Gav Reads

A Web Log of Reading

  • Review: The Tinder Box by M.R. Carey [2026]

    Spoilers: Mild (themes and setup only
    Genre: Fantasy
    Format: e-ARC
    Source: NetGalley (in exchange for an unbiased review)
    Rating: Liked

    This is Carey’s take on a short story by Hans Christian Andersen, unsurprisingly also called The Tinderbox. He tells the tale of a soldier and a witch whose existence has been put at risk by the deeds of their rulers.

    If you’re wanting an action/adventure you’re not getting that. What you do get is a slower examination of good, bad, wicked and truly evil.

    Set in a small Eastern European country of Allesheim, where there is a seemingly endless war with its neighbours, Ehrlich and Pozhka, though it’s unclear what they are truly fighting about.

    It’s implied that whoever wins this fight for control will ultimately make no difference to the lives of the citizens of each country. And while the rulers squabble, their citizens are starving and dying for the sake of a war that has no end in sight.

    The tone of the book is set by Mag Tresti, as he describes his honourable medical discharge being conducted alongside the execution of his condemned comrades, who have been branded as faithless cowards and are to be executed in batches. Both events are carried out on behalf of, and in the presence of, the king.

    The soldier notes that, despite the pending deaths and general unhappiness of the gathering soldiers being honoured, a semblance of approval has been conjured up for the king’s speech where there was none. This hints at the power of the adviser, which is both magical and political.

    Mag, the now ex-soldier, is shunned by those he comes across on his search for new employment, but eventually finds himself asking a reclusive widow, Jannae Mirchella, for work. Surprisingly but brusquely, she agrees, initially with terms acceptable to both.

    But the terms offered—payment on completion of work—are not fulfilled, as she is always finding work to be done. This doesn’t seem to matter until Mag is doing a dangerous task and comes into possession of a Tinder Box.

    This event soon coincides with him leaving the widow’s employ; formerly a man without power, he now seems to possess something powerful, though he doesn’t know at the time that it contains three devils.

    The widow, however, is a witch. One who has been waiting for some unspecified right moment to go back into the world. This is not the moment she was waiting for, but recovering the box is overwhelming.

    While travelling she starts to remember her past, and becomes haunted by a key moment, forced to look back at this and other decisions her circumstances forced her to take. She examines the most important one—taking her revenge—and why she’s been putting it off.

    We start with Mag’s narration, but the story demands we see into the heart of Jannae, so it is then told from her perspective. And we get to understand what she’s willing to sacrifice, and are challenged to believe that there might be some good in her cold heart.

    We switch between the two as one hunts the other down.

    We even get to see the world through the king’s adviser, though we see nothing redeeming through his eyes.

    The limits of choice are a theme that cuts across our three main characters, and we get to see the world from each of them, which may be a bit disappointing to those who were enjoying the ex-soldier’s narration and were happy to see the world from his point of view.

    Told from multiple points of view, this allows Carey to provide better commentary and insight. The slower nature of the story gives space for this. He examines women in this society, who are not well thought of; the role of soldiers, seen as replicable; the ambivalence of those who hold power, though it is really the people who hold it; how people can be oh so very petty, where telling tales really doesn’t have consequences; and overall the value of a life, which becomes about living in the moment.

    Ultimately, it is the story of how life doesn’t like people who want to live outside the boxes that society puts them into, making sure they toe the line, which is literal in the case of the three devils.

    The skill of Carey’s storytelling is shown in scenes where Mag tries to befriend the inhabitants of the Tinder Box – like Aladdin’s genie, they can seemingly grant any wish, but they are prisoners bound to the commands of their possessor, and unlike the genie they have no end to their sentence. Does he win them over? Are they actually wicked or have they also found themselves on the wrong side of an ambivalent ruler?

    There are reflections from both the living, the meta-living, and the dead.

    On what happens to the living after death, one of the prisoners of the box says:

    ‘That knowledge Elohim has not shared with any. I have always assumed that there is a mill where old souls are washed and made new, but if there is I’ve never seen it. Perhaps they only fade. Or perhaps there is another place somewhere in which they enjoy a different existence. In any event, their persistence on this plane is short’

    It doesn’t matter to the god of this world (Elohim); like the King, both treat the world as if there will always be more people, and more souls, to do their bidding, and that’s how they inevitably become worthless.

    Carey makes you feel that everyone is worthy, well maybe not the evil King or his court. But everyone else—yes, there is a cost, but aren’t things of real value worth the price?

    I am trying not to say too much, because it’s not packed with events; it’s more thoughtful and meditative. I think this will frustrate some readers, which would be a shame.

