Dan
not completely terrible, but the Americanisms are incredibly jarring, especially to this long term Bristolian (bodegas on Grosvenor Road? being surprised that Neneh Cherry says ‘gigolo' instead of ‘scrub' in Buffalo Stance?), and the absence of any input from the core creative people behind the album (which is still the finest British record released in my lifetime, let's not forget) leaves a big hole at the centre of the book which doesn't get filled by anything of substance.
Grady Hendrix has the enviable knack of writing some really nasty unsettling horror that also has strong and believable emotional underpinnings, and this one is perhaps the most fully realised version of that he's produced so far. The sister and brother at the core of the story have, like all the best families, a complicated relationship, and Hendrix nails it, expertly swinging your sympathy between one or the other. It's moving and very satisfying. However, for all the excellent character work, it's also important to point out that this is one creepy book. The antagonist is horribly malevolent, and plenty of bad and nasty stuff goes down, including one graphic scene that left me wincing. Hendrix does a great job of balancing outright horror and suggestion. I have to say it took me a little while to get into, but when it clicks, around the 15% mark, it really clicks. Very possibly Hendrix' best book yet.
A good read on experimental music and over exuberant partying. Loses a star because it could have been a bit more in depth in parts, and things that I'd like to have known more about end up being skipped over. Loses another for finishing about ten years ago and not taking us up to date (although the event used as the capstone is a fitting end, and Stuarts's writing about it is some of the best in the book). But then it gets a star back for reminding me about Club Quattro in Shibuya, and another for the memories of Reading 1991 - from his description of the bands he saw, it appears that Stuart was following me about all weekend (I'm not the racist, I must add). And, why not, let's give it another star just because Mogwai Fear Satan is so huge.
Look, this is the third book in the series. You're not reading this review if you're curious to know what it's about, you want to know if Tchaikovsky can stick the landing. And, boy, have I got good news for you.
Lords Of Uncreation triumphantly crowns one of the best space opera series of recent years. There are exciting action sequences, both cosmic and hand to hand (the set piece almost exactly halfway through the book is spectacular). The implacable, unknowable, hostile aliens from another dimension aren't a disappointing damp squib (hello, The Expanse!). The characters we've come to know through the last two books all get their fair share of screen time, and their storylines mostly tie up satisfactorily. It's a great conclusion to a great series, and some of the most fun I've had with SF in a good while.
This one cranked up that sense of wonder circuit in my head, the one that used to light up all the time when I was a thirteen year old SF nut but fires less and less frequently these days. It felt like the stuff that blew my mind when I was young, although that's not to say it's dated or childish, It's just a lot of fun. Looking forward to the next volume!
I was attracted to this one because I really enjoyed the author's previous novel
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23346800-creative-truths-in-provincial-policing
which was a light hearted and surreal farce set in the exotic climes of Vietnam. This one isn't any of those things, but is instead the story of a woman having a terrible time during the WWII occupation of Poland. An afterword explains that it's very close to home for the author, being inspired by the experiences of her grandmother. While it's uncomfortably vivd in the depiction of misery, there is also hope and endurance here, alongside a cast of engaging and believable characters. The contrast with her earlier book demonstrates that Lichtarowicz has a considerable range and taking the two together she should really be better known than she is.
Mat Osman's second novel sets the bar for 2023 very high.I enjoyed his debut a great deal, but it was a rock star writing about a rock star. Here he gives his imagination free reign (although if I was being reeeeaaaallly pedantic, I'd note that he's still concerned with entertainers and performances), moving us four hundred years back in time ands vividly evoking an Elizabeth England that is stuffed with cruel predators and misery but also with mystery and wonder. It's not a full-blown alternate history fantasy novel by any stretch, but there's enough delicious occult strangeness here to give it a twist of the weird that most historical novels lack. It's rich, hallucinatory and engrossing, and I loved it.
