an itch. Nothing that’s worth picking at.

Poison really does feel like Pinsborough is showing a world where women in fairy tales should be seen as women, sexual, dangerous, and real rather than something that can be projected on as they lie in a box like a warm corpse only for the charming prince to realise after who his love truly is after she’s woken up and strayed from his ideal.

To answer the original question: it is a wicked, delicious and sexy fairytale and well worth reading.

15Apr 2013

Review; The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan (Windmill)

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The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan

Synopsis

Fifteen-year old Anais Hendricks is smart, funny and fierce, but she is also a child who has been let down, or worse, by just about every adult she has ever met. Sitting in the back of a police car, she finds herself headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders where the social workers are as suspicious as its residents. But Anais can’t remember the events that have led her there, or why she has blood on her school uniform…

Comments/Thoughts/Analysis

Having pre-conceived ideas of what a novel is about before you read is usually helpful. In fact most books go out of their way to let you know something about themselves. If you’re going to buy a book on impulse it’s usually the cover that catches your eye, and then the blurb, and maybe the opening few pages. Finding out by word of mouth relies on someone giving their own version of the book, which isn’t always a universal version.

When The Panopticon was first being one person (Simon) thought it was sold as having a heavy science fiction thread with the experiment and the watchful panopticon in the young offenders home that Anais (the main character) has been sent to. I though knew it was going to be a literary novel with some SFFness to it but I wasn’t expecting what it turned out to be.

We meet Anais, as it says in the blurb, on her way to Panopticon but we follow a character who is presented as an outsider. She describes herself as an experiment in the prologue. She might be but if you strip away that idea away as a safety valve of an institutionalised teenager you have the same novel but a prism is missing. It’s very much a novel about reality, how it forms around us, how we protect ourselves from others versions of it and that we can’t always appreciate what we have.

Every year Anais allows herself a fantasy thinking about an alternative life, one where she wasn’t born in a petri dish (or was it a test tube she isn’t sure), but this fantasy of a happier life is always knocked back by the reality of her life. The people that she hangs with get her into trouble. She ends up fighting to save friend and she misses someone who drags her back down enough to see him again when she really should move on.

It’s the core of Anais that makes this a book worth reading. She does make mistakes, she does have issues with reality, and she copes with the help of drugs. But given the circumstance she’s in she hopes for a better life. She keeps hope her around like the box that Pandora opened.

Fagan cleverly lets the reader make up their own mind about several of the people in Anais’s life. She is an unreliable narrator in some regards. She’s a fantasist and at the start she’s not sure if the blood on school uniform is that a policewomen who is in a coma. But when it comes to seeing other people she seems bang on. She describes them but their actions are more telling. Like Helen her social worker who things that doing ‘good’ deeds makes her a good person but as Anais doesn’t conform to her idea of a reformed character she drops her. Her boyfriend Jay leads her on is one leads to one of the most gut wrenching scenes.

You also have more positive relationships like the one she has with Angus, who keeps seeing her in a positive light. Her fast friendships with John, Shortie, Tash and other children of the home show different sides to Anais and how those around her effect her. They also demonstrate a range of people who end up in care.

Ultimately though this is Anais’s story and she’s going to tell it in her own unique way.

Summary

The Panopticon is one of those novels which you can’t describe as enjoyable but definitely leaves you feeling grateful you’ve read it. It’s a story that is dark, but filled with moments of light and hope. Jenni Fagan is unflinching in her descriptions of Anais’s reality. She shows a world of sex, drugs and violence, and it asks you to question your view of reality.

It’ll leave you thinking that you should never assume what leads to someone’s life being as it is. You never really know what they’ve had to deal with.

—

The Panopticon is the 8^th Book Club Choice on The Readers Podcast, which I co-host with the Simon Savidge, and it’s now available in paperback.

Jenni Fagan has also been included in Granta’s 2013 list of bright British novelists.

27Mar 2013

Review: The City of Silk and Steel by Mike, Linda & Louise Carey (Gollancz)

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The City of Silk and Steel by Mike, Linda & Louise Carey
OUT NOW in HB

Synopsis

Once, in a city called Bessa, there was a sultan who was over throne by religious zealots, lead by Hakkim Mehdad, who didn’t like the way the sultan and his people enjoyed themselves. The sultan’s wives and children were slaughtered and his 365 concubines were banished and sent to a neighbouring caliph as a tribute. But something threatened the banished concubines and everything changed.

Comments/Thoughts/Analysis

Imagine you are in the desert and a group of you are sat around a fire and someone starts telling a story about a City of Women. You may think from the way the narrator tells the story of exiled concubines that it is just a tale that has no basis in reality and to be fair it does start as just as story. But our narrator, the librarian Rem, tells us how a city of women came to be and what they did afterwards.

