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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, My Legendary Girlfriend – Mike Gayle (pages 5183-5534)

My Legendary Girlfriend

My Legendary Girlfriend was a choice driven by two criteria. I’d wanted to do another re-read and it was something light. Light because of the books I’ve got in my “queue”[1] many of them right now seem to be crime thrillers or other “darker” material. A re-read because… well sometimes it’s nice to know what you’re going to get, if you know that what you’ll get you’ll like.

Genre-wise My Legendary Girlfriend is something of an oddity. It’s a kind of male chick lit. There’s was a moment – I suppose around the time when I first read this – when I was self-consciously moving away from (only) SciFi and Fantasy and I thought this might be the genre for me. In the end I’m not sure it was, I’m not sure there were ever enough exponents of it. That’s the genre, what about the book?

My Legendary Girlfriend is the story of Will who at 26 is just starting a new job and possibly career as a teacher. This involved a move from Nottingham to London and therefore it is a real chance for a new start. Why does Will need a new start? Well three years ago he was dumped by his then girlfriend Agnes (Aggie) who he had been with for three years, and he’s still hung up on her. Or is he? Can this new start be a break from obsessing over her too?

The novel takes place over the three and a half days of Will’s first weekend in London. We see him in his grotty flat where his entertainment consists of a few pathetic meals (melted ice cream and sugar puffs being a particular low point), listening to a glib irony-free agony aunt on the radio and various phonecalls, many to the girl who lived in the flat before him. Of course interspersed with this we get the back story of his relationship with Aggie, so the conceit of it taking place over a few days in just the one place is not really true.

It’s a fun read and definitely light. I’m not sure how well it’s aged. Although it was actually fascinating to read a story set in the relatively recent past when so many things were different. Will has no mobile phone, there’s no internet, his fantasy aspirational consumer item is a “flat screen TV”. He has a VCR and travel card. The later he loses, much to his consternation because it means he’s lost the money it cost him. These days a quick phonecall or visit to a website would get his credit transferred to a new Oyster card.

But aside from a glimpse back at cultural artifacts that are so soon forgotten, is there pleasure in the story itself? Yes. I think so. Will is a little annoying at times but that’s forgiveable in one so young. There were times when you think Aggie was right to leave him, or at least you understand why she might. The plot reminds me a little of Clueless (Emma) not in any specifics but in that way you are mis-directed successfully from seeing how things will play out and who will end up with who. Of course that only works the first time. Whereas on re-watching Clueless still seems plausible not to see Cher/Josh coming, the final configuration in Girlfriend is obvious once you know it. But that’s no great sin and there is the pleasure of anticipating the final playing out of the plot.

I’d also forgotten some of the slightly darker moments which are a semi-serious reflection on starting out in life and love in your twenties. But it’s more of a light-hearted book that can occasionally do a little depth than a serious book that also does comedy. It’s not, for example, High Fidelity, even though in tone, subject matter and ambition that’s what it most closely resembles.

Not sure I’ll re-read it for another decade, unless I’m really stuck for something to read.

7/10 – a good light read, not legendary, but not forgettable either.

[1]A list which tends to change, re-arrange and always, ultimately get longer. However its mutable nature means it’s never really possible to predict what the next book in the “queue” will be.
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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, Killer Move – Michael Marshall (pages 4827-5182)

Killer Move

A couple of books ago I said it was easy to review a book that I’d hugely enjoyed. Here’s one I enjoyed just as much but it’s harder to review  because, I think I don’t want to give too much away.

Killer Move is a novel by Michael Marshall, a name he goes by when writing crime fiction. When writing his earlier SciFi novels, such as Only Forward, he went by Michael Marshall Smith. And, when he wrote The Servants, which you’ll remember I also loved, he was M.M. Smith.

Anyway this is the first of his crime books I’ve read. I’ve avoided them partly because I knew that there was some fairly grim subject matter in the likes of The Straw Men. I carry around in my head that I don’t like such things but let’s be honest I’ve read and enjoyed Let the Right One In and 1974, and at least read 1977, all of which have material that’s as dark as any you’d find.

Still, the reason I picked up this book rather than the earlier crime ones was the intriguing blurb about it, and the fact that it didn’t on the face of it seem to be dominated by gruesome murders. And in fact that’s true. Mostly.