    But if they stick with it, it’s a story of making the best of things, with some unrequited love—or perhaps lust—woven in.

    Overall, it’s a fairytale stretched into a novel, spending that extra time exploring the meaning of life and what can be achieved if you truly live.

    Note: I rate on a four-tier scale: Loved (4.5–5★), Liked (3.75–4.25★), Mixed (2.75–3.5★), and Not for me (1–2.5★).

  • Review: Floodlines by Saleem Haddad [2026]

    Spoilers: None
    Genre: Literary Fiction
    Format read: Print
    Disclosure: None [this book was purchased by me]
    Loved (4.5–5★)

    This is Haddad’s second novel. His first, Guapa, won the Polari First Book Prize and was set over 24 hours during the Arab Spring. Floodlines starts in July 2014 and ends in November 2014, but it documents events that happened decades earlier, and they ripple through its pages.

    Haddad shows us that dreams play a significant role in the trajectory of our lives. He presents us with characters who are happier when the past is forgotten and buried in the sand, and contrasts them with those whose childhood nostalgia is so powerful it demands their shared past be uncovered. A past cleaned up and carried aloft with pride, like a tarnished family heirloom of uncertain value.

    As the story progresses, some of the characters’ imagined pasts are shown to be untethered from reality. These conflicting memories explosively converge by the end of the novel. They often take the form of a waking dream, in which past events in Iraq intrude on the reality of their English country-cottage family home. Hopes for the future—a future where those displaced by the wars in Iraq are able to go home and re-find their identities—are harshly exposed as fantasy. But the reality is that a swept-away past has been left to fester.

    On its surface, this is a story of three sisters who are arguing over how to honour or preserve their father’s artistic legacy. Their father was a hero in Iraq, still revered as a great artist, and is remembered for the impact he had. But the plan to track down his art and exhibit it unravels the past that has been tightly bound and hidden away.

    There is an early email exchange in which Zainab states to Mediha, “I am copying in Ishtar because all three of us, as Hayder’s daughters, should be involved in these discussions.” However, this exchange later boils over with the reply, “Your concern for Baba’s legacy is laughable. What is driving all this sudden love and adoration?”

    Haddad weaves a tapestry using the points of view of a son (Nizar, a war journalist turned sex worker), his mother (Zainab), her two sisters (Ishtar, the middle sister, and Mediha, the youngest and carer to their mother), and their mother (Bridget). Each point of view is a loose thread that the characters and the story tug on, as the lies their lives were built on unravel.

    Art does not heal the trauma, and exposing the realities through factual reporting doesn’t either. The act of creation and observation does, however, expose the inner self. For example, Zainab collects objects and creates handicrafts and is seen as a lesser artist, while Ishtar has turned her art into political protest but is now beating a drum that only she can hear.

    Lies sit at the heart of the novel because they are used to sweep away the truth. It is a story of dreams and quests, but also of the realities of displacement, and of how setting the past aside in favour of the present does not remove its burdens.

    Though the story opens with Nizar, it is ultimately a family story. Haddad centres each of them, and some of the most powerful moments come when Bridget’s past and present merge. In these skilfully described scenes, you wonder if you are in a country home in the UK or standing in a house in Iraq. By the end, you know their mother has moulded them, but their history, and the desert heat, have fired them.

    Floodlines asks: What does their father’s art reveal? And is that knowledge worth it?

    The answer challenges taboos and conformity, exposing the lies we tell others and ourselves to feel safe. Ultimately, it serves as a warning that art is the heart revealed.

  • Review: The Devils by Joe Abercrombie [2025] — Retrospective

    Originally Finished: 11 December 2025
    Spoilers: None
    Rating: Loved — 4.5–5★
    Format Read: Audiobook & eBook
    Disclosure: None [all versions purchased by me]

    If you don’t feel for the monsters in the end, I worry about your humanity.

    I think Abercrombie is a bit of a softie, really. He tells the story of a werewolf, an elf, a vampire, a necromancer, an immortal, and—I’m not entirely sure who or what Baptiste is—and makes you care about what happens to them.

    They are the Chapel of the Holy Expediency’s congregation, bound to the Church to deal with its more problematic issues.

    Their latest mission is to see a princess safely return home while avoiding other challengers to the throne.

    On the way, they get into several scrapes, several shags, and let out several screams.

    Steven Pacey’s audiobook performance embraces the text, almost revelling in the violence and vulgarity.

    Recommended for lovers of fun but grizzly fantasy.

