Dear Everybody, by Michael Kimball
Dear Michael,
I hope you can forgive me for appropriating the epistolary form to write this review, but I wanted to tell you just how impressed I was by Dear Everybody. You have created something that I found very affecting, warm in places, tinged with affection – but my abiding sensation after finishing is one of sorrow.
I mourn not just for Jonathon Bender, whose tragic life is encapsulated within this collection of letters, written immediately before he takes his own life. Although he is the centre of this tragedy, and worthy of our grief, I also feel sorrow for his mother, whose diaries reveal the anguish of an abused wife; sorrow for his younger brother Robert, who through his commentary on the letters and his conversations with their father, earns our scorn for his inability to understand his brother even in death. Robert deserves our pity also, despite his apparent lack of empathy, because the influence of his father is all too clear in his attitudes, and in his own way his life has been just as badly affected by the nature of their childhood.
Nation, by Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett’s latest novel contains such a rich and compelling mixture of themes and ideas that it puts many other authors to shame – and it’s all the more impressive that he is willing to explore these in a book that is marketed as being for young adults. Indeed, it’s Pratchett’s young adult work that has won him awards in the past (The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents won the Carnegie Medal) and broadened his reach beyond his considerable Discworld fanbase – of course, all his adult fans are likely to read Nation, as I did, and it’s a testament to Pratchett’s genius that at no stage will they feel patronised. Pratchett never seems to have to ‘write down’ to his YA readership, which means we can all enjoy his considerable storytelling skills.
The range of themes is pretty breathtaking, and includes the nature of religious truth, nationalism, traditionalism versus innovation, the perils of imperialism, and the value of the scientific method. Set in an alternative but very recognisable version of our 19th century world, on an small island somewhere in the Pacific (sorry, Pelagic) Ocean, the central protagonist is Mau, a boy on the cusp of manhood. Mau is off the main island, by himself, as part of his rite of passage, when a monster tidal wave devastates the island, killing every single inhabitant (it was very noticeable for me that the deaths of the islanders are not glossed over, and disposal of their bodies is one of Mau’s first priorities, which I thought showed an impressive commitment to realism). The same tidal wave causes the schooner Sweet Judy to run aground on the island, with the loss of all hands except the young Daphne Fanshawe, a very minor member of the British royal family, of a similar age to Mau. As the only survivors of the disaster, Mau and Daphne must overcome their considerable cultural and linguistic differences (which Pratchett mines for their full comic potential) to form an effective team. As more survivors start to arrive from other islands, they form the nucleus of a new community.
The Mighty Book of Boosh, by Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding, illustrated by Dave Brown
For the latest in Bookgeeks’ occasional series of guest reviews, master of the surreal James Appleby tells us all about the The Mighty Book of Boosh, a task that he’s eminently qualified for by virtue of once having seen Noel Fielding in Wagamama.
Sorry it’s taken me so long to get this review written but Bridgette Bardot put me in a time capsule with a drawing of an orange cat holding an air rifle.
A great excuse, I know. It’s not mine I’m afraid but just one from Vince’s Book of Excuses for Being Late Volume III, one of many tiny treats housed within this incredible tome – as just one slurp from a whole selection of soups.
Some of the other instructional passages in this book are Bob Fossil’s A-Z of Animals (where the elephant is ‘Grey leg-face man’), The Phases of the Moon (‘The full moon, the main moon, the chalky white ball-bag hanging in the sky like a screwed up letter from a paedophile’), Eleanor’s Top Sexpressions (‘Turn me over and record all over my old DVDs’) or Howard Moon’s Advanced School of Acting Expression (why not try pulling his ‘Bakers’s Confusion or ‘Contemplating Gay’ faces). So lots to be learnt then, but it’s not all self-help.
