Books in the Post! 'Reader's Block...' Edition

So last week was a bit of a write off not just for the blog but for reading in general. I've got loads of stuff going on right now but usually I can zone out with a book. Not last week though, out of all the books I picked up I was lucky if I made it past two pages of each, maybe two and a half. I know I joked about it the other week but maybe it really is time for a 'Belgariad' re-read. If I can't even manage that then clearly reading isn't for me any more... ;o)

Luckily some books came through the post, last week, that look like they could give me a bit of a kick start. Maybe... Have a look and see what you think.

I'm not going to say too much about 'The Fourth Gwenevere' as I would totally be repeating the post below this one. To summarise; looks interesting, will be reading.
I always meant to read Tom Pollock's 'Skyscraper Throne' books but somehow never did. 'The Glass Republic' arrived first but I need the first and third books to arrive before I make a serious go of this series *watches for the postman*

Hope: "That's Judge Dredd, you like Judge Dredd Dad..."

I sure do and I'm really keen to see where the 'Chaos Day' plot leads to next. It's not often that Mega City One has a catastrophe that it really might not recover from...

In a world where zombie fiction is increasingly failing to hit the mark for me, Adam Baker has enough about his work to come up with the goods more often than not. 'Impact' could be the book that gets me over this reading issue I have right now. As could 'Smiler's Fair' as well; I read this way back in the day, when it was on submission with Hodder, and I'm looking forward to reading it again. 'Smiler's Fair' really is that good people!

So that's me then and I'll leave you with a promise that this week will see a lot more posts than last week. Should be easy, shouldn't it? See you tomorrow ;o)

Some Cover Art That Caught My Eye...

Because, what with one thing and another, that's all I've had time for this week. If I've read one whole page of a book I'd be surprised...
Cover art still catches my eye though (kind of the whole point of it really) and so I thought I'd share a couple of pieces that stood out. Check them out...

 

Gwenevere, Arthur’s Saxon wife, is a problem. As the dynastic cement between the British and the Saxons, her marriage to the Arthur will result in a child that will unite both sides. At least, that would have been the plan, had the Great Duke Arthur not died and left the petty kings of Britain to squabble over his title.
Only Morvran, Arthur’s chief fixer, has the wit to see that the Fourth Gwenevere is the key to maintaining a crumbling peace. But when she  is abducted, it seems that all hopes might disappear with her.
For, in a world where swords and horses have names of honour, where poets speak as oracles of a shifting truth and the raiding of Saxon warriors is set to ruin Britain, perhaps it’s only the Fourth Gwenevere herself who has the real solution?

 

Doesn't that look gorgeous? Sometimes that's all you can say about a cover, you just let it say the rest  for itself. The blurb describes the book as a 'magnificent precursor to John James 'Votan' and 'Not for all the gold in Ireland'; I really want to read 'Votan' so will definitely be reading 'The Fourth Gwenevere' (once I get this whole 'readers block' thing sorted).

 I found this in the micro-library (for 'micro-library', read 'phone box'...) and, having never read anything by Van Vogt, thought I'd enjoy a bit of free reading. It's a very slim book so definitely be read. Look at that cover though... A gentle reminder of of more innocent times when an SF novel would not be ashamed to be seen in  an SF cover. I know that cover art sells books and the whole point is to sell as many books as possible (that you can read on the train without people knowing that you're reading SFF...). I just wish that more genre fiction looked like this though, or maybe I'm just feeling my age a little. What do you think? (About the cover, not my age...)

Books in the Post! 'Still a little shell-shocked...' edition

I'm so glad that last week is now officially consigned to the annals of history, never to be experienced again. It started off with a job (short term contract) that was pretty dire and with a paycheck to match. You're thinking that it probably couldn't get worse than that, I didn't think so either until I was fired on Friday (for having an interview for another job on the Thursday). The pay was awful but it was better than no pay at all!
Five minutes after I got home though, I was offered the job that I had interviewed for :o) My nerves were shot (gin took care of that later...) but all's well that ends well.

With all of that going on then, there wasn't a lot of time for books last week. It was somehow fitting then that only two arrived. Have a look...

'Aftermath' is the sequel to 'The Remaining' (reviewed Here) and it's a bit more of a slog than I was expecting. Not sure if it's me or if the problems I had with 'The Remaining' have reared their ugly heads again. I'll give it a few more pages and let you know.

