Book review

Adventures in Bookland: The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde

29 April 2015
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review
The Song of the Quarkbeast
The Song of the Quarkbeast

What is the song of an imaginary creature? Admittedly, the creature in question is a (metaphorical) mixture of velociraptor, knife block (with the knives all sticking blade up) and labrador, so not the most obvious candidate for song, but the question stands. Well, it turns out, rather than the sparking clash of metal, or the grind of tooth on bone, the song of the Quarkbeast is enchanting: yearning, lonely, and ever reaching towards a barely glimpsed and often receding, yet certainly there, consummation. Unfortunately, in a curious nod towards MAD (mutually assured destruction/desire) the Quarkbeast sings only when its twin approaches, and union with said anti-twin will bring absolute destruction, as when an electron and positron meet.

This is unfortunate for the Quarkbeast. It’s also unfortunate for anyone else within a mile or two. But it’s good for the reader. Jasper Fforde’s invention drive, which was revving nicely in the first volume of the series without getting much second gear, begins to pick up speed in this second book of The Chronicles of Kazam. And, after all, this is what we read Fforde for: invention, imagination, wordplay and dreadful puns (not so much character development). As with Thursday Next, where the Fforde invention drive (or FID for short) took until the second or third volume in the series to really kick into overdrive, so with The Chronicles of Kazam: after a few jerks and shudders in the first book, the story is really beginning to rev up nicely here and I anticipate the third and fourth will explode into the inventosphere. Three and a half stars for this one and anticipating four for the next.

Adventures in Bookland: Fiefdom by Dan Abnett and Nik Vincent

23 April 2015
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review, Things You Never Knew
Fiefdom
Fiefdom

OK, if dogs could talk, what would they say? It’s easy with cats: they, of course, can talk, but they’re obviously not going to have conversations with the servile class. But dogs, what would they say?

At first thought, I’d have said, ‘Bone!’ or ‘Walks!’, with great enthusiasm. But that is to do down dogs – and besides, that’s pretty much what they always say when they can talk (or, in the wonderful film Up!, ‘Squirrel!’). You know, that’s too easy. Sure, some would go for the monosyllabic whuff of enthusiasm, but others would be more considered, more thoughtful, more mellow: they’d drop their head to one side, loll their tongues and say, ‘Bones, walks, sleep, huh, huh, master, love.’

Yes, I set off this review trying to make a case for literary dogs and I don’t seem to have made it to my destination. Neither does the Dan man (the world’s hardest working author): the protagonists of Fiefdom are dog soldiers, genetically modified to protect mankind and then, finding themselves the only survivors of an Ice Age, living on in the U-Bahn tunnels under Berlin. But, being dogs, once, their vocabulary proves rather limited, and though the book has all the Dandroid’s usual narrative drive, there’s a limit to how many times you can hear a dog soldier saying, ‘Tougher and tough’ before it begins to pall a little. Still, for a blood-soaked light tube train read (particularly appropriate given its U-Bahn setting), it rattles along as quickly as the new rolling stock on the Metropolitan line.

The First Review of Oswald: Return of the King

23 April 2015
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review, Oswald: Return of the King

Liz Robinson at Lovereading has written the first review of Oswald: Return of the King: it’s lovely and, as writers rank only slightly below actors in our thirst for praise without wanting to show it, obviously thoroughly deserved!

Let’s give it the Isaac ‘Yaay!’

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Here’s the start of the review:

A triumphant continuation of the ‘Northumbrian Thrones’ trilogy; these tales are bringing to life a forgotten time, when being a King was a dangerously unpredictable job to hold. The story now races ahead to Oswald who witnessed the death of his father in the first book ‘Edwin: High King of Britain’. This story feels even more complete than Edwin’s, knowing Oswald’s background helps to give flesh and emotion to this man and an appreciation of the difficulties battering his very existence.

To read the rest, go here.

Adventures in Bookland: The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde

23 April 2015
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review, Things You Never Knew
The Last Dragonslayer
The Last Dragonslayer

In honour of the wonderful Jasper Fforde, and in particular his Thursday Next novels where the eponymous heroine enters Bookworld to save it from various menaces and perils, I’ve renamed the previously rather boring ‘book review’ section of my blog, ‘Adventures in Bookland’. And, in truth, that’s a far better title, for after all, when we read a book we do go on an adventure. If it’s a non-fiction book, then there will be intellectual adventure to go, hopefully, with narrative excitement and verbal fizz; if it’s a story, then, hopefully, there will be dragons!

