Heck, I don't even read The Guardian any more.

Bold means I've read it; strikethrough means I hated it; anything else is a mistake :D

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

I have read this one--I remember being amused by the way it just ended.  No endpapers, no adverts for other books, nothing.  End of book--back cover.  Apparently Adams had promised a shorter book than he delivered.

It's okay, but it doesn't beat out the radio series.  Nothing does--none of the books, not the tv series, not the really-rather-poor film.  But it's modestly entertaining, especially if you're in need of an absurdity fix.

Brian W Aldiss, Non-Stop (1958)

It's on the wishlist.  Along with 122 other books.

Isaac Asimov, Foundation (1951)

Difficult to call yourself an SFF reader if you haven't read this.  Some of the later or spin-off books, though--fail!  I prefer the third book, myself, maybe because there was finally a female character to identify with.  Although I still don't understand why she didn't just kill the Mule instead of the professor dude.

Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (2000)

Umm, no.  Tried her once, didn't like her.  At all.

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale (1985)

Someone once compared my writing to Atwood's, inspiring me to pick up what's possibly her most famous book.  And I hated it.  What a useless bloody dweeb Offred is.  She reminded me of Madame Bovary, whom I also hated with a passion.  Stupid woman.  No, fucking guys is NOT the solution to your problem.  How long is it going to take you to learn that?  Sheesh.  As for the pathetic ending, DO NOT GET ME STARTED.

Why anyone would want to claim this book for SFF, when the author herself is happy for it to be placed among the literary FAILS, is beyond me.

Paul Auster, In the Country of Last Things (1987)

Don't know this one.  Interesting title, though.

JG Ballard, Crash (1973)

I bought this after reading an article in the Guardian about the (then) forthcoming film.  Mostly because I couldn't watch the film Right Then and I so wanted to.  The best book by Ballard I've read, maybe because he sometimes manages to write about something other than himself.

JG Ballard, Millennium People (2003)

Not got to this one yet, although "Super Cannes" is in the tbr pile.

JG Ballard, The Drowned World (1962)

A bit larger than life, but okay if you don't feel the need to believe a word of it.

William Beckford, Vathek (1786)

Not heard of before.

Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory (1984)

Nope.  People keep putting me off by saying how wonderful it is.  I've been down that road before (Eyre Affair, for one).

Iain M Banks, Consider Phlebas (1987)

Iirc, this was an impulse purchase from the big remainder shop near Victoria Station that isn't there any more, chiz.  The same shop that introduced me to PKD (and Greg Egan).  I found myself inadvertently on the 'wrong side' in this novel, and the ending felt like a cheat.  But then I wasn't familiar with Banks' style at that point.  I was young, okay?  Young!  I remember that.

Clive Barker, Weaveworld (1987)

Nope.

Nicola Barker, Darkmans (2007)

Ah, the Large Book of Epic Fail.  I have tried to forget it, really I have.

Stephen Baxter, The Time Ships (1995)

Nope.  I don't much care for Baxter's work, truth be told.  Too much like being talked down to.

Greg Bear, Darwin's Radio (1999)

Nope.  See above.

Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination (1956)

I vacillated between this and Demolished Man, and DM won.  Bah.

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

Nope, although it's on the 'list of things to read if I ever get around to them'.

Poppy Z Brite, Lost Souls (1992)

See above.

Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (1798)

Not come across this one before.

Algis Budrys, Rogue Moon (1960)

No, although I want to read more Budrys.  Yes, I know there isn't much.  100+ tbr pile, okay?

Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (1966)

Nope.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race (1871)

Nope.

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1960)

Nope.  Nor do I want to.  Thanks anyway.

Anthony Burgess, The End of the World News (1982)

Go away Burgess.

Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars (1912)

Nope.  Although I have read a lot of other bad SFF.

William Burroughs, Naked Lunch (1959)

Nope.  The more I hear about it, the less I want to read it.

Octavia Butler, Kindred (1979)

One day.  I have read something of hers, forget the title, and it made me Very Uncomfortable because of the female character accepting her slavery.  Uncomfortable in a good, making me think way, not uncomfortable in a Margaret Atwood wanting to leap into the book and strangle the character way.

Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872)

Nope.  Although I get a quarter point for having heard of it.

Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees (1957)

Nope, although I do have another Calvino book upstairs awaiting its turn.

Ramsey Campbell, The Influence (1988)

Nope.  Think I heard something of his on BBC Radio Seven, though.  It had not dated well.

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Well, of course :D.  Brought up on it, Brer Fox.

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)

Ditto.

Angela Carter, The Passion of New Eve (1977)

Have read some Angela Carter.  Not this one though.  Always the way.

Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus (1984)

Ditto.

Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)

Nope.  Does it yell at you like Yiddish Policeman's Union does?  Cos I don't like being yelled at.

Arthur C Clarke, Childhood's End (1953)

I wouldn't go so far as to say I hated it, but oh dear.  The aliens work really hard to get the Earth people to accept the idea of equality.  No more race, sex, creed, sexuality discrimination etc.  But when they get to the Island of No Food Replicators, who does all the cooking?  Why the women, of course!  EPIC FAIL OF IMAGINATION, Clarkey.  EPIC.FAIL.

