Quill and Query

James - Unreliable Memoirs

2011-07-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

Unreliable Memoirs: Always Unreliable, Clive James, Picador, 1980.

This first book of James' memoirs covers his childhood and first go at University.

James calls his memoir 'unreliable', right in the title. James is telling the reader that this is a fictive memoir, a recollection of actual events and people but combined with fiction. True stories may be exaggerated or expanded upon with fiction elements, some tales may be invented, depictions of people may be acurate or partially or entirely fiction. It is assumed though, that even with a generous dose of fiction, the essence, the main body of the tale, gives a genuine insight into the life and character of the person writing the memoir. In fact, the use of fiction is meant not to obfuscate the past, but to help reveal it by providing detail, a focus, a contrast.

Most of the book concerns James'childhood in Australia in the fourties and fifties. Tale after tale recounts James' adventures as a child. They are largley comic, and no doubt exaggerated versions of real events. Many of the stories depict James behaving badly. At times funny, at times irritating, but always readable. The reader continues turning pages to see what happens next even while cursing James the child for being a nasty little shit.

According to these memoirs, James was an unusually self aware child. James tells us that he frequently made deliberate calculations in behavior to ensure acceptance at school. For example, when almost labelled as a 'brain' or even worse, a 'teacher's pet', he set fire to his desk to provoke a beating from the school disciplinarian and thereby ensure his acceptance as one of the bad kids. Other similar calculations follow. In his last years of school, he observed that he was now one of the smaller kids instead of one of the largest. Therefore he reionvented his persona, changing his behaviour from bad kid to class clown, and by making others laugh avoided being bullied.

There is much humor in this book, some of which has not aged well, but that is often the case with humor. There is also pathos in this book, and moments of reflection, and constant apologies from James for being such a rotten kid. He writes that he knew better even then, but did not change his behavior. But he would improve eventually, years later, he assures the reader.

Another interesting characteristic is that of false modesty. James makes a point of telling us his very high IQ score, then self-deprecatingly states that it means nothing. Yet he did make a point of telling us.

The final section of Unreliable Memoirs tells of James' first crack at University. Though the smallest section it is the most interesting. Here we meet characters more realized than the shadowy companions of his childhood. We witness James' attraction to the avant-garde, and to literature and the literary life, all presented in a sequence of amusing tales. He tells of his early love of books, of the counter-culture as it was in the fifites, of his early writing, of his freinds and schoolmates. James writes once or twice that he had few freinds, yet he never lacks for company. Perhaps 'few', like 'some', is a relative term to be taken relatively. All through his schooling James insists he neglected his studies, yet he always has high marks. In University he also neglects his reading, his work, his classes, yet he manages a degree.

Following his degree James quickly finds work at a newspaper. He seems to take to it well. But he abruptly decides that England is the place to be so he loads up his trunk and heads across the sea. He says goodbye to his girlfreind (who along with others reapears in later sequels to this memoir) and boards ship headed for England, circa early 1960's. The bad behavior toward other people and things continues during his University years right to the memoirs end, but, James insists, his behaviur improved, eventually.

Green - Paper Towns

2011-05-15T00:52:00.001-07:00

Paper Towns. John Green. Dutton Books. 2008.

Quentin 'Q' Jacobsen and Margo Spiegelman share a wild night of pranks and adventure. The next day, Margo is not at school. She has disapeared. No one knows where she went or why, or whether she is alive or dead. Q and his freinds try to uncover what happened to her. They find what they belive are clues to her disapearance, left by Margo herself for Q.

The novel develops the main cast through events in and around the last three months of their final year of High School. In the time off from school they follow the clues. Margo had been the most popular girl in High School. But as Q and his freinds dig, they discover that no one really knew Margo. Each person who knew her had a different idea of her personality. She was a reflection of their own ideas, their own biases and assumptions, and on her part Margo played the role she was given. But her own personality remained seperate and hidden form everyone. An irony here is that enough is given about Margo for each reader to make their own idea of who Margo is, based on their own reactions to the story and their own biases and personalities and past histories. Thus one of Green's themes extends beyond the page into the reader's world.

As the young characters search they learn more about the real Margo. Q in particular is obsessed with knowing the truth and with finding her or what happened to her. The novel ends with a furious race against time across the country to where they believe they will find Margo. What they discover you need to read the book to find out.

Of all the Green teen books, this is possibly the best, and the most accesible to an adult audience. The themes of identity, friendship, and so on resonate with all readers.

Hay - Late Nights on Air

2011-03-14T23:21:00.001-07:00

Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth Hay, McClelland and Stewart, 2007.

A group of characters work together at a radio station in the summer of 1975. Harry Boyd, Dido, Eddy, Eleanor, Gwen, Ralph.

These are the main five characters, but others appear occasionally, each crisply drawn and given life. The book chronicles story of their lives together working at the station over a year. The reader experiences their shifting freindships and loyalties. Each major character is given time as the viewpoint character. Their personalities and motives are explored, their feelings toward the world around them and of the other characters is revealed. But little is certain. Feelings grow between some characters and then fade, or emotion lurks beneath the surface then grows as the year or years pass. The interplay between these characters shifts and remains complex. Even amoung freinds an opinion, a judgement, may differ on a third character. This richness and variability are the novels strengths. The characers seem real, nothing between them is pat or too easy.

The main charactgers are arguably Gwen and Harry. Gwen is a rookie in the radio business who drove to Yellowknife alone. Harry is a former radio star who bombed in a try at television and took the radio job as a sort mutual favor slash exile. But arguments could be made that Dido and Eleanor, and in the final part of the book Ralph are equal characters. Yet the view point we see more often is either Harry or Gwen.