If you’ve ever seen the TV series, the live shows, the festival music sets or heard the original radio episodes and wondered where all the surrealism, animal-obsession and array of characters come from – this is a fruitful glimpse into their Zooniverse. It will answer questions you never even knew you had like: What are Bruno Mindhorn’s other poems like? What goes on at The Shamen Lodge when they’re not holding committee meetings? And who did Old Gregg use as a muse before he happened-upon Howard Moon?
Lords of the Bow (Conqueror 2), by Conn Iggulden
So Conn Iggulden’s Ghengis Khan and sons juggernaut rolls onwards in to its second volume, reflecting the relentless rise of the Mongol nation as forged by the great Khan. Like its predecessor, Wolf of the Plains, this is an effective and enjoyable book. At the end of of the first volume, the seeds of the unified Mongol nation had been sown, and Ghengis was consolidating his hold on the people of the steppe – as the second opens, he is fighting the last battle that was needed to bring all the tribes under his control, and needless to say, his victory is never in doubt. Having brought together his people, a process whose details Iggulden largely glosses over in the interests of maintaining the pace, Ghengis decides to turn his warrior hordes on the Chinese kingdoms, whose interference in the life of the steppe tribes had kept them weak for hundreds of years. First to feel his wrath are the Xi Xia, against whom he has to learn some hard lessons about fortifications, canals, city life and much else besides.
When the Xi Xia surrender and become a vassal nation, Ghengis moves onwards to the lands of the Chin – at this point, the story divides between a mission to the lands of the Chin by two of Ghengis’s brothers (which I found dragged a little), and life back at camp, where the Khan’s awkward relationship with his eldest son, who he believes to be the bastard offspring of his wife’s rape in the first volume, is a great illustration that Ghengis is not all powerful when it comes to his own family. Once the mission from the Chin returns, with a master mason, siege engines can be built and the progress of grinding down the fortified Chin cities can begin.
Absurdistan, by Gary Shteyngart
The tattered remains of the former Soviet Union is the setting for this extravagant satire, which channels influences from Evelyn Waugh to John Kennedy O’Toole to paint an often amusing and sometimes uncomfortable picture of life in the new Russia. Misha Vanberg, aka Snack Daddy, is our hero and narrator. The corpulent Misha is a wealthy young man, the son the 1,238th richest man in Russia – having been sent to the US for his University education, where he acquired a love of hip hop and New York’s urban culture, as well as the curvy ghetto-chick Rouenna, he is back in Russia at the opening of the book, somehow neither truly Russian nor properly American. The assassination of his father by a rival mafia boss leaves him in control of his father’s money, but unable to do the one thing that would really make him happy – he can’t go back to America, because his father’s role in a murder means the US State Department won’t give him a Visa.
Lonely Misha consoles himself with his plans to set up a charity in his own name, and indulges in traditional Russian pass-times such as the consumption of extravagant quantities of vodka. During one drinking session, an acquaintance suggests a way for him to obtain a Belgian passport, which if not as good as an American Visa would certainly give him the opportunity to get out of Russia. To seal the deal, Misha must travel to the (fictional) former Soviet Republic of Absurdistan, on the Caspian Sea. It’s when he gets there that the fun really starts.
Belching Out the Devil, by Mark Thomas
No-one who reads the delicately named Belching Out the Devil will ever look at a glass of Coca-Cola in the same way again – not because of the dietary aspects, although comedian and political activist Mark Thomas does point out that a product consisting almost entirely of sugar and water is not something that the world really needs. No, the target in his sights in this book is the corporat
e behaviours and practices of The Coca-Cola Company, and the impact they have on the environment and communities around the world in the name of producing a product that no-one really needs.
It’s important to understand at the outset that Coke is not, technically, produced by a single global company; rather, the parent corporation markets the drink and produces the essential syrup, while a global network of bottling companies, many wholly or partially owned by The Coca-Cola Company, conducts business around the world – on that basis, many of the abuses that Thomas goes on to describe are disclaimed by Coke’s global HQ as not their direct responsibility. Thomas’ initial focus is on Columbia, where union busting in Coke bottling plants has led to the involvement of the right-wing death squads that plague the country. The situation is so severe that union organisers face death threats, beatings and intimidation; one was even murdered on the premises at a bottling plant. Thomas’s enquiries to Coke are met with denials, evasions and an apparent persecution complex – the company with the highest value brand in the world thinks it’s being “picked on”.
