Nano…

is seriously interfering with my blogging time.

So before I start this evening’s tranche of wordsmithery, here’s a post. So you know I’m “still alive, thanks God” (and thank you to the wonderful Mohammed for the phrase that will never die, at least among Irish archaelogy-types).
I’m typing this with a kitten wedged between my back and the chair (don’t ask me why, he likes to lie there), and another moggy eyeing my mouse like it’s the real flesh and blood type, and not a piece of computer hardware (geeky aside, when did microsoft start calling them “human interface devices”? It sounds like something out of a Cronenberg flick).
Ah, kitten has just climbed over my shoulder and is now attempting to eat my fingers while I type. This does not bode well for an evening’s nanoing.

To business. Those following my confusion in an earlier post re: the new Alex Barclay book, here’s some of the answer – the book will be out in March 2010 and the title is not as yet finalised. Okey dokey? When the title is finalised I’ll post it, if I remember.

Appearances to the contrary, I have been reading.

I just finished (and I don’t know why it took me so long to get around to it) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, and I absolutely loved it. It’s hip, smart, laugh out loud funny and genuinely affecting. It also makes geekery seem kinda cool. The prose is a mix of geeky slang, sci-fi/fantasy/RPG references and Dominican Spanish slang. Somehow it all comes together in a voice (or, well, voices) that is utterly compelling and wholly originial. It’s not often I use the phrase “original” so you should know I mean it. Because I am a nerd, I wanted to be sure I wasn’t missing anything in the Spanish slang that I couldn’t figure out, so I found the following link invaluable (also helps with Dominican history, “nerdy” references (*blush* I needed no help with those) and some other things that may cause “huh?” moments while reading. If you plan to read the book, bookmark this and it’ll see you right. It’s not for nothing that people win the Pulitzer for fiction, and this book is a prime example of a deserving win.

The story is about three generations of a family that become part of the Dominican diaspora to the U.S. as a result of the reign of Trujillo (“the dictatingest dictator”) and never manages to feel like a family saga, despite being one. In terms of magical realism (there’s an argument to be used for this book kind of fitting that category) it knocks Allende’s early stuff (which I loved at the time: Eva Luna and The Stories of Eva Luna especially), into a cocked hat. The titular Oscar (the Wao is a corruption of “Wilde” his college roomates inflict on him) and his sister Lola represent one generation, their mother Belicia another, and her parents (a doctor and a nurse) the earliest. The narration of the book is shared between Yunior (a friend of sorts to Oscar, and Lola) and Lola herself. Their voices manage to be completely different while sharing a common inflection – thanks to Oscar. The whole book is a feat of story-telling verve and narrative nun-chuckery. I defy anyone not to enjoy it. If you don’t, you lose 8 charisma points in my book. And if you don’t understand what that means, read the book to find out.

I’m currently reading Betrayals, the second in Lili St. Crow’s (otherwise known as Lilith Saintcrow) Strange Angels series. I’m enjoying this as much as I did the first one, and will write more on it when I’ve finished it. I will note that it doesn’t hurt to read the book while listening to the Kristin Hersh album Strange Angels, not sure if that’s where the series title came from, but it’s an association I like.

Okay, that’s your lot as far as book-nerdage for today goes, I will away now and write some new words.

Day one….

…went better than I expected. Having conked out last night, long before midnight. I got up at 7 am and cranked out an impressive 2,100 words before leaving for work.

Since coming home this evening I’ve racked that up to 5,126 – and because I’ve done over the 5k, I am hereby rewarding myself with the rest of the evening off, in the company of Season 2 of House. (Yeah, I know, I got into it late…and even then only because my friend Mark made me watch it at his place. I thank him for it.).

I finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest last night. Capsule review: any misgivings I had about anything in the book were laid to rest by the sheer brilliance of the court scenes. For those alone it’s worth reading the entire trilogy, with it’s odd compulsion to list everything a character eats, wears or thinks (Did these by any chance start out as nano novels? I keep picturing Steig Larsson, on a cold Swedish November night eking out an extra 200 words by listing cupboard contents, then breathing a sigh of relief, uploading his wordcount to the Nanowrimo site and closing his iBook for the night). I had quibbles about a few things, but I’ll detail them some other time. For now, it deserves to be outselling everything else (especially Dan Brown) by four to one.