GK Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)

One day.

Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004)

Book.Love.  Even if it did make my hands Really Hurt trying to hold that mega-blockbuster of a paperback while reading.  It's one of those you either love it or you hate it books, and I feel glad that I loved it.  Even if the female characters are a bit feeble.

Michael G Coney, Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975)

Wasn't previously aware of this one.

Douglas Coupland, Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)

Ditto.

Mark Danielewski, House of Leaves (2000)

Ditto.

Marie Darrieussecq, Pig Tales (1996)

Ditto.

Samuel R Delaney, The Einstein Intersection (1967)

Ditto, although I have heard of Delaney.

Philip K Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

Hmm, yeah, I think you can safely say I've read this one.  Excellent Dick novel.  And the source of my username!

Philip K Dick, The Man in the High Castle (1962)

One of my least favourite Dick novels.  Yes, I know it won all the prizes, etc, but the I Ching knows nothing about plotting a novel.  Seriously.

Thomas M Disch, Camp Concentration (1968)

The one book of his I read put me off for life.  Mercifully, I've forgotten the title.

This drifting timber shed from a Russian cargo ship looks uncannily like a tree to me.



(gakked from BBC News video)

The latter part of May has been perfect reading weather.  Wet and cold with a grey overcast.  Might as well stay home and snuggle up with a book.

So, how well did I do this month?

Reviews and possible spoilers below.

May started with water of a different kind--the sea off Cadiz in Tim Clayton and Phil Craig's Trafalgar: The Men, the Battle, the Storm.  I probably wouldn't have bought this book had I not picked it up cheap in a charity shop.  (Sorry, Tim and Phil!)  But there it was on the shelf.

Trafalgar: The Men, the Battle, the Storm

A solid Trafalgar book. Not as gripping as the Adkins book, but that may be only the result of coming second. Clayton and Craig emphasise many of the same points as Adkins, but have often used different primary sources, which makes for different perspectives on the battle.

What comes across most clearly is how Nelson's death affected, not the course of the battle, which was so well planned in advance that his loss was almost immaterial in terms of strategy, but what happened afterwards. Nelson had intended that the British fleet should "anchor at the close of day". Collingwood, who assumed command, tried to reach Gibraltar instead, in the teeth of a gale, with dismasted British ships and badly-damaged prizes in tow. We'll never know what would have happened had the ships anchored--maybe the storm would have driven many onto rocks and wrecked them all the same. But it does seem likely that Nelson's plan was the sounder one.

Then on to a review book--J.M. Mcdermott's Last Dragon.  My review will appear on GUD in due course :).

After the intricacies of Last Dragon, I felt I deserved a treat.  So, back to the sea with an O'Brian!  Sad will be the day when I run out of Aubrey/Maturin books.

The Nutmeg of Consolation

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. With exciting action at the start, and more contemplative narrative towards the end, it's almost completely satisfying. There's not much to beat curling up with an author you know you can trust to deliver the goods, characters with whom you're familiar, and the dear Surprise.

Next, another watery book my father recommended some time ago--The Shipping News by Annie Proulx--and which finally showed up in a charity shop near me.  Charity shops seem like really cheap places to get books, but that depends on your not grabbing ever single book you want.  Ahem.

The Shipping News

This book couldn't be more steeped in its Newfoundland setting if it had been sunk in the bay. A fascinating glimpse of a way of life tuned to the weather and the seasons. The characters are boldly drawn, and the storyline contains one of the most believable, and touching, love stories I've ever seen in fiction.

It takes a little while to get there, though. The book has a slow start, yet the writing alone kept me engaged with it. I did find it hard to believe that Quoyle's wife Petal could be quite that bad--she's drawn almost as a caricature. Yet when Quoyle finally sees "the truth" about her, it's not her sale of their young children to a paedophile that's seen as her worst sin, but her endless adulteries. I'm sorry, but I think that's the wrong way about.

All in all, the book's attitude to rapes and sexual abuse of children--mentions of which feature repeatedly--left me a little queasy. It obviously doesn't condone. Yet at times I think I'm meant to laugh, and I don't feel like laughing. Hard to know.

The sea was left behind next in favour of a book of short SF stories by Carol Emshwiller, snatched from the maw of the Untidiest Secondhand Bookshop in Kent.

The Start of the End of It All and other stories

These are not your conventional SF stories, and they don't yield their meanings easily.

The collection suffers slightly from having so many first person stories one after another--it's hard to shift gears from one persona to the next, especially when some are male and some female, but it often doesn't become clear which until you're a fair way in.

That said, there's so much to intrigue and ponder here that a second reading is surely a must.

I'm tempted to put something here about how Emshwiller's work is much overlooked, but that would probably lead to my being trampled by a herd of rebuttals, so I shan't :).

And we're down to the sea in ships again for Dava Sobel's Longitude.  Yes, I have only just read it!  The charity shops have a slow delivery rate.

Longitude

It's a puzzle how this modest little book became an international bestseller. It's informative, accessible, and written with touches of humour. Is that enough?