'The Relic Guild' though... This is more like it, I'm only a few pages in and already there's no doubt that I'm in for the long haul. Gollancz are clearly doing very well with their debuts this year, have some blurb,

Magic caused the war. Magic is forbidden. Magic will save us.

It was said the Labyrinth had once been the great meeting place, a sprawling city at the heart of an endless maze where a million humans hosted the Houses of the Aelfir. The Aelfir who had brought trade and riches, and a future full of promise. But when the Thaumaturgists, overlords of human and Aelfir alike, went to war, everything was ruined and the Labyrinth became an abandoned forbidden zone, where humans were trapped behind boundary walls 100 feet high.

Now the Aelfir are a distant memory and the Thaumaturgists have faded into myth. Young Clara struggles to survive in a dangerous and dysfunctional city, where eyes are keen, nights are long, and the use of magic is punishable by death. She hides in the shadows, fearful that someone will discover she is touched by magic. She knows her days are numbered. But when a strange man named Fabian Moor returns to the Labyrinth, Clara learns that magic serves a higher purpose and that some myths are much more deadly in the flesh.

The only people Clara can trust are the Relic Guild, a secret band of magickers sworn to protect the Labyrinth. But the Relic Guild are now too few. To truly defeat their old nemesis Moor, mightier help will be required. To save the Labyrinth - and the lives of one million humans - Clara and the Relic Guild must find a way to contact the worlds beyond their walls.

I reckon there'll be a review in the next couple of weeks.

What else am I reading? Well, I'm finishing off Rob Sanders' 'Archaon' (not bad at all) but other than that I can't seem to concentrate on anything for more than a few pages at a time. It might even be time to dig out some comfort reads (it's been ages since I read 'The Belgariad'...) What do you read when you're in a similar spot...?

‘Hobo With A Shotgun’ (2011)

Now there’s a title that pretty much says it all and leaves you wondering what on earth you are going to say next… It’s also proof that I will watch anything, on Youtube, when Hope decides she wants to sleep in my bed and is all elbows and feet. Happy days...

In a journey to earn his way out of poverty, a homeless man pulls into a city of urban chaos, where crime prevails and the city’s crime boss reigns with violent and bloody malice. Seeing this urban landscape filled with armed robbers, corrupt cops and abused prostitutes, the Hobo soon abandons his plans and turns vigilante in order to deliver justice to this city of filth the only way he knows how--with a 20-gauge shotgun. Mayhem ensues as he tries to clean up the streets and make the city a better place for future generations. However with the city’s evil crime boss Drake standing in his way, will the Hobo’s own brand of street justice prevail?

‘Hobo With A Shotgun’ started out in life as one of the fake trailers in ‘Grindhouse’ but took on a life of its own and became a full length movie in its own right. And what a movie it is! The plot is simple and quickly shoved to one side in favour of an orgy of over the top violence. Gangsters, pimps, corrupt cops (and more, the Santa Claus guy was just plain wrong…), ‘Hobo’ throws it all into the mix and serves it up with a sauce of blood and shotgun shells. Rutger Hauer delivers some absurd lines in his own special way and makes them all the more chilling for it; Molly Dunsworth is also noteworthy as ‘hooker with a heart’ Abby.
I don't really know anything about Grindhouse films at all but I have a feeling that the whole 'exploitative' angle is the whole point of this kind of film (anyone want to chip in here?) If nothing else, it does give our Hobo cause to take up his gun and start shooting the bad guys.

And… That’s it really. ‘Hobo’ doesn’t have anything deep to say and that’s the whole point really. 86 minutes of entertainment so brainless that you can easily forgive the film for its flights of fancy (seriously, where did the demons suddenly appear from?) and the fact that it is as corny as hell. I think I would have enjoyed ‘Hobo’ more if I was drunk but it worked just fine for what it was, fun but ultimately forgettable (the lack of meat on these bones doesn't do the film any favours). Now to watch ‘Machete’…

A ‘Did Not Finish’… ‘Touched’ – Joanna Briscoe (Hammer)

