The Stone Sky

N. K. Jemisin, 2017

(January 2018)

Wrapping up another trilogy as the New Year dawns. (Dawned). I think don’t think it’s an understatement to say that Jemisin’s Broken Earth will eventually come to be seen as significant as Gibson’s Sprawl. While not perhaps the strongest entry of the series (it lacks The Fifth Season’s tripartite trickery and The Obelisk Gate’s almost claustrophobic development of character) it’s nonetheless an excellent climax for an outstanding series. I’ve read a fair number of SFnal three-parters over the last few years, but this is easily the best of the decade, and I can’t see anything coming close to challenging it.

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.

Food of the Gods

Cassandra Khaw, 2017

(May 2017)

Before we get into details about this book there are a couple of larger points I should make. The first is that it’s a compendium edition, collecting Khaw’s two previous Rupert Wong novellas (Rupert Wong: Cannibal Chef, [2015] and Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth [2017]), which is something I wish I knew before preordering it then also buying those novellas separately in order to get up to speed. This is how those nefarious publishers get you: Make blurbs so spoilery and disruptive of the reading experience that you give up reading them entirely, then use your carefully encouraged ignorance to get you to buy more stuff.

Dark Tales

Shirley Jackson, 2016

(April 2017)

  

A new collection of short stories from Shirley Jackson, most of which have previously been printed in other collections, and I think all of them first appeared in various periodicals during the 1950’s. Annoyingly, I think the latter form of publishing does more for them than anthologizing them together like this, as en mass it becomes clear that the writing, or more specifically the plotting, can be fairly formulaic. In many ways the biggest weakness of this collection is the collection.

Half-Resurrection Blues

Daniel José Older, 2015

(January 2017)

Everyone wants coffee except Dr. Tijou, who prefers tea.

I'm struggling to explain why I found this line is so funny, but it provided my first book driven LOL of 2017: a good three or four minutes of guffawing about tea. I am, however, going to give an explanation a bash, because if nothing else it's going to be a good way of working through exactly why I enjoyed this book so much.

Signal to Noise

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, 2015

(January 2017)

  

The first book of the year gets 2017 off to a mixed start. On the one hand, this garnered a fair amount of praise and I can see why: it's well written, thoughtfully plotted, and the characters are only too believable. But on the other, it also served to remind me that coming of age stories really aren't my cup of tea at all. If I were less of a middle-aged curmudgeon I'd be able to praise this for more that its technical execution, but as it stands I'll just say that if pig-headed and self-obsessed teenagers are what floats your boat then you could do a lot worse than this.

At the Mouth of the River of Bees

Kij Johnson, 2012

(September 2014)

In the tiny lifeboat, she and the alien fuck endlessly, relentlessly.

The Lowland

Jhumpa Lahiri, 2013

(June 2014)

  

The Lowland is an astonishingly well-written novel. Lahiri’s prose just demands to be called ‘limpid’, and is executed with a precision and clarity that I haven’t enjoyed in a long time. The story however is just brutal; blow after blow of outright emotional violence which, combined with that cut-glass linguistic virtuosity, means the whole experience is akin to getting glassed with Waterford Crystal.

The Parable of the Ponderous Parallels

or, Be Careful What You Wish For

The football World Cup has begun. You can tell this because both social and mainstream media can now be divided into three broad groups: people talking about football; people griping about people talking about football; and people who insist on continuing their discussions about less pressing matters such as conflicts in the Middle East, American gun massacres, child abduction, and so forth (this last is by far the smallest group).

Queen of Kings

Maria Dahvana Headley, 2011

(March 2014)

  

Big book. Short Chapters. Love, sex, and death in the underworld. What’s not to like?

  

We Need New Names

NoViolet Bulawayo, 2013

(February 2014)

  

Variable quality, this one. The second half is very good. The first, however, is outstanding.

  

Desperate Measures

So I joined twitter. I was going to write a blog post about joining twitter, but then I remembered that I still have some pride. Not much, admittedly, but I’m better than that. So this isn’t about twitter; it’s about choices.

  

Too Shocking Even for Channel 4

Bright lights, big city.

Growing up in rural Middle-England it’s fair to say I didn’t have much exposure to the seedier aspects of the human experience. I mean, sure, there was the village tramp who everyone viewed with a sort of tolerant condescension and the church committee would give a hamper to at christmas.* Looking back, the guy was clearly suffering from at least one sort of mental illness, but talking about these things isn’t done so the fact his lifestyle choices included living under an upturned bath in a cave was publicly attributed to nothing more than good old-fashioned English eccentricity.

Splithead

Julya Rabinowich, 2008 [Tess Lewis, 2011]
(August 2013)

Odd little book, this. It’s a roman a clef, as far as I can tell, about Russian émigrés in Vienna towards the end of the cold war. As is now traditional for books by writers of Russian origin the prose is beautifully fluid, but the plotting is very clearly secondary. Narrative points of view and timescales jump all over the place and each new section demands considerable patience before you realize who is being referred to, and when. This is, possibly, a fairly accurate representation of the dislocation felt by an immigrant child and teenager, but it’s not all that engaging for the reader. Not a bad book, for sure, but if it were much longer I’m not sure I would have found the effort justified by the reward.

Balance of Trade

I was a judge at a speech contest a few months back. The day started well enough; cup of coffee and a sit down with the organizers and other judges to go over the grading criteria. One of the organizers said that he’d introduce us to the contestants and audience at the start, and asked us how we’d each like to be described. My initial suggestion of, ‘Sage, Polymath, and Renaissance Man for the Coming Millennium’ was rejected as ‘factually inaccurate’ so I had to settle for ‘ALT at school X’. I then asked if he could at least do it in the manner of a wrestling ringside announcer, but this too was deemed ‘inappropriate’. Some days you just can’t win, eh?

Deathless

Catheryne M. Valente, 2011

(December 2012)

This book in one word? Well… ardour.

  

Cause for Celebration

One Year! One year old! Yeah, baby. Who’d have thought we’d manage to maintain interest this long? I’m so proud of you all.

Still, we managed it somehow. Here’s to the next 12 months. Fun times ahead, oh yes indeed.

Meet The New Boss...

I am now, hilariously, ranked second on Google for the terms ‘Homare Sawa boyfriend’ and ‘Homare Sawa husband.’ I’m just being edged out by some dodgy looking, distinctively unauthoritative reference site. Johnny-come-lately upstarts. And that’s just the English version, I’m not even ranked in Japanese (澤穂希彼氏, 澤穂希旦那. Shameless, isn’t it? Sorry, shameful. I meant shameful).

So, what with the fortunes of the Nadeshiko at the Olympics, I’ve been picking up quite a few search engine hits on that score. Some have even been hanging around. Hello there! Either way, it certainly beats my normal complement of chubby chasers and Scarface fans, but still comes nowhere near my all-time favourite query of ‘egg fucking.’

Look What You Made Me Do

I'm a good man. I'm a considerate husband, a loving father, and a conscientious employee. I don't deserve this. What did I ever do to you?