Personally, I suspect that it benefits most from being short. Most non-fiction works require dedication that lasts weeks if not months, with frequent pauses to put the book down so the brain can accommodate what it's learnt. Not so here. I read this in a couple of hours or so, with little brain strain, and enjoyed learning about Harrison and Hs 1, 2, 3, and 4.

So here's a non-fiction book you can read in a sitting, and afterwards profess knowledge of How Greenwich Mean Time Came to Rule the World. Short and sweet.

(Although I couldn't help wondering how many more lives were lost while the Board of Longitude procrastinated and Harrison fiddled with his clocks.)

I would love to go to the National Maritime Museum and see the clocks.  I'd also love a book I saw in Waterstones the other day about Samuel Plimsoll and the Plimsoll line.  Money, where art thou?

And then on to a book for Evil Editor's Book Chat: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.  Please do not discuss in comments.  Sqrls have suffered enough.

Twilight

my god this is an awful book, she encouraged dryly

i can't believe i finished it, she contra-indicated

And that is all I wrote about THAT.

Moving on, May continued in a better vein with a PKD/Roger Zelazny collaboration: Deus Irae.  Last time I checked, I was fourteen books away from completing my PKD collection.  But some of those books are So Expensive.  Gah.

Deus Irae

Really enjoyed this one. It's tempting to see it as Dick constantly trying to wander off on not-entirely-related threads and Zelazny trying to keep him to the point, but that's probably not how it happened at all :).

Lots of Dick themes here, and I'm sure I remember the Great Computer that dissolves people from one of his short stories. Ew. It's an old idea--think the Sphinx--given a new twist. If the Computer can answer your questions, it gets to eat you. Again, ew.

Dick plays with identity, with futility, and has the ultimate helpless protagonist in Tibor--an "inc" who lacks both arms and legs, and relies on artificial arms called "extensors" and a cow-cart to live his life. He's an artist, charged with finding the Deus Irae (God of Wrath) in order to paint him into a murch (church mural) for the new SoW religion, one centred around the man responsible for WWIII. Tibor travels a stricken landscape, finding lizard men, bug men, and an apple that seems significant but then falls out of the story entirely.

I did feel that after a lot of setup and wandering around, the novel ended a bit abruptly. One minute Tibor and Pete seem doomed to wander forever; the next their quest is over. In fact, it's been over for a while, but nobody told Tibor.

Being familiar with Dick's work, but not Zelazny's, I'm puzzled to identify the latter's contribution here. Possibly the fragmented sentences, which don't seem typical of Dick. But there must be more to it than that.

A more accessible work than many of Dick's stand-alones, and an enjoyable and intriguing read.

Then, on to a book I bought for 10p in a remainder bookshop.  I wonder if being remaindered in a remainder shop is better or worse than ending your days in Pulp City?  In any case, I'm glad I bought Claire Kilroy's Tenderwire rather than leaving it to languish.

Tenderwire

This is a much better book than I expected to get for 10p.

Violinist Eva Tyne's life falls apart when she miscarries following a performance. She falls in with Alexander, who claims to be a Chechen, and offers to sell her what seems to be a lost Stradivarius, smuggled in from Russia, and with Daniel, a businessman who helps her raise the money she needs. Yet neither man is who he appears to be.

The violin offers a chance for Eva to progress in her career, but at the same time she's dogged by fears that she's being followed, and that Daniel is cheating on her with her best friend.

One serious problem I had with this book is that the narrator deliberately conceals information from the reader in order to ratchet up the suspense. Given it's first person, I reckon that's cheating. But the writing is top-notch, and the voice rings true throughout. Good stuff.

Since Tenderwire was a quick read, I followed it up with another of my 10p bargains--although Daren King's Mouse Noses on Toast turned out to be less of a bargain and more of a squib.

Mouse Noses on Toast

Okay, I'm not the target readership for this book, but I reckon it was pretty poor stuff anyway. Not even funny. And it promises on the very first page that we'll find out why a Tinby is called a Tinby when it falls out of a window later in the story, but it doesn't and we don't.

Mouses indeed.

After that, it was back to the sea for The Cruise of theAmaryllis by G.H.P. Muhlhauser.

The Cruise of theAmaryllis

The author sailed around the world in a small yacht with a variety of crewmen to help, but did not survive to finish the tale. Although most of the book is what he made out of his experiences, towards the end it is finished off in diary entries and letters to friends. Truth be told, these are slightly more interesting than the finished narrative.

Muhlhauser obviously saw and experienced a lot, but he had no turn for writing. Everything and everywhere is described in much the same terms. Rarely does he turn a poetical or evocative phrase.

It's a shame to have looked but not seen, to have seen but not to be able to describe.

A notable omission from this book is Muhlhauser's photographs.  He talks about them in the narrative, but none appear.

More seaborne goings-on next in J.G. Ballard's Rushing to Paradise, a slim volume about...well, albatrosses and mass murder.  Or something along those lines.

Rushing to Paradise

My theory that if I read enough Ballard, I'll understand where he's coming from, seems to be fundamentally flawed. I'm no further on than I was before.

