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

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

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

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

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

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.

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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

Recommended reading: Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins novels

I've recently finished The Smile of a Ghost [Amazon], the seventh book in Phil Rickman's ongoing series of novels about Merrily Watkins, village vicar turned diocesian exorcist (or 'deliverance consultant'). I've read all seven book sin the series, and I'm still somewhat bemused that they haven't been snapped up by a TV production company for imminent development.

I mean, it's got all the elements of a successful Saturday night drama aimed at the comfortably mid 30s-60s demographic, surely? There's the idyllic, rural Herefordshire setting for a start. Follow that up with good, strong, characterisation: a leading lady who, as well as being an ordained minister and the only female exorcist for miles around, is also, so we're told, a sexy single mum. She's ably backed-up by her feisty teenage daughter, a reclusive rock musician with a History, devious Church politicians, a veteran exorcist of the old school who lives the life of a recluse in the Welsh mountain, sundry hard-bitten country coppers, and a varied supporting cast of rustics and incoming yuppies.

All of this, plus a series of mysterious goings-on and, to top it all off, an edgy, supernatural-ish atmosphere that sometimes - just sometimes - crosses over into out-and-out occultism, but usually stays just this side of "well, there could always be a rational explanation, you know..."

All-in-all, a quintessentially English mystery series, with a slightly edgier feel than your average Miss Marple, and plenty of possibility to grow; it's got to be a winner! I mean, if they can put Jonathan Creek on our screens for a few seasons, then surely there's room for Merrily Watkins?

Anyhow, as I say, I've read and thoroughly enjoyed all seven books in the series so far, and I'm looking forward to picking up a copy of the eighth, which was published in October, some time soon. There is one slight niggle, though. By book seven the characters have rather started to take on that slightly rounded feeling of comortable familiarity; not much here in the way of shocks and surprises, and whilst the mystery itself was an intriguing one, there wasn't much of a worry that it wouldn't all turn out right in the end.

So, if you fancy a genteel dose of mystery fiction, with plenty of things that go bump in the night, plenty of opportunity to get to really like the characters as they grow and develop, and plenty of heart-warming catharsis, then these are definitely the books for you.

Amazon links for anyone who's interested: