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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Review: The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The success of airport fiction (Lee Child, P.D. James, etc) speaks to the appetite for books that read like movies. I've certainly read more than my fair share of them, and I won't pretend I don't love them.

But great writing can be more than a succession of scenes and dialogue, as is the case in The Turn of the Screw. Henry James tells the story through feeling, thought, intuition, intangible hints of fear and danger that bring out the extraordinary from the ordinary. (Trying to pick up a Linwood Barclay after finishing TOTS, the narrative seemed impossibly thin.)

At times the prose can become, to the occasional bamboozlement of the modern reader, convoluted with clauses and niceties of speech, but that is of the era. In such a short book, it really doesn't hurt to have to slow down. The story itself is simple, and its those clauses and elaborations that lend it weight.

When it comes to spookiness, it was exactly as tame as I suspected it would be. I've read and watched too much modern horror of various genres for this haunting to really get me. But James whips the emotional turmoil into a frenzy for the climactic scene with brilliant artistry, and his literary muscles really flex.

Unrelated: why do so many classics feel the need to bookend their tales with a meta-narrative of old Brits sitting around at the club swapping yarns? But damn, they told good stories, didn't they?

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Review: Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean: The Adventurous Life of Captain Woodes Rogers

Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean: The Adventurous Life of Captain Woodes Rogers by David Cordingly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've read almost nothing about the so-called "Golden Age" of piracy, and this book gave a fascinating and well-documented overview of the era. Ostensibly a biography of Woodes Rogers, a rather tragic figure tasked, in 1717, with defending and building the British colony in the pirate hotbed of the Bahamas, it casts a much wider net.
Cordingly writes like a researcher, and the book is heavy on facts, figures and dates. While it means the pacing bogs down in places, that same attention to detail can bring to vivid life individual sea battles, town raids, and arguments. Where documentation exists, Cordingly has found it.
The world was a bigger place in the 1700s, and despite the fact that the Spanish, English and French are colonizing like crazy, these are the stories of men (and occasionally women) who decide to throw off the yoke of government and society and seize control of their own fate. That being said, most of them are pretty awful people, inured to hardship and violence from their miserable sailor lives, but they're easy figures to romanticize. There are not many happy endings to pirating careers, but they are vigorously alive while they last.
Cordingly relies heavily on Captain Charles Johnson's "A General History of the Pyrates", first published in 1724, when these pirates were in the headlines. (Johnson is generally assumed to be a pen name for Daniel Defoe.) I was thrilled to discover that very book on my wife's bookshelf, so I'm looking that direction next.
On a purely linguistic note, I love how alive the English language feels in Cordingly's primary sources. The wild variations of spelling and punctuation from that time remind me that our so-called rules are nothing more than the societal consensus of an era that is already disappearing. I used to bemoan what I perceived as the degradation of the written word in the age of the internet. But language will evolve whether I endorse it or not, and as long as meaning is communicated, I think I can feel at piece.

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Review: Embassytown

Embassytown by China Miéville
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A great read for a sci-fi fan looking for something novel to chew on. Embassytown is science fiction about the distance between a word and its referent. It sounds ridiculous out of context, but Mieville builds from this seed a clash of language and culture that leads to civil war, political intrigue, and the threat of planetary annihilation.

In this world, humans have survived and thrived, spreading across the universe while retaining a polyglot common tongue. There's faster than light travel, alien technology, and a interstellar government, but they all serve the story without bogging it down in mechanics. While I can dig my teeth into interesting world-building - of which there is plenty, don't get me wrong - it's Mieville's lively, character-driven writing that turns that information into plot.

The book can drag at times, when the machinations become as labyrinthine as they are futile in the fact of the larger plot. (The other Mieville I've read, Perdido Street Station, seemed to have the same flab in the middle, while still being a great read overall.) Nonetheless, the spinning of a thrilling story out of a clash of language is an impressive feat.

The way the plot hinges on changing minds, as opposed to shooting all the aliens or blowing up the reactor core or whatever, reminds me of what I liked so much about Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide. Mieville isn't writing about sci-fi Jesus, though, so the book doesn't tap into that Great Myth storytelling power. It's to Embassytown's credit that the story feels like a totally new idea, unlike anything I've ever read.