Neil, a sixteen-year-old wastrel, hooks up with eco-warrior Dr Barbara, and is so besotted with her (apparently) that he's prepared to let her murder him just to be close to her. It's a bizarre storyline, but one that could work if Ballard managed to evoke Neil's feelings rather than telling us about them. As it stands, it doesn't work--we don't get deep enough into Neil's feelings to go along with them. He just looks to be behaving like an idiot--he's too stupid to live. It's also hard to find the book funny when people are dying left right and centre for Dr Barbara's ever-changing dream. The story doesn't come across as black humour, which can make you laugh despite yourself, but as a rather macabre attack on enthusiasm. Look where it can lead! we're told--and the crimes start right at the beginning, with Dr Barbara being somehow an impure activist because she attempts to manipulate the media. Apparently pure love for the environment expresses itself by being entirely invisible--and therefore useless.

I dunno. Lots of people rate Ballard's writing, but I'm still waiting for the light to dawn.

Continuing the maritime theme, I started reading The Dutch Seaborne Empire: 1600-1800 by C.R. Boxer but found the book made so many assumptions about prior knowledge that I think I'm going to have to get another book first.  So I set that aside and instead picked up Don Foster's Author Unknown.

Author Unknown

This intriguing book explores the author's work in attributing texts to their authors. Foster looks into a variety of cases--the JonBent Ramsay murder, where he made serious errors--the Clinton/Lewinksy "Talking Points" (gone into in far more detail than someone not fascinated by cigar-sex and/or American politics could desire), "The Night Before Christmas" and more. No, not Moore--he didn't write it.

Foster's painstaking work, which involves uncovering which authors and texts were familiar to the author of the disputed text, as well as comparative analysis between known texts and the unknown one, explores how much is borrowed, how little is original. It might be worth getting his opinion on whether some recent plagiarism scandals are the result of deliberate or unconscious borrowing.

Not bad for 10p.

And on and further on, with Vanessa Gebbie's Words From a Glass Bubble.  Another GUD review book, that one, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait :).

Next, I read Bellwether by Connie Willis.  Didn't take me long, either.

Bellwether

A fun novel, sort of a proto-Passage, centring on two scientists, Sandra Foster (who's researching the origins of fads) and Bennett O'Reilly (who's investigating information diffusion), whose professional and personal lives converge, despite (or because of) the incompetence of Flip, an "assistant" with an "i" branded on her forehead and unusual uses for duct tape.

Many of Willis's favourite themes are here: the bewildering disconnectedness between what you want and what you get; the incompetent and acronym-obsessed management; impenetrable forms. And, of course, animals. In this case, sheep, including the bellwether of the title. The sheep are very funny, although I suspect their full depths of comedic potential were not mined.

The novel was a bit slow to start, and not helped by the publishers' choice of an illegible font for headings--it's hard enough to get my head around unfamiliar words like qiao pai without first having to puzzle them out letter by oddly-shaped letter. Further, my copy has a curious dual nature--some pages are printed black as pitch, and others so light that it's almost (but not quite) bad enough to justify sending it back and demanding a replacement. Beware clearance sales!

And, finally, a review book of sorts, Peggy Elliott's A Small Part of History (aka the book with the least memorable title ever).  This came to me through BookRabbit, a British online bookseller-cum-social-networking site.  Free ARCs for those prepared to review them.  Irresistible!

A Small Part of History

This is not a bad book, although it could have been a better one. Author Peggy Elliott sets out to tell the stories of women on the Oregon Trail--stories that are very different from the men's. She does so mainly through two characters: Sarah and Rebecca Springer. Sarah turns sixteen on the trail, while Rebecca, about ten years older, is her step-mother. Occasionally, we get peeks into the lives of other women on the same journey, at least while they live.

It isn't clear whose story this is. Sarah's? The Springer women's? The Springer family's? The women's overall? The book itself doesn't seem to know; it flits from Sarah's narrative, to Rebecca's journal, to notes made by another woman, and peers inside all their heads at different times. To succeed, the book needed more focus, imo; it's too short and not dense enough to carry the weight of so many narratives. Further, the voice from Sarah's narrative seeps into the third person sections, leaving the reader wondering who's talking when.

Although the book is well researched, and a lot of thought and care has gone into it, I found it lacking in depth. The most strongly-drawn character is Sarah's, but even she feels at times like a character drawn from outside, from a distance--and this is especially a problem when parts of the narrative are written from her perspective, in first person. Somehow the touchpaper that might bring her to life never kindles.

There are awkward moments in the story. I found the brief descriptions of sex awkward and crude--crudely told. Although it's impossible to please every reader in that area, I think it would have been more in keeping with the novel's setting simply to have omitted those passages. And though Elliott tries very hard with the scene where buffalo stampede through the wagon train, it's flat, and there's no real sense of danger. In another scene, she telegraphs a character's imminent death so vigorously that nobody could miss it.

