Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005

(November 2017)

Gyah. What a singularly frustrating book. What, to be more specific, a singularly frustrating narrator.

Heathern

Jack Womack, 1990

(June 2017)

A lot of life has intervened since I read this book, as it has a wont to do. From what I can remember, Heathern fills the chronological space between Random Acts of Senseless Violence and Ambient, and so it was kind of an odd experience reading it prespoiled, as it were. Still entertaining enough, certainly, but lacking the linguistic virtuosity of the former of the ludicrous satirical anger of the latter.

Central Station

Lavie Tidhar, 2016

(June 2017)

  

Central Station is a mid-future cyberpunkesque novel comprised of a dozen or so chapters, many of which were originally published as stand-alone short stories. They’ve obviously been reworked fairly carefully (or, more generously, were originally written with a very clear eye on the big picture), and for all that there is something of a central plot running through the book, its focus is very much on these interlinked vignettes exploring migration and belonging, faith and memory.

The Stars Are Legion

Kameron Hurley, 2017

(February 2017)

Very good, very meaty (figuratively and literally), but I also read this with an increasing sense of déjà vu.

City of Illusions

Ursula K. Le Guin, 1967

(February 2016)

So then, Le Guin. The little corner of contemporary capital-C Culture I tend to most often inhabit might, for want of a better phrase, be designated as ‘Progressive Speculative Fiction’. A clumsy label, but you get the general idea. And within this niche the closest thing going to an unimpeachable godhead, a figure held in universal awe and reverence, is Ursula K. Le Guin.

The Sound of the Mountain

Yasunari Kawabata, 1954 [Edward G. Seidensticker, 1970]

(January 2015)

“Bad books on writing tell you to "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.”

-Joe Haldeman

Phantasm Japan

Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington (eds), 2014

(September 2014)

  

We’ve established that I’m no fan of David Cameron’s, so you can imagine how much it pains me to say that every once in a while he, or at least his speechwriter, is capable of turning quite a nice rhetorical line. One specific instance sticks in my mind from ages ago, when he was baiting Tony Blair at Prime Minister’s Questions and claimed that, “He was the future, once.” And you know, this reminds me very much of Jesus Christ.

How do you like those apples?

And prunes and walnuts and stuff. Almost, but not quite perfect; one of these days I'll remember I need to cover the top earlier. Seriously, every fucking time in this oven, every fucking time.