The Nanowrimo2009 tab above should be working, complete with a bit of what I wrote today. The wordcount widget server has gone into its ritual November meltdown, so there’s no widget there yet. I’ll fix that when it starts working again.

As a side note, and this made me smile, my boss came over to me yesterday and told me that she knew she should be rooting for me, but is it bad if she hopes I fail to meet the terms of my onerosity coupon?

Nope, it’s not bad, but I swear, if I hit 30k words by the 21st, I’m not re-alphabetising the kids picture books until at least December. And the same goes for the God-books if I have 20k written by the 14th, a coupon I gave another colleague. I’m not sure how much good declaring myself exempt from those two tasks will do me, but a girl’s gotta try!

Todat at work was made head-wrecking by the fact that people have already started their Christmas shopping, for which we were not wholly prepared (or staffed). Most common thing to happen today was a customer wandering over with one of our Christmas catalogues and demanding we fetch them “this, this, this and that”. Inevitably, at least one of the books has not been published yet. They then glare at us suspiciously and say “But it’s in the catalogue!”.

Yeah, I know, it’s in the catalogue, but that’s because all the big books with pub dates from September to  early December are in the catalogue. Yesterday was Saturday, the last day of October. Many, many books in the catalogue won’t be out til mid-November. I think there’s even a disclaimer to that effect in the catalogue. Then they say “But there’s a picture of the book, you must have one somewhere.” to which one can only reply, “A jacket cover photo doesn’t mean anything other than that the cover has been designed. The book is not out yet, I’m sorry. I can look up the publication date for you, and keep a copy aside for you when it comes in if you like?”. They never, ever believe me. And it’s not just me, they don’t believe any of us. One woman went through the same rigmarole today with me and another member of staff. She probably still thinks we were both lying to her….

We weren’t though.

 

 

 

 

Oh, y’know that big book I was reading?

Well, I’ve finished it (again). There may be more frequent posts here now that that mammoth task is completed.

On this read-through I didn’t feel the need to go back to the start and read the first chapter again, instead I clambered into bed and fell asleep for 6 hours. In the middle of the day. It’s like my brain went “Whoa! I’m plum tuckered out after all that!” and required a serious nap-type reboot. Poor brain.

The cover of my (previously) unsullied and brand-spanking new copy is now bent and worn, the back cover folded itself in half somehow when I fell asleep reading one night. Also, as a general tip, if you’re reading in bed and marking up passages with a biro, try *not* to fall asleep before capping the pen. There were multiple mornings where I awoke to find eldritch scribbles on my leg, which puzzled me greatly til I had had my coffee (and woken up brain) and was able to deduce from whence they came.

I’m not going to post anything now about the book, I have some ideas for an IJ-related post for later. I just wanted to stick my head in the door and wave – I’m still here.

This is your brain while reading Infinite Jest…

Whee… the re-read is going swimmingly. Am now on page 188 and slowly but surely catching up to where I should be on the Infinite Summer reading schedule.

For those of you who have never picked up Infinite Jest (perhaps because it looks like a “tendon-strainer” in terms of sheer heft, perhaps because you’ve heard about the forest of end-notes and the nested-yet-sprawling structure, perhaps because the mere idea of so many words, and so many characters, crammed between two covers gives you a case of the “howling fantods”) you’re not alone.

There’s not much I can say to persuade anyone to pick up the book that hasn’t been said more eloquently elsewhere, but I’m going to make a stab at it anyhow. There’s much mentioning of “synapses firing” in and around the book, y’know, the little mental spark that goes off when you hit an association, or a reference, or a clue (if you want to see it that way), and the joy of reading Infinite Jest (to me at least) is not just the sheer (and humbling and beautiful) humanity of the book but the collective energy of those little pings of association. To put it simply:

This is your brain:

This is your brain while reading Infinite Jest:

See what I mean?

Kids’ books that are cool…(and an adult one too)

Been reading quite a few childrens’ books of late, and some of them are really worth a look-see. There’s an adult book too, down the end for those of you averse to YA fare (in case there are any).

