1848, England has grown fat on the labour of the Lilliputians discovered by Gulliver. The old enemy, France, enlist the help of the giant Brobdingnagians to finally take England once and for all. In London, Abraham Bates worries about the plight of the enslaved Lilliputians and tries to ignore the base temptation of sin that the married Eleanor Burton represents. As war rages across the British Isles, Bates must try to find a position he can live with in a rapidly changing world just as humanity must try to find its way in a universe far stranger than they ever imagined.

I struggle to know where to begin with this review.

Taking Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels it dances its way through a menagerie of SF tropes and ideas as it twists round on itself. Indeed, if I have any criticism it is that there is too much shoehorned into what isn’t the longest novel in the world. However, those many ideas colliding are what provide - for this reviewer anyway - the macro theme against which Bates’s story makes sense. By which convoluted ramblings I mean to highlight that the collection of threats to humanity seemed to work well with Bates’ personal journey through his own hypocrisy to some kind of acceptance of who he is.

At its core is the story of Bates and Burton; two well drawn and equally hard to like central characters whom are nevertheless compelling. A great deal of care and attention has been taken with the language and attitudes of the protagonists. Although this is hardly a surprise given Roberts’ background (Roberts is an Academic by day), it does lend the novel an authentic voice that I’ve seen trip other authors up.

The structure of the book creaks a little in places as Roberts bends and twists the novel format to the limits of breaking point but always pulling it back just in time. Swiftly was written over a much longer period than Roberts’ work normally takes to produce.  I suspect this longer gestation period has encouraged Roberts to play with structure and it paid off: the results are impressive.

I have no doubt that this novel is a success both as an intellectual exercise and as a piece of art. As for commercial appeal: I’d like to think it would find a wider audience but I suspect it may be misunderstood outside of the SF genre. If that is the case it will be a crying shame for readers will be missing out on what is a damned fine book and one of Roberts’ best.

I recommend it with gusto.

4/5

The Madman’s Tale (John Katzenbach) sounds like a pretty promising premise. The story is told through the eyes of schizophrenic former patient Francis “C-Bird” Petrel, who is writing anecdotes from his past on his apartment wall and slowly descending back into insanity. When a murder takes place in the Western State Mental Hospital in Massachusetts, the authorities automatically assume a particular inmate is guilty. However, profiler Lucy Jones, is not convinced. The case holds way too many similarities to a series of murders she has been investigating and so she enters the hospital in the hope of finding out who is pretending to be insane in a world populated by the mentally unsound.

From the word go we are expected accept that Lucy would logically and professionally decide to use Francis and another patient known as Peter, The Fireman, as co-investigators and that the hospital authorities would not only agree to this but also that they’d allow them to be involved in the questioning of other patients. Even if you can suspend your disbelief, the back-stories are clumsy and confused and to some degree unnecessary. Either develop them properly or bin them!

While it is initially excitingly voyeuristic looking into the hospital and all the weird and wonderful neuroses and behaviours exhibited by the patients, the story moves at the pace of a snail in a salt factory and the time that Katzenbach should have spent actually working the potentially delightfully screwed up attraction he introduces between Lucy and The Fireman (and then ignores), is spent beating us over the head with endless descriptions of the same behaviour.

By the time the story came to its inevitable conclusion with its big “twist” I was so bored didn’t care what happened anymore. The plot had gotten so out of control that they might as well have had aliens dropping a nuke on the hospital because it would have been equally believable.

If Katzenbach had actually gone with exploring the disastrous repercussions of the story he cobbled together rather than tying them together in a way that would make Disney proud, it could have been a very compelling read but it feels like a cowardly copout fuelled by laziness.

In conclusion:

-    If you want to get your weirdo fix, go and read One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest again instead
-    If you want your serial killer crime fix, Go and watch Se7en again instead
-    If Katzenbach wants to write something he expects us to believe could realistically happen he should write something realistic. Otherwise he should move on to fantasy.
-    If you’d rather not waste however long it takes you to get through a 600 page novel, don’t bother with this one.

1/5

Marcelina Hoffman is a reality TV producer who likes martial arts and will contemplate most things in the interest of good telly. Desperate for her next break she’s searching Brazil for the footballer that shamed the nation in the world cup half a century before. In the mid-21st century a street-wise Edson finds himself embroiled in the illegal trade in quantum technology. In the 18th century Quinn, a Jesuit priest, searches for another of his order who has gone rogue deep in the jungle where he is harbouring a dark secret. Such are the threads of story on which McDonald embarks in what is an entertaining but flawed novel.