Killer Move is about Bill Moore, a florida realtor who’s ambitious and trying to push his career to the next level. He’s actually got a very nice life – a lovely home, a successful wife who he loves and enough money for a comfortable lifestyle – but he wants more. One day he receives a business card with the single word “Modified” written on it. From then on weird stuff starts to happen to him and slowly his life starts to unravel.

The thing I really like about this book is the way it slowly builds. Things happen at a pace that mean that initially it’s just intriguing, then gradually it becomes stranger, more involved, more dangerous until you’re in a full-on thriller. By the time the gruesome stuff shows up – and it does – it feels like you’re too wrapped up in the story to really worry about it. Plus it has become integral to the story anyway.

But it’s more than just the finely tuned mechanism of the plotting, it’s the slow reveal and/or evolution of Bill’s character. This is an ‘extraordinary things happen to an ordinary person’ type of story and what’s interesting is that the person he is at the beginning – obsessed with success, listens to self-help podcasts, reads positivity blogs and attends branding seminars – isn’t particularly likeable, but he slowly reveals himself to be more interesting than he first appears. I loved the main character of Stark in Only Forward, but I loved him from the first page with his dry wit and cool persona, Bill I grew to like as he both showed more of himself and was changed by the experience.

That’s what sets Killer Move apart from say a John Grisham thriller, though they share a clockwork precision of plot, the characterization. There are characters you sympathise with, ones you instantly like (like Stark), or dislike, or are appalled and intrigued by.

And there is some tough stuff in there but more of it is implied than seen. Certainly it doesn’t have that unrelenting grimness and all-humanity-is-scum feel of 1977.

It would also make a terrific movie.

My only quibble is the title – Killer Move is so generic as to be meaningless and it really doesn’t connect with anything specific in the book. There is an obvious one-word title but I suspect that it was rejected because it doesn’t say enough about what kind of book this is.

9/10 – an excellent gripping read and one that slowly builds up both tension and character development.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, Carpe Jugulum – Terry Pratchett (pages 4402-4826)

Carpe Jugulum

Carpe Jugulum is the 23rd Discworld book and as you’d expect from the title is concerns vampires (or vampyres as they prefer it – they’re trying to be “modern”). It’s also a Lancre Witches book which is a good thing as I’m a fan of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg and Wyrd Sisters is probably my 2nd favourite Discworld book. (Mort, since you ask).

The book begins with the preparations for the christening of King Verence and Queen Magrat’s baby. Unfortunately the King invited a family of vampire nobility and inviting vampires in is one thing we all know you shouldn’t do. Perhaps even worse is that although they sent an invite to Granny Weatherwax it went astray. Not inviting the Kingdom’s most powerful witch may have been as catastrophic as inviting blood-sucking fiends.

Into all this arrives an Omnian priest Mightily Oats who has been summoned to perform the christening. He’s an interesting character defined more by lack of certainty than actual belief. Oh and we have the 4th member of the Lancre coven, Agnes Nitt, who’s in two minds about everything, literally.

Carpe Jugulum is certainly a lot of fun. It has some interesting things to say about Faith. I’m not sure there was anything radically new in it. As I’ve said by this stage, book 23, we’ve touched on most of Pratchett’s favourite subjects before, so there’s a lot of familiar ground. But these are characters I enjoy spending time with. I liked the vampires, I like Agnes and I still like Nanny and Granny – though her black-and-white belief in her own rightness pushed me on that.

As with other recent Discworld reads I found I enjoyed the story more than the humour which felt a little predictable in its patterns and rhythms, though there were still laugh out loud moments such as:

‘Indeed?’ said the Count, turning to his son. ‘Right about what, prey?’

I smiled at the subtlety.

8/10 – a fun romp with enjoyable characters and some thoughtful ideas about faith, right and wrong – and the importance of a nice cup of tea.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, Before I Go To Sleep – SJ Watson (pages 4037-4401)

Before I Go To Sleep

Before I Go To Sleep is an easy book to write about for two reasons – it’s got an easy to understand concept and I really enjoyed it.

This book is told from the perspective of Christine who, when she wakes up in the morning is in unfamiliar surroundings. This happens every morning because Christine has a condition where she doesn’t form new memories, so each new day is a kind of reset. So she wakes up every day, not knowing who the middle-aged man in bed with her is. In fact she doesn’t really recognise the woman she sees in the mirror as she remembers herself to be much younger than she actually is. Slowly, patiently the man explains that he’s her husband and he gently reminds her about some of the other facts of her life. Something he must have to do every day.

