Mission Accomplished

At the beginning of 2017, I made a New Year's resolution to publish a review of every book I read this year. And here I am, just sneaking under the wire.

It's been a year of series. I've read a bunch of Jack Reacher books, and Lee Child's prose for action is gripping. (I discovered it's all about dropping the pronouns. Cutting them. Speeding things up. Leaving you breathless, especially when you've been ELBOWED IN THE FACE.) 

I'm also neck deep in the Stephen Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, a ten book series, which is probably the most overwhelming mountain of reading I've ever climbed. (Honourable mention to Don Delillo's Underworld, but by simple page count there's no real competition.) It's epic like nothing I've ever read, and it's been inspiring in my own world building for the nerds with whom I play Dungeons & Dragons.

Despite all these series, I'm going to call my favourite fiction of the year Everybody's Fool, by Richard Russo, and my favourite non-fiction Rubicon, by Tom Holland.

This year also marked the release of my first book, called Morgan the Brave. It's a book for young readers just starting on chapter books, and it's about a kid - Morgan, who is not particularly Brave - invited to a birthday party... featuring a screening of Brain Eater, the scariest movie ever made. 

Looking forward: my bookshelf is chock full of fantastic books I can't wait to read. I'll keep reviewing, but I'd also like to branch out in my book-related goings-on. 2018's goal is to start a sci-fi book club. There, I said it. Now it's as official as anything else on the internet. 

Happy New Year!

Review: Everybody's Fool

Everybody's Fool by Richard Russo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Richard Russo finds the humour and heart of each of his characters no matter what circumstances they face. It's small town people who are on a familiar basis with their own personal ruts, who know their foibles like they know their friends.

And while the humour and heart of a small town may not scream Plot!, things really rip along. There are thrills, chills, action, and mystery! Russo keeps his characters busy.

What most endears Russo's writing to me is the kindness of his narrative. This is not Evelyn Waugh, in which every conceit or dream eventually reverts to the natural state of misery. Instead, these characters strive to find happiness and peace through accepting themselves, whatever their outward circumstances might be. Russo lets them achieve this self-love, too, which gives the whole book a feeling of generosity. Just because he plays God, as author, doesn't mean he must be cruel. It's not maudlin; it just feels true.

Definitely one of my favourites of 2017.

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Review: Reaper's Gale

Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The risk of writing a ten book epic fantasy series is that each volume will inevitably be weighed against the merits of the others. It's not fair to expect Erikson to keep topping himself, and he doesn't. That's not to say this book isn't superb. There are memorable battles, emotional deaths and salvations, and deeply satisfying comeuppances, that in any other series could easily stand out as climaxes. Yet there are a number of plot threads that Erikson introduces only to hold back, teasing us with their consequences.

But those teases are okay, because there is still so much happening that we don't notice any lack. So many things could occur that when only half of them actually come to pass, it's nonetheless an almost overwhelming amount of plot.

As I get farther in the series, I think I'm beginning to get a handle on the big picture of what's going on. But it's also entirely possible I'm lost. There's no way I'm giving up now though - and if there's a way to keep readers going in a series, perhaps it's investing them through thousands and thousands of pages.

It's now been over a year of reading Malazan, and I can look back across the history of what I've read. The stories characters swap around the tavern tables in these books are the legends of what I've already read. It's an extremely rewarding immersion.

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Review: The Secret Adversary

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep was so complicated that he himself couldn't figure out who killed the chauffeur. Yet it remains a classic on the strength of the characters.

On the other hand, some modern detective fiction these days seems to have success based not on complicated or unique characters, but on gripping plots and a sense that the reader could unpick the mystery themselves.

In The Secret Adversary, Agatha Christie's second book, she holds a clever balance between plot and character. When the plot gets thin - as it does in places, trying to explain secret Russian scheme to topple the government and incite a popular revolution by various means - the characters charm the reader along with British wit and brassiness. When the characters get thin, there's a daring scheme or a sudden turn of fortune that throws them into fresh peril.

One of the book's strongest suits, and which helps to gloss over any plot or character shortcomings, is the humour. I'm a sucker for dry British wit, and both the prose and the dialogue have a levity that kept the wind in my sails straight through to the end. It's a quick, light read, and one of the funniest books I've read in a long while.

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Review: A Handful of Dust

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

When faced with the ultimate meaninglessness of life, human foibles all add up to despair, death, or a happy combination of the two! - or so Evelyn Waugh would have you believe. I didn't know anything about the author or his reputation before picking it up, but from the first few chapters I imagined it going in a P.G. Wodehouse direction: each chapter had another miscommunication, and the Gordian knot of social faux pas was grower larger and larger. I couldn't wait for Jeeves to come along with his nail scissors, snip a single thread, and everything would shake out for the better in the end. How innocent I was.
I now understand that Waugh is just the opposite of Wodehouse. There is no reconciliation, laughter, or even understanding; instead there is alienation, misery, and abandonment by an unforgiving universe. Every character is chasing their own personal gain, only to find that happiness and fulfillment is a bitter illusion. And it's no morality play, because the only character fool enough to actually care about other people is punished most of all.
Waugh's nihilism makes this reader despair. Life is short - why read Waugh?

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