First up, as an antidote to Twilight comes Lili St. Crow’s Strange Angels (if the name rings a bell, this is the young adult offering from Lilith Saintcrow who writes a number of always-enjoyable supernatural series for adults). The story centres around Dru who is (at the start of the book) working alongside her Dad, fighting an unending battle against things that go bump in the night. In the world of this book, the “Real world” lies beneath the world we would recognise as real, it has its own rituals, hangouts and politics, all invisible to those of us who merely skate on the surface of it. Something goes horribly wrong with her Dad’s latest mission, and Dru is left alone, to work out what her Dad was fighting against, and to keep herself alive. There are allies and enemies (and even Dru has trouble deciding which is which, adding to the tension in the book), an extremely believable portrait of grief, dollops of edge-of-your-seat action and a very interesting take on the supernatural. It’s the first book in a series, and I’m looking forward to the next. I should add here that it comes as somewhat of a relief to see a book that has a zits-and-all heroine who is smart and strong and not beyond kicking an ass or two coming into the marketplace crowded as it is with insipid heroines who live to serve their vamp/wolf. On that front Twilight has a lot to answer for. This book is a pretty good place to start for anyone looking for a more-Buffy/less-Bella lead character.

Also with a strong heroine comes the highly-anticipated sequel to The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins’ excellent cross between Series 7 and Battle Royale but, y’know, for kids. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire does not disappoint. We’re back with Katniss et al for more horrors in the land of Panem. There will be a general lack of spoilers here, since even the vaguest plot outline will ruin the first book for those who have not read it, and read it should be, it’s excellent. The sequel is concerned not just with Katniss and life after the Hunger Games but with the repercussions of her actions there, on a personal and a national level. It turns out that staying alive and winning the Games brings with it a whole new set of problems. These problems are drawn in a way that is never patronisingly simplified and always fascinating. It’s a book that is very hard to put down, and I didn’t manage to, gulped it down in a single sitting, and am now hoping book three puts in an appearance soon.

Coming out later this year is the young adult offering from the pen of John Connolly, best known for his Charlie Parker series for adults. This book is called The Gates and deals with the trials faced by young Sam Johnson and his loyal dog Boswell (see what he did there?) when some neighbours open a portal to hell, unknowingly abetted by the scientists at CERN. The book is a grand read, although with 11 year old protagonists and a lot of complex sciency stuff to swallow all the way through, I think its audience will probably need to be older than the protagonists. There’s a lot of stuff in here that adults will enjoy, spotting the references to everything from Gaiman to Lovecraft, Aliens to Pratchett. It’s hard as an adult reader to look at this book through the eyes of a young reader who may not have encountered all these references, and will be coming to the story fresh, and free from influence-spotting. For the preteen encountering all this stuff for the first time, the book will be a cornucopia of wonders. Less so for the more widely-read, but a fun read nonetheless.

And finally, one I missed earlier this year, and one for the adults, John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Handling the Dead. Having loved both the book and the movie of Let the Right One In, I was looking forward to this, his take on a zombie-story. What I hadn’t anticipated was the marvellous twist he puts on the whole concept, producing a story that is nothing short of heart-breaking. There is a large cast of characters, all of them affected by the strange electrical aura over Stockholm that leads to their recently dead relatives coming back to life. Without exception they are believable characters, well-drawn and real-feeling – something which only adds to the emotional impact of the book. There is vein of black comedy running through the book (as befits something written by an ex-comedian), much skewering of the press, science and the bureaucratic machine that is government, which allows for some relief as the story unfolds. It’s a hard read, packing a hefty emotional punch, but it is extremely rewarding, and not to be missed.

It’s a bumper year…

…for crime books. Good, even great crime books that is.

If you’re a regular reader of crime fiction blogs you will no doubt already have heard people lauding The Twelve by Stuart Neville. I finally got my hands on a proof copy of it (bookselling is still good for something!), and can tell you that the plaudits are completely justified.

