Steve's Bookshelf 2015

[Karsa Orlong]

I'm just about to finish Alif the Unseen

[frankie]

The cover's definitely captured the feel of the posters from the time, so it achieves its aim I guess    

 

Carter 1.jpg  Carter 289de84c-4fde-4095-88aa-fd7ca59d6d06.jpg

 

These posters are absolutely fabulous, they should've used these ones! 

 

 

Those posters are great and you can see what the cover was trying to do, almost got it right

 

Not even close :lol: (I know you were kidding but I can't get over the difference between the horrid cover and the beautiful posters!)

[chesilbeach]

The posters are much nicer than the cover … but then again, like I said earlier, I don't mind the cover, and when I read it on my Kindle, it won't make any difference to me anyway!

[frankie]

The posters are much nicer than the cover … but then again, like I said earlier, I don't mind the cover, and when I read it on my Kindle, it won't make any difference to me anyway!

 

The picture of a Kindle would almost make a better cover...  

[poppyshake]

I'm just about to finish Alif the Unseen

Ooh .. I very nearly picked that as my last audiobook. Any good?

 

I don't mind the cover of CBtD .. it is kind of disturbing for some reason and that has added to its sense of menace It does look very like the posters so they've done a good job there. It's striking anyway and I prefer striking to wishy-washy. You could spot it in a crowd which means it couldn't sneak up on me without me noticing .. all useful  

[frankie]

I don't mind the cover of CBtD .. it is kind of disturbing for some reason and that has added to its sense of menace It does look very like the posters so they've done a good job there. It's striking anyway and I prefer striking to wishy-washy. You could spot it in a crowd which means it couldn't sneak up on me without me noticing .. all useful  

 

Oh it sure can't sneak up on you, but I would worry about the nightmares when it approaches (Okay I'll stop rambling about the cover now Moving on!)

[Karsa Orlong]

Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

 

 

2012 - Corvus ebook - 448 pages

 

 

'I will tell you a story, but it comes with a warning; when you hear it, you will become someone else.'

 

He calls himself Alif, a young man born in a Middle Eastern city that straddles the ancient and modern. When Alif comes into possession of a mysterious book entitled The Thousand and One Days, he discovers a door to another world - a world from a very different time, when old magic was in the ascendant and the djinn walked amongst us.

Thus begins an adventure that takes him through the crumbling streets of a once-beautiful city, to uncover the long-forgotten mysteries of the Unseen. Alif is about to become a fugitive. And he is about to unleash a destructive power that will change everything and everyone - starting with Alif himself...

 

 

I liked:

• The blend of science fiction and fantasy, and technology and magic.
• That it's set in the present day, in a fictional city on the Persian Gulf, against the backdrop of the Arab Spring.
• A couple of the characters are wonderful, namely Vikram and (especially) Dina.
• The stories within the story, lifted from the book that starts all the trouble, The Thousand and One Days - a mystical counterpart to (you guessed it!) The Thousand and One Nights.  These tales are presented so well that I wished there had been more of them.
• Wilson succeeds in making the religious aspects fascinating.
• The way others refer to Alif by his given name without the reader actually knowing what it is.
• The humour.

 

I disliked:

• Try as she might to do otherwise, I felt that, in Alif, Wilson presents a character who is quite difficult to like, mainly because he's self-involved and seemed more re-active than pro-active.
• Considering the reasonable length of the book, I didn't think there was all that much to the plot, and it has the sort of ending that makes me think the author wasn't quite sure what to do with it.
• The amount of swearing seemed a) unnecessary and b) makes one of the pieces of blurb (which posits the book as a 'Harry Potter-esque adventure') seem idiotic.
• I did get the feeling, occasionally, that the characters' dialogue was more a case of Wilson putting across her political views rather than theirs.

 

On the whole I enjoyed this book, which I've been meaning to read for quite a while, although it never really seemed to grab hold in the way I thought it would.  I'm used to vintage sf being layered with social commentary, so it's intriguing to come across a novel that's doing it by setting its story in the present day.  The overwhelming impression it has left me with is that G. Willow Wilson could have done so much more with it if she'd given it real drive, instead of letting it meander its way to an ending that left me thinking 'is that it?'   In the end, I think it's a good book without being a great book.

 

 

 

Memorable Quotes:

 

 

"If you can't pay with things, you could pay with skills," said Sakina, motioning to the shadow.