Eddy is present throughout much of the novel and is given a brief time as the view-point character, letting us only breifly inside his head. His personality does not travel much bewyond the belligerent, ambitious, and talented character he appears to be at the novel's beginnning. We do not learn why he is so relentlessly hostile to Harry. That Harry has failed at tv and is back where his career began is part of it. Perhaps that is all the explanation the author intended. But it is insufficient.

Dido is described as broad shouldered, with narrow hips and big hands. In short, she is described as a man. Why the author has done this is a mystery. All the men find her irresistable, yet in real life they would not. Her physical despription is not an attractive one. Is there meant to be a hint of bisexuality here? But aimed at what audience? Her personality is on the whole unlikeable. She seems to develop in reverse form the book's beginning. She is said to have a attractive voice, and that is something, but not enough given her mannish appearance and unlikeable personality. Still, a woman freind said she thought Dido 'sensual'.

Another character is the land itself. Hay writes as someone intimately familiar with Yellowknife and the northern landscape. The land's smells, its sights, its feel. All come alive in carefull evocative detail. The presence of the land is a force, a living character, throughout the book. The second to last section concerns a long trip into the back country by four of the characters. It sets up like the novel's pentupulate section, but it is not. There are important debvooments on that trip, it changes several lives, but more story remains. The book continues to follow and develop several characters, and leads finally to a long-delayed realization for two of them.

Death pervades the book. Not always on stage but as a lurking presence. A few of the characters die. But beyond that, death is always referried to. Either offstage deaths of relatives, or the repeated theme of a long lost, long dead, arctic explorer and his entire party. It could be argued that death is another central character. Though not always center stage, it or its possibility is ever present, a part of the landscape, a part of life in the north country.

Harry takes the job as a temporary position. This gives him leeway to experiment and try anything he likes since he doesn't expect the job to last anyway. In radio he has great confidence. Remember first, this is the seventies. He gives incresaed responsiblity to women as radio personalities, reporters, newreaders. Some of the men are angry. Harry expermiemnts in other ways. Some things work, some do not. Many of hies staff become angry and plan rebellion.

Harris - You Comma Idiot

2011-01-30T00:27:00.001-08:00

You comma Idiot, Doug Harris.

You Comma Idiot is a comedic novel about a directionlesss guy drifting through life who suddenly has several problems hit him at once, disrupting the rut his life had become. It is written in the second person, which isn't used often. The book isn't hilarious, but it is amusing. And yes it does take place in Montreal, so you Montrealers out there will recognize the locales protrayed in the story.

The narrator is the idiot of the title, but after a few pages of self-deprecation reveals that he considers himself more intelligent than those around him. His actions do not back that up however, and often his much-maligned side-kick demonstrates more sense.

The narrator does show some growth by book's end, but very little,extremely little, probably less than the author intended. That is, my impression is that the author thought his main character was much more impressive in those final scenes than he actually is. But it is after all a set of character types set in a Montreal milieu the author is very familiar with, for comic effect. I would suggest that the city of Montreal is actually the main and best - developed character.

Leonard - The Big Bounce

2010-11-21T22:58:00.000-08:00

The Big Bounce, Elmore Leonard, Fawcett, 1969.

Jack Ryan is a minor crimminal arrested for a fight at a pick-up baseball game. Local Justice of the Peace Mr Majestic is a baseball fan, and on the possibility hes opponent carried a knife, Jack is released with no charges laid. Ryan is a former baseball prospect who never quite made it to the pros. His bosses, now his ex bosses, at the melon plantation where he worked order Ryan to leave town. Mr. Majestic offers Ryan a job as handyman at his beach front cabanas. Ryan decides to stay. He takes the lead in a break in to steal wallets from a party with two accomplices, then takes the job with Mr. Majestic.

He meets Nancy, a young mistress of a local millionaire. She is a master manipulator, perhaps even better than Jack. She tempts Jack into a robbery of her lover's payroll. But Jack is also tempted to live on the right side of the law. Then his partners in his last job return, and his former employer finds out he has not left town. The complications build in an easy-going fashion which matches Jack's personality and approach. The plot moves swiftly, while the emphasis is on character.

This is an early Leonard crime story and one of his best. His writing shows the style he is known for, practiced in his westerns, but we also see the signs of a younger Leonard still developing his technique. The dialogue style is there, the basic yet swift plot, the scenarios and complications which build one on the other. There is also a reliance on long flashbacks as a method to develop character. It is not something I have noticed in other Leonard novels. It works fine here as we get long looks into both Jack's and Nancy's past. But it is something the later Leonard would not do. The only sub-plot that does not work is that of the young woman in the cabin who takes an apparent interest in Ryan and who he thinks wants to seduce him. That entire scenario falls flat.

The various threads and characters come together very cleverly for the finale, which ends in a perhaps mildy ambiguous conclusion, like this sentance, but remains true to the characters and is in that very satisfying.

MacDonald - The Green Ripper

2010-08-29T22:02:00.001-07:00

The Green Ripper, John D MacDonald, Fawcett Gold Medal, 1979.

Some books from earlier eras age very well, every bit as readable as when they were written, some even find a more appreciative audience many years after the first publication. But while looking through a few books in the Travis Mcgee series, I became worried that this highly regarded series would seem dated. I looked for one of the more recent books, one that was also mentioned in places as one of the best. I picked up this one, not sure if it met the second criteria, but it met the first.
I suspect it was more of a sensation when first published. It is, for better or worse, very much in the style of much 70's adventure fiction. The characters talk a great deal, they follow leads and uncover a few facts which lead them somewhere else. In this case a female character is introduced as McGee's latest girlfriend, and of course we read how awesome she is, McGee wants to marry her. Then very quickly she is killed off. McGee wants revenge. She was, it is obvious, killed off by a cult. In the seventies cults probably seemed even more mysterious and weird than they do now. Today they are a familiar menace, then they were a new menace. Anyway, McGee spends most of the book following leads, discovering that government agents are also after this cult, and not much else.
Finally McGee decides to join the cult as a way of finding out who killed his girlfriend and then killing them. Luckily for McGee, the group he joins are not regular cult members, they are part of some special cult militia getting military training. Either the author did not know about cult brainwashing techniques, or he ignored them. Just their possibility makes joining a cult to get information a very stupid idea. But the hero is lucky, this section of the cult is a military section.
McGee is told he cannot leave, but is allowed to wander around and ask any questions he pleases and have them fully answered. They even give him a woman to - well I am not sure what she is supposed to be doing. She is supposedly there to watch him, but her story purpose is to supply sex scenes and give plot information. The absurdity builds until the action finale.
This novel is silly really, and I hope not an example of the Travis McGee greatness which so many write about, because this book certainly isn't.