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Review: The Bonehunters

The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another hefty installment. At this point, it feels like the millions of plot threads and dropped clues and shifting mysteries of Erikson's world are beginning to coalesce. The universe has stopped expanding and the big shrink has begun. And while the book has plenty of action itself, I am at last getting the sense that things are building towards a climax.
I would enjoy the Malazan books better if I had a better memory. There are just too many threads for me to keep track of, meaning that often I am reading familiar names while hoping I'll remember what the hell they're up to before the scene is over. It's surely the result of writing within a universe he's been creating and exploring for years (through his Dungeons & Dragons campaigns).
On one hand, I applaud him for writing high concept fantasy that is rewarding in direct correlation with how close attention you pay to the details. I'm probably going to read through the plot summaries of the six under my belt already before jumping into book 7, because I'm certain I've missed many things that will pop up again later with some crucial import.
On the other hand, it's so dense as to be daunting. While I can only speak to my own reading experience, I know I wouldn't recommend these books to a friend. It's something you should only wade into of your own volition, and be prepared to jump ship.
While there's plenty to be said for Lee Child, John Carpenter, and Norman Rockwell, there is no imperative that art be audience friendly. Often it's the challenge of engaging with art that makes it rewarding. Whether the reward is worth the challenge will be different for every audience; what makes the Erikson saga difficult for me is that the satisfaction of solving the puzzle is often outweighed by the frustration of being lost. Each book seems to have about two thrilling set pieces, one early and one late, that keep me going until the next one, but the vast swathes of marching, thin dialogue, and convoluted politicking can read like molasses as you wait for forces to collide again in spectacular conflict.
But I gotta see how it all ends. It's taken me ten months to read the first six, and I can't stop now. If you've read the whole series, how long did it take you?

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Review: Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Stephen King is getting comfortable, as anyone with an oeuvre of his size has every right to do - but comfortable does not make for good horror. He's got a concept and he's got some mechanics to move his players through, and it's oh so readable, but the characters are too familiar to any SK fan. Our protagonist is King's go-to, the all American middle aged man; he's a sober alcoholic, but it's a token complexity that has little bearing on the story.
I don't think our Constant Writer is surprising himself anymore. The Shining, to which this book is a sequel, is messier, less predictable, and takes a toll on its characters. Doctor Sleep's characters triumph over evil, high five each other, and live happily ever after. When the movie eventually comes out (and surely everything's eventual), it'll be blandly PG-13.
Even though Stephen King has been more miss than hit for me in his last... uh... twenty years (yikes), when he pushes into truly new territory I'll always give it a try. Instead of Doctor Sleep, any of these recent King books show him stretching his muscles more:
Under the Dome: a long, slow burn in the underbelly of a trapped small town. The characters aren't new or surprising, but there's real tension and a thrilling final act;
Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales: some very tightly written short stories, including being awake through an autopsy;
The Wind Through the Keyhole: set in the Dark Tower universe, he deftly plays with fantasy and fable to write something quick, exciting, and fun.

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Review: Night School

Night School by Lee Child
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Back in time we go, to Reacher's army days, when he packs more than a toothbrush and actually has a couple of friends. The real question is: does he kick ass? (Duh.)

We feel no qualms about his violence this time because he's punching neo-Nazis and terrorists from the Middle East before they can get their hands on - gasp! - the McGuffin. Reacher's part of a team, which is a little out of the ordinary, but twenty-one books into the series it's understandable to want some fresh blood.

Co-starring with Reacher is Sgt. Neagley, who is Reacher's perfect foil. She's beautiful, but dresses plainly. (Reacher has no time for vanity.) She's brilliant, but still asks him obvious questions. (Reacher loves explaining his logic.) She's dangerous, but hangs back until she's needed. (Reacher gets to inflict most of the damage.) She's desperately attracted to him, but she has a phobia of physical contact. (Reacher loves a woman so unattainable that he can still hook up with the second-tier love interest.)

The books are self-aware of their hypermasculinity, in the same vein as a Schwarzenegger flick, and they provide the same popcorn excitement. No danger or stakes are real, but it's well written and engaging.

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Review: Midnight Tides

Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A jump back in time takes a break from the dizzying action of the series thus far. (How many times have I used "dizzying" to describe these books?) Erikson dashes two cultures against each other - the warlike, forest-dwelling Tiste Edur, and the materialistic city-dwelling Letherii. And, in a surprising twist, he's cracking jokes all over the place.

Of course, the plot isn't that simple. Both sides have power struggles, intrigues, romances, revolutions, resurrections, not to mention many uses of the word "gelid". (Like, a ton of times.) And for the first time, the books get truly funny.

