Books of 2008, reading plan 2009

The Land at the End of the Working Day by Peter CrowtherLast year I set myself a target of reading 60 books (novels or novellas, not counting graphic novels) and came pretty darn close to meeting that target with a total of 55, which wasn't too shabby.

I started the year with Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie and finished with The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore. In between, I managed to explore a reasonably eclectic mix of territories: from epic fantasy to psychological horror, historical mystery to space opera, serial killer thriller to YA adventure, comic surrealism to fictional memoir.

I enjoyed far too many highlights to list them all, but I am extremely glad I read Guy Gavriel Kay's World Fantasy Award winning Ysabel, as well as Peter Crowther's mini-collection The Land at the End of the Working Day, from the now-defunct Humdrumming Press. Pete is selling copies of that one via the PS Publishing website and I urge you to grab one if you're any sort of fan of the strange, surreal, funny and moving bar tales of Spider Robinson's Callahan's series, in particular.

I also enjoyed reading (or re-reading) some favourite graphic novel series during the year. Mike Carey's eleven-volume Lucifer series was a real treat, and I also caught up with another swathe of Hellblazer back-reading. Plus, re-visits to Alan Moore's Tom Strong and Promethea and a re-read of Jeff Smith's nine-volume Bone adventures.

For 2009 I'm planning on revising my targets slightly. I'm still hoping to read about 60 books, but I'll be interspersing my regular fiction reads (many of which will be Orbit titles, naturally) with a number of marketing titles that I've got my eye on, hopefully to the tune of one a month. Meanwhile, my regular Xmas voucher haul will be helping to fill some gaps in my graphic novel collection, so I'm hoping to be able to re-read the first five volumes of Fables and bring myself up-to-date with the next six. I think I might take another look at The Books of Magic as well.

I'm also hoping to treat myself to a couple of re-reads of favourite novels, which is something I've hardly dared do for the past few years. But what the hell, eh? Sometimes it's important to get back in touch with much-loved books from years gone by, if only to remind yourself of the path you've taken to reach your current reading preferences. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

January 3, 2009 | Filed Under Books and Reading | 2 Comments 

New Arrivals / Recommended Reading - late Jan '07

No fewer than four must-read new titles came in at the back end of last month, which threatened to throw my to-be-read list into fresh disarray. As it happens though, I've already finished one of 'em(The Intruders - highly recommended!) and started another. Hmmm. So, perhaps not so much 'disarray' as 'temporary abeyance'...

'The Intruders' by Michael MarshallThe Intruders by Michael Marshall

Michael Marshall (Smith) fans are going to love this one. It's a classic MM(S) tale: the protagonist, Jack Whalen, is basically an ordinary guy with a background in taking care of himself - in this case he's an ex L.A. cop - who finds himself flung into having to deal with an extraordinary situation, and with little idea of how big a situation he's landed in, or how deep the trouble goes.

In this case events are triggered by the disappearance of his wife, Amy, with whom he's very much in love, and the re-appearance of an old high school acquaintance, Gary Fisher; the golden jock who went off the rails following a suicide by a secret admirer and has since wound up practising law, and who is now dealing with a rather odd-feeling last will and testament.

But of course, nothing is ever quite as it seems in an MM(S) novel, and The Intruders is no exception. I'll say no more, to avoid spoilerage - although speaking of which, if you're planning on reading The Intruders, then do not read the blurb on the back of the book as it contains a moderate spoiler that could damage the narrative tension of a particular segment - but suffice to say it's full of all the MM(S) hallmarks: rich prose, great characterisation and an absolutely wonderful observational eye. No other writer I've encountered to-date is quite as good at summing up the intricacies of human relationships in so few words. And dammit, he writes a damn good shoot-out as well...

'Black Man' by Richard MorganBlack Man by Richard Morgan

And, having finished a contemporary conspiracy-plot thriller, I've launched myself straight into a high-tech, futuristic techno-thriller by another of my very favourite authors: Richard Morgan. Black Man is, as far as I can ascertain so far, set in the same milieu as Morgan's earlier Takeshi Kovacs novels, although I think it might be set in a much earlier time-frame; I'd have to check back with the earlier books to find out for sure.