Tosches - Cut Numbers

2010-05-25T22:59:00.001-07:00

Cut Numbers. Nick Tosches. Back Bay Books (Little, Brown, and Co.) 2001.
Tosches tells a parallel story of two characters. Both are hard men living on the fringes of crime. They know the big hitters in the crime world, but live and work in the margins. One is Louis, a shylock, handing out loans and collecting payments every week. The other is Joe Brusher, a killer. Their two stories run separately, and involve some of the same supporting players, but they never meet.

Each man is approaching middle-age, feeling the years of effort, and the lack of success. Both welcome a chance to make their fortunes. Joe especially can barely make a living, fights with his girlfriend, and feels the effects of a gangster mid-life crisis.

The novel is rich in colorful, realistic characters, gritty dialogue, and believable detail on the life of low - level crooks. Joe makes a good menacing figure, and we do get some of his point of view. But it is Louie who is the main character. We spend more time with him, get most of the story through his eyes. He is not always a likable character, but Tosches makes him a sympathetic one.

Ellis - The Informers

2010-03-22T22:52:00.000-07:00

The Informers. Brett Easton Ellis. Vintage. 1994.
Ellis's 'The Informers'is actually a collection of short stories, one per chapter; but he purposefully writes them all in the first person and rarely or never gives the narrator a name, so the stories blend together in an esoteric, impressionistic, crazy way. College kids talking of a dead friend, the unhappy wife of a movie mogul, a serial killer, and so on. The chapter-stories move one to the other like a prose form of an old-school punk rock performance.

Nersesian - Chinese Takeout

2010-03-16T21:24:00.000-07:00

Chinese Takeout Arthur Nersesian, Perennial, 2003.
Orloff Trenchant is a painter living in his van, hustling paintings to art dealers, selling books at a sidewalk stand, and failing at his relationships with women.
Orloff basically has three relationships as the book progresses. The first ends quickly, the second occupies most of the book, and the third seems like a backup that is there when needed. The dialogue often sounds unnatural, and the plotting is a little shakey; Orloff's paranoia and foolish decisions seem meant as humorous and as drama at the same time, but end up being neither.
Where the book succeeds is in it's depiction of setting. The knowledge of the Chinatown area, its history, its streets and places, is colorful and thorough and always engaging. Also the small things are done well: the street of book vendors, the scene where Orloff takes down street signs and substitutes ads about himself, and so on. These portions of the book make it a good read.

Ellis - Less Than Zero

2009-12-31T21:16:00.001-08:00

Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis, Vintage, 1985.
It begins as an odd little book, then draws you in and becomes fascinating, and finally a bit disturbing. At first the style may be a little off-putting, but very quickly the reader is drawn in. Ellis has a great ear for dialogue, and for choosing detail, sparse but effective, to build a scene.
The book features many parties, but Ellis makes each seem different. The action is varied within the repeated framework of parties and dinners and clubs.
There is a fairly large group of main characters, but Ellis handles them well, and the reader is never lost thinking 'who is that again?'
The only problem is the author's unnecessary need to 'top himself' late in the book; the characters have shown so much hedonism throughout, that Ellis goes over the top in the final chapters to create a climax. He needn't have bothered, to have maintained the status quo of the earlier chapters would have suited the novel and the ending much better.

Kurt Vonnegut

2009-12-26T11:12:00.000-08:00

Vonnegut was most famous for his novel Slaughterhouse Five, the story of a man, circa post-WWII, traveling at random through time, re-living the events of his own life, including his death, multiple times. The hero knows he is time-traveling as he repeats the events of his life, but he can do nothing to change events, or choose when or where in his life he will travel, or stop his time traveling. Eventually he accepts his fate, adopting the philosophy of fatalism, and in doing so he acquires peace.

Recurring themes throughout Vonnegut's work are determinism, iconoclasm, humanism, and fatalism, revealing much about the author's own attitudes to the world, and to life and death. He was also a great literary experimenter. Vonnegut's plots are disjointed, and many of his characters are more thematic devices than characters. He also used metafiction, using sections of a novel to write about the novel, sometimes appearing as himself in the narrative. For example, in Breakfast of Champions, one of his bestsellers, we get the great humorous exchange:
"This is a very bad book you're writing," I said to myself.
"I know," I said.
This novel is also a sort of all-star novel, featuring many cameos by characters from several other of Vonnegut's works, including, for example, the frequently appearing Kilgore Trout, an unsuccessful though prolific sf writer.

Charles Bukowski

2009-12-20T19:51:00.001-08:00

So many sites about or including Charles Bukowski. He was a post-beat, beat generation writer. For ten years he worked in the Post Office, then quit to write - primarily poetry. Referred to at times as the Poet of Skid Row, he lived close enough - just below or just above - the poverty line to know what he was talking about. He wrote poetry, short stories that are often prose poems (as are many of his poems) and novels that belong in the category called fictive biography. www.rooknet.com/beatpage/writers/bukowski The Beat Page gives a good intro to Bukowski's work. It is a relatively old site dedicated to Beat writers. There are links to other beat-related sites, bios of beat authors, and a list of top ten beat books.

