Vampires vs Werewolves vs Bookclub of One

Don’t panic! Brain death resulting in reading “Twilight” books hasn’t set in. That, I think, is one of the compensations of encroaching middle age: I have now been round the block enough times to know that the Twilight series will be cock-awful without having to read the sodding things. So what nonsense have I been reading?

“The Fallen Blade” by Jon Courtenay-Grimwood. I don’t recommend it. I really enjoyed JCG’s Ashraf Bey books (Pachazade, Effendi and Fellaheen) and I would urge both my readers to go out and buy them. Don’t part with money for Fallen Blade as it will only encourage the author to turn out more of this lazy crap – particularly upsetting since he’s capable of better. Why is this book so dire? Let’s take a look...

Firstly, it seems to be composed of a selection of rather tired memes (or “cliches” as we called them in my day): Vampires fighting werewolves and vampire assassins.  I quite like the fact that the novel is set in a sort of renaissance Venice and I quite like the way that Othello and Desdemona have been borrowed into it, but sadly I don’t like either facet enough to undo the vampire-assassins-fighting-werewolves rubbishness.

Secondly, The Fallen Blade has an amazingly rubbish heroine. Gulietta’s job, as far as I can make out is simply to be fought over by werewolves, vampires and various human political factions. JCG keeps telling us she is, “every inch a Millioni Princess” but she is just helpless flotsam washed about the place by the actions of other people. Conversely Desdaio (the Desdemona character) is described as soft and privileged, but puts her wealth and good looks to use doing whatever she thinks is right. She’s a bit of an innocent abroad (particularly in the scenes where she’s negotiating with Atilo in the belief that the worst that will result is a slap while he considers having her murdered) but ultimately a much more sympathetic character than the useless, standy-there Gulietta.

I think you can probably guess that the characters I found most interesting in this book were the ones borrowed from Shakespeare. Atilo is a Moorish pirate forced to serve Venice who has risen to become the Duke’s chief assassin. Desdaio is the wealthiest heiress in the city who, to the disgust of nearly everyone else has chosen Atilo for a husband. Already there are cracks and jealousies appearing in their relationship.  I’d have liked to have seen more of their tragedy played out – I guess that is saved for the next books (this one is, as always, the first in a trilogy) but I won’t be reading them as life’s too short!

Shadowmancer by G. P. Taylor

Pregnancy has bought with it a reduction in brain power* and I have been reaching for the easy books. What could be easier than a kids' book? Plus it will be great practice for reading The Little Mole Who Knew it Was None of His Business over and over again. Alas, once you are an adult, reading all but the most well-written of children's books is actually quite a chore.

Shadowmancer is a fantasy novel of the epic-battle-between-good-and-evil school. In the style of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe it even has a guest appearance from Jesus. Set in North East England in some sort of generic "olden days" (I think it is round about the 18th century as we have smugglers and long-haired men) the local vicar is a sorcerer set on taking over the world using the power of the Keruvim (a sort of golden angel statue thingy. A mcguffin, it's basically a mcguffin.). Only two local kids, Kate and Thomas, and the incredibly holy African boy Raphah stand in his way. Will they be horribly killed, or will Jesus help them out at the last minute? This is fiction, so Jesus comes through, just like he doesn't in real life. I think I read somewhere that the author of this book is a vicar, but I can't altogether trust my own brain at present, so perhaps that isn't true.

I can't say that I really enjoyed reading Shadowmancer all that much. The good characters are good through and through whilst the bad characters are utterly bad. I feel this gives the book an overly simple and unrealistic feel - but I suppose that's what you get if you insist on reading children's fiction when you're in your mid 30s. The only real character in the whole thing is the smuggler Jacob Crane who is ruthless in his pursuit of wealth but fundamentally unwilling to see a satanic priest rule the Earth. Sadly, by the end of the book, he has seen the error of his ways and become comepletely nice. Pass the sickbag!