I'm only a few chapters in so far, but already the book has the classic Morgan hallmarks; special agents running more or less amok, hard-pressed police detectives having to deal with far out-of-the-ordinary cases (in this case a downed spacecraft that crashes in the Pacific Ocean en-route from Mars) and a dark, gritty atmosphere that you can taste in the back of your mouth.

I'm looking forward to losing myself in this one over the next couple of weeks and I'll let you know how I get on, of course...

'Ysabel' by Guy Gavriel KayYsabel by Guy Gavriel Kay

For years now, I haven't met a Guy Gavriel Kay novel that I haven't instantly liked; well, not since his debut trilogy outing, The Fionavar Trilogy, which frankly I wasn't too keen on at all (the author and I have exchanged emails on the subject at some point, and apparently I'm not alone in the hate/love thing... although he did explain that there's a fair bit more to the series than I first read into it... but I was only 17 or so at the time, so we can blame the callowness of youth...)

Anyhow, Ysabel is a rare outing for Kay, in that it's set in a contemporary environment, albeit one in which the mythical past seems to be magically impinging. In his last few novels he's established an alternative version of our own world's Iron Age and Medieval histories and has written about various time periods within this new timeline. I'm intrigued to find out whether this new novel represents a blurring of the boundaries between our own world and this alternate universe, or whether the 'contemporary' setting of Ysabel actually turns out to be the modern-day equivalent in that world all along... if you follow me.

I'll be reading this one before too long, I expect, so again, I'll report back as and when.

'The Terror' by Dan Simmons title=The Terror by Dan Simmons

Now, this one looked highly intriguing when it turned up, but I have to confess to being somewhat worried by the daunting 784 page-count. Plus, whilst I enjoyed the artistry of Ilium - Simmons' re-mix of The Iliad - I probably didn't get as much out of it as I should have, given the rave reviews it received elsewhere. So, my initial reaction to The Terror was coloured by the worry that I might suffer the same fate here - and at a considerable investment in precious time as well.

Then I had a coffee with the esteemed John Berlyne, proprietor of The Works of Tim Powers and UK reviews editor for SFRevu, and he said that it was an absolutely wonderful book. In fact, he went as far as to say that it's one of the best three books he's ever read... and this from the guy who's one of the world's leading authorities on Tim Powers (you can read his review on SFRevu).

So now I'm really going to have to read it. Although I might wait until the end of October and take it away on my hols to read by the pool. A chilling tale of terror set in the Arctic ice fields might be just the antidote to all that Maltese sunshine I'm planning on soaking up...

February 15, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 3 Comments 

Potted bookshelf, episode 1.1

The header graphic on this blog is a selection of books - thirty-three in all, if I've counted correctly - that I've read in recent months. Here's a quick reaction paragraph or two on the first few, taken from the left-hand side:

'Fly by Night' by Frances Hardinge - Click for ordering info from Amazon.co.ukFly By Night by Frances Hardinge

I won this one in the last Fantasycon raffle, and I'm very glad I did. It's a young adult fantasy, with possibly a bit more emphasis on the 'adult' than you might first expect, especially in terms of some of the word-play and humour, and it was very, very good indeed.

It's basically about a girl who runs away from her adoptive home with her homicidal goose after accidentally burning it to the ground (her home, not the goose), then falls in with all sorts of spies, rogues and scoundrels (including a famous highwayman) and ends up getting involved in sundry shady shennanigans involving anarchists, floating coffee houses and the Duke of Mandelion's beautiful but manipulative sister. A great read, really carried me along. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

'The Man in the Moss' by Phil Rickman - Click for ordering info from Amazon.co.ukThe Man in the Moss by Phil Rickman

This is one of Rickman's pre-Merrily Watkins novels, but it's set in the same milieu - in fact, one of the lead characters in Man in the Moss, Moira Cairns, has a walk-on part in the latest couple of MW novels - and it bears all the hallmarks of the later series.