 

"Well, wait a minute," said Alif, looking from the shadow to Sakina.  "My skills are more or less limited to computers - I'm not sure how much help that is to an, ah, to a --"

 

Effrit, said the shadow, I'm an effrit.  And I've got a two-year-old Dell desktop in the back that's had some kind of virus for ages.  The screen goes black five minutes after I turn the damn thing on.  I have to do a hard reboot every time.

 

Alif felt a new vista of serendipitous opportunity open before him.

 

"You've got internet in the Empty Quarter?" he asked in an awed voice.

 

Cousin, said the shadow, we've got WiFi.

 

[Athena]

I like that quote . Great review, I'm glad you liked the book.

[Signor Finzione]

I bought Alif the Unseen a few months ago because I liked the sample I read on Amazon. I didn't even realise it had magic and stuff in it (that quote is awesome). I look forward to reading it and seeing whether or not I agree with your review.

[Karsa Orlong]

I bought Alif the Unseen a few months ago because I liked the sample I read on Amazon. I didn't even realise it had magic and stuff in it (that quote is awesome). I look forward to reading it and seeing whether or not I agree with your review.

 

I forecast a 4/5  

[Karsa Orlong]

Alif the Unseen is 99p on Kindle in today's Daily Deal.  Very annoying, seeing as I only bought it £2.99 a couple of weeks ago   

[poppyshake]

Alif the Unseen is 99p on Kindle in today's Daily Deal.  Very annoying, seeing as I only bought it £2.99 a couple of weeks ago   

That's another 99p you've spent of mine  

[Karsa Orlong]

That's another 99p you've spent of mine

 

  I hope you like it - can you fit your Kindle in the jar     

[poppyshake]

  I hope you like it - can you fit your Kindle in the jar     

I'll put the title in there for sure. Actually I had forgotten about the stuff on Kindle   I haven't got much but there are some complete works .. Dickens, Woolf etc Oh dear .. I'm going to need a bigger boat  

[Karsa Orlong]

I'll put the title in there for sure. Actually I had forgotten about the stuff on Kindle   I haven't got much but there are some complete works .. Dickens, Woolf etc Oh dear .. I'm going to need a bigger boat  

 

 Your jar hasn't got teeth, has it?      I can see the film now:  Jars - "Well this was not a book accident! And it wasn't any magazine; and it wasn't any graphic novel; and it wasn't an ebook! It was Carter Beats the Devil."

[Karsa Orlong]

Commander: The Life and Exploits of Britain's Greatest Frigate Captain by Stephen Taylor

 

 

2013 - Faber & Faber paperback - 354 pages

 

Edward Pellew, captain of the legendary Indefatigable, was quite simply the greatest frigate captain in the age of sail. An incomparable seaman, ferociously combative yet chivalrous, a master of the quarterdeck and an athlete of the tops, he was as quick to welcome a gallant foe into his cabin as to dive to the rescue of a man overboard. He is the likely model for the heroic but all-too-human Jack Aubrey in Patrick O'Brian's novels.

 

Pellew's humanity as much as his gallantry, fondness for subordinates and blind love for his family, and the warmth and intimacy of his letters, make him a hugely engaging and sympathetic figure. In Stephen Taylor's magnificent new life he at last has the biography he deserves.

 

 

I'm going to write a regular review for this one - mainly because I don't think I can do it justice with likes and dislikes.  Whilst the blurb probably overstates the matter of Sir Edward Pellew being the inspiration for Jack Aubrey - because I suspect O'Brian was influenced by multiple characters from the time, particularly Thomas Cochrane, and because any author/publisher writing about such a figure would be mad not to try and capture fans of the 'Aubrey/Maturin' series (consider me suckered   ), and also because Pellew plays a large part in C S Forrester's 'Hornblower' novels - there is no doubt that there are a lot of parallels between the heroic efforts and family life of this man and the fictional Aubrey.

 

Taylor begins this man's tale at the end, then zips back to his childhood.  The son of a packet captain, Pellew was 8 years old when his father died.  He lived most of his life either on or within sight of the sea.  Even in later years when he became an MP he often fretted about having to spend time in London.  He was not noble born - as was frequently alluded to by his enemies within the service, of which their were quite a few - and joined the navy when he was 13, going to sea for the first time at 14.  

 

I was about to say that Taylor doesn't waste much time in getting to the heart of the matter, but the fact is that the pacing of this book is so good that Pellew's early years fly by in a blur of excitement.  It is not long before he is captain of the Indefatigable and taking on the action against the terrifying French ship of the line the Droits de l'Homme, the 10-hour-long battle that would make his name.