Too often, this novel relies on telling rather than showing. Telling is used as a short-cut, and that often undermines the exploration of character, or the evocation of trail life. It's so hard to pin down what was missing in this book. Something, some greater confidence in the author, perhaps, that would bring people and events to life. The author's background in tv and film writing may explain some of the problems--novels are very different in the way they work.

I can't help thinking that a novel about the men's experiences on the trail wouldn't have gone into nearly so much detail about the women and their lives and work, so it's tempting to wonder why so much of the narrative is devoted to the men. Seems they just can't be left out!

A good book, and I suspect Elliott's next novel will be better.

So, sixteen books for May, making a grand total of seventy-four for the first five months of 2008.  Perhaps more importantly, I don't feel as stressed and read-out as I did at the end of March, where things got silly :).

May's recommended read: Words From a Glass Bubble by Vanessa Gebbie.

There are several important milestones in the creation of a magazine from a pile of slush.

Today, GUD passed yet another on the road to Issue Three. All the final edits on the stories and poems for the issue have been completed. Yay!

It all started when we closed to slush at the beginning of this year. The stories and poems were painstakingly stripped of headers, footers, author information, and any other stuff that had sneaked in, then standardised to the format we use for copyediting and to house style.

Then the first edit began. As Three is my issue, I did the first edits--checking that house style was enforced, examining spelling and grammar, looking for plot holes and simple honest mistakes, etc. Then Julia, GUD's founding copyeditor, took over for the second edit.

In some ways, the second edit is harder. The second copyeditor has to ensure that not only has the first copyeditor caught everything there was to be caught--and you can bet she never, EVER, has--she also has to make sure the first copyeditor hasn't introduced any new problems--and you can bet she always, ALWAYS, has. On top of that, Julia fact-checks each piece, takes a good hard look at the language, liaises with the authors, and generally makes an invaluable contribution to shaping the stories and poems into the best they can be.

Then they come back to me, packed with comments and deletions and insertions that need to be evaluated, acted on, accepted and/or rejected. That done, there's a final read-through just in case any new, new mistakes have appeared. Which they often have.

That's the stage we've just completed. Whew.

After that, it's on to the .pdf stage. That's the job of the layout department (ie Sue). But that's a whole 'nother story :).

Hurrah!  Poor Mojo's Almanac(k) has published my poem The Bankside :).

You didn't know I write poems?  It's a rare event--"The Bankside" represents one-half of my total poetry output for probably the last twenty years !

If you’re British, and have "writer" in your MySpace profile--and assuming I haven’t been selected from the crowd as appearing peculiarly gullible--you may have received a friend request from Random Stories.

For the humble fee of £14.99 (sorry, £16.99 if you include p@p), Random Stories will undertake to publish any random story of yours, under 500 words, that you care to submit.  The only hint of any editorial intervention is, "All published works must be of acceptable content and will be checked prior to submission to the printers."

So, you buy a copy of the book (before it even exists), Random Stories then publish your story "for free", and, as the crowning glory, you receive no royalties no matter how many copies sell.  Not that I’m imagining it’ll be many--there are only 250 slots for sale after all.

Further, with no fixed genre, and no attempt to maintain any level of quality outside of making sure none of the content is illegal, the book is unlikely to have much appeal to anyone beyond friends and family of the ’lucky’ authors.  It won’t be in bookshops.  There’s no hint of a marketing budget.  It’s unlikely to sell.

In other words, this "chance to become a published author" will cost you £14.99 and will bring you only a book containing your story--and 250 others of varying genres and quality--in return.  If all you want is to hold your published story in your hands, you could do it more cheaply with lulu.

£1,000,000

(more)

It's that time again--time for a round-up of the books I read this month.  Technically, February isn't over, but my chances of completing another book before March roars in are slim.  So, below, find out if I'm keeping up with my reading :)  Also, reviews and possible spoilers.

February began with Ursula K. Le Guin's Voices, snatched off a bookshelf and purchased at Actual Real New Book Price.

Voices

This book leapt straight from "to-read" to "read".  I picked it up last night to start reading before going to sleep, and finished it at four o'clock this morning.  I don't know what better recommendation I could make!

The story is a gripping, yet simple, tale of Memer, a young woman living in the occupied country of Ansul, and dreaming about revenge on the conquering Alds.  Yet Memer herself is half-Ald, a rape baby (or, as the narrative more gently puts it, a "siege baby").

Memer learns the dangerous skill of reading from the Waylord, the head of the Galva household.  To the Alds, words are the breath of their god, and placing them in writing is blasphemy.  They destroy books and kill anyone who owns them.

Yet the Galvamand, where Memer and the remnants of the Galva household live, hides a deeper secret than the hidden room of books.  Here dwells the Oracle, able to tell them if--or when--to launch their revolt against the Alds.

This book makes heroic attempts to see the conflict from both sides, while sticking to a single viewpoint--Memer's.  In a couple of places, I thought it preachy, and preachy's annoying even if you agree with what's being preached.  The author's voice seemed to break through and put itself in Memer's mouth.  But apart from that, this is a seamless, heart-wrenching narrative.