*If you are of the female persuasion and plan to one day bear children, feel free to imagine that this will not happen to you. I know I did.

The Bull From the Sea by Mary Renault

I had a preconceived notion that all of Renault's work is replete with ancient Greek buggery. I was therefore a bit disappointed by this book. It picks up the myth of Theseus at the point where he arrives home having failed to change his sails. So pretty much after all the interesting bits of the story. Theseus seems to have been annoyingly hetrosexual. Of his ladies, my favourite by far is the amazon queen Hypolita who is much less decorative and more of an equal than his silly Minoan wife Phedra. Unfortunately, Hypolita dies bravely in battle and I really lost interest in the novel from that point.

Renault fans have let me know that the best book for buggery is "Fire From Heaven" about the early life of Alexander the Great so I pass the advice on to you.

Darkmans by Nicola Barker

Why, WHY did I buy this rubbish? This is a fine exemplar of everything I don't like about modern literary fiction. There are no likeable characters. The reader is allowed to see into everybody's head and the inside of each character's head looks exactly the same. When I finally reached the denuement I was mildly surprised that Nicola would ever think anyone would be interested.

I had stupidly hoped the book would be some sort of supernamtural thriller with maybe some literature round the edges but it turned out to be 850 pages of buggerall. It's not even bad enough to laugh at. A total waste of everyone's time, money and effort.

Dreams and Disasters: A History of Innovation Gone Wrong by Adam Hart Davis

I'm going to write to Adam Hart Davies and tell him to go back on do this again properly. It's a good idea but the execution is slap-dash, presumably in order to try to cash in on the success of “What the X Did For Us” in time for Christmas one year.

This book is also rather let down by the quality of the paper and the images. For example, there is a picture of Babbage's difference engine which is just a big, black blur. Just as well we're able to look up what it actually looked like online!

And it doesn't have a proper finish. It just stops right in the middle of

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: the origins of the internet by Katie Hafner and Mathew Lyon

As a programmer, I ought to have found this interesting, but unfortunately it was more like doing unpaid overtime. On several occasions I went to bed ahead of my husband, saying I wanted to read a bit of my book, only for him to arrive upstairs minutes later to find that its turgid prose had already stunned me into unconsciousness. Reading about someone else's marathon debugging session is only slightly less horrible than being in the midst of your own.

My one real moment of entertainment came from reading about the work of JCR Licklider. As well as having a funny name, he believed that by working with machines humans could achieve enhanced cognition. As someone who works with machines every day and often seems to be having cognitive difficulties, my response to his idea is a bitter, "Ha!". Most humans don't want their cognition enhanced and are content to muddle along with the same mixture of magical thinking and believing whatever is most convenient that we've been using ever since we were monkeys. We have created this amazing, worldwide network of machines and what do we use it for? Pornography, dating, looking at cute animals, watching amusing films of things in blenders and wanky, ego-stroking popularity contests. Some of the cleverest humans get as far as using it to pretend to be an elf. Quite frankly it would serve us all right if the Internet became self-aware and started exterminating us!

What is a little sad is that although many of the programmers mentioned were undoubtedly brilliant (and obsessive) and working at the bleeding edge of their fields, none of them got rich from their work. What you need to make money appears to middling intelligence, a sharp suit, glossy hair and a disarming smile. Bugger.

Despite the fact that I've not enjoyed this book, my friends seem to be queuing up to read it. I can't persuade them to like my favourite authors but they all want to read this crap. T! Humans, eh? They're just bloody perverse!

Regressing into Childhood...

Those people who know me in real life will be aware that I have had problems with nasty neighbours. These have culminated in my deciding to move house to be rid of them. This may strike people as quite an extreme solution but believe me, compared to weeping continually or murdering someone it becomes the only sensible option. Anyway, while I grapple with what wording to use to successfully sell my beloved home to someone else without actually lying, the last thing I want is to have to wrestle with difficult literature. No, what I want for the moment is to sit hunched in a corner and try to comfort myself by rocking backwards and forwards and reading nothing but children’s books.