The reason this book works so well is that the early chapters work simply as an experience of what it must be like to have this kind of memory condition. If you’ve seen the movie Memento then you’ll have some idea already but this is a slightly different take on the idea. The fact that our hero is female and the setting domestic gives it a different feel. Gradually, we as the reader begin to build up a picture of Christine’s life and also some of what has happened to her. This starts to raise questions which we become aware of before she does and the remainder of the book is almost a thriller, certainly we want to know what has happened and how it will play out if and when Christine starts to discover the truth.

So in the second half of the book you lose some of the psychological subtlety of the first part but you gain a page-turning what-will-happen-next plot. It really works, I found it gripping.

9/10 – both an insight into a different kind of life and a thrilling ride.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro (pages 3733-4036)

Never Let Me Go

OK, first of all, if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t really want to know anything about a book before you read it, the kind of person who won’t watch trailers of movies in case they give too much away, then you should really skip this review. Not that I’m planning to ruin the book, I won’t give away the ending, but I can’t sensibly talk about it without talking about the central premise.

Still with me? Good.

Never Let Me Go is a kind of SciFi novel in that it’s set in a world almost exactly like ours but with one difference i.e. it’s an alternative present. Still I say only “kind of SciFi” because although good SciFi is always more interested in ideas than shiny tech, this really isn’t interested in tech at all except in how it changes society. In that way it reminds me of something like Children of Men.

Kathy and her friends Tommy and Ruth grew up in a boarding school called Hailsham. There they are prepared for the life that is ahead of them and we soon see that this is not quite the kind of life one might expect. Nevertheless they have a close relationship and the early part of the book is about their experiences together, their loves and aspirations and conflicts within the relatively small world of the school. There’s an intensity here that may relate to their role in the world or may just be a consequence of that enclosed environment.

We follow them as they grow into adulthood, learning some measure of independence but always with an eye towards a particular future. You see these are human clones who have been bred for the specific purpose of providing organ donations. They live relatively normal but short lives, “completing” once they have made 2,3 or at most 4 donations. Some of them, Kathy in this story, work as “carers” to the “donors” supporting them through the medical procedures. But even the carers eventually become donors themselves.

This is a thoughtful intense book. I enjoyed it for the most part. One annoying habit the author has is in the early part of the book he tells various incidents out of order. Nothing wrong with that per se but the way he does it appears to have no real reason. He’ll be telling you about an incident between two characters and at the end he’ll say something like “…but maybe that’s because of what had happened with the tape.” Then he’ll go back and tell the story of the tape ending it with “…which is perhaps why she fell out so strongly with Tommy.” Then he’ll skip forward and tell you about the argument with Tommy. He’ll do this several times in a row and it left my head slightly spinning and I couldn’t think of a good reason why he couldn’t just describe events in the order they occurred.

The other reservation I have is about why the characters don’t try harder to escape their fate – to run away or rebel. I know the answer but it’s not one given in the story itself. Remember I said this was a kind of SciFi? One of the things that SciFi often prompts people to do is ask “why?” questions – “Why don’t they just use the transporter to beam out of there?”. Often there’s a reasonable answer that the author has alluded to but not gone into detail on because he doesn’t want to distract from the story itself. I’ve been a defender of this kind of story-telling. It’s about suspension of disbelief. You accept certain things to allow the story to be what it is.

Well anyway, this is similar to that but the answer to the “why?” question is “because this is a metaphor” and for the metaphor to work the donors need to be accepting of their future. Why don’t I let Ishiguro himself, talking when the film of the book was released, explain:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jCB59pPG7k&NR=1]

So as a meditation on the meaning of life, its brevity and inevitable end, the book does have some interesting things to say. I confess to being just picky enough to be bothered by the “why?” question. I can extrapolate from hints in the text that it’s because they’ve been socialised their whole lives to be compliant, but still…

7/10 – A thoughtful, challenging book.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, True Grit -Charles Portis (pages 3509-3732)

True Grit

I decided to read True Grit after hearing it recommended on a podcast around the time of the recent film version being released. The John Wayne film version is one of the few Westerns I’ve watched and enjoyed so I thought it was worth a read. Was I right? Read on.

True Grit is the story of Mattie Ross, a fourteen year old whose father has just been killed by an outlaw called Tom Chaney. Leaving her mother to grieve and look after her younger siblings, Mattie makes a trip to sort out her father’s business affairs and find justice for his death, since Chaney has fled to lawless Indian Territory and no-one seems too interested in pursuing him.