Masamune - Ghost in the Shell

2009-12-09T22:00:00.001-08:00

Ghost in the Shell. Shirow Masamune. Kodansha Ltd (Japan), and Dark Horse Manga (U.S.) 2004.
The manga 'Ghost in the Shell', comes securely wrapped in cellophane, with a parental advisory warning label on the front c over. Yes, it includes a little of everything you would expect when seeing a parental advisory.
It is an excellent book. Basically it is a serious, adult science fiction (cyber-punk or post-cyberpunk) illustrated novel. Or put another way, it is an adult comic book. The setting is a future in which the technology and the human have begun to overlap. Some humans chose to have their bodies partially or entirely replaced by robot bodies, making them cyborgs. These bodies are indistinguishable from human bodies (except for the weight), and in some cases they have enhanced strength, hidden attached weapons, and other devices. Also there are robots which likewise look, and largely behave, like humans. The difference can often only be determined by a scan to detect a 'ghost', basically the spirit, residing inside the body.
The main character is Major Motoko Kusanagi, of 'section 6', a special forces unit of the Japanese police. Most of the story is an excellent police/military/spy thriller-adventure. But inlaid with the action is philosophic-scientific speculation on several questions, primarily: 'What is human?'. Masamune references engineering, biology, chemistry, Buddhism, the Kabbalah, western philosophy, etc.
The main characters are interesting but not always sympathetic, because in their crime-fighting journeys, they are sometimes jaded and unsympathetic toward the victims. Does this simply mean they are sometimes assholes, or is Masamune suggesting their partial or total mechanization is making them less human?

Stableford - Journey to the Center

2009-11-01T19:05:00.001-08:00

I recently looked again at Journey to the Center, by Brian Stableford. This was one of the first sf books I ever purchased. It is the story of humans who live on an artificial planet, built by some unknown race millenia earlier. The planet has endless levels and passages honeycombing its interior. The center has never been reached, and in the circumstances of the plot, one explorer who makes his living searching for artifacts within the planet, is caught between several factions who desire to journey deep into its interior.
It is a book that holds up well. I did not realize until recently that Stableford had eventually written two sequels, now out of print. Seeking them out is on my agenda.
Stableford is or should be considered an sf master. He has published more than 50 novels since the seventies, and is also an editor, non-fiction writer, and translator. In these past five years, last I read, he has no contract with a publishing house yet continues to write novels on a publish-on-demand basis. I wish some publishing house would pick him up and give his latest books wider distribution, both because he is an excellent author and out of respect for a master author of sf and fantasy.

Cussler - Pacific Vortex

2009-10-21T22:22:00.000-07:00

Pacific Vortex. Clive Cussler. Bantam Books. 1983.

The author introduction states that this is the first Dirk Pitt story. He says it was never before published, that he was reluctant to submit it because it did not have the intricate plots of later Pitt adventures. True, as I read, I saw it did not have as many sub-plots as other Pitt novels I have read. At 270 pages this edition, it is a moderately long book, even without a lot of intricate plotting. And in fact the book seems much shorter. It flows, it speeds along. Most of the sequences are enjoyable and well-paced, the characters that appear, even in cameo, are largely interesting and get interesting things to say and do.

I enjoyed this novel more than the other Pitt books I have read so far. The lack of many lengthy subplots with their extensive plotting actually helps the stories momentum and keeps Pitt himself in the thick of the action; In other Pitt novels he, Pitt, disappears for long stretches and at times seems like a minor character. In this one he is definitely the hero, and drives the story forward.

The only major problem is an early scene in which Pitt enters the Admiralty office wearing bathing trunks, and the anger and threats tossed around go way over the top. After that small stumble it's all good.

Lewis - Jack Returns Home

2009-10-04T12:23:00.001-07:00

Jack Returns Home, Ted Lewis, Pan Books, 1971.

English mob enforcer Jack Carter returns to his home town to investigate his brother's murder. It is a classic setup, and used brilliantly here. The book covers roughly three intense days from a Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. Jack digs through his past, meeting old freinds and old enemies. He gets closer to the truth of his brother's death. His bosses send people to order Jack to stop his activites. When he refuses, these freinds are told to bring him back any way necessary. Jack meets his neice, his brother's co-workers and mistress. He peels layer after layer off the sordid side of his old town. As the book races to its climax the action becomes incresingly brutal and unforgiving. Sub plots pile up; the tension is racheted ever higher. Jack has the knowledge and the capacity for violence to keep pushing forward with almost no allies against increasing number of enemies.

As Jack moves through the town he rememebers his past, his childhood, old freinds long gone, the old neighborhoods as they were in his youth. It reads like a memoir. How much of the suthor's own past is used as material in these sections? We may never know, but the detail and precision of the writing reads like the author had intimate knowledge of these people and places.

The book is as much about Jack's personality, and his relationship with his brother, as it is about the revenge plot. All the characters are effectivkley drawn. The dialogue is crisp, the scene setting vivid. The plot is almost flawless in its contruction. 'Jack Returns Home' is one of the greatest crime novels ever written.

Brackett - The Hounds of Skaith

2009-08-28T23:30:00.001-07:00

Leigh Brackett. The Hounds of Skaith. 1974. Ballantine Books.

Part two of the Eric John Stark trilogy.

Eric drove North to the enemy citadel to rescue his freind in the first volume. In this volume they move South by a different route toward the Spaceport. This time Stark has new allies, namely several very powerful war dogs he commands with telepathy. This Southern journey is at first much like the journey in part one. It has an episodic structure in which Stark's group encounters various hostle life forms. The land itself and everything on it is hostile. Once again the reader may wonder how anyone could survive on such a hostile world. At least this time fewer humanoids are willing to eat travellers.