The month thus begun continued with a Mark Twain omnibus bought cheaply at the remainder shop.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

I started this book at the beginning, but the opening line of Huck Finn suggests that Tom Sawyer comes first, so I skipped HF for the moment and began with Tom instead.  Obviously not a lot of thought was put into the order of the books.

I think I've read Tom Sawyer before, or I may just have seen a film or tv adaptation.  Certainly some bits are familiar--the iconic fence whitewashing scene, and the young people getting lost in the caves.  The book's written in a rollicking, friendly style that evokes affection for the characters.

The unselfconscious imaginative play of the boys is beautifully evoked.  Less inspiring, sadly, is the way girls are treated only as objects of desire.  When Tom and Becky are trapped in the caves, Becky is worse than useless.  And that's putting it mildly.  Product of its time, yada yada, but given Twain himself represents the story as being for boys AND girls, it's necessary to wonder just what impression he thought girls would take away from it.  They exist only for Tom to want or not want--when he finally discards Amy, she disappears from the narrative.  There's no further role for her to play.

The book ends somewhat abruptly, after giving the impression that it could carry on for a fair few more pages yet.  An interesting read, though--and now on to Huck Finn!

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Huckleberry Finn reads better than Tom Sawyer--perhaps reflecting Twain's growing maturity as a writer.  It's an excellent yarn of Huck's travels along the Mississippi and his fallings-in with escaped slave Jim, a couple of hucksters known as "the king" and "the duke", and, finally, with Tom Sawyer his own self.  The mood of the book changes when Tom comes along, and I think it helps here to have read Tom Sawyer first.  Up until he appears, passing himself off as his brother Sid because Huck has already been taken for him, the book has been somewhat solemn and Huck's actions have been thought-out and reasonable.  Not that there haven't been funny interludes, but when Tom appears it's almost all fun from then on.  Were the reader not familiar with the didactic, over-imaginative Tom, this switch might not work, but when you know what Tom's like, it makes perfect sense.  Well, almost.

The lengths to which Tom makes Huck and Jim go while they're trying to rescue him from a hut in which he's imprisoned, waiting to be returned to his owner or sold, have to be read to be believed.  They're hilarious.  I was laughing so much I could hardly focus on the page.  Truly, a masterpiece.

What I also found interesting is how Twain doesn't compromise on Huck's mindset.  He feels there's something low and shameful about helping Jim escape--stealing someone's property--and yet he can't bring himself to give the man up.  His attempts to reconcile what he sees as low-down behaviour with his impulsive response to Jim's gratitude are funny and saddening at once.  The book then has Tom lowered in his estimation when he pitches in to help Jim with no apparent twinges to his conscience at all.  But eventually the book reveals what Tom knows but Huck doesn't--Jim has been free all along.  It was all one huge jape for Tom.  Huck is revealed as the more serious, deep-thinking character, and his conscience is probably relieved of the guilt of nigger-stealing.

A more complex book than Tom Sawyer, and one that would certainly bear re-reading.  It's unflinching in its examination of the attitudes of the day, and the insights into superstition are fascinating.

And now, I suppose, on to the Prince and the Pauper.

The Prince and the Pauper

I didn't enjoy the P&theP as much as the other two books in this omnibus.  I suppose I had a feeling of "what's the point?".  Two boys, one highly privileged, the other very poor, inadvertently swap places.  The poor boy finds the privileged position hard, but it has its compensations.  The privileged boy finds poverty very hard, but manages to discover a true friend.  Then they swap back.

Parts of the book are tedious, and I skipped the detailed account of the coronation.  I suppose there is here a brave attempt to make history interesting--or rather alternate history!  I wonder if there are earlier examples of the genre?

After ploughing through a great deal more Twain than I've ever read before in my life, I moved on to Lady Franklin's Revenge, a book with something of a saga inadvertently attached to it.  To be brief: I ran across it in my explorations, and ordered an overstock copy (at greater expense than I usually pay out) from the US branch of Alibris.  Although described as "excellent", the book when it arrived wasn't.  Page 83 was torn, folded and bound into the spine.  So, I sent it back to Alibris, who recently processed my refund--minus the £5.12 postage expended to return the book to them.  Meanwhile, I'd found a cheaper, better copy on Amazon Marketplace.  Still, that £5.12 rankles--I could buy another book for that!

Lady Franklin's Revenge by Ken McGoogan

The book takes a long time getting to the parts I bought it for, but that's okay.  The history of Jane Franklin's time in Tasmania and her search for her husband when he goes missing in the Arctic make more sense in the full context of her life.  It was particularly interesting reading about places in Tasmania that I've learnt about from Monissa.  A lot of names were already familiar, which meant I could identify more with events.

Jane Franklin was a remarkable character, and particularly so when reinventing her husband's disastrous venture into the Arctic as heroism and discovery.  She might have been a role model for Captain Scott's widow, who achieved a similar reimagining of history.

At times, the narrative is annoying--it sometimes leaps to conclusions on somewhat flimsy evidence.  Two weeks of bedrest after a lot of travel does not equal proof that Jane was in love with someone during the trip.  Bah.  The author does however do a good job of demonstrating how she overcame the daunting obstacles to a woman born into the upper middle classes during the Victorian era.  Monissa and I had a conversation not long ago in which I suggested that a woman wanting to strike out and make a name for herself should first "get rid of the husband".  Jane Franklin took a different route--she married a pliable husband who basically couldn't stop her using "his" money to travel the world.  Good for her.