So she secures the services of Reuben ‘Rooster’ Cogburn and sets off to capture, and kill, Chaney. They are soon joined by a Texas Ranger called LaBoeuf who is after Chaney for crimes committed in Texas and for the reward.

The plot moves forward in a fairly straight-forward A-follows-B manner. What really draws you in is the main character and her relationship with Cogburn. Her determination and “grit” are what define her and what I suspect would be a very annoying tendency in real life of nagging til she gets her own way, makes you admire her.

The book is written in her voice, and at first I thought that Portis had cleverly captured that childish simplicity of speech. Then I realised that this was written as an older Mattie looking back. I did find the style a little wearing at times but I suppose it does work as a not overly-educated woman of that era writing her memories of these events.

Even so I think you have to take this style, along with her tendency to go off point and talk about religion (complete with scripture references), politics and unrelated history, as tongue in cheek. I’m not sure it was hilariously funny but it occasioned the odd wry smile and chuckle. However it also illustrates the “nasty, brutish and short” nature of life at that time and place, which was a counter point to any humour.

However the book was very readable and not too long. So overall I found it a good read.

7/10 – a good read, probably still prefer the movie though.

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Discworld II

Today is one of those days when I have free time and there’s very little I have to do, plenty I could or ought to do but not much I really want to do, so I end up feeling restless.

I think they call them Sundays.

So in lieu of anything actually useful or interesting I thought I’d write in my blog. You lucky, lucky people!

Discworld II

I spent a fair amount of yesterday and today playing Discworld II. It’s a game from 1996 that in order to play I had to install an emulator called scummvm. In fact I own the game, used to play it on my first PC[*], but I still have to play it through the emulator.

It’s a point-and-click adventure game of the kind I’m not sure they make any more. If they do they’ll be web-based these days.

It still holds up well. Mostly I think because it’s well written and acted. It’s got Eric Idle playing Rincewind and Rob Brydon doing most of the other male voices with Kate Robbins most of the female ones. The basic gameplay is that you have to collect a series of items in order to fulfil quests. Getting the items usually involves using other items in combination and interacting with the game characters in a few predefined ways. When you complete a task there’s often a little “cut-scene” where the action plays out as a little movie.That makes it sound dull but it’s the humour in the dialog, in the scenarios and the cut-scenes that makes it entertaining for me. The puzzle element less so. Sometimes it feels like you have to “use” an item with every other possible item in every location before you figure out what to do. Of course there are clues in the dialog if you spot them, and there is a sort of logic to most of it. It also helps if you’ve read the books.

I did cheat a little towards the end. There are four acts an an epilogue and I used a walkthrough for one item in act four and for the epilogue (which only consists of about 3 or 4 actions in any case)

Anyway it was fun. How much of that is nostalgia and how much the game I don’t know.

And since this has sort of turned into a review –

8/10 – this non-gamer enjoyed this retro game.

(goes back to change title of post)

[*]Sort of. I played Discworld on my first PC. It was one of the first things I did with it. Later when Discworld II came out I needed a higher-spec PC to play it. I ended up upgrading mine more or less sucessfully (though I did blow up my flatmate’s CPU along the way).
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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, The News Where You Are – Catherine O’Flynn (pages 1220-1539)

The News Where You Are

The News Where You Are is yet another book about a middle-aged man coming to terms with what it means to get older. Well sort of. Either I keep being drawn to these books because of the theme or (more likely) I see this theme everywhere because of my stage of life.

Frank Allcroft is a local news presenter with an apparent penchant for bad jokes in his links. He also takes an interest in some of those he’s reported on – specifically those who die alone. One such passing appears to be linked with his friend and predecessor who died in a hit-and-run accident, and Frank is drawn into finding out more about what actually happened.. Meanwhile the buildings his father architect put up in the 60s are one by one being pulled down.

This is an odd book. On the one hand I want to say that it’s a light read because it’s easy to read and has a gentle humour and is well-disposed towards its characters. On the other it is about death and loss and what, if anything, we leave behind. On the on hand it’s clearly structured around a kind of mystery plot (why and how did this person die), but on the other it’s not particularly plot driven and takes time out of the whodunnit to look at Frank’s family relationships and so on.

The characters are well-drawn and sympathetic. Mo, Frank’s daugther is the perfect picture of a particular type of precocious child who is entirely endearing without ever being sentimental. As is, in a completely different way, his mother.