The corrupt preisthood of the first book is still active. They control a major city and a powerful army, and more of those fiercly powerful wardogs. As Stark journeys South he realizes that to reach the Spaceport he must bypass the enemy city. And to do that he must become increasingly involved in planet politics. So as he moves he gathers an army. An army of those wanting an end to the preisthood's power. The novel's big set piece is the battle for that city. Stark makes allies and enemies. Some of each group are lost in this struggle. And always Stark is the epitome of single-minded courage and unflinching drive. He is an impossible hero; but he is a great hero. It is this depiction of Stark, and the gritty, colorful depictions of the landscape, the many well drawn characters, and Brackett's endless imagination for people's and civilizations, which make this novel a good read.

Camus - The Outsider

2009-05-08T00:18:00.000-07:00

The Outsider. Albert Camus. Penguin Books. 1988.

Albert Camus' The Outsider is his famous existential novel.

The trial portions are the most interesting and vital parts of the novel. And this from someone who normally is bored with courtroom stuff.

The earlier sections build the background needed for the later stages, and provide the needed plot developments that bring the hero to the his imprisonment. But the author seems impatient with these early portions, and writes in a minimalist style, not only for craft, but to get them over with quickly.

The brilliant dialogue, the philosophical theme, is packed into the trial stages. There are some great scenes here. And the hero is perhaps unique in literature.

I recommend reading through the first sections quickly, then after the arrest, especially once the trial begins, slow down the reading and think about what is being written. And enjoy!

Brackett - Ginger Star

2009-05-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

The Ginger Star. Leigh Brackett. Ballantine Books. 1974.

In this novel, Brackett reintroduces Eric John Stark, a hero of a couple of stories many years previous. After writing sf for many years, including some Stark tales, she turned to screenwriting. She wrote such films as Rio Bravo, and The Big Sleep. Shortly after returning to sf writing, she wrote Star Wars part five, The Empire Strikes Back.

The Ginger Star is part one of a three part series. It is a quest story. Stark arrives on a distant and hostile planet in search of his missing foster-father. The planet is ruled by dictators known as Wandsmen. Technology is limited. There is only one spaceport on the planet, set up recently by outsiders, and in danger of being shut down by the Wandsmen, who prefer to rule a dying planet than see the people leave for other worlds and be beyond their power.

The strongest part of the book is in the creation of the many places and people. Most are extremely vivid and well thought out. There is a sense that these people and places could be real.

On this planet there are city states, wandering nomads, and human hybrids. Almost all are unrelentingly hostile to all outsiders. The oceans are filled with creatures who were once human, then altered their own genes to adapt to an underwater environment. More millenia later, they have lost all trace of their humanity, and attack and devour any human who falls into the water. Another civilization has adapted itself to live underground. Several societies use magic derived from close contact with the natural forces of the planet. Others live in city-states more recognizable in lifestyle to Stark and to the reader.

This brings us to another key point of the book: most of the civilizations are cannibals. They not only kill outsiders, they eat them. This is explained as resulting from a lack of other food on the dying world. The few city states near the equator seem relatively benign; travel is possible, and they are not cannibals. But wandering hordes of religious fanatics named Farers make their life difficult also.

In this world, it is impossible to travel without a large heavily armed group. There is one city state that seems to be a gathering spot for travelers, but it is unclear where anyone might travel to in this hostile environment. Even the workers at bridges on routes between cities attack any party that seems insufficiently strong. Only one man lives as a trader. He has to establish and keep his route with armed force, and suffers constant attacks.

This world is designed to give Stark a lot of dangers to overcome. But it was designed too well. In such a brutal, inhospitable group of societies, to travel anywhere is absurd.

The device used to move Stark from one place to another is to be captured, over and over again, and carried along part way by his various captors. He escapes usually by luck, sometimes by his own efforts. It is a weakness of the book. He manages to encounter a danger without capture only once, near the book's conclusion.

Canada Reads - winner!

2009-03-08T00:18:00.000-08:00

And so, after several days of spirited debate, the winning book is:
The Book of Negroes, by Lawrence Hill, HarperCollins Canada.

"Lawrence Hill’s gripping novel features a woman on an amazing journey in the 1700s and 1800s. Although her life is shaped by slavery, Aminata Diallo survives and even transcends adversity."

"Over the course of this epic novel, Aminata is transformed into a storyteller extraordinaire. She spins the astonishing tale of her remarkable travels from Africa to America and back again. Along the way, a sojourn in Nova Scotia illuminates a long-neglected chapter in Canadian history."

To read more, click on the link above.

Canada Reads

2009-03-02T20:51:00.000-08:00

Those of you who read one of my world-famous blogs, including this one, already know about Canada Reads.

It is an annual contest to choose one book all Canadians (and therefore everyone else) should read.

Five books are chosen as finalists, and a celebrity 'defender' presents his/her chosen book and debates its merits with the other panelists.

All this takes place on CBC Radio One this week - starting March 2!

Cool Stuff! Here's the link to the CBC Radio Canada Reads page. Commentary, video, recaps, info on the books, and so on:

http://www.cbc.ca/canadareads/index.html (copy and paste to browser window)

Hideyuki - Vampire Hunter D

2009-01-20T02:10:00.000-08:00

I found a series by a Japanese author (the first seven books are available in translations), named Kikuchi Hideyuki. His novels take place on a future post-apocalyptic earth. Humans, some with super-human abilities, survive amidst the ruins of a Vampire -dominated civilization. The books feature the occasional werewolf or other monster as a secondary or supporting character. But here again, the focus is vampires. The series title is Vampire Hunter D. The lead character is a half-vampire. He has lived since well before the cataclysm, since before our time. I won't give all the backstory here, but it is interesting, complex, and well-thought out. The various novels in the series give us drama, horror, action, well-developed characters. I recommend this series for horror, action, and fantasy fans.