Then, on to another non-fiction book, this one by Marion Schreiber and somewhat grimmer in its content.

The Twentieth Train: The Remarkable True Story of the Only Successful Ambush on the Journey to Auschwitz

Not sure if the clunky writing originates with the author or if it's crept in during translation.  Either way, it's something of an impediment, but not much.

This books spends a lot of time on the buildup to the raid on the train, introducing those involved, those around them, and the general atmosphere and tensions of occupied Belgium.  Unfortunately, this has the effect of reducing the raid's events to insignificance; they get far less detail devoted to them than, say, the routine in the Mechelen transit camp.  This reduces the promised focus of the book to one of a number of small incidents.

There is so much here that's brave, and so much that's sad.

Normally, I avoid Holocaust material because it's so distressing, but this book seemed to offer a ray of light.  More of a glimmer really.

And so on to what's frequently described as "escapism": some good old-fashioned SF by Arthur C. Clarke.

The City and the Stars

In many ways, this is typical Clarke--it talks about equality, but, at least in Diaspar, all those (at least nominally) in charge are, of course men.  His imagination just doesn't stretch to "equal" women being on Councils or not having to do the cooking (okay, there's no cooking in this one).

Once again, we set out on a mission to learn why immortality is a Bad Thing.  Abolishing death means abolishing children; citizens of Diaspar hatch almost fully grown.  That this is a decision made by whoever founded the city, rather than an inevitable side-effect of immortality, is ignored.  We're in preaching territory here, dudes.

Meanwhile, in much-more-down-with-the-Nature yet still scientifically-advanced Lys, an old man faces his forthcoming death with calm and equanimity.  Yeah, because that's totally what all dying people are like.

Lys has *gasp* a woman in charge, but she's cleverly defeated by protagonist Alvin, and takes a back seat to the "men of Lys" from then on.  Oh, and a woman also has a hand in defeating this woman's Irritating Plan, but only inadvertently.  As it should be!

Alvin is a cipher whose actions drive the plot.  He's a Unique in Diaspar--rather than having had many previous lives that will come back to him when he reaches twenty, he's never lived before.  This uniqueness enables him to leave the city and, in an amazing feat of insight, travel immediately to The Only Other Inhabited Place on the Entire Earth.  Yeah, right.  Later miracles including finding The Robot That Controls the Only Surviving Spaceship, and Encountering the Magical Mind that Can Explain Everything.

Better or even more interesting characterisation might have concealed the Massive Plot Conveniences.

It wouldn't be book-reading month without at least one book by Patrick O'Brian.  And so I give you:

Treason's Harbour

Cries of "Come on, Surprise!" probably aren't what one's other half wants to hear while they're trying to sleep.  But certainly that's what the thundering climax to this book evoked.  Riveting!

A shame the rest of the book wasn't as exciting.  Just as many of O'Brian's sailor characters prefer to be at sea, so do many of his readers.  Onshore scenes aren't nearly as interesting.  To sea, to sea! and in the dear old Surprise, is a long time coming.  Meanwhile, there's some intrigue with French spies, a British traitor and a compromised woman.  After book after book of mooning after Diana, Stephen really shouldn't be lusting after someone else so soon!

O'Brian does a good job of evoking Jack's love for the Surprise, and his difficulty reconciling his pride in her with the knowledge that she's to be condemned or sold out of the service, knowledge that throws a pall even over her splendid victory against a French frigate.  It's small touches such as this, as well as the splendid sea battles, that make these books unputdownable.

We're not finished yet!  Stop running away!

The Gender Divide by David Boultbee

No review on this one yet--it'll appear on GUD shortly.

The Voyage of Charles Darwin: His Autobiographical Writings Selected and Arranged By Christopher Ralling

This book serves as a taster of Darwin's writing, as it includes extracts from the diaries he kept on board the Beagle, the official Journal of his five-year voyage, and his autobiography.

The book was published to accompany the BBC drama documentary that brought Darwin's voyage and the development of his thinking regarding the origin of species to a wide audience.

At times, the book is disappointing.  It feels as if a fiction writer who had never visited any of these places could have written about them more evocatively.  Darwin observes carefully, and thinks deeply, and yet there's something missing, something that might convey his experiences more vividly to the reader.

What is fascinating is the ability to trace how Darwin came to his revolutionary views.  It's a long, deeply-considered journey, and there is sadness in the way a man who once intended becoming a clergyman finds that his own observations make the position of a believer untenable.  Darwin even hints that spirituality might be an inescapable part of our genetic makeup--a position we now know to be true.

I would certainly be tempted to read more of Darwin's writing, especially the Beagle diaries.

(No mention of Lady Franklin, though!)

Long title, short book.

Then, back to SF, this time by Robert Charles Wilson.  Evil Editor recommended this one and my dear friend ze bought a $1 copy on Amazon Marketplace US for me...and then read it! before I could!