It’s interesting that the proof has a cover endorsement from John Connolly, since The Twelve manages to do something straight out of the gate that Connolly (to this reader at least) has not always managed to do – and that is integrate the supernatural into a noir thriller without any feeling of shoe-horning or OTT-ness. I always found Connolly’s early books to be uneasy hybrids of crime and the supernatural, the two elements never quite meshed properly, and his writing style seemed to jump all over the place to accommodate them . That Neville has managed a seamless mix in his début is no small feat. That he does this with tight plotting and excellent characterisation to boot is (and I don’t say this lightly) stunning.

The Twelve of the title are twelve ghosts that accompany the central character, Gerry Fegan, a former paramilitary in Northern Ireland. They are the ghosts of the people he has killed, spectral embodiments of his own guilt, and a finger-pointing morality-play chorus that are bent on exacting revenge against those who issued the orders that led to him killing them.

The book is set in modern Belfast, Stormont is active, there is a supposed peace, yet old habits, prejudices and thirsts for blood, power and revenge live on. It’s a credit to Neville that nowhere is there a stance on Northern politics or the troubles that could be considered in any way naive or romanticised. The book is politically astute, and for that may not be to everyone’s taste (I loved a piece about how the Americans don’t donate to “the cause” anymore since 9/11, but I wonder what American readers will make of it), the hard-bitten cynicism of it is more than another noir trope, it’s considered, reasoned and of relevance to the plot. There’s no heaping on of politicized hyperbole here, it’s a constant drip-feed of harsh reality.

Gerry’s Twelve want to be avenged, but the trouble is that poor Gerry just wants to get on with his life, which won’t be easy since circumstances conspire to make that even harder than the baying of ghouls that keeps him awake at night.

Working against Fegan is Campbell, a deep cover former Black Watch soldier who is working to preserve a precarious political status-quo, or more honestly, working to preserve his own bacon, since he doesn’t seem to be troubled by any sort of moral considerations. He is a volatile, unpredictable rogue card, and the weaving of his and Fegan’s contrary missions is nothing short of masterful.

I don’t want to go into the plot too much, because this is a book that should be read, not read about or around. There will be much written about how the book deals with guilt, morality, revenge, prejudice and more, but to my mind the best way to understand how that is dealt with, and grasp Neville’s take on all of it is simply to read the book.

I know it’s slightly unfair for me to post a rave review a month before publication, but I want to give anyone who has missed out on the advance buzz a heads-up. The book is out next month. You have been fore-warned.

Good books, I have found some…

After the unlucky reading streak, a joyful, curl-up-with-these-and-lose-track-of-time streak.

In my top books of last year, Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44 ranked highly among the crime novels, because I felt the same way while reading it as I did when I first read Gorky Park. Not just because of the setting, but because here was someone doing something wholly original, and in a way that just knocked my socks off. His second book The Secret Speech (which I’m assuming went under the working title of Gulag 57, but for some reason got switched along the way) has the same lead character, Leo Demidov, who is now working for the newly formed (and highly secret) Homicide department in Moskow. His past in the MGB soon comes back to haunt him, with his recently adopted daughters and his marriage in peril, he finds himself on a mission to break someone out of a gulag – something which no-one has ever succeeded in doing – and that’s just the start of it. The scope is every bit as big and every bit as historically aware as Child 44 was, the writing every bit as good, the characters are completely believable, and in places the finely tuned plot is simply breath-taking. Yes, it is good. Damned good.

Next up was the second Evan Delaney book, having read (and loved) China Lake a few weeks back (around the time it won the Edgar), I figured more Meg Gardiner wouldn’t go amiss. I wasn’t wrong either. There are books that I dip in and out of, and there are books that I snaffle down in one greedy gulp. This fell firmly into the latter category. I do not know how it is that I missed this series, but I know from doing a bit of reading around that for some bizarre reason Meg Gardiner has been flying under the radar in a way that is completely undeserved. I’m ashamed I’m only getting around to reading her now.Hopefully the Edgar win will change that.

Evan Delaney is a character that any crime reader would enjoy passing the time of day with. She’s sassy, loyal and dogged, comes out with the kind of put-downs we all dream of having had on the tips of our tongues after the fact, and is hella smart. She also writes sci-fi novels, which makes her even cooler than your average kick-ass female heroine (at least I think so). The other series characters are no slouches either, Jesse her boyfriend is a trial layer, champion swimmer, and, oh yeah, a paraplegic. Her brother Brian is a hot-shot pilot, her cousin Tater is a laugh-riot of a lingerie-flogging nymphette of a loon, and there are unlikely allies such as the hilariously funny (and rather scary) Jax and Tim, former black-ops agents who take a personal interest in Evan.