Aaaand we're back for another adventure with the eccentric employees of The Stranger Times. McDonnell writes with a lot of warmth, and his worldview, which celebrates ordinary humanity while excoriating its worse excesses, is not a million miles from Terry Pratchett's (who gets a namecheck here). Once again, this is is an entertaining and lively read, with a cast of characters you will be rooting for. A lot of fun, and I hope there are many more to come.
An enthralling read. Occupied Rome is vividly rendered and the characters are well drawn and distinct. The dual timeline structure feeds cleverly into the narrative, giving us access to information that the 1943 characters don't yet know, and this helps O'Connor to conjure a great deal of tension, culminating in a pulse pounding night time journey through the city. The final revelation that it is based on a true story is the cherry on the cake.
Dave Hutchinson returns to Fractured Europe with a new novel that doesn't feature Rudi and instead picks up on a very minor character from Europe In Winter. The flavour is the same though - it's insanely complicated, and will make your head hurt as you try to keep the various timelines, sides, motives, and schemes straight. But it doesn't really matter if you can, because confusing or not it's so very readable and the journey is terrific fun even if you have no idea what the destination is. These books really are some of the best espionage fiction being written today, and deserve the same broadsheet kudos as a Mick Herron.
This latest series from NK Jemisin has gone to a duology rather than an a trilogy, for reasons the author recounts in an afterword, and hence this is the final volume. She is of course perfectly entitled to do what she wants with her work, and it's not for me to question her motives, but I do think this reduction undercuts the series. The ending is too quick and easy, which would be fine if it was a question of getting pieces off the board ready for the next volume, but is a little bit too pat if this is really it. And the climax to one of the borough's storylines feels like it should be weightier than it is, and is just left sat there, waiting to be followed up on. But, y'know, leaving you wanting more isn't exactly the worst crime a book can pull, is it? Yes, it's a bit frustrating, but it's still a deliciously readable novel, and there's plenty of stuff to like here, from the characters and relationships, to the angry political engagement, as well as the expansion of the core concept with appearances from other cities. But it's New York, in all it's vibrancy and contradiction, that's the star.
This is a fast moving and effective horror novel, with a strong sense of place and the hostility of the landscape - in fact, it's tempting to get pseudy and read all the supernatural horror as metaphor, a reification of just how inimical this place is to life. But then again, it's also pretty fun to think about unstoppable horned shamans in endless pursuit of our heroes and animistic spirits messing people up in inventively gory style. I guess you can indeed have it both ways, and this one was a very entertaining slice of pagan horror in a fresh and undressed setting. Nice one.
This debut novel, set in the Caribbean community in London, Bristol and ultimately Jamaica as the seventies turn into the eighties, is the story of Yamaye, a young Black woman who lives for dancing at all night reggae sessions. She loses herself in the dark and the dub, finding an escape from a mundane and difficult life outside. And then she meets Moose, falls in love, and seizes the chance for contentment and satisfaction. But Babylon has other plans...
I'm a huge fan of Jamaican-inspired music, and this book is soaked in it. The words thrum and sing with horn stabs and skittering cymbals, and pulse with a deep slow bass throb. It's alive to music in a way so many books about the subject aren't (compare and contrast to Marlon James' ...Seven Killings, for instance, which for all its many other virtues is almost completely tone deaf, in a novel about Bob Marley of all people). There's a terrific rhythm to the language, as though it's being told to you in person. I don't usually do audiobooks but i'd love to hear this as one (with a dub underpinning, naturally).
The story is vivid and involving, with sharp characterisation and a living breathing cast you come to care about. When something nasty happens about a third of the way in, it's a proper gut punch. I'd read about the ANL and undercover cops, Linton Kwesi Johnson told me about sus laws and Misty In Roots about Babylon, but Ms Crooks' novel made me feel them. It's is an excellent debut, and I'm going to miss Yamaye. Hope she's okay.
This is a pitch-black satire on Japanese office life and the role of women in that society. Shibata hoodwinks her colleagues into believing she's pregnant, and as events move out from there you are left wondering if she's even being truthful with you, the reader, as we get towards the end, and the double meaning of the title becomes apparent. Very entertaining.
