Steve's Bookshelf 2015

[Athena]

Heyho, that's the exact cover I have too. Great review ! I'm glad you enjoyed the book in the end. Can you tell me if it ends on a huge cliffhanger?

[Karsa Orlong]

Not a cliffhanger, as such.  You can just sense that the story's opening up.

[Athena]

Thanks, Steve .

[frankie]

I have a Digital Man Countdown clock 

 

Or maybe it's just a Clockwork Angel   

 

Whatever it is, they are Here Again, you Working Man, and you are In The Mood! That'll chase away the Summertime Blues... 

Edited May 15, 2015 by frankie

[Karsa Orlong]

 

Well it's the last time, which is just as well, cos it's getting Big Money, and I should really Leave That Thing Alone, otherwise I might end up Losing It all

[Karsa Orlong]

The City and the City by China Miéville

 

 

2009 - Pan ebook - 373 pages

 

 

There may be one or two people here who might remember that I regularly mention China Miéville's Perdido Street Station when one of those recommendation threads comes up.  It is a weird, dark, violent, scary, and gothic novel quite unlike anything else I've read.  So it has amazed me that it's taken so long for me to get back to his work.  I even nearly abandoned this one about 80 pages in, purely because I got the urge to read some C J Cherryh.  I'm so glad I didn't.

 

The City and the City, at its heart, is a murder mystery.  Tyador Borlú is an Inspector for the Extreme Crime Squad in the city state of Besźel (weirdly, the Kindle edition misses out the 'ź' throughout  ).  Besźel is no ordinary city, though, because it is merged, intertwined, tangled with the city of Ul Qoma, occupying the same time and space as that city (quite how this happened is never really explained, apart from mention of the 'Cleaving'), with border controls and people on either side of that border having to 'un-see' those on  the other side for fear of 'breaching' - interacting with the other side illegally, effectively - which will see them taken by the Breach themselves, a mysterious organisation that polices the borders and has the occupants of both cities living in fear.  When an unidentified woman's body is found in a derelict skatepark it leads Borlú on an investigation that rapidly spirals out of control when he discovers that she was murdered in Ul Qoma but dumped in his own city.

 

Besźel and Ul Qoma seem to exist somewhere between Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and you can see the subtexts Miéville is working in there (particularly towards Israel and Palestine, or perhaps Berlin before the wall came down), but he is not heavy-handed with it, and rarely strays from the mystery that is central to his story.

 

At a little under 400 pages, The City and the City is just about perfect in length.  It's a taut, pacey read that I thought was executed to just about perfection.  He's created a set of rules for the two cities and Breach that he adheres to throughout.  The idea of 'un-seeing' and 'un-hearing', of areas that are 'alter' or 'cross-hatched', seem a bit confusing at first but they soon become second nature.  And his characterisation is fantastic.  The story is told in the first person, from Borlú's point of view, and he's joined by Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and the hilariously foul-mouthed Bes policewoman Lizbyet Corwi.  They occupy a truly unique, noir-ishly atmospheric setting and a beautifully constructed story that works on many levels.  I'm going to miss all of them.  I found it a thrilling, haunting novel from a wonderfully vivid imagination.

 

Quite brilliant.

 

 

Memorable Quotes:

 

Someone stood in the doorway.  Light behind him, he was a cutout of darkness, a lack.  When he stepped forward he was a man fifteen or twenty years my senior.  To ugh and squat, in clothes as vague as my own.  There were others behind him: a woman my own age, another man a little older.  Their faces were without anything approaching expressions.  They looked like people-shaped clay in the moments before God breathed out. 

 

 

 

'Have you read Between the City and the City?' I said. 

 

'When I was an undergrad, sure.  My cam-cover was The Wealth of Nations.'  During the 1960s and '70s some banned literature could be bought bound in stripped covers of legal paperbacks.  'What about it?'

 

'What did you think?'

 

'At the time, that it was amazing, man.  Plus that I was unspeakably brave to be reading it.  Subsequently that it was ridiculous.  Are you finally going through adolescence, Tyador?'