Nanten and Yatate - Cowboy Bebop

2009-01-20T01:35:00.000-08:00

This week I'm reading a manga - Cowboy Bebop, by Nanten and Yatate. The artwork is good, the stories varied, most of them interesting. It is basically a continuation of the series. There is another manga, written after this one, that re-tells the series. I've glanced at it. I prefer the art from this series, but the stories in the second manga look good - except they wait several issues to bring Faye into the story. Apparently that manga's author does not like Faye, or she is a 'least favorite'. Myself, I like Faye. If she were real I would date her. Of course, she would probably rob me, but even so she would still be ahead of some of the other women I've dated over the years - ha, ha, ha .....sigh.

Coe - The Closed Circle

2009-01-19T00:51:00.000-08:00

Last week I read Jonathan Coe's The Closed Circle. I had read his Dwarves of Death many years ago and enjoyed it, so I gave this recent (hardcover - 2004) release a try. In The Closed Circle, Coe does a solid job of combining various character's points of view, writing believably in the inner voice of both male and female characters. He experiments with technique, for example bringing back the epistolary style of writing on several occasions, even modernizing it to include e mail; also, he briefly adopts Joyce's method of writing dialogue, and so on. He is an author brave enough to grant his characters names like 'Malvina', and 'Pusey-Hamilton', which sounds like something from a Bond novel. This is a good book, but a bit soap opera-ish.

Thomas - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog

2009-01-19T00:46:00.000-08:00

"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog" by Dylan Thomas. Thomas is better known as a poet (ex. "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night") but here he uses prose, or, more accurately, prose-poetry. Thomas parodies the title and the structure, but not the content, of Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", and "Dubliners". Whereas Joyce gave us windows into his youth in Ireland of the late-19th to early 20th century, Thomas writes of Wales circa the 1920s. Most of the stories are straightforward, but one or two are highly symbolic and make no sense when taken literally; So the advice is do not do so.

Dantec - Babylon Babies

2008-11-22T23:41:00.000-08:00

Babylon Babies, Maurice G. Dantec, Semiotext(e)2005, Trans. Noura Wedell.

Babylon Babies is a cyber-punk novel on which the movie Babylon A.D. was very loosely based. The novel has Russian and Canadian mobsters, mercenaries, psuedo-religious groups, cyborg societies, genetic engineering, brain implants, psychic powers, killer robots, bio-enhancement and control drugs, ghosts and visions, solid historically - based stuff and science- fiction set in an alternate 2005. There is perhaps too much 'stuff' in the book. Some things are introduced which deserve more development then they receive, other things get more story time then they are worth. The early flashbacks work and are needed, but the later flashbacks take us away from the main action too often.

A cool, strange book.

O' Donnell - Modesty Blaise

2008-07-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

Peter O'Donnell. Modesty Blaise. Souvenir Press Ltd. 1965.

A rare book from its era that presents the female hero as competent and professional. Modesty is a believable female character, and believable as a skilled and highly trained operative. In this case a professional free-lance agent, or investigator, or just think of her as a professional adventurer. Her sidekick is Willie Garvin, also skilled and competent, a fellow who would be the hero in most books.

The pair are formal criminals, of the sort of 'moral criminal' that fiction allows. Modesty has given up her network, and lives in a sort of semi retirement, doing the occasional mission for the British Government. She and her adventures are closest in tone to the Simon Templar (The Saint) series.

In this adventure Modesty is called in to solve a case regarding a treasure and international political intrigue. She and Garvin move quickly around the globe, chasing down leads, seeking to contact their old network (which may have turned against them), and moving from danger to danger with skill and finesse.

The only flaw I can see is a lapse into a typical plot device of the sixties and seventies about two thirds way into the book. The characters, or writers, reached an apparent dead end and decided to let themselves be captured by their enemies. Once captured, they are left alone and unharmed and of course escape and are at large right in the heart of the enemy base. And of course while prisoners the enemy shared all their plans.

After this writing stumble - even in the sixties and seventies it was annoying - the book picks up quickly to an exciting conclusion.

McPartland - The Face of Evil

2008-07-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

The Face of Evil. John McPartland. Fawcett 1954, Linford 1991. McPartland was a hard-boiled thriller writer of the fifties. He is and was known for realistic portrayals of fighting. He reads like a guy who was in a few street fights in his time, and has put that knowledge into his books.

In Face of Evil, the main character is John Oxford, a fixer. Unlike some freelance fixers portrayed in movies who do what they want and demand large sums of money, Oxford gets the money but is still in debt, and he works for one company, that basically owns him. On a job to wreck a politician's career, Oxford meets two femme fatales, one a girl he wronged in the past. Oxford begins to have second doubts about his line of work. Soon he is in deep trouble with almost everyone, and almost without friends or allies.

The action and tension are constant, the fights very good, and most of the characters are nicely drawn. McPartland has some trouble with his portrayals of women, but the Ann character is good. And one or two minor co-incidences are too convenient, but most of the plot twists are believable enough. A very good book in the 'hard boiled tough guy' mold.

Richler - Joshua Then And Now

2008-04-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

Joshua Then And Now. Mordecai Richler. McClelland and Stewart. 1980. 'Joshua' was written about mid-way in Richler's career. It is one of his better books, unfortunately it is usually forgotten in favor of other 'big' books written before and after. The big three in Richler's opus, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, St. Urbain's Horseman, and Solomon Gursky Was Here, should be a big four, with Joshua Then And Now. Richler's last, lesser effort, Barney's Version, is over-praised - it was even given an award -out of respect for Richler's career rather than any merits the book might possess.

Joshua Then And Now opens with Joshua having suffered a serious injury. We are not told how or what. Almost immediately the book begins to jump back and forth through Joshua's life. We learn that his wife has had a traumatic experience, we learn something happened in Ibiza, Spain, which had a profound effect on their lives. We learn many other things, all of which are used as teasers to keep us reading for more detail. As the novel progresses we move through Joshua's entire life. Gradually more detail is provided, and other mysteries raised. For the most part this complex structure works brilliantly.