There's a rural setting with an ancient, pagan tradition in which the old ways smack into against the twentieth century with a hell of a bang. Well-rounded, three-dimensional characterisation - as you'd expect from Rickman - and although the plot builds slowly and carefully, it reaches a satisfyingly impressive crescendo. I'd sum this one up as a great fireside read: take it with you next time you're likely to be holed up in an out-of-the-way country pub for the weekend and just let yourself go with the flow. What? You don't hole up in country pubs for the weekend? You really should, you know.

'Ring' by Stephen Baxter - Click for ordering info from Amazon.co.ukRing by Stephen Baxter

I have a bit of a love it or leave it relationship with Stephen Baxter's work that, come to think of it, pretty much epitomises my reaction to science fiction in general: if it's something wildly speculative and endlessly imaginative I generally love it, but if it tends towards near-future, extrapolation of current scientific thinking etc. then... meh. Hence I can't quite bring myself to read Baxter's NASA exploration-themed novels (and don't get me started on the sentient mammoths), but give me something in the Xeelee sequence and I'm happy from page one onwards.

And Ring is one of the key Xeelee novels, tying together the majority of the loose strands and deliberate open loops of the earlier novels, and together with Vacuum Diagrams neatly encapsulating the whole of Baxter's incredible future history of mankind. Fantastic, fabulous stuff. Very highly recommended. (Watch what happens now, someone will leave a comment patiently explaining that Baxter's NASA-novels are part of the Xeelee sequence too, just told from a much, much closer narrative perspective...)

'The Tooth Fairy' by Graham Joyce - Click for ordering info from Amazon.co.ukThe Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce

One of the very best writers in any genre, mainstream or otherwise, working today, Joyce's prose is just utterly incredible. Of course, he has a bit of an unfair advantage; as a lecturer in creative writing he must know his craft quite literally inside out. If you've not read anything by Graham Joyce before then go, do it now. You won't regret it for a minute.

Okay, I'll try to rein in the hyperbole for a minute and do a quick description. The Tooth Fairy is about growing up. It's one of those teenage coming-of-age, sexual-awakening novels, but it's not about the issues and the angst and the sullen sulks, so much as the Mystery (with a deliberate capital 'M') and the magic and the sense of wonder. Cathartic, rich, incredibly true. I'm hyperboling again, aren't it? Damn, but it's hard not to. There have been rumours of a movie version for a while. Thankfully, this wasn't it. And neither was this.

'The Last Light of the Sun' by Guy Gavriel Kay - Click for ordering info from Amazon.co.ukThe Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay

This is one of Kay's ongoing, non-sequential series of loosely historically-linked novels set in an alternative / parallel version of our own iron age through to medieval history. In The Last Light of the Sun, the outcast son of a (norse-analogue) raider joins an expedition to find and slay a famous (celt-analogue) Cyngael warrior king, not realising that one of the king's most trusted companions and advisors is actually a notorious raider who was stranded in Cyngael lands years before. Hence, the raid is anticipated, and runs the risk of being disastrously thwarted. That's if I remember it right, it's definitely been a few months since I read this one...

But I do remember thoroughly enjoying both the characterisation and prose - like Joyce, Kay is another master story-teller who never skimps on the quality of his offering - yet coming away with an oddly half-satisfied feeling. I think I somehow managed to get the very strong impression that this was actually the sequel to an earlier book, and I hate reading things out of chronological sequence. I can't work out why I'd think that though, as there's nothing on his website that would fit the bill. Perhaps the detail of his back-story was just so skillfully woven that I just assumed there must have been an earlier novel that I'd somehow missed.

In any case, my own false assumptions aside, it's well worth reading, and as Kay hasn't committed an act of trilogy since his first outing, you can read it in glorious isolation from the rest of his work. Although frankly that's not a situation that's likely to last: once you've sampled and enjoyed one GGK title, you'll definitely want more.

--
Okay, that will do for now. I'll talk about the next few another time. And then once I've read enough I'll replace the graphic and talk about the next batch some more.

December 7, 2006 | Filed Under Books | 4 Comments 



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