And, yes, you’ve guessed it (the title does rather give it away), Jasper Fforde does give us dragons, or rather one (with a couple of slither ons at the end). He also gives us a version of Britain, the Ununited Kingdom, split into a myriad little principalities, rather as if GK Chesterton had sat down (on a sturdy, reinforced chair!) and divided the country up on Distributist lines. I particularly enjoyed the Troll Wall, in the far North, built to keep out what it says in its name – no doubt many Westminster politicians, looking with dismay at what is happening north of the border in this 2015 election year, would feel the same.

But now, enjoyable though The Last Dragonslayer is, can I ask a question. When was the last time we had, in books, a proper, fire breathing, maiden eating, gold hoarding, evil serpent? I know there’s been Smaug in the recent Hobbit films, but they hark back to Tolkien (to a greater or lesser extent!). But, since Smaug, have there been any properly evil worms? Thinking back over the last, er, rather too long, but let’s say forty years or so, I can remember Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern, the Luckdragon of The Neverending Story, Gordon Dickson’s Dragon Knight stories, the aerial division of the armies in a modified Napoleonic war in the Temeraire series, and the dragons in George Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (which I’ve not read or watched, but have been unable to avoid). At worst, these dragons can be called dangerous, but most are positively cuddly (or, at least, as cuddly as fire-breathing beasts with scales can reasonably be expected to be).

Now, I understand that authors might want to play with the stereotype, to break it down and try it from a new angle, but really, don’t you think we have a whole new stereotype here? Now, dragons are always, always, misunderstood creatures, cruelly picked on by a humanity fearful of ‘the other’. Indeed, it’s become such a stereotype that the reward of the unexpected awaits the first writer to make the dragon back into what it was, traditionally: cold, calculating and thoroughly, completely evil.

There, I’ve given you the idea, free and gratis. Now get out there and write it. I, for one, will read it, and, on this day of St George, cheer the dragonslayer!

Book review: Lieutenant Hornblower by CS Forester

17 April 2015
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review
Lieutenant Hornblower
Lieutenant Hornblower

Having cheerfully patted myself on the back in my last review but one that I had made the right decision to read the Hornblower series in chronological rather than publication order, I now have to withdraw the self-congratulatory pat on the back. Lieutenant Hornblower, the second in time but the seventh to be written, does not work nearly so well as the second book in a multi-volume series for the simple reason that it was the seventh book actually written. As such, CS Forester was obviously trying out narrative ideas to freshen up his work and, in this, he writes from the point of view not of Hornblower but of William Bush, who had already been established in the series as Hornblower’s best friend, but is here introduced – and introduced to Hornblower. All the action is seen from Bush’s point of view and, since he’s a stolid, unimaginative officer, very far from the high-wrought but controlled tension under which Hornblower lives, the book has a very different feel to the first: it’s dashed hard to write through the eyes of a slightly dull man without the writing occasionally being a bit dull, and Forester only just survives the experiment in point of view. Now, if I had already the first seven Hornblower novels, this would have been absolutely fine, as I’d be more than ready for a different view of our hero – and, indeed, an insight into how others see him. But, as I am only starting to get to know him, this drawing back to another point of view was disconcerting. Despite this, Forester’s narrative drive carried me along, and I finished the book faster than a sailor claiming his ration of grog, and I have already reserved the next in the series from the libarary. And, yes, having started this way, that is how I will continue – at least for the next book (although if this one is written from the point of view of the woman Hornblower appears to have decided to marry at the end of this book – a mistake, I strongly suspect – then I’m not I’ll be able to bear it).

Book review: Asthma Allergies Children: A Parent’s Guide by Paul Ehrlich MD & Larry Chiaramonte MD

11 April 2015
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review
Asthma Allergies Children
Asthma Allergies Children

There are a surprising number of doctors who combine acute medical insight with literary flair. Think of Conan Doyle or Robert Bridges and, in the present day, the psychiatrist Anthony Daniels who writes under the pseudonym of Theodore Dalrymple. Unfortunately, Drs Ehrlich and Chiaramonte, with the help of non-physician Henry Ehrlich, do not come into that category.

I suppose the misplaced apostrophe in the title should have given it away (but I must admit I only noticed it when starting this review). Maybe the title itself (chosen, as they say in the introduction, to make the book appear higher in Google searches) should have been a warning. But the truth is, there’s just not that much out there for parents, like us, trying to learn more about this wheezing, gasping, sucker of joy and spontaneity and excitement from the lives of our children. God, I hate asthma. To see a son whose dearest wish is to launch himself through an assault course of jumps and rolls and bounces in a parkour (free running) course, with all the bounce and athleticism and fearlessness that being an eleven-year-old boy brings with it, reduced to wheezing, coughing, blue pump puffing helplessness is to know the helplessness of love: I would take this all myself, and willingly (I’m not that likely to go bouncing round a parkour course anyway!) but I cannot.