 

From there the book encapsulated his time in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean and the many struggles he had, some of which were of his own making.  It is clear that nepotism was his greatest fault, continuously either awarding or fighting for the promotions of his two eldest sons, neither of whom was particularly cut out for it, and his often poorly judged letters to the First Lord of the Admiralty would eventually cost him his biggest supporter, especially as another captain was quickly making a name for himself - someone called Nelson.

 

Fortunately for Pellew, and for Taylor as an author, the man's career was bookended by his other major success, in fighting for the abolition of Christian slavery in the Barbary States of North Africa, and Algiers in particular.  It brings the book to a crescendo, and Taylor's vivid retelling of the battle is hugely impressive and very exciting.  The pacing of the book is spectacular, even when dealing with more mundane matters, and Taylor maintains it from start to finish.  It is a genuinely thrilling account - something I never thought I would say of non-fiction - told with boundless energy and, most importantly, great clarity.  He doesn't bombard you with facts and figures in the way that some books do, but introduces people and settings in almost a novelist's fashion.  Perhaps the book's one fault is that there is very little in the way of background to the various battles, meaning that it relies a little on the reader's foreknowledge of the history surrounding these events.  If you have that, this is a phenomenal read.

 

There is most definitely an air of Jack Aubrey in Pellew's marriage to Susan, which lasted over fifty years until his death.  He was fiercely protective of his family, to his own detriment at times, but he also made and kept friends whom he loved as brothers and whose sons he also took under his wing.  Taylor fights his corner admirably when he comes under fire from other quarters.  I don't think, though, that he's ever over-enamoured with Pellew's charistmatic, compelling character.  Through exhaustive research (it's the first time in ages I have used two bookmarks in one book, as I was constantly flipping backwards and forwards to the notes) he is quite even-handed in pointing out when Pellew was at fault.  

 

Perhaps his biggest problems, though, were that he and his defining ship, the Indefatigable, were nowhere near Cadiz on the 21st of October 1805, and that he didn't die a heroe's death in the heat of battle, as did a certain Nelson.  It is rather warming, though, that - in an age where we Brits seem intent on setting our heroes up only to tear them down again - the overwhelming impression is that Pellew was a special man, a family man, a hero to his men, and an incomparable man of the sea. 

[Signor Finzione]

Great review, Steve.

 

For some reason the word "frigate" always makes me laugh.

[poppyshake]

 Your jar hasn't got teeth, has it?      I can see the film now:  Jars - "Well this was not a book accident! And it wasn't any magazine; and it wasn't any graphic novel; and it wasn't an ebook! It was Carter Beats the Devil."

:D

Me: Smile .. you son of a b****!

 ..

.. Carter Beats the Devil carnage    

[Athena]

Great review, Steve! I'm glad you're enjoying your reading .

Edited March 4, 2015 by Athena

[Karsa Orlong]

:D

Me: Smile .. you son of a b****!

 ..

.. Carter Beats the Devil carnage    

 

I think, if Chief Brody had used a chainsaw rather than a rifle at the end, Jaws would've been a very different film

[poppyshake]

I think, if Chief Brody had used a chainsaw rather than a rifle at the end, Jaws would've been a very different film

Yeah alright .. I did my best with the emoticons available to me    

[Karsa Orlong]

I was going to post this in the music thread, but I suppose it does qualify as a book, too . . .

 

 

My deluxe copy of Steven Wilson's new album, 'Hand.  Cannot.  Erase.'  , arrived today.  It's a big hardback, coffee table book that contains the album on cd, a cd of demos, and a dvd and blu-ray with surround sound versions and other bits and pieces.

 

But the book itself - I've been looking through it and, as a presentation, I've never seen anything quite like it.  Here's the cover:

 

 

Then, inside, there are all sorts of bits and pieces, like a birth certificate, a book of stories written by a child, and an envelope which contains a handwritten note (which are actually lyrics to one of the songs).  There are other things in there that I haven't even looked at yet.  It's quite beautiful (and the music is stunning - just as well really!) 

 

     

[chesilbeach]

What a fantastic piece of design.  I love when artists go over and above to do something different to add to the whole experience for the reader/viewer/listener.

[Karsa Orlong]

  Okay, this video shows it better than my rubbish photos - should've found this in the first place  

 

[Athena]

That's great design!