There once was a time when I would finish any book that I started, no matter how bad it was. I used to think this was either down to a forlorn hope that the book would improve or my subconscious somehow punishing myself for picking up the book in the first place (it happens). The real reason though was that I had a lot more time to indulge in bad plots, cardboard characters and so on; time that I don’t have at all these days. Even if a book has a great plot and characters full of life, if the book doesn’t work then I’ll be putting it down and moving swiftly on to something else. This is the sad fate that befell Joanna Briscoe’s ‘Touched’ yesterday, ‘sad’ because ‘Touched’ looked really promising at the beginning. Here’s the blurb…

Rowena Crale and her family have moved from London.
They now live in a small English village in a cottage which seems to be resisting all attempts at renovation.
Walls ooze damp, stains come through layers of wallpaper, celings sag.
And strange noises - voices - emanate from empty rooms.
As Rowena struggles with the upheaval of builders while trying to be a dutiful wife and a good mother to her young children, her life starts to disintegrate.
And then, one by one, her daughters go missing ...

I’m a bit of a fan of ghost stories and ‘Touched’ looked like it had all the ingredients to be something pretty special along those lines. And it worked for a bit as well with a slow build up of tension and a few little moments that made me shiver once I realised that something entirely different had just happened. Briscoe has a real gift for making these moments seem really matter of fact, lulling the reader into a false sense of security, and then very gently letting you know that things aren’t right at all…
I really enjoyed that but what I didn’t get on with at all was that the plot was very clearly signposted (at least it was to me). It got to the point where I ended up skipping to the end to confirm suspicions that ended up being well and truly confirmed. There was no point reading on to an ending that I could see coming, not with this book (there wasn’t enough to hold that kind of interest), so I didn’t.

It was a shame as ‘Touched’ really felt like it could be have been something special (it's very well written) but if the story is effectively over before it really gets going then there’s no point in carrying on reading. I know I’ve said that sometimes the journey is more important than the destination but ghost stories really need to have it the other way round. Oh well, on to the next book…

‘The Godwhale’ – T.J. Bass (Gollancz)

I never seem to read as many SF Masterworks as I mean to. There’s a bookshelf, in my house, full of books where I’ve thought to myself ‘ooh SF Masterwork, I really need to give it a go’ and then promptly forgotten about it. At the rate my reading is going at the moment, I have enough books on this shelf to keep me going for the rest of the year and it is way past time that I started on the twisty turny (filled with obstacles) road to reading redemption. So here goes…
‘The Godwhale’ is a title that has always intrigued me as whales are a little god-like sometimes aren’t they? Both majestic and mysterious… It’s also a title that defeated me the last time I tried reading it, a few months ago, so it seemed like the appropriate place to try and make some kind of dent in my ‘SF Masterworks’ shelf. I made it through this time, but all the obstacles from before were there. Before we get into that though, have some blurb…

Rorqual Maru was a cyborg - part organic whale, part mechanised ship - and part god. She was a harvester - a vast plankton rake, now without a crop, abandoned by earth society when the seas died. So she selected an island for her grave, hoping to keep her carcass visible for salvage. Although her long ear heard nothing, she believed that man still lived in his hive. If he should ever return to the sea, she wanted to serve. She longed for the thrill of a human's bare feet touching the skin of her deck. She missed the hearty hails, the sweat and the laughter. She needed mankind. But all humans were long gone ... or were they?

I finally finished ‘The Godwhale’ yesterday and I’m really glad that I made the effort. It was a bit of a slog though and I have a horrible feeling that all the reasons it was a slog are the reasons the book is justifiably an ‘SF Masterwork’… What does that say about me and my reading? These days I’m very much reading for pleasure and ‘The Godwhale’ doesn’t quite deliver on that score. It’s not a book that you can while away a lunch break but it is a book that will really get you thinking about the direction our world could conceivably head in. I loved the way that Bass did this by the way, showing the reader how the world changes (over thousands of years) in between Larry Dever’s waking up from medically induced comas. It’s a great way to cram a lot of change into a small number of pages and we get to share Larry’s shock as the world changes through his eyes; a very effective narrative approach that throws the reader right into the middle of things and leaves them trying to make sense of it all.

And what a world it is! A starkly realised world of ‘Nebishes’ living underground and having their entire lives regulated by social lottery and AI. A world where, on the surface, half-starved tribes of humans risk death to steal from the jealously guarded vegetable gardens as the oceans no longer support life. Bass has clearly put some real thought into how the damage we are doing to our world right now will affect us in the far future and it is all so plausibly done with the creation of a society that literally has nowhere else to go but under the ground where space is at a premium and humanity adapts accordingly.

