Books - December 2005/January 2006
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
Fantastically creepy. I’m still sort of amazed that books as surreal as Murakami’s sell so well over here. The plot unfolds pretty slowly, so it wouldn’t be helpful to try to outline it, but the book’s really about evoking a sense of isolation and disconnectedness. I’ve read some interviews with the author where he seems to feel very distanced from his homeland and his past, and this story seems to be the most obvious embodiment of that he’s written so far. All of the character’s spend their time going very calmly and serenely through utterly bizarre situations which slowly pull them entirely out of the world. Go and read it, it’s totally fascinating.
The Lovely Bones - Alice Seabold
This is one of those hugely hyped books that I seem to avoid until I see a cheap copy lingering around a bookshop while I’m browsing aimlessly. It’s basically a story of a family trying to cope after one of their daughters is killed. The twist is that the murdered daughter is essentially narrating and overseeing the events from her own personalised heaven. It’s not terrible, but it’s more straightforward than it’s fervent reception might lead you to believe.
Century Rain - Alastair Reynolds
A cross between a noir detective story set in Paris, and a space opera set in yer average far-flung future, with the characters from the latter trying to work their way into the former to stop modern post-humans from destroying modern normal-humans. Clear, yes? I almost gave up on this about 100 pages in, when it’s revealed that the post-human ultra-advanced civilisation was formed from the Slashdot community. Now, I can suspend my disbelief pretty hard when required. I mean, far-future space-war factions finding a 1950’s Earth where WWII stalled on the starting grid? No problem. But, fuckin’ Slashdot? Everyone knows that all of the participants on that site have already regressed back to the chimp stage; screeching unintelligibly and throwing their own poo at each other.
Ahem.
Leaving all that aside, it’s reasonably entertaining, but the 50’s stuff feels a bit half hearted, and it doesn’t really hold up to his previous 3 books.
Talk to the Hand - Lynne Truss
More snarky fun from the author of “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”, this time on the subject of rudeness in modern society. Oddly, it doesn’t discuss whether or not it’s rude to sell a short story as a full price book by using a huge font and cavernous page margins…
Judas Unchained - Peter F. Hamilton
A huge 1000-page doorstop that’s actually the second part of the story started in Pandora’s Star. Various human factions running around trying to stop an invading alien force from destroying humanity by military means and another, mysterious alien agent which has subverted important members of the human command and is waiting to pick over the pieces once the other sides have finished destroying each other.
I spent a while at the start of the book trying to remember who all of the characters were and what alliances they had formed. The previous book came out several months before, and I apparently have no memory. It eventually all started to make sense again, and trundled along to a decent conclusion. Hamilton’s last few books were a big disappointment after the excellent Night’s Dawn series, so it’s good to see him back to form here. It’s essentially just an action adventure story; there’s little subtlety, but things do Blow Up Real Good, which is sometimes just what you want. If only it didn’t come packaged as a hernia-inducing hardback brick.
Saturday - Ian McEwan
This is an odd book. In feels vaguely like a short story that grew out of control. Following a neurosurgeon on his day off, preparing for a family reunion meal, there are only a couple of passages where anything actually happens. The meat of the book is in the obsessively detailed descriptions of all of the actions and thoughts going on, and some nervous middle-class moralising about personal safety. It’s very well written, and kept my interest the whole way through, but it’s hard to overlook the fact that you’re reading about a hugely boring man, who’s turned out a couple of highly unlikely children. It had me sitting on the bus actively trying not to yell out “Gah! Don’t you realise you’re a living cliché, you moron?”
Apparat - Warren Ellis
A series of 4 short, independent, comics written by Ellis, and drawn by 4 different artists. The connecting theme is an exploration of what comics might have looked like if the superhero genre had never happened. ‘Angel Stomp Future’ - a trippy futureshock story - and ‘Quit City’ - a lost adolescence, ‘can’t go home again’ thing - are both fantastic. ‘Frank Ironwine’ is a quick and simple hardboiled detective story, and ‘Simon Spector’ is essentially a superhero story without the spandex; it’s the least effective story, but it’s line art style is great, and I’d love to see a coloured version of it. It’s a pretty neat collection, and is the only way you’ll be able to get any of the books, since the singles seem to be rarer than hen’s teeth nowadays.