 

'Could be.  No one understands me.  I didn't ask to be born.'

 

 

[frankie]

 

Well it's the last time, which is just as well, cos it's getting Big Money, and I should really Leave That Thing Alone, otherwise I might end up Losing It all

 

You silly, silly man  

[Timstar]

I have still yet to read any Miéville but I did get The City & The City in a kindle deal not too long ago. Glad you liked it!

[Karsa Orlong]

Thanks, yeah I picked it up in the daily deal too.  99p well spent!  Hope you enjoy it when you get to it 

[Karsa Orlong]

Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack

 

 

1993 - Gollancz ebook - 256 pages

 

It's just a little later than now and Lola Hart is writing her life in a diary. She's a nice middle-class girl on the verge of her teens who schools at the calm end of town.

A normal, happy, girl.
 

But in a disintegrating New York she is a dying breed. War is breaking out on Long Island, the army boys are flamethrowing the streets, five Presidents have been assassinated in a year. No one notices any more. Soon Lola and her family must move over to the Lower East side - Loisaida - to the Pit and the new language of violence of the streets.

The metamorphosis of the nice Lola Hart into the new model Lola has begun...

 

 

Written in the form of a diary, Random Acts of Senseless Violence is the story of 12-year-old Lola Hart.  She has loving parents and a sister, they live in a nice apartment in a near-future New York, and she goes to a private girls' school where she bitches and moans about boys with her friends, questions her sexuality, and goes through all the growing pains you would expect.  So far, so ho-hum.

 

But this is a world in the midst of economic and societal meltdown, and what drew me inexorably into Lola's world is the way in which Womack so quietly works the detail into the story.  It starts out like you would expect any kid's diary to start, with regular English and punctuation, the odd mistake or odd word choice but the sort of thing you could read in your sleep.  In the background, occasionally mentioned, there is rioting on the streets, martial law, and palls of smoke constantly hanging over the city.  As her parents fall towards financial oblivion the family is forced to move to a rougher end of town, and Lola's life begins to change, as do her diary entries.  The language changes, subtly, over time.  What was straightfoward English gradually becomes increasingly laced with street slang, the rhythm of dialogue changes, the punctuation all but disappears, and as anarchy takes hold of the streets so it takes hold of Lola's life.

 

It's this descent into anarchy that makes the book so compelling, because it's so organic and so seamlessly worked into the diary form that you don't at first realise that it's happening.  It's superbly done.  Does it qualify as science fiction?  Well it's dystopian fiction, for sure, and much of the best SF holds up a mirror to our own society, and this book does that in spades, so I'd say it's a resounding 'yes'.  If I had one gripe (and it is just a gripe) it's that it was fairly obvious what was coming at the end long before it actually got there but, in this case, I'd say it worked to effectively build tension to that point.  It's a book that I found unsettling and surprisingly scary, populated by vivid, convincing characters who I genuinely cared about.  It's a story with a message - and a warning.  I'm amazed that it's not more widely lauded.

 

 

Memorable Quotes:

 

You don't know who your friends are ... until you're not like them anymore.

 

 

[Athena]

Great review! This sounds interesting, I shall put it on the list of 'books to look up' .

[Anna Begins]

Ya I think I need the Sample for this one, sounds like something I would totally be into! 

[Karsa Orlong]

^^  Go for it! 
 
 
 
Been on a bit of a Kindle spending spree recently:

The Many-Coloured Land (Saga of the Exiles Bk 1) by Julian May (actually a re-buy because I fancied re-reading it and had managed to give away my old paperback copy at some point   )
The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney
Necroscope by Brian Lumley
Alex Benedict Collection: A Talent for War / Polaris / Seeker by Jack McDevitt (had my eye on these books for ages, and this is the first three books for £4.99, couldn't resist . . . )
Gridlinked by Neal Asher
Snowblind by Ragnar Jónasson
The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (finally out on Kindle!)
HMS Ulysses by Alistair McLean (99p . . . )

To Ride Hell's Chasm by Janny Wurts (£2.99)

Curse of the Mistwraith (The Wars of Light and Shadow Bk 1) by Janny Wurts (£1.99)

and a couple of second-hand paperbacks:

Cyteen and Rimrunners by C J Cherryh

[bobblybear]

Nice review of Random Acts of Senseless Violence. I have a copy sitting on my bookshelf. I tried reading it about 15 years ago, and couldn't get on with it at all. About the only thing I remembered was that Lola's sister was called Boob.    Mind you, it's been a while so I may even be wrong about that.  I wasn't into dystopian novels back then, but I've always had a feeling I would enjoy it at some point which is why it's still on my bookshelf. I may give it another go this year.