The City of Silk and Steel is this story but it’s built from asides and reflections and futures of those involved and as it grows you end up seeing the full picture.

Even though you could think of it as an Arabian Nights style tale due to its setting and the classical feel it captures. The Careys have managed to take what may have been a safe linear tale and push themselves into holding a reader’s attention as they pause, re-tell, give backstories, and make you as interested in the events of the characters lives have lead them here as to where they find themselves now.

An example of this is the titles of some the tales. Some are more ambiguous than others for example ‘Tales Whose Application is Mostly Tactical: Bethi’ versus ‘Giver of Gifts’. One of my favourites stories is ‘The Cook’s Story’ as it includes recipes but they are used to make a point. They show the contrast between the old Sultan and Hakkim and how the ascetic movement has effected the kitchens and the merchant’s who supply it. This technique adds a quality that is rare in most stories though to be fair most stories wouldn’t sustain this type of narration.

It works here as there is no main character as such, unless you’d define it as the city of Bessa, instead you have characters who are important to the tale. There are those that make decisions like Zuleika who changed the entire direction of the women’s lives, Gursoon who makes sure they survive Zuleika’s actons, Rem not only narrates but gives commentary on events as she was there affecting them not in small part due to her sight of the past, present and future. Then there is Anwar Das who grows to be much more than a camel thief. There are other characters and other stories including the act of kindness that the women will come to regret in the end.

But it does show rightly that you can have all sorts of strong female characters and what women can achieve. When the tale starts most, but not all, of the women have no other recognisable skills than those needed to survive their role as concubines, which involve not only looking after the sultan’s physical needs but ensuring, along with his wives, that they diplomatically cool his fires when he could make rash decisions.

But as they need to survive outside the city their underused (and unacknowledged) skills have to be used and honed in order to trade as well as fight when needed. And this the heart of The City of Silk and Steel and the source of its title. The silk is the women and their soothing nature and the steel is the fight inside them and both are needed. Though it may not be enough but not for the reasons that you may think. A city run by women is a very successful one but compassion is sometimes a weakness.

The ease with which regime change occurs may be have some readers pausing to wonder why it wasn’t harder but then again it’s a story that plays out over several years and its focus is on the characters not particularly on capturing a true ‘reality’. The narrator freely admits that is a story not a historical record though it is both.

It is the record of Bessa but also a story about Bessa.

Summary

I was truly enchanted by The City of Silk and Steel. The narrative style is refreshing. The way in which the story passes back and forth. The changes in focus. The way it builds. And the devastating way it ends. You may think that it’s bound to be a happy tale. It is in lots of ways as the women are practical but even that isn’t enough.

The Carey’s sometimes gloss and lubricate in some places where more grit and resistance would make the journey feel tougher but when it matters they don’t hold back. You want the women to beat the odds. You know the dangers of what they are doing and all you can do is read and wait.

If you like classical feeling fantasy tales with modern complexities, which is enchanting, captivating and enjoyable then The City silk and Steel should be top of your list.

24Feb 2013

Review: The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence

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The Universe Versus Alex Woods

Synopsis

Alex Woods is seventeen when he is stopped at Dover by Customs with 113 grams of marijuana, an urn full of ashes and the feeling that he’s done nothing wrong.

This is the story of how Alex goes from a twelve year old who is struck by a meteorite to being in Dover five years later and it involves an unusual friendship with the reclusive widower Mr Peterson.

Comments/Thoughts/Analysis

This caught my eye because we did an episode of The Readers on the Waterstones 11 (their selection of 2013 debut fiction) and The Universe Versus Alex Woods (TUvsAW) caught my attention. It’s not a book I’d normally pick up but he fact that it had a meteorite in it gave it a slight SF edge and the title makes Alex sound like a superhero but I went in pretty much blind.

TUvsAW is one of those stories that relies heavily on the power of the narrator. As Alex retells the story of the last five years of his life. We are dragged into wondering how Alex managed to get stopped at Dover and for a long time that really isn’t clear. But that is because Alex is letting everything unfold as it happened to him.

Now I’ve got to be very careful with spoilers. I think knowing why Alex got there before you get told would cut the little cord that keeps you reading.

It’s not that Alex’s life isn’t fascinating in its own way (he has some intriguing views and obsessions) but it’s not very dramatic. It’s really about how his relationship with Mr Peterson changes as they get to know each other and how strong Alex becomes. Exctence gives them a grandfather/grandchild relationship and their friendship is quite sweet.

And that’s the thing; it’s a sweet story. Alex is funny. It has some sad and some extremely sad moments as well. It has a cast who all have their own distinct personalities and view. Though it is a limited cast and that is one of my issues with it.