Joshua is both a mildly likeable and mildly unlikeable character, which is a Richler trademark. The mystery in Ibiza doesn't amount to very much, and so the sequences there could have been cut down drastically. We see how Joshua gradually, and unwittingly, sets himself up over many years for an eventual fall. Most of this is handled with finesse, but the LA events related to this are absurd. Otherwise, the LA scenes, and the Montreal and Paris scenes, are excellent.

There is much humor layered within the story, but at times Richler inserts an awkward 'comic scene', as though thinking random sequences of comic relief are needed to break up a story which has plenty of humor already. The mother character is prominent in the early sequences, but is used largely for comedy, and dismissed as 'loopy'. In two great scenes, we get the mother's point of view. There is excellent drama in these scenes, but their potential goes unused. She returns to brief 'comedy' references, and disappears for the last half of the book, excepting one brief mention. Also, given that Joshua is present in these dramatic scenes, it is absurd that he would, later in his life, dismiss her with the epitaph, 'my loopy mother'.

The Lake scenes, though good, sometimes try the reader's patience, largely because they are not up to the quality of the best scenes in the Montreal, Paris, and LA sequences. Toward the book's end, most remaining questions are answered, and the story finally returns to the 'present' of the opening. As the book ends, the hero, if not much wiser, is at least temporarily repentant.

Hammet - The Thin Man

2007-12-31T22:42:00.000-08:00

The Thin Man. Dashiell Hammett. Vintage. 1933/1972. The final and perhaps best book, certainly the funniest, from Dashiel Hammet. It takes place on Christmas, but it could as easily be New Year's Eve. The movie, especially the first one, is as good. Picture Nick Charles laying on the couch, popping away at balloons with a pellet pistol, as Nora Charles looks on with humor and affection. That scene is from the movie. The book also has many funny scenes, plus the characters of Nick and Nora, a supporting cast of eccentrics, and a real mystery too! The more Nick insists he is retired and not working on a case, the more everyone believes the great detective has left retirement to do exactly that. The story ends with the same sense of fun and humor that enriches the entire novel. Read the book and see the movie (or the first three!.

Milne - Winnie-The-Pooh

2007-12-10T02:32:00.000-08:00

Winnie-The-pooh. A.A. Milne. Methuen. 1926.

Review by guest poster Dorothy Parker, aka Constant Reader.

"Tonstant weader fwowed up." - Parker

Evanovich - One For The Money

2007-11-26T22:22:00.000-08:00

One For The Money. Janet Evanovich. Scribner, 1994, & St Martin's Press. 2003. This is the first in a highly successful mystery series about Bounty Hunter Stephanie Plum. Out of work, behind in rent, with a pet Hamster named Rex to feed, Stephanie blackmails her way into a job at her cousin's bail bonding company. Stephanie is forced to learn on the job, and with wit and perseverance, and some luck, she persues her man. The book follows a main plot with it's twists and turns and unique characters, and intersects with subplots of Steph's family and other fugitives. Evanovich handles the balance of drama, action, and humor very well.

Ellroy - L.A. Confidential

2007-06-30T21:42:00.000-07:00

L.A. Confidential. James Ellroy. Warner. 1990. Bud White, Jack Vincennes, Preston Exley. Three police detectives. Each drawn to the same case. An L.A. of the 1950's rife with corruption. A dark noir novel of stakeouts, murder, scandal. Everyone has a dirty secret, the corruption taints even the three heroes. The novel sprawls along eight years in the mid to late fifties'. For the three detectives, each discovery leads ever deeper into the noir darkness which threatens to destroy them.

MacInnes - The Salzburg Connection

2007-05-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

The Salzburg Connection. Helen MacInnes. Fawcett. 1968. What is buried in a lake in the Austrian mountains? Are Bill Mathison and Lynn Conway in over their heads? Whose side is Felix Zauner really on? Where is Eric Yates? Why are Chinese agents in Zurich? How are the British and American agents involved? Who and what is Elissa Lang? This thriller was 10 months on the Times best seller list and maintains its page-turning power today.

Vance - The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph

2007-05-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph. Jack Vance. Daw Books. 1966, 1980. A collection of short stories, comprising the entire adventures of Magnus Ridolph, written by famed sf/fantasy/mystery writer Jack Vance. Magnus is a combination Sherlock Holmes and mercenary adventurer. He is an anti-hero, defying the expected appearance of the typical fictional adventurer, and being entirely professional, or perhaps profit-driven. Magnus will take almost any case, but expects a fee commensurate with his considerable abilities. He posesses a James-Bond level of self-assurance, and for good reason. Travelling from planet to planet, alien culture to alien culture, each of Magnus' cases are different, each presenting a new challenge for Magnus and for the reader: things are never dull in the career of Magnus Ridolph. This thin volume contains all eight of Ridolph's recorded cases. It is SF's loss that Vance did not write a hundred more.

Barthelme - The King

2007-04-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

The King. Donald Barthelme. Penguin Books. 1990. Illustrated by Barry Moser. In the thick of World War Two. Winston Churchill is Prime Minister. King Arthur and Guinevere head the Royal Family. Arthur considers seeking the Grail to counter the threat of an atomic bomb. Ezra Pound broadcasts propaganda from Italy. Arthur and his knights join the fighting as Rommel's tanks menace Tobruk. Mordred is left in England as regent.

The world of Arthurian Romance and WWII history overlap and interact. Each mileu seems at times to operate independantly of the other, though occupying the same space; and at other times they mesh totally. This novel of magic realism is one of the best five fiction books ever written, and certainly the best thing Barthelme ever wrote.