[Athena]

Some familiar titles on your list! I hope you enjoy all your new books .

[Karsa Orlong]

Nice review of Random Acts of Senseless Violence. I have a copy sitting on my bookshelf. I tried reading it about 15 years ago, and couldn't get on with it at all. About the only thing I remembered was that Lola's sister was called Boob.    Mind you, it's been a while so I may even be wrong about that.

 

No you're not wrong - that was her sister's nickname   And Lola's was Booz

 

 

 

Some familiar titles on your list! I hope you enjoy all your new books .

 

Thanks

[Karsa Orlong]

The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney

 

 

1955 - Gollancz ebook - 237 pages

 

I warn you that what you're starting to read is full of loose ends and unanswered questions.  It will not be neatly tied up at the end, everything resolved and satisfactorily explained.  Not by me it won't, anyway.  Because I can't say I really know exactly what happened, or why, or just how it began, how it ended, or if it has ended; and I've been right in the thick of it.  Now if you don't like that kind of story, I'm sorry, and you'd better not read it.  All I can do is tell what I know.

 

 

Rather than the blurb, that's the opening of the book.  This SF Masterworks edition is the original version, not the revised version that came out when the 1978 movie remake starring Donald Sutherland arrived.  I'm happy about that, because the original 1956 movie, starring Kevin McCarthy, is one of my all-time faves - and I'm doubly happy because that movie is by-and-large faithful to Finney's story, unlike the '78 version.  If you've seen the original then you'll know that the story is told in voiceover by McCarthy's character, Dr Miles Bennell, and that is exactly what happens in the book.

 

Bennell is a doctor in the small Californian town of Santa Mira.  The story begins when an old girlfriend, Beck Driscoll, turns up at his surgery.  She is very worried about her sister, Wilma, who lives with her aunt and uncle.  Wilma, apparently, has got it into her head that her Uncle Ira is no longer her Uncle Ira.  Miles and Becky go to visit her and, unsurprisingly, come to the conclusion that Uncle Ira is very much Uncle Ira, but Wilma won't have it.  Miles asks her if she'll see a psychiatrist friend of his to which she - surprisingly - agrees.

 

If you've seen the film then you'll know what happens next: cases of this strange condition multiply, people all over the town saying their loved ones are no longer their loved ones.  And then Jack is called out of a cinema to investigate a body - a body that is strangely featureless and yet humanoid, and developing before his eyes, ready to take on the life of its target when that target goes to sleep.

 

The Body Snatchers is a brilliant exercise in escalating paranoia, as Miles begins to doubt everything and everyone around him.  I remember the first time I saw the 1956 film, late one Saturday night on BBC2.  As it ended, the announcer said something to the effect of 'And I think all that remains to say is good night, sleep well'.  Um, yeah okay - you try!  It's a brilliant film and a brilliant book.  That the story on the page deviates in places from the film is unsurprising - particularly at the end (the end of the film is better, imo, even though the studio asked director Don Siegel to add framing scenes to add a hint of optimism) - but in many ways its remarkable how closely they match.  I've often seen it mentioned that the story is actually about McCarthyism, or the second 'Red Scare' of early 50s America, but I think there's more to it than that.  It preys on a primal fear: do we really know the person next to us as well as we think they do?  Are they really who we think they are?

 

Ultimately I think The Body Snatchers falls just short of the greatness of I Am Legend or The Shrinking Man (which I really must re-read soon!), but it's only by a smidgeon.  It is phenomenally fast-moving and tense and exciting, and some scenes are downright terrifying.  Just remember: they're here already - you're next.  I loved it.