The narration of Alex is obviously selective but it feels that Extence has been slightly too sparse with Alex’s life outside the story. Even the most lonely children usually find things to do with other people every now and again. Alex’s life feels a little too insular, which niggled at me as I read it.

I also felt it had that crossover feel of The Curious Case of the Dog in the Nighttime. Not because of their unique protagonists, though they do share that, but because a teenage reader may see themselves and their life differently after reading it.

I’m not sure they would be able to do what Alex does and I’m not sure how many people could. That is the strength of story that is being told. Alex’s voice keeps you reading but the ending makes you admire him and makes it a tale that you’re really glad you’ve read. Even it did need the occasional wiping of the eye.

Summary

It’s becoming a cliche to that say that x is a strong debut novel which shows the author has potential but TUvsAW is one of those novels.

It’s definitely a story to read for its emotional rather than logical impact. As I’ve said above, there is a sense of unreality around some of the events but not enough to pull me out of the story.

Extence is a strong writer. Alex Woods feels like a unique and powerful character and as a narrator had me laughing and crying.

Extence’s storytelling sense is strong. He has Alex skim events without you feeling cheated and slows down at the right places. In that sense it reminded me of The Song of Achilles, where Miller focuses on the emotions and pulls into the Iliad as needed and so does Extence.

Despite the occasional fuzziness of world outside the bubble of the story it’s a tale well worth telling and reading. It’s also one that makes a cross-over novel for adults and children alike and I’m curious to see that Gavin Extence writes next.

08Feb 2013

City Watch Re-Read: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

Gav Reads ⋅ 6 Comments

Synopsis

A plan is being hatched to overthrow the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork and replace him with a King. In order to do that the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night need to summon a dragon, because everyone knowns that the true King will be the man who saves the City by slaying a dragon.

At the same time Carrot Ironfoundersson, who is too tall to be dwarf (being human and all), is sent by his adopted dwarf parents to Ankh-Morpork to join the City Watch, who we first meet in the form of a drunk Captain Vimes. The somehow unneeded, until now, Night Watch get it together to investigate the appearance of dragon and some burnt human outlines in a wall, which couldn’t possibly be a dragon? Could it…

Comments/Thoughts/Analysis

It has to be 16 years since I last read Guards! Guards! I’ve read almost all of the Disworld books (but not end of Mort, or all of Wintersmith, Making Money, I Shall Wear Midnight, and Snuff) so I’m well versed in the Discworld, and I have read a few of them multiple times when I was younger (Wyrd Sisters, Sourcery, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, Hogfather), but I haven’t re-read any of the City Watch ones until now.

After the effect of The Stress of Her Regard had on my reading (it drained my strength enough that 80 pages from the end I called it quits) someone on twitter (I’m avoiding name dropping) said I should re-read some Pratchett and she was absolutely right!

I hadn’t forgotten what a joy it is to read an early Pratchett as such but I may have forgotten the joy of re-reading something you liked a lot. I even think I had a better time this time around. More than once I was laughing out loud and then having to explain what I had set me off, which is particularly hard when you’re chuckling to the image of Lady Ramkin as Discworld parallel valkyrie carrying off a battalion.

As an early Pratchett he’s working his way through some well trodden fantasy tropes by taking the mickey and here it’s not only the idea of a royal heir coming back to reclaim a throne but also the idea of what it is to be hero, which is played out beautifully in a scene where the various heroes for hire decide that they’d rather be in the put.

It also show’s how skilled Terry is an observer of human behaviour:

‘Human nature, the Patrician always said, was a marvellous thing. Once you understood where the levers were.’

This quote is at the beginning but is especially effected when reflected on at the end after discussion between Vimes and Patrician where they consider their respective roles in the world.

And by the end you can see why the world needs both a Vimes and a Patrician. Someone that sticks by the rules and someone who manipulates them.

It’s also novel of privilege, the brothers who summon the dragon are doing so because they want to end the oppression they feel they are suffering. Though of course when the King strips the privileges of others there will be some exceptions won’t there? They are slightly deluding themselves I think.

It’s also a love story, and a sweet one at that, but it would spoil it to say more.

Summary

I really enjoyed Guards! Guards! I enjoyed it that much that I’ve had to stop myself from reading Men at Arms until I’d written this review. If I hadn’t I think I’d have caught up with Snuff (the latest to feature Sam Vines) and not got around to reading any other books but those featuring the Watch.

For a new reader to the Discworld I think this is the perfect introduction. Not only do you see the embryonic stages of the Watch (three dysfunctional men joined by an eager forth), you get to see the City as a fully formed character. You get glimpses of the Guilds and what a clever man the Patrician is and why he is one of my favourite characters along with the Librarian (and it takes a lot of skill to understand a character who mostly says Ook!?).

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