Rapid-fire reading round-up…
I know, I know: bad blogger, no biscuit.
Being back at work has meant less time to update my blog, that and actually reading more to keep up with what’s out there…and playing video games, just because.
So, over the past few months I’ve read a ton, and rather than produce a big old wall o’text, I will instead give a brief summation of the highlights and lowlights of the past few month’s reading.
The Passage, Justin Cronin: Mega-blockbusting ground-breaking, really? Ok, I’ve had a lot of time to mull this one over since finishing the book. I still prefer The Stand by Stephen King to an infinite extent. This made me want to read it again, which is a good thing. Also, Cronin really needs an editor who understands the difference between the words “wretch” and “retch”. The latter was the one he was looking for, the former is both mis and over used. The book starts off well, then gets bogged down in the second part. World-building is incomplete and seemingly done on the fly rather than considered and organic-feeling. There are good parts to the book, but on the whole it’s lacking. Not particularly interested in the next one. Ouch.
Lightborn, Tricia Sullivan: This is more like it. I own and love all of Sullivan’s books and was anxiously awaiting the chance to get my mitts on this one. It doesn’t disappoint. If you want to see great world-building you should take a look at Sullivan’s books. Like many a post-apocalyptic work, this concerns itself with resistance (to the “shine”, to the powers that be, to the idea of change, to the old ways or the new ones) and it does so in a very measured way. Sullivan’s books entertain, to be sure, but they also make you think – which is never a bad thing. Characters are strong, their motivations sometimes kept opaque to the reader as much as to the other characters, and the plot trucks along. I didn’t want it to be over, and I don’t often feel that way about books.
The Last Dragonslayer, Jasper Fforde: I love Ffordes Tuesday Next and Nursery Crimes books, and if there’s a writer out there who should be able to produce funny, appealing YA fare then he is it. In this first book (of a planned series), however, there is rather too much time taken up with scene-setting so that the main plot (with all the politics involved, sort of a lite version of those to be found in the Hunger Games) seems to ebb in and out of focus. Has a great independent heroine though (and, joy of joys no gratuitous love triangle) and is both a fun and a smart read. I’m interested to see where he goes next with it.
The Scarecrow and Nine Dragons, Michael Connelly: Playing catch-up on my crime reading, and remembering why I’d gotten disenchanted with Connelly, and also why I love his stuff. Confusing? Well The Scarecrow is vintage Connelly, dark, socially aware, smart, well-plotted, zinging pace and engrossing. Nine Dragons has a forced feeling to it, I kept putting it down and being ambivalent about picking it up again. On paper, it should have been fascinating, Bosch taken out of his comfort zone and on a mission in Hong Kong to save his daughter. Instead it’s clunky and transparent. A central “twist” is readily apparent and the other one is not particularly interesting. It feels like a book that doesn’t know when to end, rather than one you don’t want to end. One great, one bad. Same author. Go figure.
Broken, Karin Slaughter: Am I the only person in the world who feels compassion for Lena in the Grant County series? Actually had a higher-up in work snap at me that “Lena’s a bitch, she deserves all she gets!” when I asked how she was enjoying the novel. Slaughter kind of has a way of provoking strong feelings with her characters, and Broken is no exception to the rule. It’s fun to have Will Trent in Grant County, out of his element and struggling with trying to impress Sara and doing his job. The book is less grand guignol than a lot of Slaughter’s work, and is all the better for it (I’m sorry, she’s one of the few writers out there who makes me thoroughly squeamish to the point of having to put a book down).
I’ve also been reading a lot of Donald Harstad based on a friend’s recommendation and I really like his stuff. Carl Houseman is a great creation, not your usual detective, and you don’t come across a lot of crime fiction set out in the middle of nowhere (or in Iowa, which would seem to equate to the same thing), plus Harstads own 26 years as a cop give the books an unshowy veracity and a distinctive laid-back humour. If you haven’t read his books, try them.
Am also still devouring Nero Wolfe books as quickly as I can get my hands on them.
Having gotten my mitts on an e-reader, I’m also re-reading a lot of classics and trying to decide whether the benefits of being able to carry around lots of books without the aid of a wheelbarrow balances out the annoyances of flashing on page-turning and glare on the screen. I do like my e-reader, I’m just not sure that I’d ever plump for a digital edition over a real paper-based book. That said, it has been handy for getting Nero Wolfe books quickly and relatively cheaply so it has its upside.
That’s it for this round-up, I’m loading up my e-reader with digital proofs at the moment, so should have more to report once I’ve read them.