Erikson has toyed with humour before. Soldiers crack morbid jokes to each other, and sometimes plans go unexpectedly awry, but it's always been a drop in the ocean of the Serious Military Campaign or the Gruelling Epic Journey. The city of Lether, on the other hand, is closer to Terry Pratchett's madcap Ankh-Morpork than anything we've seen to this point. (I can't recommend Pratchett's Guards! Guards! or Men at Arms highly enough as a perfect antidote if Malazan ever gets too depressing - he's the Monty Python of fantasy.)

Over the course of Midnight Tides, the bigger picture of the Malazan story line is woven in, and, knowing some of the future, you can see the ripples spreading out across history. One of my favourites of the series so far.

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Review: House of Chains

House of Chains by Steven Erikson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you've made it this far in the Malazan series, it's hard not to see the recurring pattern. A proliferation of plots at the beginning, some of which will come hurtling back together in an epic power struggle in the last act, some of which will remain mysterious and lurking in the background. There's a big cast, you forget some of them, you get some of them confused, but it all comes out in the wash eventually.

House of Chains was a weak link in this saga. Erikson's cast is so numerous that I didn't have the time to really get to know any of them. So many players are gods, ascendants, geniuses that the human motivations a reader can identify with most easily are subservient to greater purposes, destinies, and obsessions.

It seems like Erikson's general thesis is that while gods and demigods may wield great power, they cannot control, or even predict, the minds of mortals. The best moments in the Malazan books are where those opposing sides run into each other and everything runs amok. The weakest moments are when these sides seem to be running peaceably parallel, and it feels most like all the characters are being moved through the motions of Erikson's meticulous plot without any control over it.

The opening section of House of Chains was probably the most electric storytelling so far in the series. It follows a single plot line, and it's refreshing to see Erikson follow one thread for long enough to invest us in a character, even if the character is morally repugnant. This character's evolution, and the reader's changing perspective of him, is the most compelling through line of this book.

The entire multiverse in which these books take place was first designed as a setting for Dungeons & Dragons, and Erikson has said that many plot elements, including the climax of the entire series (don't tell me!) were in fact played out in the game. The books come alive when we see the chaos of real human decision making, which is the heart of D&D, and they stultify when Erikson the Dungeon Master is railroading his players through the byzantine intrigues he's dreamed up.

In total, and with the exception of the opening rampage, House of Chains is an unsatisfying session at the gaming table, where the players didn't get to be themselves. That being said, the characters and plots have sufficiently hooked me that I no longer have any choice but to continue the series. It will take more than one weak installment to put me off now.

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Review: Killing Floor

Killing Floor by Lee Child
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In this, the first Lee Child book, Jack Reacher is born from a Greyhound bus into middle America, where he seems doomed to wander until Child gets bored. They're all easy to read, fast paced books, and if I were one to quibble at some fantastical coincidences of plot or paper thin supporting characters, I probably wouldn't have much good to say.

Even as a fan of these books, however, Killing Floor's female lead is exceptionally cringeworthy. She's the bold lady cop on the local force until Reacher shows up, at which point she reveals that all she wants is a man to protect her. Following a minor dustup at the police station, she even collapses into Reacher's arms, telling him to "just hold me." Oh please.

(The recurring character of 'strong woman who melts in Reacher's presence' is the most unsatisfying part of most Lee Child books. I haven't read Never Go Back, but I watched the movie and Cobie Smulders is refreshingly no-nonsense. Is that character from the text, or is that from a savvier Hollywood writing team?)

The action, on the other hand, brings a handful of memorable set pieces. Child's spare prose moves quickly and he evokes menace with simple images. How about: men getting out of a panel van at night, wearing plastic suits and carrying power tools.

It's a fun book, but don't make it your first Reacher. Read when you're already feeling indulgent in the franchise.

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Review: North Korea Undercover: Inside the World's Most Secret State

North Korea Undercover: Inside the World's Most Secret State by John Sweeney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While North Korea is not a place that lends itself to levity, John Sweeney brings his very British wit to bear on the absurdity that is the Kim dynasty. The book could be seen as a beginner's guide to the country and its history, and paints a picture in broad strokes through Sweeney's first hand experiences and interviews with escaped North Koreans, diplomats, and other political figures.

The book could have used another round of edits, as Sweeney tends to repeat himself, but we can forgive him his tics. He's one of those particularly fearless journalists, inserting himself into all sorts of places he isn't welcome (various dictatorships, the Church of Scientology, etc.). Nonetheless he restrains himself in North Korea, posing as a professor chaperoning a group of students.