Mission Canyon, the second book in the series, hits the ground running (wearing a Supremes costume) and doesn’t stop. As with China Lake, there is humour aplenty, but the story itself is dark and hard-hitting. At times, reading conversations between Jesse and Evan I found myself wincing, and not because the dialogue was bad (hell no!) but because the scenes were so raw and realistic. What starts out as a mission to catch the bad guy who put Jesse in a wheelchair and killed his best friend, turns into a whirlwind of high-tech blackmail, federal harassment and betrayal. Nothing turns out quite as you’d expect, even though one of the baddies is quite easily identified (possibly only to people who’ve read their JG Ballard though). No plot thread is left dangling, which is saying something considering there are so many of them. It’s a smooth, addictive and affecting read.

Bookseller resolution of the day: read every other Meg Gardiner book, and ensure that our crime-reading customers are introduced to her post-haste. And if my word isn’t good enough for you (and why would it be?) see what Stephen King has to say about her.

Books, I have been reading them…

Round-up time.

I’ve been reading quite a bit lately as the back of evil is not allowing me to do anything other than lie flat on it, hence no gaming, little computer time in general and a need to while the day away in between drug-induced naps.

So here follows a break-down of what I’ve been reading, and what I’ve thought of it. I’m sure I’ll leave stuff out, but these are the ones that stood out in my head.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters: Hmmm, it’s good, but it’s rather longer than it needs to be, and while it has effective chills in parts it is no The Haunting of Hill House (the book I measure all house-with-a-mind-of-its-own stories against). Also, I really did not like the central protagonist, who has a rather pronounced chip on his shoulder. Parts of the book reminded me of the original Grey Gardens (haven’t seen the recent HBO remake yet, seems weird to remake a documentary…), a house falling down around the ears of an odd family who seem to carry on oblivious, so in summation, good, but not Shirley Jackson good.

The Lovers by John Connolly: massive improvement over The Reapers, I still am not wholly convinced by his somewhat old-fashioned style, but this book has (genuine) scares aplenty and deals with Charlie Parker’s past, mixing in false memory with esoteric mysticism and bringing odd allies out of the woodwork in such a way as to produce a stonking great read. Me like.

Dark Times in the City by Gene Kerrigan: genuine, real-feeling Dublin thriller. Full of grit and tension. His writing is unfussy, never getting in the way of plot or pacing. His characters (even the ones we see least) are fully-drawn and memorable. It’s no fairytale, people are people and their outcomes are not always what you’d expect. A wonderful read.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith: Braaaaaains! Not only does this have an injection of zombies (variously: the sorry stricken, unmentionables etc. etc.) but there’s a lot of puking and ribald punning added for good measure. It really is a lot of fun, and I was only distracted by the confusion over whether Lydia and Wickham were off to Kilkenny or Kirkerry (keeps changing in the text), and in any case neither is in “the northenmost part” of Ireland. This, I assume, is a uniquely Irish quibble.

Soul Circus by George Pelecanos: a re-read, and still every bit as good as the first time. Derek Strange and Terry Quinn are hired to find a woman by the luckless elder brother of a B-more dealer. When the woman turns up dead, they feel bound to bring her killer to justice. Strange is also working for the defense of another dealer who is up on trial (and likely to get the death penalty), and is trying to do his job while witnesses, and even himself, are being intimidated. Nick Stefanos has a cameo, and Pelecanos, as ever, has a way of building a world so complete that it’s almost like you’re there when you’re reading him. For anyone who misses the Wire and hasn’t yet read him, do so, you’re in for a treat. There aren’t many authors I’ll happily re-read over picking up a new book.