The joys of Nero Wolfe…
I’ve been on a bit of a classic crime bender of late, and have become throughly addicted to Rex Stout’s novels featuring Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin.
For years I’ve seen Wolfe mentioned by crime writers and readers alike as a source of joy and/or inspiration, and so was very curious to actually read some of the books myself.
Dipped my toes into the water with Murder by the Book, a classic hardback pulp-fiction-jacketed find in a second-hand bookstore, and have since devoured four more…and am jonesing for the next one I can find. Jonesing being accurate as these things are like paper-based crack.
The stories are smart, Nero and Archie (and Inspector Cramer, Purley Stebbins and all the rest of the supporting cast) are compellingly drawn, complex and utterly believable characters. The dialogue is razor-sharp and noir-ish, and often laugh out loud (and quote at people) funny. For books originally written from the thirties through to the late fifties (at least the ones I’ve read), they are still fresh today. Of course, there are eyebrow raising moments when considering certain attitudes of the time etc. but on the whole they feel far more modern (or less stuffy?) than Agatha Christie or her ilk. It’s a real shame that the books seem mostly to be out of print these days, but I’ll happily keep sourcing them both second-hand locally and online.
So far I’ve read: Murder by the Book, Red Threads (which has Inspector Cramer as the lead), The League of Frightened Men, Before Midnight and Under the Andes (which was written before the first Nero Wolfe book), which means I have around 50 (!) more books to try to get hold of. That should keep me busy!
If you, like me, frequent second-hand bookstores, and come across a Rex Stout book while roaming the stacks, do yourself a favour and buy it.
Ah to be back at work….
….it feels darned good.
As I tweeted last week, the bookselling gods have a wonderful sense of irony. My first day back bookselling was also the day the new Stephenie Meyer book went on sale. Yea and I did also have to wear the t-shirt for the past couple of days.
Most minor of all possible annoyances (and I never thought having to wear a Stephenie Meyer t-shirt could be a mere irritant) since absolutely nothing is wrecking the buzz of being back among books and dealing with readers on a daily basis.
I have had hugs from customers who are thrilled to see us again, have had positive comments from people on the street, the guys in the local corner shop and the coffee shop I get my daily java fix from were all grinning and high-fiving me (I guess it’s good for them too, more money = more spending on what they sell).
So yeah, this post: unvarnished positivity.
It’s great to be back : )
No more gaming posts, I promise!
Been laid up with flu, and unable to read much (fuzzy brain from space) and so I decided to use my time to create something that would enable me to keep this blog free of my (admittedly infrequent, but still…) posts about games and geekery.
This was partly inspired by a bit of drama going on around my favourite game at the moment (that’d be Fallen Earth), prompting me to think seriously about creating a fansite for the game, both as a resource for new players and a one-stop links-shop for players familiar with the game.
Hey, I have time on my hands, may as well try to be slightly productive with it.
Have added the site to my blogroll in the sidebar, but you can also get to it by clicking here in case you’re curious.
This place’ll be freed up nicely for my witterings about books and other non-game things, and as soon as my brain is functioning enough to allow me to read, full service shall resume.
The good, the great and the “pretty meh”
While cleaning up my flat after (yet another) leak followed by ceiling collapse, followed by messy plastering (by now an annual event), I came across a stack of books and wondered why I had never gotten around to posting about them. This post is an effort to make up for that.
Warning (in advance): This will be looooooong.
First up is Sarah Pinsborough’s A Matter of Blood, a proof copy of which I read back in early February. It’s the first book in a series which will go under the collective moniker of The Dog-Faced Gods, and a rip-roaring start at that. The book is set in a dystopic future London, where cops and gangsters have reached an uneasy agreement that allows the cops to have a decent salary and the gangsters free to pursue (some types of) crime with near-impunity. The country, and indeed the world, is run by a single conglomerate, known simply as “The Bank”. The lead character DI Cass Jones, finds himself battling both criminals and The Bank when a serial killer starts operating in the city, and the finger of suspicion for some of the murders is pointed squarely at him. Clearing his name means tracking down a killer who leaves nothing of himself behind at crime scenes except for microscopic fly-eggs impeccably placed on the eyeballs of his victims and messages written in blood. Given that everyone in the book is compromised in some way, untangling leads from red herrings and figuring out who (or what) could be responsible for the murders is a task not easily faced. The books deftly establishes its setting, adroitly mixes crime, the supernatural and a dash of of dystopic sci-fi, which coupled with deeper-than-your-average characterization and the author’s unflinching ability to wreak havok in the head of her protagonist as well as her readers makes it a gripping, compulsive read.