Starting from David Deutsch’s classic meditation, The Fabric of Reality, McDonald attempts to weave together three disparate stories using the framework of quantum physics. What appears at first to be three different stories across three different times is not quite so straightforward and it’s an interesting narrative structure even if you’ve read the source material that spawned the idea. It’s not an entirely successful gambit.

The principal problem with split narrative is that there must be enough cohesion between the segments for the whole to hang together and in Brasyl I don’t feel this was the case. Largely because there wasn’t enough between the three threads for them to feel properly part of the whole and this fragmentation was particularly problematic in the beginning sections of the novel. Indeed, it was tough going for a while until more of the ideas began to seep into the story.

The most interesting and well-drawn character, for me, was that of Edson but I felt he was under-utilised. I didn’t find Marcelina that interesting or believable as she felt like a caricature, as did Quinn who seemed to be a cross between Charlie Sheen in Apocalypse Now and Zorro. This was disappointing because there’s so much scope within the conceits of Brasyl for character driven story and, indeed, the nature of identity which seemed to be woefully under utilised as a theme.

On the positive side you can’t fault McDonald on his ideas. They pound through the story like a chrome artificial heart pumping life into the novel and gathering pace as you head into the book’s conclusion. Detailed research on Brazil puts flesh on the poorly welded skeleton of the narrative, hiding its flaws beneath its dark beauty. The novel’s final punches are smart and scary in a way that leaves more mainstream versions of this idea exposed for the fluff they are (I am trying to avoid spoiling the ending for people hence not naming comparisons). Yes: there are things to admire in this book.

Three conclusions:

- I think it’s worth a read.
- I don’t think it’s exceptional – although it has its moments.
- I don’t think we’ve seen the best of McDonald yet.

3/5

NB - You can read a more admiring and in depth exploration of Brasyl over at Jetse de Vries’s blog here. It does contain spoilers.

Saturday follows the actions of neurosurgeon, Henry Perowne on one particular day that will alter his life and his view of the world forever. Set to the backdrop of a terrorism obsessed London pre-Iraq invasion, the drama’s of Perowne’s life run parallel to a mass anti-war protest and a general feeling of unease caused by a plane crash for unknown reasons.

Written with almost overwhelming description of the most mundane detail, Perowne’s day begins with him witnessing the plane crash as a metaphor for his life that is about to crash down before him. Perowne’s life is insulated by a happy marriage, talented children and highly-successful career, which leave him floundering when he is faced with a random run-in with Baxter, an irrational and violent stranger from a world he can barely comprehend.

Although Perowne is able to use his wits to escape the situation, the thuggish Baxter is not as willing to end the exchange as he is. In an explosive climax, Baxter proves to be the catalyst to Perowne’s discovery that everything is not as it seems both in and outside his home.

Saturday uses a minimalist plot to extract both an emotive and intellectual response, making the reader question how we form the very opinions on which we base our lives and how simple it is to become so lost in the details that the bigger picture becomes a blur.

As a whole I have to admit that I didn’t find Perowne very sympathetic as a character. Although I could identify with some of his struggles, such as the triumph of guilt over self-indulgence when he visits his elderly mother, he is a middle-aged, middle-class, conservative… dad. Oddly it didn’t seem necessary to warm to him to find his story compelling and I got a small (if guilty) kick from watching the fragments of his life unravel. I’m not sure if that was what McEwan was going for, but it worked for me.

While I struggled initially to get into the novel and occasionally felt lost in the detail myself (when it got to lists and lists of unpronounceable medical terminology, I just made up my own weird sounds to replace them), I would highly recommend this thought-provoking study of how one day can alter the course of a life.

4/5

To many a nethead and SF geek alike John Scalzi is the stuff of myth, a man who managed to get a book deal off the Internet (Via Whatever) and have it turn in decent sales. Also he tapes bacon to cats. Earlier in the year, when the title was again released for free on the Internet, I reviewed his first novel, Old Man’s War, here.

Now, I like my literary SF as much as the next geek but, to be perfectly honest, with the amount of commuting I do I sometimes just want a rollicking good read and lashings of action. I think it’s actually quite hard to write that type of book credibly, even more so to do it more than once and manage to get in some solid SF tropes in a way that works. I was curious to see if John Scalzi could do the same thing twice.*

The Ghost Brigades is set in the same universe as Old Man’s War. It picks up the story of Jane Sagan – John Perry’s love interest from Old Man’s War – as she leads her squad of soldiers, cloned from dead people, one of the afore mentioned Ghost Brigades, against a series of hostile alien races hell bent on an alliance that would wipe out humanity. Helping the aliens is a human scientist (Boutin) once entrusted with humanity’s all-important genetic technologies and a key factor in humanities expansion into space.