Blood Ties, by Pamela Freeman
Pamela Freeman’s fantasy debut, Book One of the Castings Trilogy, has lots of great ideas and interesting themes, and was a very enjoyable holiday read. Freeman has followed George R.R. Martin’s multiple protagonist approach, but with a nice addition: she sometimes breaks off from the main cast to let some of the other characters we encounter tell their own stories, in their own words. It’s a great device, both for fleshing out the world of the Eleven Domains where the action takes place, and for giving us new perspectives on our key characters. It’s clearly a deliberate attempt to try something a bit different structurally, and it’s very effective.
Such structural cleverness would be nothing without an engaging plot though – and the omens for this are good too. The original inhabitants of the Eleven Domains were displaced by the invasion of Acton’s People, hundreds of years ago – most were killed out of hand. The majority of the population of the Domains now are descended from Acton’s People; but our three central characters are all descended from the original inhabitants, who now, thanks to the peripatetic life forced on them, are known as Travellers. Travellers are reviled and discriminated against, treated as second-class citizens, so the issue of discrimination runs throughout the book, but Freeman does not take any simplistic moral positions. For our central characters, we have Ash, who was unable to follow his parents in to the music trade, and makes his living as a bodyguard; we have Saker, an enchanter on a mission to reclaim the land for his people; and we have Bramble, a teenage tearaway more at home in the forests than in the towns. This being epic fantasy, you know from the start their destinies are intertwined, in a world where stonecasters can predict the future.
Things The Grandchildren Should Know, by Mark Oliver Everett
Mark Oliver Everett, aka E, writes and performs fine left-field songs with his band, Eels. You may know some of them, if not through the albums, then at least via the many soundtracks on which Eels songs appear. Things Your Grandchildren Should Know, then, must be a rock autobiography. The heart sinks a little with that, except Things Your Grandchildren Should Know turns out to be pretty much the best book I have ever read about creative expression and what makes an artist tick. Who knew?
Pop books are easily segmented. Most are lurid tales of sordid excess, such as Hammer of the Gods, The True Adventures of The Rolling Stones or, the lurid zenith/nadir, The Dirt. Some are self-aggrandising, score-settling accounts of what happened to whom, some merge the life story with an appreciation of the work (the second of Peter Guralnick’s two volumes on Elvis Presley springs to mind), while others focus solely on the work itself, the best of which is surely Revolution In The Head.
While there may be an surfeit of music books titles there remains a dearth of real insight into the make-up of a creative mind and the hidden process of being an artist and performer. For sure there are books that lay bare the recording process, but these are mostly pretty arid. Of these attempts to draw back the curtains, Things Your Grandchildren Should Know is the only one I can think of that lets daylight in without destroying any magic.
Black Man, by Richard Morgan
Black Man is Richard Morgan’s most recent piece of SF noir before he embarked on his journey in to fantasy writing – it remains to be seen whether he will return to this kind of fiction in the future, but if he doesn’t (and I really hope he does) then this is a truly great way to leave the genre. This is a book with more of a sense of purpose that Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs books (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies), deeper and less stylized, with a clearer view of the themes it wants to address. Humanity, in a plausible continuation of present-day science, made alterations to its own genetic blueprint, creating new sub-species to fulfil specific roles: Bonobos, women bred especially to be sexually available and receptive; hibernoids, specially adapted to operate for eight months on little or no sleep but who then have to hibernate for the other four; and the Variant Thirteens – bred to be soldiers, trained killers, they were intended to embody the savagery of ancient man before the adaption of the human race to be sedentary farmers made such instincts anachronistic. Humanity has abandoned these experiments, and is now trying to cope with the consequences of the existence of all the genetically modified humans it has created and unleashed. That’s where Carl Marsalis comes in.