Leonard - LaBrava

2007-03-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

LaBrava. Elmore Leonard. Avon Books. 1983. Not that Leonard needs a plug. But while Glitz was his first best-seller, I always preferred LaBrava. The title character is a former secret service agent turned pro artsy photographer. He suffers regrets over the only time he had to kill someone. Soon he runs afoul of a crazy ex-cop the force is well rid of. Next his mentor/friend and a sultry ex-starlet are threatened in an extortion scheme. LaBrava is happy to help, but soon notices that some aspects of the case resemble plot elements from the star's movies. A coincidence? A deranged fan? What's the answer?

Hesse - Siddharta

2007-03-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

Siddharta. Hermann Hesse. New Directions. 1951. An exploration of Eastern Buddhist thought written by a western (Swiss) author. Young Siddharta is a Brahmin's son: "... growing up to be a great learned man, a priest, a prince among Brahmins." But Siddharta is not happy. He feels a spiritual void within himself. He decides to leave the world of the Brahmins behind, and, accompanied by his friend Govinda, he joins the Samanas of the forest. These are aesthetics who neglect the body to feed the mind. While with them Siddharta learns the arts of the mentalist, including levitation and mind control. Eventually he leaves the Samanas and encounters the Buddha in person. In these and other adventures Siddharta seeks the answers to his spirtual quest. Does he discover the secret of existance, the meaning of life, the true nature of humanities' place in the universe? Perhaps he discovers these are the wrong questions. Hesse's 'Steppenwolf' is his best known work, but 'Siddharta' is arguably his best written and most important.

Crichton - Rising Sun

2007-03-07T14:01:00.000-08:00

Rising Sun. Michael Crichton. Ballantine. 1992. This is a murder mystery-thriller with political undertones. Actually the political issues are very blatant. It is different from much else of Crichton's work in that there is no science-fiction element. A murder is commited in the offices of a powerful Japanese conglomerate. Two police officers are assigned. They are part of a unit titled Special Operations, which seems to exist soley to interact with the Japanese. This book was made into a very good movie starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes back in the early 1990's. The book tells the same story in more detail, and clears up some of the inconsistencies of the movie. It was written when Japan's economy was very hot, and the international power of their companies was growing. Some Americans became paranoid, or at least concerned, that Japan might gain control of the U.S. through purchasing its assets. This idea is outdated today, and seems so when reading the book. But even so, Rising Sun is an excellent murder mystery very much worth the read.

Zimmer - The Lost Prince and King Chondos Ride (The Dark Border series)

2007-03-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

The Dark Border duology. Incl: The Lost Prince, and King Chondos' Ride. Paul Edwin Zimmer. Playboy Paperbacks. 1982. I recently bagged a re-read of Zimmer's fantasy duology. Outwardly these are excellent works of drama, intrigue, and war. Inwardly, for those who care to look, there are themes of love and death, of honor, friendship, loyalty, and redemption. Zimmer, brother to famed author Marion Zimmer Bradley, was known more as a poet, swordsman, and scholar. These were his first novels, and in them he created a major work of fantasy. The dialogue is visceral, the character development crisp, the action scenes stirring, the drama absorbing. His following work did not live up to this excellent beginning. But in these works we have an underrated duo of epic fantasy that deserves to be read and studied.

Eshbach - The Land Beyond the Gate

2007-02-10T20:37:00.000-08:00

The Land Beyond the Gate. Loyd Arthur Eshbach. Ballantine Books. 1984. Book one of his four volume Fantasy epic. A series for fans of Celtic Fantasy, featuring the Tuatha de Danann of Celtic myth, though gods of Sumerian and Indian mthos also appear in major roles, and some Christian elements also, including Lucifer's lieutenant Ahriman. A Scottish-American travels into the Scottish highlands in 1990. Things both good and bad happen to him. But he does not leave the highlands. Next chapter: a year later, his brother, our main character, enters the highlands to search for him. He finds the brother, a magic sword, a magic armlet, a scroll, and four magical gates leading to other worlds. In these worlds he encounters the above characters, plus Formores, Vikings, Trolls, Druids, Romans, and other dangers and surprises. What adventures await? What is Ahriman's (and Lucifer's) plan? What is the secret of the scroll? This series was written by one of the early pioneers of fantasy fiction. Esbach ran Fantasy Press in the fifties, and published many of the early sf and fantasy greats. He was twice guest of honor at the world fantasy convention. After his retirement he returned to writing and gave us this four volume epic fantasy. Book two is Armlet of the Gods, 1986. Book three is The Sorceress of Scath, 1988. Book four is The Scroll of Lucifer, 1990.

Hemingway - A Moveable Feast

2007-02-03T20:48:00.000-08:00

A Moveable Feast. Ernest Hemingway. Bantam Books,1964. It was once remarked that Hemingway had written about Michigan, about Spain, Africa, and Cuba, but never (except for the first part of The Sun Also Rises) about Paris, the city which had been so important to him and his early career. Hemingway decided to cover this lack by writing A Moveable Feast. Each chapter in this collection of stories is a vivid peek inside Hemingway's experience of Paris in the 20's. Each story is a perfect gem, not a word wasted. These stories are Hemingway at his best. He refers to real events, and usually the participants are mentioned by their actual names. His portraits are not always kind, but remember Hemingway is not intending biography here; we need not, for example, believe Fitzgerald was exactly as Hemingway portrays him. But always in these stories is a great affection for the people, the times, and especially for Paris.
Hemingway began this collection in 1957, and worked on it intermittently until his death in 1961. In 1954, while in Africa, he was severely injured in a plane crash. The rescue plane then crashed en route to hospital. While undergoing treatment, he suffered kidney and liver infections. While still in hospital, there was a brush fire nearby. Hemingway left his bed to help fight the fire. But he collapsed and suffered smoke inhalation damage, and aggravated his other injuries. Hemingway never completely recovered from this ordeal. His health would continue to decline over the years. It was under these conditions that his mind turned to the past, to his years in Paris, his first marriage, the early struggle to write, the cafes, the sports, the curious events, and his friends of those days.