Jared Dirac is a different kind of super soldier, created not from a dead person but from the DNA and memories of the scientist that betrayed humanity. When this attempt to access Boutin’s memories via Jared apparently fails he joins Sagan’s squad, fighting side by side with the Ghost Brigades as his memories slowly begin to resurface and the knowledge of what Boutin really has planned.

I sometimes feel Scalzi is done a disservice by the constant references to Heinlein, that he is noticeably riffing off the master of military SF is not in question - indeed Scalzi is quite open about this. No, the problem to me is that it gives reviewers and readers an excuse to gloss over some of the more interesting ideas that Scalzi slips in the back door. In fact I have just done much the same thing by opening the review by saying I like a rollicking good read and lashings of action, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with action SF. And fans of action SF will find a heap of stuff to love about this book, it’s just that isn’t all there is to The Ghost Brigades.

At the core Scalzi has deftly weaved a story about personal identity in amongst all the killer aliens, genetically enhanced super soldiers and explosive set pieces. Yet he doesn’t stop there, as Boutin’s memories begin to surface and Jared tries to work out who he actually is - Boutin or Jared - Scalzi take political ethics for a spin around the block, keeping the reader on their toes. It’s a neat trick betting on the reader’s knowledge of Heinlein’s work and military SF’s tropes to make the reader as confused as Jared as to who’re the good guys and who’re the bad.

Sure, I could sit here and take pops at Scalzi, pointing out where his work falls short of other more hard core or literary SF writers but you know what: he wouldn’t give a shit and neither will most of the people that read The Ghost Brigades. Why? Because its not meant to be hard SF or literary SF, its meant to be a rollicking good read with lashings of action and if it makes you think a bit about personal identity, well: that’s just gravy. Above all these it’s meant to be fun and in that Scalzi really has succeeded.

4/5
* Also proving I’m a slave to Doctorow’s theory of marketing I marched out and obtained a paperback copy this time.

The story goes that it was a small cemetery near Gaiman’s house in the eighties, where he used to take his son to ride on his tricycle, that merged, in the author’s head, with The Jungle Book to produce the idea of a boy raised by ghosts. That’s why we have The Graveyard Book. Of course Gaiman’s son is now a grown man and The Graveyard Book has only been on release a few weeks. Why did it take so long?

Gaiman, explaining the situation both on his blog and at conventions around the world, has stated that he believed the idea was better than he could do justice to as a writer at the time. He tried. At numerous points over the years he had a go and we have at least two very good short stories as a result of those experiments - one of them forms chapter four of the actual text. Each time he was unhappy with the results and it was only his daughter’s insistence in knowing what else happened after he wrote The Witch’s Headstone (chapter four of The Graveyard Book) that he continued writing. Deciding that if he waited for himself to get “good enough” he’d never write it.

It’s a fair cop really because on the face of it The Graveyard Book shouldn’t work. A children’s book starting with a brutal murder, about a child raised by ghosts, riffing quite openly off Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and told in a series of short stories with a yawning two year gap between tales. It sounds a tough sell.

The structure is the key reason this book shouldn’t work. If short stories have one failing it is that their length makes it extremely hard to develop characters properly, that’s why they’re so hard to write well. In the structure Gaiman chose, one of the key challenges would’ve been to develop the central characters (Bod and Silas) to the point where readers felt they had read a novel rather than an anthology. A difficult task made harder given each story takes place two years apart (and Bod is a child, changing all the time).

Quite simply it shouldn’t work and yet: somehow it does.

The Graveyard Book is the story of Nobody Owens, rescued as a small child from the murderer whom has killed the rest of his family and subsequently brought up by the inhabitants of a near-by graveyard. From his ghostly parents to his undead guardian, through to ghouls and witches, we follow Bod as he grows up, learning the ways of the dead - and a few things about life - crashing headlong into adulthood and the inevitable confrontation with the man who killed his family.

If you read this book and all you get are ghosts, ghouls and witchcraft just go back and read it again. The plot is largely incidental, the book is about childhood, growing up and the importance of the people we meet along the way. Most importantly it’s about life.

As Gaiman notes in the acknowledgments, and I have mentioned a few times here, this book owes a lot to Kipling, and adults who have read The Jungle Book will enjoy the echo immensely, as I suspect will those (adult and child alike) who go on to read The Jungle Book for the first time as a result of reading The Graveyard Book. Ray Bradbury’s influence is also noticeable, particularly the excellent Something Wicked This Way Comes. And of course there’s a fair old whack of classic Neil Gaiman running through the whole mix providing a rich seam of dark humour, wryly drawn observation and wise understated lessons.