Marsalis is a Thirteen, and in the best tradition of setting a thief to catch a thief, he now works for the UN Genetic Licensing Authority tracking down and bringing back other Thirteens, dead or alive. Following humanity’s change of heart about genetic manipulation, the Thirteens were given the option to leave the planet and head for Mars, newly colonised and in need of settlers, especially hardy and self-sufficient ones; or to enter reservations. Marsalis originally took the Mars option, but won the repatriation lottery and came back. Perhaps more scarred than he realises by his childhood training regime and the reality of his removal from first his genetic mother and then his foster mother, he is capable of extreme violence and great cunning; but he has a soft side too, which is what lands him in jail in Florida, entrapped in to offering to pay for an abortion for a prostitute he hardly knows.
The Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine, by Stanley Crawford
Well, what a remarkable and unusual little book this is! First published in 1972, and clocking in at 107 pages long, The Log of the S.S. Mrs Ungunetine has been brought back to the world by Dalkey Archive Press, and I am very glad they decided to do so. Part contemplation of the solitude of marriage, part Jules Verne-style fantastic voyage in a fantastic vessel, it is an unlikely fusion of elements bound together with a sprinking of magic – but somehow, it all seems to work.
The log of the title is being kept by Mrs Ungunetine – she and her husband are the sole inhabitants of a giant barge that over the years they have landscaped, cultivated and customised so that it’s virtually a floating island. They have a forest of trees, they grow fruit and vegetables, they have birds that landed by mistake and never left – in the hands of some writers, such an implausible creation (which the Ungunetines do manage to propel from place to place, initially by means of a dilapidated steam engine, and later by wind power alone) might function merely as a convenient location to isolate two characters, serving an almost metaphorical role. But Crawford devotes considerable imagination to the platform on which his characters reside, concocting all kinds of marvellous and implausible modifications, which being a fantasy geek I confess I wanted to read more about!
Scribble in the margin of The Golden Notebook
Chris Meade (author of the recently reviewed digital fiction In Search of Lost Tim, and blogger over at if:book) has drawn the Bookgeeks’ attention to an interesting experiment they are kicking off – in using browser technology to facilitate online, co-operative reading and commenting. The text chosen is Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook (which I own but have not read myself). Here’s how Chris describes the experiment:
Have you read The Golden Notebook? Did you try it but never quite make it through to the end? Did you love it way back when and wonder what you’d make of it now? Did you hear some of it serialised on Radio 4 recently and think, “I must read that.” Well, now you can read it along with the comments of an international team of readers and an online community around them.
if:book London and Apt, the new media design and marketing consultancy, have collaborated on a groundbreaking project devised and curated by Bob Stein of the Institute for the Future of the Book, and supported by Arts Council England.
It’s a very interesting idea and well executed – you can view each page of the book, as it appears in print, and see what everyone has said about what’s taking place on that page. They have made allowance for the fact that different readers will have different editions with different page numbering (boring but important), allowed for threaded comments on pages, and created forums as well (recognition that some discussions are not appropriate for the page level). Everything’s very well integrated, and it’s an impressive achievement. It will be interesting to see how well the model works, as clearly the same approach could be taken to any text.
As someone whose shelves are laden down with bescribbled copies of set texts (Mrs Bookgeek is an English teacher), which I now find impossible to use as straight reading copies, I wish this experiment every success.
Azincourt, by Bernard Cornwell
So, the master of the historical battle has turned his attention to the encounter that’s synonymous with English victory over our old rivals the French. He says it’s the book he’s always wanted to write, and because it’s a standalone novel it’s had a huge amount of media attention, presumably because it’s easier for them to get people interested in a non-series book. As Cornwell himself has said, there’s very little true historical significance to Agincourt (Azincourt is the French version of the name) – it was not a battle that changed anything long-term, and perhaps would not be so well remembered if it were not for Shakespeare’s famous speeches in Henry V. Militarily, it was an unequal contest that the English probably would not have won without a startling lack of French leadership and the effects of the weather on the battlefield – but those facts are not known or remembered. As the 1966 World Cup Final is to England’s relationship with Germany, so Agincourt is to our relationship with the French – but is it worthy of the full novelisation treatment?