All the Dead Voices by Declan Hughes: Hmmm. Val McDermid says in a blurb on the front cover of this “If you don’t love this, don’t you dare call yourself a crime fiction fan”, er, okay, that’s me told then. Declan Hughes is a lovely man, but I really never warmed to Ed Loy. I’ve tried, I’ve failed, and I’m fully aware that this is a personal thing, and that I’m very much in the minority here, so there’s not much point in writing any more, since if you can’t warm to a series protagonist, then you’re going to have a problem with the series. I will say that there’s some great writing in there, the plot is sharp, and the gangsters are interesting, if a bit less credible than the ones in Gene Kerrigan’s book. In short, if you like Ed Loy, you’ll love this, if not, you probably won’t.

And that’s all evil back will allow me to type for now. Back to the couch I go….

Some very cool, and very smart sci-fi…

When it comes to sci-fi there are names everyone knows; William Gibson, Neal Stephenson etc. etc. and then there are some that are (for reasons beyond me) much lesser known.

One of the things I like to do here is shine a light on writers I love who don’t seem to be getting a fair shake on the market here in Ireland. And one of those writers is Tricia Sullivan.

She’s won the Arthur C. Clarke award (for Dreaming in Smoke) but that was some years back. Her books are described as “fiercely intelligent” by SFX, she is loved by publications as diverse as sci-fi mag Locus and broadsheets like the Guardian, but for some reason she hasn’t followed Stephenson and Gibson into the mainstream, which (to my mind at least), is the mainstream’s loss.

I’m sure the “fiercely intelligent” tag may have something to do with it, since I can’t think of a better way to encapsulate what sets her apart from the majority of sci-fi writers. There is imaginative world-building, and then there is world-building that invokes string theory and mathematical concepts to construct alternate worlds within our world. The latter sounds like more work than it is to read, the very notion of it can seem off-putting, but Sullivan consistently manages to pull it off – she mixes hard science (and speculative stuff) with wonderful characterizations and laugh-out-loud (really) wit. She creates people you can’t help but care about, even if you’re not entirely sure that they are real, or sane, or well-intentioned.

My first introduction to Sullivan was a bit late, I kept seeing her book Maul in bookshops and thinking that it sounded interesting, and was the kind of thing that would either be incredibly disappointing, or blow your socks off. I eventually gave in to my curiosity and bought it… and had my socks blown off. Maul is ostensibly about a gang-war between rival teenage girls in a shopping mall sometime in the future. Eventually, it becomes apparent that this reality, so skillfully created is not “real” at all. It’s rather an imaginative soap-opera that exists only inside the head of one of the last men on Earth. His position, and the world that he exists in, mesh with his interior storytelling in a way that is breath-taking.
From gang-wars to biologically engineered plagues, to cloning, to feminine/feminist power the novel flies around, alternately satirical and hilarious, then thoughtful and deep, here angry and violent, there dispassionately contemplative. It’s a true roller-coaster, and pays off huge dividends in terms of food for thought for having read it.

After finishing Maul, I’ll be honest, I avoided seeking out other Sullivan books, based on the jaded reader theory that says anything that good is bound to be a one-off, afraid of picking up another one of her books with high expectations and ending up disappointed. Even with my favourite authors, there are always books I dislike, or like less than others. Sullivan is one of the very few where that hasn’t happened yet. I could go on and on about all of her books, but I’m going to restrict myself to the most recent three, Maul, Double Vision and Sound Mind.

I’ve already raved about Maul, so it’s time to take a look at the two most recent books, which are (handily) a duology (That a word? It is now…).

Double Vision is the book which first introduces the wonderful Karen “Cookie” Orbach, a hefty black lady who can’t watch TV without literally getting sucked into what appears to be an alternate reality where a battle is being fought to save mankind from a kind of digitized plague. Cookie alternates between flying on a creature called Gossamer in this alternate reality (she is purely an observer, powerless to effect any sort of change), and trying to cope in and make sense of what the rest of us term reality (where she would seem to be equally powerless). It soon becomes apparent that there is some sort of bleed between “the Grid” (the digitized battle-stricken world) and the “real” world, or at least a connection that Cookie starts to tease out. There are brand-names aplenty in the Grid, MaxFact missiles for example, and Cookie’s bosses seen to be undisturbed by things making their way from one reality to another, in fact they seem to like the idea. One of the things that Sullivan manages to pull off so well, is the constant suspicion that Cookie may be, well…crazy. There seems to be no correlation between notes on her work she finds in her boss’s office and the alternate world she visits (ostensibly as part of her job). Her friends (uber-geek Miles and others at her karate class) think she’s sweet, nuts, and possibly even dangerous. One thing is for sure – the woman has a temper. Whether it’ll help her win the war in the grid, or a more personal one in reality is the big question.