So, in common with many other parents, we’re trying to find out more about this disease. Son number 2 has the blue pump and the brown pump, he has the peak flow meter, and rather than getting better, it seems to be getting worse. Now, we’re trying to understand, to learn, and while this book is poorly written and produced, needlessly repetitive (we know you think people should resort to allergists, you’ve told us fifteen times already) and directed very much towards the US, it does contain some useful information about how the disease works, how a runny nose may not, in fact, be a cold but a sign of the underlying allergy of which an asthma attack is the acute episode in an ongoing chronic condition, but the useful information could have been contained in a book about a third the length.

If anyone has any recommendations for books about asthma for parents, I would be grateful to receive them.

Book review: Mr Midshipman Hornblower by CS Forester

10 April 2015
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review
Mr Midshipman Hornblower
Mr Midshipman Hornblower

There are some eras that just work – in historical fiction books – in a way that others don’t. So, we have endless stories of the Roman legions, but  few of the English Civil War (although my theory for that is that very few writers today can find their way into the headspace of the Parliamentarian/Puritans). But of all the eras, none has proved itself better suited to books than the Napoleonic Wars: Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe books and, of course, but, in my case, shamefully unread, CS Forester’s Hornblower series.

Well, now I’ve started reading Hornblower, and I’m hitting myself over the head with a copy of A History of London (and if you’ve seen or, worse, tried to pick this up, you’ll know how serious a self castigation this is!) for taking so long about it. This is marvellous, completely page-turning stuff. The useful introduction in this edition, by Bernard Cornwell, told me that Forester had been writing Hornblower novels for a while before he produced this one, returning to the youth of his hero to fill in background, and it does not always work to read a series in chronological rather than publication order (Narnia, for instance, should certainly be read with the same sense of discovery as Lewis himself found in writing it, rather than from its Genesis to its Apocalypse), yet with Hornblower this looks to be the right approach. I’m thoroughly enjoying making the acquaintance of this geeky (before they’d invented the word) youth, as he makes his uncertain way into the senior service, complete with acute seasickness.

As to why Napoleonic-era novels work so well, I suspect it has to do with the time itself: the conflict that brought into being the modern era also bears many of the characteristics of the ancien regime it displaced: so prisoners might give their word on parole, and it be accepted, that they would not escape; there was the wonder of a world still being discovered; and yet, the first indications of the unique savagery of modern, industrial warfare in the massed cannonades and vicious guerilla warfare of the Peninsular conflict. The Napoleonic Wars closed one era and began another: no wonder they work so well in books.

Book review: Saint Odd by Dean Koontz

7 April 2015
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review
Saint Odd
Saint Odd

There are seven days in the week, seven deadly sins, seven sacraments and seven wonders; and now there is the seventh, and final, book in the series following the adventures, among the living, the dead and the uncertain, of Odd Thomas, fry cook, social commentator and soldier against the end of the world. It’s been an uneven journey, and I sometimes wonder if there were seven books because, well, seven is just the sort of number you want to get to if you make it past three (and seeing how Dean Koontz can seemingly churn out a three hundred page novel every three months, the challenge of the seven must have been near enough irresistible). But despite the rocky road (almost as much for the reader as for Odd himself – while I’ve not had the love of my life shot down, nor had first Elvis and then Sinatra mooning silently around me, Odd didn’t have to read Forever Odd – Koontz is a wildly variable writer, sometimes in the same book, just as often between books), I’ve kept on with Odd and I’m glad I did, even if the last book in the series does not really tie together the strings left hanging by the previous volumes. But then, how could it? With the hints that Koontz was laying on – of apocalypses, a virgin, forever pregnant mother and demonic cults – the only way to fuse everything together was to write, full-on and out there, the novel of the Second Coming. Not surprisingly, and rather wisely, Koontz in the end backed away from that. In the end, Odd returns to his home town and saves it and that, well, is that. Farewell Odd. I’ve enjoyed your company.