I think it is a good read but it slightly left me wanting something a bit more to get my teeth into. Also it had about 3 attempts at an ending. However given that the chapters are short that’s really a minor quibble.

7/10 – a light read which never takes its darker themes too lightly or too seriously.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, I Think I Love You – Allison Pearson (pages 882-1219)

I Think I Love You

So book 2. Which I read in two days. That ought to have given me a big headstart given Under The Dome‘s massive page count. But I’m stuck in the middle of book 3 and am so about a couple of weeks behind.

Anyway.

I Think I Love You is the story of a David Cassidy fan Petra, and the young man, Bill, who has the job of writing Cassidy’s letters for a fan magazine. The first part of the book is set in the 1970s when Petra is 13 and Bill is just starting out on his career – hence the less than glamourous job. The second half of the book takes place in 1998 when, after her divorce and the death of her mother, Petra finds some old letters and makes contact with Bill.
The first half of the book was definitely the more enjoyable. When I first started reading I thought it would be interesting to be in the mind of a 13 year old girl as that’s absolutely not something I am used to. However I quickly realised that the insecurities, anxieties and so on of a teenager girl in the mid-70s were not that different to a boy in the early 80s. But the nostalgia was fun, as was the parallel Petra and Bill story lines.

The second half of the book was good but necessarily had a different feel. It also felt like it meandered a bit. Perhaps that was deliberate – we’re rarely so sure and focussed as we can be as teenagers. Also, if you can’t see where the story is going to end up pretty much from the start of the second part I think you’re not really trying.

7/10 – A bit of nostalgia, some adult angst and a happy ending.

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6000 pages reading reviews

6000 Pages, Lord Foul’s Bane – Stephen Donaldson (pages 3847-4375)

Lord Foul's Bane

When I was a student and my finals were approaching I found this book in a charity shop for 10p. I read the back and it sounded interesting and hey only 10p… In those days I was not intimidated by long books. The book is the first in what was then a series of 6 books (now 9 and there’s one more to come). I read the first five and a half in a couple of weeks during the ‘rest breaks’ from my revision for finals. The final half book took me several months.

That says something about something. Either me or the books or both. Anyway…

Lord Foul’s Bane is the story of a man, Thomas Covenant, who is transported to another world – called simply “the Land” – where he bears resemblance to a mythic hero and where his wedding ring is a magical object of great power – not that he knows how to use it. The other thing we learn about Covenant is that he is a leper, and we learn that the key to managing leprosy is a dogmatic vigilance to the dangers around him – he can’t rely on his dead nerves to warn him when he’s injured himself and so must carefully check for minor scrapes and cuts in case they get infected. This leads to a rejection of anything but the harsh realities of life. He can’t afford to think about life the way it was (his wife divorced him and took their son) or how he wishes it were, he must focus on the practicalities of simply surviving.

So when he finds himself in “the Land” – a place of beauty and magic, a place where his leprosy is healed and feeling returns – he rejects it as a dangerous dream. However in order not to be overwhelmed by it he tries to follow the logic of the dream and interacts with the people he finds there as if they were real whilst believing them not to be. This he calls his “Unbelief”.

There are a couple of big hurdles to enjoying this and the other books in this series. The first is that Thomas Covenant is hard to like. For reasons that are understandable he is bitter and tends to be harsh to those around him, even those being kind to him. And when he first recovers his health in the Land he loses control and commits rape. I know of at least one person who gave up on the book at that point – which is several chapters in.

The second hurdle is Donaldson’s prose. He’s not one to use 10 words where 150 will do. He also, to my mind, delves into the psychological motivations of Covenant in excessive detail such that he makes a mockery of “show don’t tell”.

Given this, why read Lord Foul’s Bane?

Well it’s all about story and the story is, I think, a compelling one. At the point where he enters the Land Covenant is given a message from the eponymous Lord Foul for the Lords – the rulers and protectors of the Land. The section of the book – about the first 2/3rds – which concerns Covenant’s journey to deliver this message has a driving energy to it which always gets me. I’ve started this book more times than I’ve finished it, and usually if I’ve abandoned it it’s at the point just after he’s given the message at the Council of the Lords where I’ve floundered.

I almost did again this time. In fact it was perhaps only the fact that having read 300+ pages I did not want them to go to waste because of not finishing the book.

7/10 – if you like fantasy, can overlook an unlikeable hero and plough through the turgid prose then there’s an interesting story in there.