This ghost story is...okay. There's quite a bit of atmosphere, and I felt a sense of the house as a real location, to the point where I could draw you a floorplan of the layout. But the story is solidly middle of the road. There's no real original ideas, and the pair of revelations at the end feel unearned and unnecessary - in fact they're a little frustrating as if the author had leaned into them earlier the book it might have felt a little fresher. Some of the secondary characters just fizzle out, and there's one plot contrivance that made me winch a bit. That said, there's nothing really wrong with the book, and I enjoyed the couple of hours I spent with it, but ultimately it's a competent entry in the genre and that's all.
This novel appears to be drawn from the author's own experiences of postpartum depression. It doesn't tiptoe around the subject, or indeed anything else, but it's brutally, unflinchingly, honest, and unsurprisingly CW'd up to the eyeballs. It's extremely raw, with some absolutely intense scenes of visceral body horror. But by the end, it's also cathartic, full of the exhausted peace that comes after a violent purging. It's not an easy read by means, but it is ultimately a hopeful one.
I loved Children Of Time, and was a bit cooler towards Children Of Ruin, so this one had the potential to swing the series either way for me. It turns out this isn't really the right way to look at it. It's a different beast from those two books, set in the same universe with some returning characters, but the uplift elements are almost incidental. For the first third or so, I thought I was going to be looking at a two-star review. The book initially appeared to be a mess, over obscure and unsympathetic. But soon the realisation came that the author has been putting pieces in place to spring his trap, and as what exactly is going on began to come into focus my enjoyment levels shot up. If you can persevere through the opening then there are worthwhile rewards here.
It's not a lovable book, suffused as it is with pessimism and a cynical (you might say realistic) view of human nature. But it is a clever one, with an excellent SFnal mystery at its heart. I get the feeling this is one I will enjoy having read more than I did actually reading it.
This one has all my favourite elements, legends of rural folk horror passed down the ages, the threat of Lovecraftian Old Gods, and unstoppable marauding inhuman monsters. Couple that with some well-drawn, believable and sympathetic characters, a sharp sense of location and a knack fro conveying atmosphere and you've got a really strong horror novel, the best I've read since Will McLean's Apparition Phase.
Chris Brookmyre's take on a locked room mystery, where the room is a remote Scottish island, and the cast are attending a hen party that goes very very wrong. As always with this writer it's compulsively readable, and has the “just one more chapter” factor in spades. Twist piles on twist, motives swim into view and out again, and you're left guessing who is behind it all until the rug is pulled out from under you. Terrifically entertaining.
Mark Stay's Woodville books deal with the magical awakening of a young Kent girl in the early 1940s, as World War II is underway and England is threatened by German invasion. Faye Bright and the rest of the cast are well drawn and engaging. The village feels like a real place, and the period is evoked without drowning the reader in research. This is the third in the series, and like the others it's a great comfort read that stays just the right side of twee. They're not going to change your world, but they will make it a nicer place for a couple of hours. If you've ever had too much cheese before bedtime and dreamt of Terry Pratchett writing a Dad's Army novelisation then these are the books for you.
I read a lot of Ramsey Campbell's work in the 80s and 90s and then fell away for whatever reasons. Those are the novels and stories that justly earned him the reputation of one of the best horror writers around. Coming back to his work after a couple of decades off, it's immediately obvious that he hasn't changed much. The horror here is decidedly of the slow burn variety and Campbell is a master of mounting unease. His familiar motif of overbearing parent figures that the lead finds themselves powerless against is very much present here, as it is so many of his books (there are good and strong autobiographical reasons for this, iirc). Of those earlier novels, this is perhaps most reminiscent of The Hungry Moon, as the early sense of things not being quite in true gradually builds through pagan myth to some full on cosmic horror. I don't think Fellstones made quite the impact on me that that book did, but then again that was my first Campbell and this is probably my twelfth or so. It's not for the gorehounds amongst us, but this is a solid read that deploys a sense of rising dread well.