Especially interesting are Sweeney remarks on the unreality of the tourist experience. Every visitor is constantly escorted, and their every experience is stage managed. The museums (all, of course, about the Kims) are full of giant Kim statues - Kims Il Sung and Jong Il, that is - but empty of visitors. There are no people with any disabilities. The crowds at the lackluster circus clap in eerie unison. Anyone who dies in a "traffic accident" can be assumed assassinated, since there are barely any vehicles on the road. The only places with reliable electricity are the massive mausoleum with the preserved Kim corpses and the electric fence barring the way to South Korea.

Sweeney offers plenty of further reading on the gulag, though warns the books can be very difficult
to read, and gives a thorough history of the nationwide enslavement Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il have created and upheld through isolation brainwashing. It's just as creepy and horrible as you'd expect, if not more so. I was shocked to learn that institutions like the World Health Organization and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation rely on information provided by the North Korean government to make decisions about relief and healthcare measures. That anyone takes anything on faith from this unhinged despot just floors me - but what else can they go by? What will we see as satellite imagery brings us closer and closer to seeing the world?

The book is simultaneously surreal and chilling, and though it's a few years out of date, the only thing that's changed is the temperature of the rhetoric. Sweeney's take on the possibility of nuclear war? Unlikely. He predicts that Kim Jong Un will continue his brinkmanship without end, primarily to put on a show for fellow North Koreans. But he must know, says Sweeney, that an attack will prompt a counterattack, and he is hopelessly outgunned in any actual conflict. Kim Jong Un will talk, but doesn't want to take a chance on actually losing the power he's grown accustomed to. We must hope he's an evil genius and not a true madman.

If Sweeney's right, we can only hope that the US won't allow itself to be provoked by words. Hardly a comforting thought!


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The Dark Tower (the movie!)

My thoughts on the movie as someone who's read and enjoyed the whole series. Warning: major spoilers galore, for books and movie both! 

The Dark Tower is satisfying, exciting, and deftly adapted. Or, if you haven't already read the 4,250 pages that it skims through, it's "inconsistent, incoherent and often cheesy." (That's the Tribune, but it sums up most of the reviews I've read.) Proceed at your peril.

I've read those pages, and if you've invested that much, I doubt you need me to urge you to see this movie. In for a penny, in for a pound, as far as I'm concerned, and with that attitude I was very entertained.

This is not an adaptation of The Gunslinger (Book 1), but a "sequel" to the whole series, where we pick up a different iteration of Roland's journey. It's radically compressed, and I kept my head above water with the plot only because I knew all the elements already.

Rejiggering everything isn't messing with canon or anything, at least as far as I recall. Book 7 resets back to the beginning, with, essentially, The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed, but, like, kinda slower. So the movie is just another lap around the track in which things happen a lot more quickly.

Twice it veers uncomfortably far into Star Wars territory: the Man in Black chokes people to death with his mind before stalking away - no pinching gesture, at least - and little Jake finds a pile of ashes where his mother should have been. But nobody ever accused Stephen King or George Lucas of being subtle. Is there any better motivation than avenging your mother's murder? (I know, I know, it's Aunt Beru.)

There were also some eye roll moments. When the ground shakes, Roland says, "It's a dreamquake," a word that should never make it past any editor, ever. The NYC graffiti (the secret sign for the interdimensional portal) is neatly tagged in a font straight off a million horror movie posters. And is there only one artist in Hollywood that gets every call for "child draws his nightmares"? If so, can he at least get more than red and black in his palette?

There were great moments too, though. Two Gunslinger trick shots. Some good monsters. Some good fish-out-of-water Roland in New York scenes. Plenty of easter eggs to catch - the Tet Corporation was one of the first title cards at the beginning. As I said, lots of reward.

I'm disappointed we probably won't see a big DT franchise. I was ready for this movie to suck, and I'd still go see them all. And for all we know, maybe they would have really brought the books to life, or they'd cut it down to four movies, or an epic trilogy. The books admittedly had a lot of flab. Instead, the next thing in the pipeline is a Dark Tower TV series that fleshes out the universe surrounding the movie.

The remains of a "Pennywise" theme park also suggest the potential for stitching together a new generation of Stephen King movies (of which I'm sure most will be remakes). Provided the new It does okay at the box office, how long before we see a new Shining miniseries? A new Cujo? (Another) new Carrie? Or, if they have not forgotten the face of their father, a new Maximum Overdrive? Sony doesn't have a cinematic universe right now, unless the throw their weight behind the Emoji Movie.

But back to the point: I left the theatre thoroughly entertained and pleasantly surprised. Being already well versed in the plot, and knowing all the backstories of various characters, I could cheer with every new character I recognized and nod I caught. In a taut 90 minutes, Dark Tower made light fare of heavy books, a true popcorn romp for Constant Reader.