The Chronoliths

Mysterious monuments appear from the future, celebrating victories that haven't yet been won--destroying cities and killing thousands.  Asia is thrown into chaos.  Kuin, the unknown conqueror, cannot be found or stopped.

Chronoliths is narrated by Scott Warden, whose life becomes inextricably bound up with these monuments, and with others who find the connection impossible to escape.  Maybe it's just life or maybe it's tau turbulence--part of the mysterious physics by which the chronoliths are sent twenty-plus years into the past.  Sulamith Chopra is determined to find out how the chronoliths work--and how to disrupt them--but her work makes her a target for Kuin fanatics, while inevitably making the possible the very threat she's trying to fight.

This understated novel is gripping.  You never know what's going to happen next--to Scott, to his family, to the world.  Narrated in a melancholy, reflective style similar to that of Dickens' Great Expectations, it neither sensationalises nor makes light of tragic events.

Well worth a read.

Next, more non-fiction--extracts from the log Captain James Cook kept as he searched for the fabled Southern Continent.

Great Journeys No. 7: Hunt For The Southern Continent

A fascinating introduction to Cook's fruitless search for a southern continent, land much believed in and even mapped, but not real.

He sails here, he sails there....

Short book, short review :).  Seriously, though, fascinating enough to make me want to read the unabridged version.

Then, I read Marcus Zusak's odd novel, picked up cheap in the supermarket.  It was a twofer deal: I got one book, my husband got another.  He hasn't read his yet.

The Book Thief

An intriguing book, although Death, the narrator, does have a habit of stating the bleeding obvious--and more than once.

Nine-year-old Liesel is sent to live with foster parents on Himmel Street.  She doesn't know what happened to her father, beyond that he was a communist--whatever that is--and she'll never know for sure what happens to her mother, either.  But in the Hubermanns, Hans and Rosa, she finds parents, and love.

This book humanises the ordinary Germans who were, whether willingly or otherwise, part of the Nazi war machine.  And considers the price they paid, for both collusion and resistance.

Sad and hopeful at once, this book does a good job of describing Nazi Germany from the inside.  For me, it makes the mistake of reducing the Hitler Youth's activities to low-league bullying (it went far beyond that) and the figure of six million given for deaths in the concentration camps is far, far too low.  Death should know better--seventeen million is nearer the mark.

After that, more O'Brian.  Gotta love O'Brian.

The Far Side of the World

O'Brian's on top form with this novel--I could hardly put it down.  Surprise is sent to intercept American frigate Norfolk, whose mission is to harry British whalers in the Southern Pacific--and not in the Greenpeace fashion.  Surprise is struck by lightning, there's murders, chases, shipwrecks and more.  Fantastic!

Final stretch!  After the O'Brian, an odder (and older) sea-faring book by Harry Collingwood.

The Log of a Privateersman

I bought this one out of curiosity (and because it was cheap).  Turns out to be a "book for boys".

My copy was published in the 1930s, as it has a sticker in front stating that it was given to a pupil of The "Fleet" Central school in London, as a prize for Excellent Progress, in June 1938.  Apparently, this school was later destroyed by bombs during World War II.  The work itself is much older--one copy I found on Amazon was published in 1897.

New, my copy cost "two and six" (two shillings and sixpence).  It has four illustrations by W. Rainey, RI, one of which, the frontispiece, is now loose.  The book is also--to use a technical term--slightly foxed.  I hope Harold Higgs enjoyed reading it!

Although at times this is a rollicking story of sea-borne life, at others it bogs down in reams of explanation or long, somewhat unconvincing, dialogue.  The best part is undoubtedly when one of the prizes, an Indiaman called Manila, is lost at sea after a severe lightning strike.  I found all that highly believable--unlike the time when the privateer schooner Dolphin disables then captures a French frigate all by herself--and without sustaining significant damage.  Yeah, as we say here in O'Brian Central, riiiiiiight.  Also, the narrator's pious declarations at the end that he has always wished to serve in the Royal Navy ring hollow.  Of course, when you're speaking to an Admiral, perhaps that's what you'd better say, but Tom Bowen never struck me as being that attached to the naval life.

Which is a fundamental problem with this book--the first person narrator never comes to life.  I didn't feel I knew him any better by the end of the book, which is a shame.  Of course, it's not a character-driven book--it's about the action at sea--but still, something a little thicker than tissue-paper might have been nice.

And finally...more non-fiction.

Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum.

This entertaining book brings the character of Joshua Slocum very much to life as he sails around the world, single-handed, in the sloop (later yawl-rigged) Spray.

Slocum is a character--no doubt about that--and his sloop's one, too.  She does the sailing while he lounges below with a book.

This book is joyous, full of the love of life and of the sea.  Still, towards the end, it's possible to see that Slocum has had enough of sailing, and is anxious to be home.

Whew, what a busy month!  Total for February: 16.

I'm seriously considering following Nathan Bransford's example and abandoning myspace.  So tired of not being able to do anything without a catalogue of errors.

But I'd miss my friends :(.  Any of you willing to decamp to LJ?