 

Book review: A History of London by Stephen Inwood

26 March 2015
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review, History
A History of London
A History of London

Now this is an interesting addition to reading categories: book as offensive weapon. Honestly, I’m not joking – I weighed my edition (and I have the paperback!) and it came in at over 3 lbs (or 1.4kg for the metrically minded) – so chucking this at an assailant, a critic or a Brummie would certainly cause severe bruising, probably concussion and, hitting the right spot, possibly even death. Even reading it was a workout for the wrists: mine are now like the steel hawsers that they used to use on the London Docks, before containerisation killed them (a death upon which Inwood performs an exhaustive, not to say exhausting, inquest).

Yes, this is is history written big, in a big, big book, of a big, big, big city. It’s were I was born, making me a Londoner in a way that few of the other people I meet here are (almost everyone seems to have come here from somewhere else) so it’s interesting to find out that London has always drawn people in, although for most of the city’s history they were from other parts of Britain. And if not for these historical infusions, London would have withered away, for the city consumed its citizens, killing far more than it gave birth to, so if it was not for the hopeful and the desperate running or fleeing to the city, it would have died to. Although the great Victorian sanitary engineers – Joseph Bazalgette and Co did more for the city than anyone else in its history – stemmed and then reversed the tide of death, yet it still seems a city that consumes itself, eyes directed inwards, darkly. London is a dark city, London is a light city; more stories end here than begin, shuffling without notice into forgetfulness as the city, in its ceaseless churn, buries itself and starts again. No museum piece – no Venice of aspic beauty – it’s ugly and destructive but, undeniably, also alive.

In the battle of big London books, A History of London is longer, heavier and bigger than Peter Ackroyd’s biography of the city and Inwood is certainly the better, more careful historian, but Ackroyd is the better writer. Read Inwood for depth and breadth, read Ackroyd for fizz and zap.

Book review: Jessica’s Ghost by Andrew Norriss

6 March 2015
Edoardo
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Categories: Book review
Jessica's Ghost by Andrew Norriss
Jessica’s Ghost by Andrew Norriss

So, let’s start a review of Andrew Norriss’s new book by talking about Alan Garner. Yes, that Alan Garner – Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Moon of Gomrath, Elidor – one of the finest children’s writers – no, one of the finest writers – of the last fifty years. But I bring Alan up because there are clear parallels – and just as clear divergences – between him and Andrew, and they serve to throw light upon both writers.

Style first suggested affinity: both write the tautest prose around, with not a single spare word. (Although I don’t know this, I suspect that both write in similar ways, boiling the word stew down until only the strongest broth remains.) Indeed, in Alan Garner’s case, the paring away cuts so deep that even the bones are weakened (Red Shift for example) and the story suffers. However, where it works, it works wonderfully, inviting and inducing the reader to fill in the gaps and the silences, as in a Guo Xi painting.

Autumn in the River Valley by Guo Xi
Autumn in the River Valley by Guo Xi

But style is nothing without substance, and both Alan and Andrew deal with wonder: the eruption or eliding into the everyday of things and people extraordinary and unusual – although Andrew puts in jokes, and Alan definitely does not do humour. But more fundamental is the importance in their written worlds of the fantastic: it drives everything, whether it be Aquila, an intelligent, alien space car, or the Weirdstone itself: different worlds intersect and in their crossing lies story.

But this is where things get interesting, for in the different moods of each writer we can detect something of their hopes and fears of the supernatural. With Garner, the supernatural, while more encompassing and more powerful (the Wild Hunt in The Moon of Gomrath), yet there is a sense, a desperate sense, that it may all be in the mind, nothing more than mental phantoms; if a child should ask the key question, ‘Is it true, is it real?’ the book answers that it desperately wants it to be real, but fears, with a dread full, reality draining fear, that it is not. It is, just, words, and even these are slowly draining of meaning. This is what gives Garner’s books their fragile, desperate beauty, like a spun metal sculpture, trembling and under tension.

With Andrew Norriss, on the other hand, behind the jokes and the carefully constructed comedy there is a lightness, a surety that can only come from the written conviction that, yes, this is real, this is true: the world is not only more wonderful than we imagine, it is more wonderful than we can imagine. So, while there is not the tension that fills Garner’s novels, there is a peace that issues in the joy (and laughter) that pervades them.

Jessica’s Ghost is something of a departure for Andrew Norriss – its protagonists are older, its themes more serious, its issues more immediately applicable to the troubled life so many young people live. It will be read at many different levels; it may pull some back from the abyss, while others it may allow to grow into themselves. Andrew Norriss is not so tense as Alan Garner, but he is more complete. Jessica’s Ghost is a fine, fine story; please, do read it. (Try to ignore the front cover, which seems calculated to put people off buying the book.)