Review: Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I've come to expect from Wodehouse, it's chipper and uplifting. There's always a good natured laugh right under the story's surface, and it's a refreshing world to dip into. A breezy read, though I prefer the short story format to a full-length Jeeves and Wooster. In small installments, Jeeves's impeccable social manipulation feels natural. But with a whole novel's worth of acrimony to resolve, his perfect schemes feel a little contrived.
That being said, it's a minor quibble. It's like "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic", but in a good way. Is there a phrase for that? How about: Fixing your hair in heaven? Picking the frame for the Mona Lisa? Mucking with formatting on an inherently terrific book blog?


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Review: Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The accomplishment of this book is how Holland reveals simple, human stories in the endless convolutions of family rivalries, power struggles, alliances and betrayals that was the Roman Republic. In this book, you get a sense not just of what these famous names did, but a sense of who they were - their fears, pride, ego, bravery. The figures in this book are not immutable forces of history, and Holland illuminates how their very humanity and imperfections shaped the future of their civilization.

While the subjects are human, the lived experience of this era is difficult to imagine. Commanders rode directly into battle, staring death in the face. Men slaughtered each other in face to face combat, while the god of fear, Timor, always threatened to rule the battlefield. The stories of ancient warfare still inform, and often outshine, the most epic fantasy stories. (The gruesome end of Stephen Erikson's Deadhouse Gates is ripped directly from the Third Servile War in 73 BC. Strangely enough, I happened to read both stories within a week of each other.)

The bloodshed is relentless, and it never ceases. But even as something to dive into for short stints, the stories are incredible, poetic, and tragic.

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Review: Memories of Ice

Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Malazan odyssey continues. While the early battles and climactic, cataclysmic clash are thrilling, I began to wonder if the length of the journey between them was necessary. Erikson published an essay (link) on the RPG origins of Malazan, and the books make clear that his worldbuilding is encyclopedic. At times, that wealth of lore can bog down the narrative. I'm sure every Dungeon Master would love to publish his Silmarillion to rabid fans, but the imperative is good storytelling, not completion.

This is not to say that the book is all historical footnotes and expository conversation. In fact, Erikson pointedly leaves most of that out, for the reader to figure out, or not, over the course of the book. I'm only now getting a better picture of some of the factions that were introduced in the first chapter of the first installment. It's just that the plot is often turned by some previously unknown context: a rekindled feud between two races determines the fate of a battle, the nature of transporting between dimensions puts a character in peril, a magic spell brings people back to life. That may be just another day at the office for people who are immersed in Erikson's universe, but to a new reader it can come across as deus ex machina.

(Terry Pratchett's Discworld books come across as the other end of the spectrum from Erikson. Discworld books are all internally consistent with their lore, races, gods, history, etc, but every detail directly serves the plot with never a dull moment. I like them both, but I don't always have the room in my head to keep up with Erikson's cast and universe.)

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Review: Worth Dying For

Worth Dying For by Lee Child
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was our vacation audiobook, and is appropriately mindless. Some great action scenes, and a significant body count by the end, but ultimately one of the least satisfying Reachers I've read so far. Meh.

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Review: Deadhouse Gates

Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Malazan saga continues. The sheer number of characters and intrigues can feel overwhelming at times, but Deadhouse Gates is easier to follow than Gardens of the Moon. This tome revolves around a massive refugee train - the Chain of Dogs - that must be escorted to safety across a desert. The single-mindedness of this story anchors the book, and its simplicity makes the tale that much more heartwrenching to read.
There's still plenty of other goings on, and I've found that enjoying these books means letting go of trying to understand everything that happens on every page. I'm learning to trust that Erikson will explain things when he's good and ready. Or he won't, and I'll figure it out down the road. These books would reveal a lot more on a second pass, but I know already that won't happen anytime soon.
Despite their size, I immediately started the third book. It's a terrific series.