Next up, Old City Hall by Robert Rotenberg, a thriller set in present-day Toronto, where an immigrant newspaper-delivery man happens upon a celebrated radio-show host who tells him he has just killed his wife. The wife is indeed dead, and scandal erupts. Sorting out truth from misdirection and cover-up are a wide cast of characters, each with their own part to play. There’s the cop, the DA, the radio-host’s defence lawyer and a journalist determined to get himself back into his editor’s good graces. Rotenberg does a great job of making each character distinct, a tough job when people are constantly dropping in and out of the story, and the links between the protagonists could come off as cheesy, but in his hands they don’t. The plot itself is solid thriller fare, with the distinction that even though the ending may telegraph itself a bit, the ride is enjoyable and the characters interesting enough to merit sticking it out. The blurb on my ARC says “Each character has an extraordinary back story and could quite easily stand as the hero or heroine of his or her own novel”, if I had a criticism it would be that there’s sometimes too much time spent making each of these characters special enough for their own book. Too much exposition of back-story, but it’s well-written exposition so it didn’t irritate me too much. Worth a look.
Finished the new John Connolly a while back, it’s called The Whisperers, is another Charlie Parker novel and is on sale now. Let me start by saying I’m an utter and complete geek for Sumerian mythology, and I loved the fact that Connolly touched on some of it in his last book (The Lovers), it’s to the fore in this book, which opens with the looting of a museum in Baghdad, leads into the death by apparent suicide of a number of men from a US army unit that were on-site of the looting, and continues with the father of one of those dead asking Charlie Parker to find out what killed his son. Along the way we meet a new villian, and his sidekick, there is water-boarding and a couple of threats to rape people to death (seriously, I actually stopped reading to boggle both times the threat was mooted), Angel and Louis come on board and forces are joined with someone you would not expect (if it weren’t for the fact that the blurb tells you to, at least on my ARC) in order to solve the mystery. Connolly works very hard to set the scene in Baghdad, and he succeeds (the looting scene is almost as good as the one done by Michel Faber in The Fire Gospel), it’s just that after that there is an abundance of shoehorned-in research and social commentary that detracts from rather than enhancing the story. Connolly is more than capable of writing rip-roaring yarns, he’s generally very good at it, but with The Gates (which is, y’know, for kids), and now this, it seems he’s lost the lightness of touch he once had when it comes to incorporating research in favour of a heavy-handedness that does neither him nor his story any justice. The Sumerian mythology in this feels somehow tacked on, a mere device, whereas in The Lovers it added layers to the intrigue. Maybe this is why I found the ending hollow, anti-climactic and well….pretty meh actually. I hope the next Parker novel finds the author on better form.
I also recently read The Book of Proper Names by Amélie Nothomb, the first of her books I’ve read in translation, and I really enjoyed it. Nothomb’s books tend to be slim (in terms of pages) and deceptively simple in terms of execution. They pack a punch well above their small size and I find myself thinking about them for days after I’ve finished them. The Book of Proper Names is no exception to this rule. It follows the life of an orphan called Plectrude, raised by her aunt and uncle, she is the product of a tragic past that affects her view of her own destiny once it comes to light. We follow Plectrude from childhood into adolescence and see the weight of dreams (her own and her aunt’s), fate and the dynamics of a dysfunctional family push and pull this dreamy (and dreamlike) girl in all directions at once. The translation misses none of the lyricism of Nothomb’s language, her kooky characters are vivid and the fairy-tale feel of the book is sustained without ever becoming cloying. Loved it.
At the moment I’m reading a Kate Atkinson I managed to miss out on, Human Croquet, and am enjoying being bowled over by her inventiveness and wit (as ever).This is a dark tale, clad in quirkily humourous garb, and I’m lapping it up. I’ll probably post a review when I’ve finished it.
Geekishness, and a good book
Nerd post alert!
Scroll down towards the end if you want stuff about books : )
Was hanging about in some gaming forums recently where there was an ongoing converstion about what people would do if all other MMOs except for WoW were shut down, and it was WoW or nothing (as far as online gaming goes). Someone said they’d have to finally try Farmville if that was the case, and a girl gamer stepped in to say if WoW/Farmville was all there was, she’d have to learn to code. Another girl gamer jumped in and said yes please she should learn to code, and she’d help too with graphics, and no-one should worry about two girls designing a Barbie game, as it simply wouldn’t happen.