I’ve talked a little about the structure of the book and its potential pitfalls. I’ve also made the bold (and some would say rash) claim that it works but it would be unfair not to point out that it sails perilously close to failure in places, most noticeably with the jumping timeline. This is particularly the case with the transition from chapter five to six and it clunks a little – even given the interlude.

These judders seem to be produced from a desire to truthfully portray the transitions of a child as they grow up and you could argue that the change from nine to eleven is a pretty big one. I think for adult readers they really do work as a structural analogy for how fast the pace of change is in a child and how time flickers by but I wonder if children won’t find it takes them out of the story a little.

The characterisation of some of the supporting cast is less well done than the main characters and Bod’s adopted parents fall particularly foul of this in places. This may well come - if memory serves correctly - from The Jungle Book and the decision to focus on Bod’s mentors rather than his parents. It is after all a fair comment that a few well placed mentor’s can have a hugely profound impact on a child. Still, there were points were I thought Gaiman was going to wipe out (to use a totally inappropriate surfing metaphor).

I’m not a big one for spoilers (and I won’t be starting now) but it is worth noting that chapter eight lifts The Graveyard Book from good to great and shows Gaiman at his absolute best: funny, wise, sad, joyous and able to play the reader’s emotions like an accordion.

So overall what did I think?

That I liked this book should be quite clear. It is not without flaws largely as a result of the downside of using a short story structure but it is hard to see how the story could be told as effectively without the format chosen. It would be a different, duller, and probably bloated tale instead of the lean, bold tale it is.

For me – and somewhat irritatingly – Garth Nix puts it best on the dust jacket:

“I wish my younger self could have had the opportunity to read and reread this wonderful book, and my older self wishes that I had written it.” Garth Nix

Without question a must read.

I have a love/hate relationship with Malcolm Pryce’s Louie Knight/Aberystwyth series; I loved Aberystwyth Mon Amour and was frankly deeply let down by Last Tango In Aberystwyth. Could Pryce’s third outing with Louie Knight succeed where Last Tango failed?

As with previous books in the series the book revolves around Pryce’s send up of Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in the form of private investigator Louie Knight. Transposing L.A. for Welsh seaside town Aberystwyth leaves for a comic formula that whilst very endearing once could easily become tiresome in a series. In The Unbearable Lightness of being in Aberystwyth we find knight down on his luck, forced to downscale his offices due to a dearth of cases, his girlfriend abducted and an ex-astronaut monkey who wants a murder investigated. Knight knows better than to investigate murders on behalf of overachieving primates but he’s too broke not to take on the case. The plot rotates through mad nuns, cloning, quasi-religious cults, poisoned ice creams, memory loss and a rich humour as black as night.

There’s lots to love in this book which is a return to form for Pryce with more of the fun of Mon Amour back in the mix and less emphasis on the more formulaic elements. The pacing of the story is nicely handled and the humour has broad appeal without losing its grotesque pier-side punch.

The book – like the series – is not without its problems. The story is still noticeably funnier if you’re Welsh and if you – like the reviewer – know Aberystwyth reasonably well. That’s not to say it won’t tickle those not blessed with being Welsh (sorry couldn’t resist), indeed Pryce’s mainstream success is built off the Knight series and so clearly many people get most of the jokes.

The prose style is gradually migrating further away from the writers Pryce is affectionately sending up and this is a good thing as the series needs its own voice if it is to succeed long term. Yet, it has to be noted that the use of metaphor and descriptive imagery is not as strong or as successful as other pastiches and the story is perhaps over reliant on the humour to elevate it.

So was it a success? Yes but…whilst The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth is a noticeable step up in writing and better than Last Tango in Aberystwyth it still isn’t as good as Aberystwyth Mon Amour. This reviewer is keen to see if Pryce can manage to hit his stride properly and what Pryce comes out with should he do that. For now start with Mon Amour, leave long gaps between each installment and enjoy.

I’m off to get some Ice Cream from Sospan. But not raspberry ripple.

The advantage of breaking through via a mainstream title is that you can cross over the lines to SF and the mainstream does not think ill of you. However, that doesn’t mean the ability to write successfully for the mainstream translates to an ability to write genre fiction. In fact more often than not the reverse is true – So does Chabon pull it off?