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Review: A Princess of Mars

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A Princess of Mars is sci-fi rendered in primary colours.
John Carter, our hero, is able to determine almost immediately which civilizations are good and which are evil, at which point he feels no qualms about wiping out hundreds of thousands of people. It's helpful that he's essentially invincible, due to his Earth-muscles being disproportionately powerful in the lower gravity of Mars. His greatest flaw? "My mind is evidently so constituted that I am subconsciously forced into the path of duty" - he has no choice but to be brave.
This certainly makes for an adventure, but I found myself skimming pages to see if anything would actually happen. All too often I ran headlong into sentences like this:
"While the court was entirely overgrown with the yellow, moss-like vegetation which blankets practically the entire surface of Mars, yet numerous fountains, statuary, benches, and pergola-like contraptions bore witness to the beauty which the court must have presented in bygone times, when graced by the fair-haired, laughing people whom stern and unalterable cosmic laws had driven not only from their homes, but from all except the vague legends of their descendants." (Chapter 12)
All characters are prone to lengthy digressions in excruciating detail about mundane and often irrelevant aspects of Martian life. It's an exercise in world building, sure, but it's the kind of thing that should be in a Mars extended universe wiki, not an adventure story.
I haven't looked, but I'm sure someone has turned them into comic books. Go read those instead.

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Review: The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy

The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hoffman tells the story of the arms race as a war machine bigger than any of its players. In the USSR, it gains a momentum beyond the government's - or anyone's - control. There are hair-raising close calls and a couple of Bond-worthy covert operations. Though the writing is on the dry side, I was thrilled to find a comprehensive book to give me the big, cold picture. Call me crazy, but I want to know why exactly the Nuke of Damocles has hung over my head every day of my life, and will for the foreseeable future (until the robots take over, of course).

Reading about Gorbachev's struggles to shut down his country's war machine can be dismaying. The weapons programs were designed to be secret, and so they persisted in their vacuum long after they were ordered to shut down. The deception (and production) persisted despite any number of agreements, treaties, public statements and orders from the top. Paranoia flourishes, for good reason.

But if you squint your eyes just right, you can take find hope in this struggle. Institutions often have the means to resist a leader who is dead set on overhauling the country. If you think that leader is dangerous and irrational, then you're cheering for the "deep state" and hoping their objectives are the lesser evil.

Hoffman goes into detail about the US's efforts to prevent a weapons diaspora once the USSR crumbles. A particularly chilling passage recounts an American official finding a old tin of peas in an abandoned factory. Instead of peas inside, he finds test tubes of weaponized plague.

Hoffman doesn't have solutions, but leaves plenty to worry about:
-Russia is still hiding all sorts of things, and relations aren't improving under Putin;
-nukes are scary, but don't forget biological weapons; there's no modern day Hiroshima or Nagasaki to capture public imagination, but they're equally or more destructive;
-mutually assured destruction kept the Cold War cold, but that doesn't work on suicidal terrorists.

Ah, the good ole days when everyone wanted to live. What a bleak thing to be nostalgic for.

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Review: Underworld

Underworld by Don DeLillo
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I like other Don Delillo, and I really, really wanted to like this. However, in good conscience I could not recommend Underworld to anyone, due to the following:
Many characters feel like irrelevant tangents, and you will marvel at the scope of the cast and wonder how it all these stories could possibly wrap up. They don't.
You may find yourself disoriented by the way the narrative flips from story to story like a compulsive channel surfer, skipping away in the middle of a scene, a thought, a sentence.
There will be plots you look forward to returning to that you will never see again.
Be prepared for lengthy musings on garbage.

These things being said, I can sed that many hardcore Don Delillo fans may take all these in stride. You could argue that art reflects life, which is sometimes uncertain and frustrating and at best a jumble of experiences onto which we try to impose a story that give our lives meaning. I believe the rave reviews of the critics are sincere (I think) but it was determination, not enjoyment, that got me through the last two thirds of this book.

Libra, Delillo's JFK assassination fever dream, was a similar kaleidoscope of scenes and characters and forces, but the inevitable climax gave everything momentum and purpose. In Underworld, I couldn't find any of that same purpose.

I feel glad to have finished it, because I abandoned it twice in the past. It's a testament to the strength of the opening chapters that I came back, but I read on hoping for a payoff that never paid off. (I'm also glad I got to the end because the epilogue, while unsatisfying, is absolutely bizarre.)

There are passages that are really powerful, and scenes that are memorable, but they are in the minority. I didn't hate it like many seem to, but I certainly won't recommend it to anyone.

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Review: Little Heaven

Little Heaven by Nick Cutter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While I still haven't read a word of Craig Davidson, this is the third book I've devoured from his horror alias Nick Cutter. Behind the Cutter name, Davidson goes to some gruesome places, while always barreling ahead on plot. How does he enter (and exit) that headspace?
A visceral, exciting and darkly funny read, this was the perfect antidote to my last book, Don Delillo's Underworld.
The Cutter stories have similarities. Trap a group on an island/undersea lab/forest compound, watch a seed of corruption spread disease/insanity/evil, see who lives the longest. Not to say they're repetitive - there's plenty of room for variety inside the framework. And the scraps of outside world we get in Little Heaven feel fresh and full of potential. I want to know more about the extended universe. The Troop and The Deep also gave tantalizing glimpses of larger context. Here's hoping there's enough Cutter material one day for him to give his fans an oeuvre-encompassing epic à la Dark Tower.
If you've got the stomach for it, this is a ripping yarn.