I got to wondering about what kind of game a girl gamer would design that would be different to games that are being designed and targetted at girls (Hello Kitty Online Adventures, anyone?).
So by way of encouragement for this (very hypothetical) game, and also out of sheer frustration with people saying girls want to play different games to boys, and all must be pretty and pink, I lobbed a request in:
But in whatever game you do make, please indulge another girl gamer by putting in a Barbeee (to protect against Mattell’s lawyers) class with -100 int, +5 co-ord (only when in heels) and a strict debuff when devoid of make-up (which takes 2 hours to apply, and cannot be done offline). Special attacks “Dazzling Bling” and “Pout of Pulchtritude” (neither of which do anything more than distract some of the more hormonal boys playing). It would be a class devoted to collecting pretty (social) gear and pets… and would be routinely slaughtered by Cool Indie Chicks (using their “eyeroll” attack) and Geektastic Grrls (using their “math” and “vocab” skills). Best teamed with Lewt Kingz with a high “skeeze” quotient and large amounts of gold.
….
Damn, that could be fun….
They said they’d hire me ; ) But one of them had a question about people using the graphics to make Barbeees with chesticles so large they would challenge the laws of physics by being able to stand upright….they thought this was something male players would enjoy (snigger). I thought it could be incorporated into the game design:
Hmmm… let me think, ok, the equivalent of phat lewtz for the Barbeee class could be “enhancements”, the caveat being that having too many of them will result in a back-pain debuff, trouble with remaining vertical and the need to hire strapping young shirtless lads to tote her about on a palanquin.
On the plus side, however such over-encumbered Barbeees will garner more sway over the Lewt Kingz and they will also gain a bonus attack called “Bewbz!” which crits for over 9000 (of course).
I’m all about the balance *cough*
Given that I’m bored as hell right now, I’ve been messing around with more ideas for a satirical (browser based) game that would contain some of the above.
I think it could be fun.
Gawd, I’m really stuck for things to do, aren’t I?
Stop scrolling here for bookishness!
Okay, books. While doing the round-up the other day, I forgot to mention another book I really liked, and this one is also on sale now. It’s called Mr. Shivers and is by Robert Jackson Bennett. It’s a creepy tale set in Depression-era USA that follows a group of people chasing a strange man who has taken away a loved one from each of them. They’re out for revenge, and band together, hopping trains and bedding down in hobo camps as they track this man across the country. It quickly becomes evident that this man is more than a man, and things get darker and more scary as the story progresses. I was interested in the book because I adored the (late, lamented, cancelled) HBO show Carnivàle, and this seemed to have a similar preoccupation with good and evil, and was set in the same time-frame. The book is extremely evocative of a long-forgotten time, the world is immersive, the characters are non-stock and fully fleshed out, and even if I could see where it was headed towards the end, the journey was a thoroughly enjoyable one. It’s scary, smart and extremely well-written. The book is well worth a read – and the author is one to keep an eye on.
Gotta love our customers
Today is an odd day – the company I work for went into receivership yesterday, and my job and those of 224 other employees are in limbo. We’re temporarily laid off, which makes this post somewhat bittersweet to write.
The customers in our store were always a mix of the eccentric, the entitled, the sweet and the bafflingly curmudgeonly. Every day at work we were presented with a microcosm of book-reading humanity. On any given day, you had no way of knowing what was in store (eep, pun, sorry) for you.
Just last week, I came back to work after a couple of days holidays and my manager excitedly informed me that a co-worker had found something that would be of interest to me. What? I wondered.
Turns out a customer (dunno who you are, but bless you and your tinfoil hat) had taken it upon themselves to mount a guerrilla campaign against The Celestine Prophecy.
When cleaning up the shelves in the divination section, my co-worker found the piece of card pictured below propped up against the face-out display of the book:

I had to smile when I saw what she’d written on the back:
The whole thing just made my day.
I guess now that I have no job to go to, I’ll finally get around to posting reviews of books I’ve read over the past while, but I think it’s fitting that the final post (in all likelihood) about our customers, should be one where one of them left me with a massive grin on my face.
For all the annoyances some people saw fit to foist on us hapless booksellers, there was always a vein of dark humour running through our days at work. It was a rich vein and one that I tapped as the focus for this blog. The focus will probably switch now that there are no customers to interact with, but I’ll still be here, blogging away.
Hopefully some of you will see fit to follow along with me as I meander forward into an uncertain future where I may never be asked again; “Do you have the book I want? It’s cream and was written by a woman”.
Avanti!


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