The second book Sound Mind begins with the escape of an amnesiac student (Cassidy Walker) from a college that is under attack from … something. Something is so indefineably scary that Cassidy refers to it simply as “IT”. She makes it to a nearby town, only to discover that as far as the townspeople are concerned, the college never existed, and she has always lived in a house she has never seen before. A return of her amnesia? A psychotic episode? It would seem that neither is the case. Rather the world seems to have splintered of into nested alternate versions of itself, all containing versions of her, and she’s the only one who can move between them. She can’t quite explain this to people, no matter how hard she tries… which will remind anyone of Cookie’s quandary from the previous book. Cookie herself shows up in the second part of the book, still struggling to make sense of Machine Front, the war in the grid, and the world being generally weird. When Cookie and Cassidy meet up, they realise quickly that something has to give.

As can be guessed at from the titles, the first book is preoccupied with vision – seeing things, hallucinating things, visual cues that point to one thing or another, mental associations evoked by images – anything from breakfast cereal, to the screen of an early MUD videogame, to a music video, to a make-up billboard. The second is concerned with sound, where it comes from, how it is a measure for time, what is encoded within it. The beauty of these twin hypotheses is how they mesh together when Vision and Sound (Cookie and Cassidy) meet up, the physics and philosophy that have spun through both texts come together to create an unforgettable set-piece that could never have been anticipated at first look. I kept having to put Sound Mind down to catch my breath and puzzle out the implications of it all.

Lest that all sound pretentious, I refer to Cassidy’s summation of the whole thing, at one point she says:
“And fuck transcendence, by the way.” – which should give some idea of the irreverent, waspish humour that Sullivan manages to inject even into the most fraught scenes.

Taken together the books are a contemplation of memory, identity, consumerism vs new age beliefs, the power of sound, the ability to see what others can’t, the boundary between what is sane and what is not, the very concept of what reality is, all wrapped up in a crunchy shell of pathos, wit and some serious science. There’s probably more in there too, but all that should be enough to be getting on with.

Anyone who likes Neal Stephenson’s books should really love these, they’re smart and funny and more entertaining than a box-set of BSG, with a side order of 30 Rock, and that’s not something I say lightly.

I’m eagerly awaiting her next book, Lightborn, which should be arriving sometime this year. In the meantime, I’d recommend reading some of her backlist, so you can look forward to it too.

Rapid reading round-up

Ok, this is going to be a quickie as my back is killing me and I’ve just realised it has been an age since I posted anything about what I’ve read. So here follows a list of what I’ve finished, plus a very short review of each:

The Fire Gospel by Michel Faber: I love his short stories, and this was (for me) an irresistible premise: academic in Iraq finds lost gospel in looted museum. Publishes and all heck breaks loose. It’s a wonderful read, the central character is a bit of a jerk, and the gospel is hilariously mundane (seriously whiny disciple), but the scenes detailing the chaos unleashed by the publication of it are all too believable, and rather scary. I truly enjoyed it, especially the extremely geeky-linguist digression/rant about voiced versus unvoiced “h” sounds. It is not “an ‘erb”, it is “a herb”. Glad I’m not the only one who thinks so!

If You’re Reading This it’s Too Late by Pseudonymous Bosch:  Fun, but suffers from over-referring to the first (and far superior) book (The Name of This Book is Secret – which I adored). Not in a cool “remember when blah happened” way, but in a “you really should read my other book too, y’know” way – clumsily and far far too frequently. Shame. I still love Cass and Max-Ernest though.