Review: Gardens of the Moon

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One the one hand:
Dauntingly complex, long and dense. Ridiculous fantasy names are thrown around with little to no context. On the rare occasion that Erikson takes time to explain something, it feels like you've finally found a solid foothold on a vertiginous ascent.

On the other hand:
One of the most epic books I've read, and I've been led to believe that the series only gets better. The swirl of names and races and cultures etc etc etc eventually starts to make sense as it washes over you again and again. The many story lines regularly interweave, and Erikson sets up thrilling collision courses. The crashes do not disappoint.

I've never read much high fantasy, and I don't know that I'll want to dive into another universe once I've made it through this one. Nonetheless, Gardens of the Moon is damn rewarding.

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Review: A Wanted Man

A Wanted Man by Lee Child
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is only my second Lee Child book but I think I'm getting the picture pretty quickly. Jack Reacher, the giant ex-military policeman, lives a fantasy life as a nomad roaming the USA. No bags, no friends, no regrets. His only long term commitment is a toothbrush, which he carries in his pocket for a few chapters.
Inevitably, he: runs into big trouble by accident or design; plays Sherlock, putting it all together from a stray word in conversation, the cut of someone's shirt or the colour of their pocket lint; kills a bunch of bad guys, as often as not with his elbows alone.
A Wanted Man hits all these marks. It moves relentlessly forward. The writing is clean and direct. I love books like this for when life off the page gets hectic - they're simple to engage with. I picked it up somewhere for a buck and I'll leave it on a bus or something for someone else to find. (That's what Jack Reacher would do.) It's a lot like playing a good Call of Duty game - slick, fast action, reliably satisfying and unpredictable... within predictable parameters.
Lee Child writes with efficiency and verve. While the book isn't explicitly funny, there's a humour about the hijinks that make me more than willing to suspend my disbelief.

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Review: Case Histories

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As a bigly fan of schlock fiction I have a certain set of expectations from a 'mystery' story, and sometimes they need to be put in check. Stephen King, Clive Cussler, Lee Child: I can turn my brain off for a while, like watching a blockbuster movie or playing a video game.
Case Histories required more attention and gave more reward. It fell in the grey zone between airport paperback and Literary Fiction (a distinction which is entirely unrelated to how much I enjoy or appreciate it).
The plot was messier and more complicated than an airplane book might dare, and all the richer for it. The antihero private eye with a heart of gold stayed pretty much to the A.P.E.W.A.H.O.G. script, taking his lumps from every direction and putting together the clues he's overlooked. I found it more satisfying than clichéd.
Atkinson is kind to her characters, though not afraid of a few moments of startling violence. (Ann Patchett meets Stephen King?)
Loved it.

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Review: Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When considering this book in context, it's a fascinating artifact. For something written almost three hundred years ago, it's a testament to how little the English language has changed. It is easy to read, and quite funny, though a few I may have been laughing at it and not with it.

As much as I can appreciate how groundbreaking it was, and how readable it remains, I can't say I actually enjoyed reading it. There are some outdated ideas (ugliness is the outward sign of moral degeneration), and Gulliver's conversations with various kings about how crappy European civilization is got a little repetitive.

For all his travels and all his exposure to more enlightened people/horses, Gulliver returns as a real piece of work: he sails home on a boat made from the skin of children (that he murdered?) and for years won't tolerate his "odious" wife or children in the same room. I bet she was thrilled at the reunion.

This bizarre ending actually made me feel a lot warmer towards the book. I'm sure if I was more familiar with the history I would have been more engaged, but I'm moving on. Finally finished a classic.

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Review: Books of Blood: Volume Two

Books of Blood: Volume Two by Clive Barker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

While the stories are still creepy, and still imaginative, and still justifiably groundbreaking for future generations of horror writers, I shouldn't have read this so soon after Books of Blood Vol. 1. This collection felt like Barker turned down the volume, and the stories feel more predictable, verging on monotonous. I often found myself willing the narrative to pick up the pace, but for better or for worse, Barker's style in these stories sticks with slow, gothic dread.

I'll try another volume one day, but only on the strength of Volume 1 - not to mention the terrific Weaveworld.

