Larklight by Phillip Reeve

This was an enormously enjoyable children's book set in a kind of space-faring version of the Victorian era. This is what we SF fans would call "Steam punk". It works pretty well as the book has the positive aspects of the "Thrilling Stories For Boys" kind of books (space pirates fighting giant spiders, for example), while satirising the jingoism of the originals. There is also Victorian-era science: space is full of "Aether" rather than vacuum.

My edition has been illustrated by David Wyatt and inside the covers of the book are lots of mock-Victorian adverts which are full of little jokes for the SF fan-boy. For example, an ad for the "Crighton" model of auto-butler and the "Lensman" series of telescopes.

Art and Mytrle Mumby live in Larklight, a rambling mansion floating somewhere between the Earth and the moon. Art reads thrilling tales of adventure in the farthest reaches of the Empire while Myrtle attempts to master the accomplishments of a gentlewoman (these appear to be fainting and playing the piano-forte). The house is attacked by giant spiders and their scientist father is carried off wrapped in web, leaving Art charged with protecting his sister. Art tells Mrytle that they must get to the lifeboats as, "something most disagreeable has happened!" and they are lunched on a series of adventures which include nearly being eaten by caterpillars, rescued by pirates, being repeatedly attacked by the giant spiders and saving the British Empire - hurrah!

The BookBarn!

Last weekend I took advantage of a day in Somerset to visit the BookBarn and E came with me, despite being very pregnant now. If you have never been to the BookBarn, I almost recommend it. It is a strange experience.

Firstly, the BookBarn is rather coy about its physical location, choosing to perpetuate the myth that it’s just outside Bristol, rather owning up to being closer to Shepton Mallet. Not only that, there are no signs for the BookBarn on the main road. Either you are in on the secret of the BookBarn or the Bookbarn doesn’t want to see you.

The fuzziness regarding the whereabouts of things continues inside. The non-fiction and the fiction have been separated and the fiction is filed more-or-less by topic. At the front desk you can get a plan that purports to tell you where each subject is stored but if, for example, you go to the area where the caving books are supposed to be, you will find it full of arts and crafts. In the science section, we find military history.

The fiction is, if anything, worse. All the books by authors beginning with A have been put together, but they haven’t been alphabeticised any further than this. So for example if you’re wondering whether the BookBarn might have any books by Neil Gaiman, you’ll have to look at every book written by an author who’s surname begins with G to find out. I find it easier not to go with a list of books I want and just to wander aimlessly and see what I find. Otherwise BookBarn does by head in. And E can’t stay too long or she’ll start filing their books for them.

Despite the best efforts of the BookBarn to hide them from me, I went home with the following:

Tithe by Holly Black

Viriconium by M. John Harrison

Darkmans by Nicola Barker

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Letham

RedRobe by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet

The Raw Shark Texts - Steven Hall

A man wakes up on the floor of his home with no memory of who he is or what has happened to him. All he has left of his previous life is an angry-looking ginger tom called Ian. He finds out that his name is Eric Sanderson and that his problems began when his girlfriend Clio died in an accident three years ago. Letters and parcels arrive from “The First Eric Sanderson” which explain that his memories have been eaten by a conceptual shark called The Ludovician.

When I was a little girl, someone at school told me about the film Jaws, and this gave me nightmares about a sort of shark which could swim through floors, with its dorsal fin sticking out of the carpet. I've revisited those nightmares in this book as Eric tries to find a way to destroy The Ludovician before it eats the rest of his mind. As the Ludovician is a conceptual fish, sometimes only its fin pokes through into reality. Scary...

One of my favourite sections of the book is when the First Eric Sanderson explains to the second how he allowed the Ludovician out into the world from the bottom a pit in un-space:

Down at the bottom there was a place filled with was rows and rows of stinking neglected fish tanks with sick, dead and dying fish; a horrible abandoned aquarium.

Reading those words took me back instantly to the aquarium underneath Blackpool Tower. It probably wasn't as nightmarish in reality as it seems in my memory (I was very small when I went there) but I can't help thinking that Mr Hall might have been.

This was a strange, enjoyable and unashamedly clever book. It seems to have a target audience of people who enjoy both Jaws and Borges. I think some readers are likely to be annoyed by the typographic tricks. For example, in places the words are laid out to form the shape of a shark or a remora and part of the novel works as a flick book – I thought that was quite smart though.

Read it, read it, read it. If you don't I will come round your house with my copy and stand over you until you do.

You can watch the Ludovician sneaking up on The Second Eric Sanderson through his telly on the video below. Have a cushion ready to hide behind...