 

 

Memorable Quote:

 

It wasn't a guess, but a sudden stab of direct, intuitive knowledge - I knew, that's all -  and I swung in my chair to stare across the room at Miss Wyandotte.  She stood motionless behind the desk, her eyes fastened on us, and in the instant I swung to look at her, her face was wooden, devoid of any expression, and the eyes were bright, achingly intent, and as inhumanly cold as the eyes of a shark.  The moment was less than a moment - the flick of an eyelash - because instantly she smiled, pleasantly, inquiringly, her brows lifting in polite question.  'Anything I can do?' she said with the calm, interested eagerness typical of her in all the years I had known her.

 

Edited May 21, 2015 by Karsa Orlong

[Athena]

Great review . I haven't read the book nor seen any film of it, but it sounds like an interesting story that I should maybe read some time .

[Karsa Orlong]

Deathstalker by Simon R. Green (abandoned)

 

 

1995 - Roc paperback - 523 pages

 

The Iron Bitch-- her Imperial Majesty Lionstone XIV-- ruled the human Empire with fear. From peasants to masters of the galaxy's most powerful families, all were subject to the queen's unpredictable decrees of "outlawing" and death.

Owen Deathstalker, unwilling head of his clan, sought to avoid the perils of the Empire's warring factions but unexpectedly found a price on his head. He fled to Mistworld, where he began to build an unlikely force to topple the throne-- a broken hero, an outlawed Hadenman, a thief, and a bounty hunter. With their help, the Deathstalker took the first step of a far more dangerous journey to claim the role for which he'd been destined since before his birth...

 

 

I'm used to science fiction novels having crap covers, so that didn't put me off.  I read lots of reviews, some enthusiastic, occasionally glowing, but most insulting, and that didn't put me off.  The first chapter of the book is almost a complete rip-off of the opening of Star Wars (pirate ship under attack by vast Imperial starcruiser, our plucky heroine uses an escape pod and heads for the planet below), but that didn't put me off.  The main character's name, Owen Deathstalker, is too similar to Luke Skywalker for comfort.  Even that didn't put me off. 

 

I finally made it through nearly 250 pages of this book before deciding enough was enough.  It wasn't that the writing is mind-numbingly repetitive (if I read the words 'lithely muscular' or heard about one character's 'buzzing, inhuman voice' just one more time . . .    ) that did for me, it was the author's blatant disregard of his own 'world building'.  He puts in the character in situations from which there should be no escape, then introduces an angle that had never been mentioned before to get them out of it.  There's one point where a squad of marines is going into a situation that was faced previously by another squad who were wiped out by an alien force.  This second squad goes in, they're on the brink of being wiped out, too, when one of the characters suddenly brings out a 'secret weapon' which saves the day.  Why didn't he do that right at the start???

 

Oh, oh!  And it starts with Owen Deathstalker being outlawed and a huge price put on his head, but the plucky heroine from the beginning doesn't bother to turn him in for the reward.  They flee to an outlaw planet where criminals go as a last resort, because they can go there but never leave (nobody explains why, or why the Empire doesn't just let them all gather there and then arrest them all), and none of the criminals there decides to hand him in for a reward and, oh, maybe a pardon    And, needless to say, Owen and his motley crew (none of whom think to turn him in, either) just get in their ship and fly away from the planet that no-one leaves.  What?  How?  Why? 

 

Oh wait, I no longer care 

 

And it's the first in an eight book series.  Dear God.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Karsa Orlong

[willoyd]

And it's the first in an eight book series.  Dear God.

I get the impression you don't intend to see the series out!

(At least your review made me laugh !)

Edited May 24, 2015 by willoyd

[Athena]

(At least your review made me laugh !)

Same here !

 

It's a shame it was so bad, Steve. I hope your next read will be better!

[Signor Finzione]

I love it when you read crap books, Steve. The reviews are definitely very entertaining.

[Timstar]

Haha sounds awful, I'm impressed you lasted that long.