Mad, Bad and Sad by Lisa Appignanesi: a fascinating look at how women have been treated by the psychiatric establishment, since back in the day when they called psychiatrists “alienists”. It follows both the history of psychiatry and individual case studies, mixing in common-sense and feminist thought in a way that never feels forced. Not as much of a forensic exposé as Andrew Schull’s masterly Madhouse (which she refers to) or as emotionally immediate as Emily Holmes Coleman’s The Shutter of Snow (which she doesn’t, in what feels like a glaring omission since it’s last UK publication was by her own publishers, Virago) but still a shocking, educating and most importantly gripping read.

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson: Wow. Just…wow. I don’t know where to start with this one, except to say that the opening chapters are not for anyone of a squeamish disposition. This is a dark beauty of a book. It is smart, savvy, up to the minute, and romantic – in the truest, oldest sense of the word.  It is both heart-breaking and uplifting and never ever dull. Can you tell that I loved it?

Pharmakon by Dirk Wittenborn: Liked this a lot. Central premise is that an idealogical psychologist gets wind of a folk remedy that reputedly grants instant happiness to those who take it. He recreates the formula and tests it out in a clinical trial. One of his trial-subjects (a tormented genius who is also a total sociopath) has a rather unexpected reaction to the drug, and responds in a way that changes the lives of the doctor and his family forever. The first part of the book is essentially prologue, setting the above down, the rest of it is about the repercussions of all of it on his youngest son, who wasn’t born at the time of the drug trial. The book is surprisingly deep, and strong enough to leave unanswered questions at its close without detracting from the reader’s enjoyment in the least. The randomness of connection, of how we make and keep friends, is one of the themes dealt with, another is the sheer impossibility of knowing what goes on inside the head of another person. It’s a book that makes you think while entertaining you. My kind of book.

Life Sentences by Laura Lippman: Confession, I love all of this woman’s books, Tess Monaghan novels or otherwise. This is not a Tess book, but is (rather like the equally haunting Every Secret Thing) a stand-alone, dealing with issues of memory and identity, while telling the tale of a successful memoirist (and failed novelist) attempting to tease out a mystery from her past as fodder for yet another memoir. It’s wonderfully evocative, both of Baltimore (as ever) and of the vagaries of publishing. The true crime at the centre of the book is almost a macguffin, as the central character’s journey is more about reconciling herself to the truth about her own past, and as the book progresses she becomes more recognisably human and less dislikeable. The supporting cast (as ever with Lippman) are extremely strong, all of them flawed people doing their best to get along in a world that is never quite fair to them. One to savour.

The Worst Person in the World (and 202 strong contenders) by Keith Olbermann: Not so much a book as an in-print collection of the first couple of years of the “Worst Person in the World” slot on his nightly Countdown show. I’m addicted to Countdown, and the show that airs after it, the Rachel Maddow Show, video podcasts of both of them are downloaded by me every day without fail. If you haven’t seen either, head over to the MSNBC website for video clips from both. All of this is preamble to the sad fact that it’s more fun watching and hearing Mr Olbermann rant about people than it is to wade through a book full of said rants. Rather like how Al Franken’s last book had too high a vitriol to funny ratio, a whole book of rants has a wearing effect. Especially since Olbermann (a former sports commentator) has several rants about baseball, which went right over my Irish and  non-baseball familiar head. Still, it’s always good to see someone take pot-shots at people like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh who really and truly deserve every bit of snark lobbed at them. And then some. I’ll be sticking to watching the rants as part of the show from here on in though.

Life According to Lubka by Laurie Graham: This was a nice surprise, middle-aged and achingly(to the point of embarrassment)  hip  record company exec (the fabulously monikered Buzz Wexler) is duped into managing the world tour of the “Gorni Grannies”, a group of elderly acapella singers from the old soviet bloc. What happens next is never less than entertaining. Warm, witty and full of surprises, this is a book that is certain to warm the cockles of even the most cynical hearts. It’s coming out in summer, and I expect it to be huge.  Deservedly so.

And that, for the moment, is that. At the moment I am reading Kenneth Cameron’s The Bohemian Girl (loved the predecessor The Frightened Man and am enjoying this every bit as much), and (prepare to be jealous!) The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, which has started off intriguingly (ta muchly for the signed proof Siobhán!).

I’ll post when I have both books finished, as hopefully by then my back will allow me to sit for long enough to give them each a proper review.