The answer is, ‘just about’. The hero of the piece is English archer Nicholas Hook – the name seems to be a clear nod to the archer hero of Cornwell’s Grail Quest trilogy, Thomas Hookton – and like all the main characters in the book, Hook was real, his name having been drawn from the muster rolls of the English army. Hook is, unsurprisingly, a crack archer and, being a Cornwell hero, a bit of a rogue. When he makes enemies among his local lord’s retinue, he flees his home and find work as a mercenary. In the employ of the Duke of Burgundy, he witnesses the barbarity of the French in the aftermath of the siege of Soissons – in an event that shocked Europe, the French army unleashed slaughter and rape on the inhabitants of the town as well as on the garrison of English archers. During the siege, Nick acquires both a girlfriend and another nemesis (every Cornwell hero needs at least one nemesis).
The Dreaming Void (Void Trilogy 1), by Peter F. Hamilton
I’m not sure anyone does chunky, blockbuster space opera better than Peter F. Hamilton – I hoovered up his Night’s Dawn trilogy (well over 3,000 pages in paperback) and the shorter (by his standards) Commonwealth Saga, after being introduced to his work via the excellent standalone Fallen Dragon. Now he has returned to the Commonwealth universe for another tree-intensive trilogy, of which this is the first volume, with the second, The Temporal Void, recently published. Hundreds of years have passed since the Starflyer War consumed the Commonwealth, and there have been huge technological and political changes from the society that we encountered in the Commonwealth Saga: the wormhole network that allowed the easy spread of the Starflyer is gone, replaced by starship travel; the ability has been developed for humans to leave their physical bodies and upload in to Advanced Neural Architecture, which effectively runs human affairs; there is a deep split between the Higher societies, where people will ultimately upload to ANA, and Advancers, who believe in genetic manipulation to improve the human race. In short, humanity is far from united.
The centre of the galaxy contains a void (called… the Void), which it is believed has the potential to envelop whole star systems if stimulated. When a research scientist called Inigo, studying the Void, starts to dream about the lives of humans who previously managed to enter it, the dreams eventually come to form the basis of an entire religion, Living Dream, whose followers revere Inigo as the Dreamer and aspire to make a pilgrimage in to the Void, something which advanced species like the Raiel, as well as many factions of humanity, are determined to prevent lest it trigger an expansion which destroys everything. The stage is set for one of Hamilton’s classic many-stranded plots and large cast of characters.
The Domino Men, by Jonathan Barnes
The Domino Men is, loosely speaking, the sequel to Jonathan Barnes’ debut The Somnambulist – and it marks the definite development of his talent. While I enjoyed the first book, I sometimes found the tone an uneasy compromise between Robert Rankin-esque whimsy and grimy Victorian melodrama, and perhaps I expected more laughs than I got. By bringing the second volume in to the present day, he has retained the dark humour and the trappings of the occult, while having characters and situations that seem much more suited to his style.
It all starts with Henry Lamb, a Civil Service filing clerk who lives a humdrum existence, perhaps a reaction to the fact he was once a child TV star in a crappy sitcom. Normality is cycling to work, eating a solitary lunch on the embankment and lusting after his landlady, but it’s not to last – after Henry’s grandfather has a stroke, things start to get seriously weird seriously quickly. The Directorate, that shadowy organisation that Edward Moon worked for in the first book, are still around (and still run by the same man), and they need to recruit Henry. Gone are the comedy public-school Chinamen of the first book, to be replaced by rather more three-dimensional, and in many cases deeply peculiar, operatives. From their cunningly disguised HQ in a pod on the London Eye, the Directorate is engaged in an age-old struggle with an implacable foe – the British Royal Family!
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