[Karsa Orlong]

I get the impression you don't intend to see the series out!

 

Um, no   Although I suppose it could be the bookish equivalent of self-flagellation or wearing a hair shirt  

 

 

 

I love it when you read crap books, Steve.

 

I don't!   Wasted over two days of my precious reading time on the blimmin' thing  

[Karsa Orlong]

The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson

 

 

1956 - Gollancz paperback - 201 pages

 

 

While on a boating holiday, Scott Carey is exposed to a cloud of radioactive spray. A few weeks later, following a series of medical examinations, he can no longer deny the extraordinary truth. Not only is he losing weight, he is also shorter than he was. Scott Carey has begun to shrink.

 

Richard Matheson’s novel follows through its premise with remorseless logic, with Carey first attempting to continue some kind of normal life and later having left human contact behind, having to survive in a world where insects and spiders are giant adversaries. And even that is only a stage on his journey into the unknown.

 

 

The easiest way for me to review this would be to direct anyone reading to Tim's excellent review from a couple of years ago.  But I'm not going to do that (oh, wait . . .    ).  It's a long, long time since I first read this book and, to be honest, I could until now much more easily recall scenes from the film.  That movie, which is based upon the novel and for which Matheson also wrote the screenplay (and was also the first film to win a Hugo), is one I remember vividly from my childhood.  I blame my arachnophobia on seeing that film at such an early age.  Well, that and my mother jumping on a chair and screaming the house down every time a spider appeared.  That was me scarred for life     (Notice I haven't used a cover image that shows the spider from the story  )

 

Anyhoo, back to The Shrinking Man.  I suppose, for any author, it would be quite difficult to maintain any air of mystery with a title like that, cos it gives the reader a fairly good idea about what's going to happen.  It's not like with his (other) masterpiece, I Am Legend, where the whole point of that title doesn't become clear until it's magnificent final page. 

 

So Matheson doesn't bother with mystery - he plonks you right into the (nearly) end of it.  After a single page first chapter in which the titular character, Scott Carey, gets caught in a sudden mist whilst relaxing on his brother's boat we turn the page and are thrown straight into Scott's ongoing battle with a black widow spider in the basement of his once-home.  He's now less than an inch tall and the spider's as big as he is.  In the movie they didn't use a black widow (apparently they asked a few but they all wanted too much money to do the stunts) but a bog-standard tarantula.  It doesn't really matter - they're both fecking terrifying (a damn sight more terrifying than Shelob ever was!).  But, here in the book, it's most definitely a black widow, and it's been terrorising poor Scott for some time now, and serves for some of the most extreme tension I've experienced in a novel.  I'm not even joking about this - there was a scene today where I reached its end and found that I had actually been holding my breath.  I let it out in a long sigh and thought 'now that's bloody good writing'

 

The brilliance of Matheson's tale is in telling the story in a non-linear fashion.  Flashbacks are interspersed with the present, each one using Scott's height at that time as a kind of morbid countdown.  68" the first heading proclaims, and onwards and downwards, and we're privy to Scott's innermost feelings, his frustrations, his outrage as his masculinity is slowly stripped away from him.  It deals with his approach to what is effectively a terminal illness, his frustration at his inability to provide for his wife and daughter, at his inability to take his own life, and his sexual frustration as his marriage disintegrates before his eyes (which leads to one particularly disturbing chapter where he fantasises about the babysitter, perhaps the only misstep in the book).  And all the while this is juxtaposed with scenes of him struggling to survive in the basement.

 

There's a quote on the cover of the book from Ray Bradbury, and it led me to compare.  I love Bradbury's work and, whilst I'd say his writing style is better than Matheson's, I actually feel that Matheson has the bigger, bolder ideas.  I Am Legend is not only the best vampire novel I've ever read, but one of my favourite novels full-stop.  The Shrinking Man is only a hair's breadth behind it.  It's a classic, and it's almost impossible for me to read that title and not automatically insert the word they used for the movie, because I really think it is . . .

 

Incredible.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Karsa Orlong