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is an alternative history/Chandler pastiche set in a once proposed and long forgotten haven for Jewish refuges that would have been located in Alaska. In Chabon’s version of history this proposal was successful and the city of Sitka created whilst at the same time the fledgling state of Israel is destroyed in 1948. Sixty years on Sitka is due to revert back to Alaskan control. On the cusp of reversion, the story follows Detective Meyer Landsman on his quest to solve the murder of one drug addicted former chess protégé, aided by his boss (also his ex-wife) and his partner (his cousin).

Chabon succeeds because of two crucial differences between himself and many mainstream writers: 1. He’s simply a better writer than ninety percent of the market and 2. He’s a huge genre fan. The latter being the most important because it provides Chabon with a ready arsenal of knowledge as to what works and what doesn’t. He writes this stuff because he loves it.

That love shines through the book, from the artful and joyous journey across Chandler’s simile strewn wake to the careful construction of his alternative universe. Entwined with those two central conceits is a seam of Jewish mythology that also runs through Chabon’s successful The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

The delicately constructed story’s central murder mystery provides a strong rhythm around which the well-drawn characters weave. The real drama – of course – is provided by the interaction of these characters and the relationships they’ve built with each other. Chabon’s skill comes from being able to mould all of these elements into a well rounded whole that few writers are able to come close to. The prose is literary without being obtuse and the pastiching of Chandler is done well without tipping into cheeserama. Indeed: it surpasses Chandler on occasion.

There is very little to fall foul of in this book, the mapping out of divergent history is discreet and logical. Similarly the plotting of the murder mystery is kept in check and not allowed to shout down everything else. Indeed, the only place I found anything that really jarred was just a single word choice, hardly worth mentioning bar for that fact its unexpected and awkward placement took me briefly out of the story. Indeed I suspect it was either just placed in there to shock – not going to work for non-American readers – or was missed by the copy editors. It just didn’t fit.

In summary: an entertaining, intelligent read that should appeal to mainstream, crime and SF readers in equal measure. Thought provoking and blessed with luscious language that begs to be read out loud – you need to read this book.

5/5

Been a bit rushed this week. However I thought some author type videos might be of interest.

It would be easy during the course of this review to embark on a debate as to whether Living Next Door to the God of Love is in fact Hard SF or fantasy. However, I find such discourse somewhat dull, introspective and ultimately incompatible with my view, that being: you use whatever tropes work to tell the story you need to tell. I suspect much of what some call Science Fantasy arises from a similar attitude.

And Living Next Door to the God of Love is very much cut from that mould.

On the SF front we have multiple universes, people wired up to networks, cyborgs, machine controlled universes and vast multidimensional beings so great in their power they are considered gods. But we also have elves, superheroes, mythical creatures and angels. In short there’s an awful lot going on in this book.

Ostensibly the book is about Francine, a fifteen year old run away and Jalaeka, a run away of a different kind, chased by the vast entity that created him and now wants to consume him. Weaving in and out of their story are a collection of characters with their own tales to tell: from a grief-stricken cyborg and a flirtatious elf through to a scientist seeking answers, stitching it all together is the central theme of love. Whether that’s the loss of, nature of, absence of, breaking of or any other facets that my limited experience of the world failed to pick up on.

Woven in with this you’ll find the nature of identity being picked at and poked at, in particular what close relationships do to who you are, how they change you and make you into something new. And I think it’s safe to say there’s a liberal dose of ethics there as well.

By which you could be feeling: Jeez, a little light reading then… However, I would be doing the book a disservice if I left you with that impression because there’s also: cyborgs, elves, mythical creatures, AI, multiple-universe, big epic conflict…you get the idea. The story has layers.

I really liked this book. I’m quite a big fan of the first in Robson’s Quantum Gravity series but I liked Living Next Door to the God of Love rather more, even though it shows clear foreshadowing of that later story. The prose has a good, clean, visual style and I really warmed to the split POV structure of the book (each chapter tells the story from a different character’s POV, some of them overlapping slightly).

That SF is a literature of ideas is something Robson clearly understands and the maelstrom of ideas in this book will have such addicts purring, but there’s real thematic depth and story to this book, keeping story junkies like myself happy. The characters, particularly the central cast, are well drawn and inject an all-important emotional heartbeat into the work.

The book has a few weaknesses. The structure of the book, whilst being one I enjoyed, is unlikely to appeal to more mainstream sensibilities and this is a bit of a shame as they’re missing out. There is also such an abundance of stuff going on in this book that at times it feels unrelenting and undoubtedly results in some points getting lost in the mix.

Final thoughts: a really smart, honest look at love, relationships and identity in a sexy cyberpunk cross fantasy wrapper. If you like your reading to be challenging and entertaining you’ll love this and I recommend it whole-heartedly.

4/5