A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchet

This is the sequel to “The Wee Free Men” and is the second book about Tiffany Aching (an 11 year old witch from the chalk downs who once saw off the Queen of the fairies by hitting her with a skillet) and the Nac Mac Feegle (a clan of violent, drunken, woad-covered pictsies). Depending on who you believe the Nac Mac Feegle either left Fairyland of their own accord, rebelling against its Queen, or were thrown out for being “pished”.

In this novel, Tiffany leaves home to study witchcraft in the mountains. Whilst there her habit of casually stepping out of her body (which she taught herself to do because she didn’t have a mirror) has disastrous consequences when her empty body is taken over by an evil entity known as a hiver. The Nac Mac Feegle are soon on their way to rescue their favourite “hag”, but they are at their best with problems that can solved by nutting somebody…

One of the things I liked about the book was that since the majority of being a Discworld witch doesn’t involve magic, you can effectively Be Your Own Granny Weatherwax. Now that sounds like the crapest spin-off self-help since the Tao of Poo. Don’t look to me to create it; I’m already being my own lifecoach, feeling the fear and doing it anyway AND fighting the seven signs of aging. You’ll have to shift for yourself!

Across The Nightingale Floor

In some ways I have always wanted to be Japanese and enjoy practicing swordsmanship in the falling cherry blossom with killer cheekbones and epicanthic folds. I could really rock that ethnicity... So I expected to really enjoy “Across the Nightingale Floor”, a children's fantasy novel set somewhere a bit like medieval Japan.

A young man, Tomaso, sees his village destroyed and his mother and step-father murdered by the local warlord. He is then adopted by a rival aristocratic family (who rename him Takeo) and gradually finds out that his birth father was part of a tribe of magic ninjas. Takeo then has to practice his ninja-skills for an attempt on the life of the man who killed his family. Things don't quite go according to plan and although Takeo escapes with his life and the bad guy is dead by the end, so is Takeo's patron is killed, leaving him in the hands of “The Tribe” of magic ninjas.

I just didn't like this book as much as I expected to. Maybe it's because I have been dealing with some very stressful events recently, or maybe it's because I only seemed to have time to read it in 5 minute snatches. Also, am I the only person here who thinks that ninjas are exciting enough without having magic powers? There are two sequels to this novel, but I'm afraid I won't be bothering to read them. What with there being so many amazing books in the world there just isn't time to read the ones I think will only rate 50%.

King of Shadows by Susan Cooper

Nathan Field is part of a company of child actors putting on a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the reconstructed Globe theatre. One night he goes to bed with flu... and wakes up in 1599, about to perform the Dream with Shakespeare himself!

One of the things I like about this book it that Nat's crush on Shakespearereminds me of the way men lez up in Shakespeare plays. I have to confess that I find it very exciting when two good-looking actors put their arms round one another's shoulders and call each other “noble cuz”. Another reason to love this book is because it has my sister's favourite ending: He woke up and it was all a dream... or WAS it?

Singling Out the Couples by Stella Duffy

I acquired this book in an online trade set up at Bookcrossing. Despite the ominous sign that its previous owner had precious little to say about it, I was interested as I had read and enjoyed “Beneath the Blonde”, a lesbian detective novel by the same author.

The blurb says that a princess, perfect in every way except one, sets up home in Notting Hill and begins targeting smug, ever-so-in-love couples, deliberately splitting them apart. It’s a peculiar book: half of it is extremely well observed psychological stuff about the fragility of the couples’ relationships, the lies they tell themselves and each other. The other half of it is everything that is crap and embarrassing about magical realism, for example Princess Cushla literally has no heart.

For me, this book fell between two stools and would have been far, far better with the fairytale elements removed. I think Stella is trying to be Angela Carter and that’s not a good thing. I don’t like Angela Carter either.