  • Review: God’s Junk Drawer by Peter Clines [2024]

    Spoilers: None
    Genre: Portal Fantasy / Survival Fantasy
    Format Read: ebook
    Disclosure: None [this book was purchased by me]

    God’s Junk Drawer is the story of a child, Billy Gather, who, along with his sister, Beau, and father, goes missing during a rafting trip and ends up in a valley with dinosaurs, aliens, Neanderthals, and androids. It isn’t as silly as you’d expect. Clines takes it seriously, and because of that, it’s more emotionally resonant than I could have imagined.

    Rating: 4.5★ / 5

    I liked it, I think. Let me explain.

    I’ve stepped back from reviewing for a while because I felt a bit of an imbalance. The analytical side of my brain — the part that holds the book in a buffer in my mind and runs analysis on it — had, I think, started to take away from the feelings that make reading enjoyable, the joy that my more emotive side gets from a book.

    This might explain why I’ve been enjoying books that give a strong emotional response, even when I can see ‘flaws’ that my more logical side would normally have focused on and criticised the book for. God’s Junk Drawer is exactly the kind of book that benefits from that shift — one that hits the emotional notes even if the logic sometimes feels like unwelcome static.

    It opens with clippings about a missing boy who is suddenly found, and he claims he’s been to a fantastical valley full of dinosaurs. In the present, the now‑adult Billy (Noah) has figured out a way to return there — but not without accidentally taking a group of graduate astronomy students and their guide with him, none of whom, unlike Noah, had prepared for the trip.

    Once that happens, it becomes clear why Clines has chosen to alternate points of view (PoV). Jumping from head to head is probably my least favourite storytelling technique. Here, though, it feels essential: a group of people experiencing the fantastical from different perspectives, with no preparation, alongside one adult who was certain the valley hadn’t changed.

    There’s a childhood naivety mixed with a teenage arrogance to Noah — he insists he knows everything there is to know about the valley — but he’s proven wrong pretty quickly. Not only about the current landscape, but about the nature of the valley itself. Clines does an exceptional job of keeping me guessing, and even as we reach the climax, he still has one or two surprises left to reveal.

    It’s a very open‑minded work, and it plays a lot with the histories of its characters. One pair in particular has an ‘aha’ moment that reframes why they hate each other so much — a reveal that lands with real emotional weight.

    It’s also a very brutal book — not just because the valley is dangerous, but because Clines is telling a story with real impact, rather than one that prioritises emotional safety.

    Now that I’ve sat with it a bit, thinking about what the valley is and its history, I do like it. I’d recommend resisting the urge to understand the valley early on; Clines reveals its nature gradually, setting things up only to pull back a curtain and show something else. Even then, I think there are still a few gaps I’d have appreciated more insight on.

    Overall, I really liked how Clines shows Noah that what his teenage self remembered was not reality, and that the sacrifices he’d made to get back had a far wider impact — both positive and negative — than he’d selfishly assumed.

    If you want to experience a valley with dinosaurs, consider your own survival odds, and have your assumptions happily eroded, I’d recommend it.

    Note: I rate on a four-tier scale: Loved (4.5–5★), Liked (3.75–4.25★), Mixed (2.75–3.5★), and Not for me (1–2.5★).

  • Review: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz [2025]

    Spoilers: None
    Genre: Cosy Sci-Fi
    Format Read: Print
    Disclosure: None (purchased by me)

    Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz is virtually perfect. Newitz exquisitely pulls off a chewy tale of survival, camaraderie, and noodle-making. I loved it. Can we have more of these heartfelt, low-but-high-stakes stories, please?

    Rating: 4.75★ / 5

    In a near‑future San Francisco, a crew of robots awaken to find they’ve been abandoned along with their employer/owner’s food‑making business, but because of late‑stage capitalism, they also have bills to pay. So they decide to pool their collective skills and set up their own ghost kitchen, selling noodles for collection or delivery. It all seems to go well until the 1‑star reviews.

    Over 160‑odd pages, Newitz tells a low‑stakes but high personal‑impact tale set in the present but kneads into it the origins of each member of the staff, and if you don’t cry when you hear about the memories one of them holds on to in order to relive them, your heart is harder than mine.

    The skill here is that Newitz makes each robot feel alive. They are not just humans in robotic shells; the challenges they face are unique to each of them. And collectively, they have to stay under the radar of the Californian Vigilance Committee.

    It’s the hope for collective success, as well as getting to know them, that is the heart of Automatic Noodle. Seeing the unfairness of the 1‑star reviews, and how manipulation by aggrieved people impacts those who are innocent and harmless, is truly upsetting, but seeing how they go about facing it is heartwarming.

    Highly Recommended

    Note: I rate on a four-tier scale: Loved (4.5–5★), Liked (3.75–4.25★), Mixed (2.75–3.5★), and Not for me (1–2.5★).