Life will find a way though and it’s this that gives ‘The Godwhale’ a note of hope that leaves the reader optimistic for the future rather than reaching for something alcoholic. The re-emergence of Rorqual Maru and the arrival of Larry Dever throw a well ordered, if dying on its feet, world into change and evolution that drives the plot forward to that optimistic end. Larry’s trying to make sense of the world forces change when others realise that he might have a good point with his questions. It’s not just what he does in the ‘present’ either, Larry’s actions echo down the ages with a pleasing hint of things just coming together. Rorqual Maru trying to do the job she had been created for forces change in the dynamics of both the Nebish and Benthic people as they suddenly have to deal with a new presence in their lives, the ‘Godwhale’ (something that is beyond their control and understanding).

The resulting plot is both ecological commentary and a cautionary look at how the demands of the far future could ultimately shape us. It’s also a testament to the strength and determination of humanity to overcome these obstacles and forge forwards (the Benthics more so than the Nebish, it has to be said). It’s stirring stuff, in its own understated way, or it would be if Bass didn’t smother it with an overabundance of maths and medical terminology. This isn’t the best way to make a high concept tale accessible to the casual reader (hence my going on about it being a slog) although I understand that it actually backs up the concepts at the same time (hence my believing that ‘The Godwhale’ is a Masterwork, it simply has all the ingredients to be so).

It felt like a tough one to call then but it’s clear that ‘The Godwhale’ is perfectly justified to sit in the ‘SF Masterworks’ collection. It’s so good in fact that I’m going to have to search out a copy of ‘Half Past Human’ (a prequel) and read more about this world. If nothing else, that kind of reaction makes the ‘Masterwork’ title very apt. 'The Godwhale' isn't a light read, by any means, but one that is worth sticking with.

‘The Great Maw’ – L.J. Goulding (Black Library)

I’ve been reading these stories two at a time and enjoying them, for the most part, so much that I didn’t really give much of a thought to how many were left on my phone. So just the one story today then and it could well be the most interesting one out of the last weeks offerings…

Legends tell of the origins of the ogre race and their mysterious god. Many of these tales centre around the mythical figure of Groth Onefinger. Here is one such saga, recounting the story of the great cataclysm that overtook the ogres and drove them from their lands, of the birth of a great and hungry deity that drives all of that savage race to fits of incredible greed, and of Groth, the saviour of the ogre race and first prophet of the Great Maw.

The Old World is a rich and fertile source of stories to be told although most of them inevitably focus on the battles that make up the game. Fair enough really, that’s the whole point of the setting after all. This ‘same old, same old’ approach works due to the energy and enthusiasm of the writers and it also highlights just how unusual a tale like ‘The Great Maw’ is; a Warhammer tale that doesn’t feature a pitched battle at all, not one.

What we have here is a tale of how the once civilized Ogres became the creatures they are today; feared by sensible folk and about to invade one of the outlying regions of the Empire. Why are they doing this? No-one really knows as whatever it was Baron von Streissen said to the Ogre Gurthodd led to the Baron’s unfortunate demise and the imminent outbreak of war. A meeting is convened where our narrator stresses that an understanding of Ogre culture might (just might) lead to a solution. And so the tale begins in notes passed to the university of Nuln that tell of The Children of the Maw…

I really enjoyed the unique structure of ‘The Great Maw’; well, unique to this setting anyway. A story within a story isn’t something you come across in Warhammer fiction all that often if at all (I can’t think of any other examples) so fair play to Goulding for treading a new path and making it work for the most part. I say ‘for the most part’ as the ending of each story is a little too abrupt and leaves more questions than a short story really needs to. I prefer my short stories a little more complete than ‘The Great Maw’ ended up being. This isn’t a deal breaker though as the preceding oral history offers a fresh look at the Ogres of the Old World (I’d never seen them as being a civilized culture in the past) and feeds, no pun intended, into the whole thing of Warhammer setting being about tragedy and people holding off the darkly inevitable. Even the so called ‘evil’ races can have a little bit of tragedy in their past and there’s something about this even handed approach that I like.

‘The Great Maw’ ultimately falls short on account of being just a little too open ended for its format but the structure of the tale, along with the insights that it offers, make up for this and result in a story that Warhammer fans should enjoy. You can’t say fairer than that really.