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Review: Tripwire

Tripwire by Lee Child
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Yeah, I read another Jack Reacher. They're so easy to read, especially while I'm working my way through Stephen Erikson's obscenely epic Malazan fantasy series.
Tripwire was the second best one I've read so far, second only to Persuader. A truly sinister villain, a satisfying payoff to the mystery, and gripping action sequences. However, the female lead is once again a ridiculous male fantasy; this time, Reacher's first love has been pining after him for decades and will do anything to be with him. Women aren't the only ones who fall for him, either - this is Lee Child's third Reacher book, and he's head over heels too, waxing on about his good looks, his tousled hair, his charming smile, etc. (I'm sure the fact that Reacher has made him a killing doesn't hurt, either.)
This book's immortal line was fawning over his musculature: "He looked like a condom crammed full of walnuts." I can't imagine what came over Child, let alone his editor, peers, and family. I hope this line won him a bet, at the very least.

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Review: Books of Blood: Volume One

Books of Blood: Volume One by Clive Barker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Though I'm not usually one for short stories, I really enjoyed these. What most stands out to me is Barker's range, from funny little stories of household demons to hulking, titanic horror. Whatever the story may be, he revels in the mind's struggle (and usually, failure) to comprehend the fantastic, the otherworldly, the unknown. People go insane left, right and centre.
This volume has the sense of "classic horror" which I associate with someone like Richard Matheson - the undead, the fantastical, the eldritch - but plays those notes with a lighter, brighter touch.

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Review: The Stranger

The Stranger by Harlan Coben
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Harlan Coben is an author I've never been able to hold in my mind. He's a mega seller, I know, but despite the fact that I think I've read at least a few, I forget them all the instant I put them down.

Reading The Stranger, I have to assume that Coben has some sort of formula (or "writing secret") that churns out a story. Following our hero pick up clues and solve the mystery felt like Coben listlessly assembling a jigsaw puzzle, but the picture is drab. There were a lot of names without a lot of characters. There was a lot of conspicuous brand names, which felt weird - I wondered if I was supposed to read something into those trademarks. (Oh, he grabbed a Sprite - this guy must be looking for a zesty beverage but watching his caffeine intake!) Overall, bleak and unsatisfying.

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Review: Weaveworld

Weaveworld by Clive Barker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Though it took me a few chapters to buy in, this book kept getting better and better. Each act is more exciting than the last.

Weaveworld is ambitious. Clive Barker is not only creating a fantasy world but then crashing it into modern day England and seeing what happens. I remember my favourite parts of Harry Potter being when magic ran amok in our non-magical world. I found that same pleasure in Stephen King's Dark Tower books, and again in this book.

But even more than Stephen King, this magic can be vicious, nasty, hateful. Barker seems to delight in the revolting, not stopping his imagination from going to it's darkest corners. Some of his monsters are putrid - you can almost smell their reek. At other times it veers towards twee, with magic people serenading one another and dancing and picking fruit in a paradise fairy land. Both of these fit the story though, and of course it's inevitable the two collide.

The cast is large (all the men have names like Gideon, Jericho, Hobart, Shadwell - clearly nobody with magic powers has an ordinary name like Wayne) and while I couldn't always keep everybody straight, some of these characters are vivid. The story floats along like a dream, always on the edge of turning nightmarish. Many scenes are still vivid in my memory, and some of these characters will stay with me for a good while, I expect.

It's long, and while in retrospect I can fit the events into three main acts, the story winds through a lot of places. It could have run as a serial - the story is split into three Books containing 13 Parts and innumerable chapters. It's a journey, but each part serves its purpose, and it already feels as though it's been edited down from something much larger and longer. Clive Barker may have his own Silmarillion up his sleeve somewhere.

Terrific book. I hope there's a movie because I want to relive this story again. I hope there's not a movie because there's no way it could top the thrill of the writing. (I just saw there's a graphic novel. That just might work!)

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Review: The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There are some fantastic tangential chapters early on, where Preston's background research reveals some ripping yarns of treasure hunters, banana moguls, drug lords and secret agent subterfuge. When he gets to the jungle himself, it feels straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, with gigantic snakes, bug swarms, mud slides, and tough as nails army jungle guides.
The book really fell down for me in the back half, though. Preston and the rest of the crew leave the jungle surprisingly early, to return to America and send a whole lot of emails to each other about their bug bites. They do indeed have the "horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease" that the jacket hypes, and all my sympathies to them, but it felt like epilogue material had been stretched out into "Part Two: Bureaucracy".
My suggestion: start this book, but don't bother finishing it!

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