The Carter-esque characteristics seem to draw attention to the wrong elements of the writing, if you know what I mean... It’s as if Stella is stood on a chair shouting, “Everyone be quiet and look at me because I’m going to do some symbolism now!”.

Get back to your crime fiction, Duffy!

Don't go to Sedbergh...

I am sure that "Sedbergh" means something nasty in The Meaning of Liff, and whatever it is, the place probably deserves it.

Sedbergh is supposed to be a "book town" in the style of Hay-On-Wye, although it only has 4 bookshops and one of them was closed when I visited. It was full of confused tourists wondering about, looking in the windows of closed shops (this was on a saturday). Like Budleigh Salterton, the place looks like it could use a short, sharp lesson in capitalism.

Of the three bookshops I could enter, all but one seemed to deal exclusively in musty hardbacks about Victorian cricketers.

I tried to make the best of Sedbergh by finding a cafe to sit and read the book I had with me. Alas, I was kicked out when the cafe shut at only 4pm! The pre-teen serving closed the cafe in the face of American tourists wanting traditional English tea and cake. Do the Yorkshire folk have no idea of economics?

Anyway, that's Sedbergh. I've been so that you don't have to.

The Killing Joke - Anthony Horowitz

When I was about 10, Anthony Horowitz was my literary hero. He was the author of the excellent Diamond Brothers books “The Falcon’s Malteeser”, “Public Enemy Number Two” and “South by Southeast”. Not only that, but he wrote many of the scripts for my favourite TV program at the time, “Robin of Sherwood”, in which the gorgeous Michael Praed romped about the forest with his flowing, glossy mullet to a Clannad soundtrack. When my sister lent me a book Anthony had written for adults I was childishly excited...

Well, no real life book was ever going to live up to those impossibly high expectations!

The premise of the book is that a man overhears a sick joke in a pub and wonders who makes these things up. So he tries to trace the joke back to its origin. It turns out that all our nation's jokes are created by a shady government organisation which is willing to kill to protect itself.

(Let me take this opportunity to reassure any readers that not all jokes are produced by the government. Some of my friends and I make up our own. This is a lot like making your own jam/cakes/clothes in that the finished product is a bit shaky, but you get a tremendous sense of achievement. Here's an example: What's Dr Who's favourite readymeal? Gallifraybentos pies! As you can probably tell, I've yet to reach the stage when anyone else repeats one of my jokes.)

Anyway, the book putters along with the hapless hero being hunted by an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman, framed for a series of dwarf murders, falling in love and finally escaping from the villains clutches at the last minute. The book also seems to have the message that although many aspects of jokes are unpleasant or politically incorrect, a life without humour would be truly unbearable.

I am not quite sure how best to express my disappointment with this book; it's not really bad, but it occasionally feels hastily lashed together, as if the author were using one of those “Solutions for Fiction Writers” books. For example: Why would someone be that offended by a sick joke? OK, let's say it was about his Mum. But why would he be a struggling out-of-work actor if his Mum's famous enough to have jokes told about her death? Let's say she gave him up for adoption – that's good enough for Gilbert and Sulivan and it's good enough for us! Except that it isn't quite. Horowitz's adult fiction,like my jokes, needs a bit more work.

Book-Related Disappointment...

Last week I had a brilliant idea for a book. Not a novel, but one of those amusing stocking filler books without much content (ideal for a lazy git like me to write). It was going to be the Schott’s Miscellany of Christmas 2008. My idea was to write a dictionary of words that sound rude but aren’t. I had the words “crapulent”, “turdiform” and “pismire” to begin with and despite my friend’s protestation that “Three words do not make a book.”, I was confident that the F, C and S sections of any decent dictionary would yield further results.

Imagine, then my disappointment at coming across “Butt Rot and Bottom Gas: A Glossary of Tragically Misunderstood Words” by Eric Groves in my local Waterstones! Large quantities of easily-earned money no longer await me and it’s back to the day job...