Marth Muffins
Means and Ends: The Revolutionary Practise of Anarchism in Europe and the United States - 4/5
An interesting and engaging introduction to the both the ideological discourse in 19th and early 20th century anarchism in Europe and the USA and into the practical means taken by anarchists in this era to achieve their ends, from strikes, schools, sabotage and more. It can be a little dry to read at times, definitely coming across as the reworking of a PhD thesis, but it's still readable and avoids relying on jargon which would needlessly alienate readers.
The only other major flaw is one that the text freely acknowledges: it's focus on just Europe and the US, and on material Baker could both access and read, does limit the work and largely excludes strains of anarchist thought from the rest of the world, only really cropping up when figures from those other movements interact with European or American groups. However, this is something the text freely acknowledges and it encourages it's readers to keep this in mind whilst reading, pushing them to engage with anarchist writings from Africa, Asia, South & Central America, and Oceania instead of relying on solely Europe or US-based writers.
Overall, definitely a worthwhile read for those looking for an overview of anarchist thought and practise from this period and place. Recommended!
Dark Days - 2.5/5
Somewhat meh for me. I thought the cliffhanger to the last book was wrapped up far too quickly and cleanly, with Skulduggery back in action and, outside of a few minor events where his mind slips, he's largely back to normal and back into action. There's a whole book in getting Skulduggery back, the world of the Faceless Ones, and dealing with the impact of Skulduggery's time in there but the book just rushes through it to get to a fairly standard plot about the side-villains from the previous trilogy trying to get back at our heroes and some vague new end-of-the-world threat foreshadowing. That stuff was fun and all, and there are some great setpieces and ideas like the Midnight Hotel and vampire lair, but it feels anti-climatic coming off of book 3.
This is a case of me letting expections drag down my opinion of a book instead of trying to review it on it's own merits as it is, but I can't really get away from those in the end and I'm left with just a feeling of meh around this whole novel. Still, we'll see where the rest of the series goes!
Binti & Binti: Sacred Fire - 3.5/5
I like a lot of what this novella is doing, especially around culture and hair, and a lot of the negative reviews seem to misunderstand what the book is going for and focus instead on the plot. I do think there are a number of serious flaws here in terms of how plot and character are handled, but I'll get to those.
Much of the story revolves around the importance on Binti's connection to being Himba (an ethnic group in Northern Namibia), her hair, her use of otjize (which is a paste that the Himba use on their hair and body), and how these factors connect her both to her heritage when she's so far from home and also how it others her from other humans, are key topics for the book. Overall, I think the story handles that very well. I don't know how accurate the representation of the Himba is here as I don't know anything about them in reality, but the book does effectively speak to Binti's feelings of leaving home and the conflict between her connection to her family and her desire to break free from the constraints place on her by that, tackling that internal struggle well. It also handles how she is othered by other humans: her hair is touched without her consent, people comment about her skin colour, and are fascinated/disgusted by the look and smell of the otjize she uses. She's an object for everyone else to poke and prod, a thing as alien to the other humans she encounters as the jellyfish beings and crab people they've met out in space.
And all of this links in with how the alien threat, the Meduse, are handled. They're explicitly viewed as inferior by the Koush, the humans who aren't Himba, and othered in similar ways to Binti, not just by the Koush but by many other species. Over the course of the story we learn that the Meduse's leader had a fundemental part of it's identity removed, it's stinger, to be examined and put on display at the university Binti is going too. Understandably it wants to reclaim that part of it's identity, and as a commentary on colonialist/imperialist treatment of others it works really well. These aspects integrate with Binti's experiences and the book really works on those thematic levels.
And this all coalesces around Binti's hair. It, and the otjize she applies to it and the rest of her body, is mentioned constantly, and it's integral to who she is and what connects her back to home. Hair is such an important cultural signifier across the world and it's use in expression has often been a key target of cultural supression, which is really reflected in the way Binti's hair and the Meduse's tentacles are treated here The ending has her lose her hair, replacing it with alien Meduse tentacles, tying her closer to this new world and furtherly isolating her from home, which really reinforces Binti's otherness to everyone around her.
Sacred Fire follows on from this as basically an extended epilogue to the first novella, and I don't think this story would really work for me without it. It properly deals with the consequences of what happens to Binti, both phyiscially and emotionally, throughout the first novella, and carries on the thematic arc to a form of conclusion that the first novella alone doesn't manage. I honestly couldn't imagine reading the first novella without this epilogue story, given how important dwelling on that emotional throughline is to making the themes, and character, work. Here Binti starts to deal with seeing all the people she met on the ship die and being phyiscally changed by Okwu. It genuinely adds a really good capstone to the original story and I think elevates it a lot, making it work a lot better than it did initially for me.
Because I did have some serious issues with Binti. Frankly, Binti as a character is not all that interesting. Thematically she serves her purpose but so much is spent on that angle that Binti as a person is left pretty underdeveloped and dry, and so are the rest of the characters in this story. I get the sense that we're meant to see a developing friendship between the initially hostile Okwu and Binti but it does not come across to me at all, with them suddenly coming to an understanding by the end of the story and forced together in Sacred Fire as the two ultimate outsiders at Oozma University. The characters just feel secondary to the theming, which would usually be fine but the theming relies on very personal connections and nuances to do with culture and a person's place in it, which does not come across when Binti has such a flat personality.
This is also an issue with the plot. It all becomes very contrived and neat, being to concerned with tying up thematic ends instead of making logical sense. Suddenly the otjize can heal the Meduse's wounds and they all become friends? It makes sense thematically as a way to signify the power of these cultural connections but as an actual plot and character beat it feels very strange and contrived. I also dislike how the university which stole the Meduse's leads stinger just kind of gives it up at the end and kind of doesn't take responsibility for it's own culpability in the Meduse's anger. Sure, they fire the people who took it but still, it feels a little like a cop out to not have some acknowledgement of the university's role in exoticing the Meduse. I assume bringing Okwu in as a student is an attempt at this by trying to create an actual dialogue between the Meduse and the rest of the galaxy but it's never really established as such, or followed up on in Sacred Fire.
Other issues I had, such as the lack of resolution to Binti's emotional and phyisical trauma, are resolved in Sacred Fire, and I honestly recommend treating these two stories as essentially one book. It brings resolution to the first novella whilst also bulking out the page count to the same level as the sequel novellas.
Overall, a mixed but interesting reading experience for me. I think it's worth checking out, but be aware of it's focus on theme over character and plot, flat characters, and plot contrivences.
Harrow County - 2.5/5
The first two issues of this arc are largely further expounding on the history of the mythology surrounding Harrow County, namely focusing on the ancient Family which Emmy is a part of and the titular Abandoned. As backstories go it is interesting stuff and does expand on the characters of Emmy and the Abandoned, as well as on the mythology of the series, but I dislike big backstory dump stories such as this and by this point the last two volumes of the series have largely been centred around that. Also, I personally found the material covered in Family Ties more engaging as it involved Emmy directly in some way, instead of only being told to her second hand (although much of that volume still involved people talking at her rather than Emmy taking direct action).
The last two issues were more engaging, returning to Emmy dealing with the happenings in Harrow County itself and showing the creeping alure of her newfound powers in a fun way. It's a classic creature feature setup but subverted in how we now know this creature quite well, and Emmy is trying to stop both sides from killing one another (or, more accurately, trying to stop the hunters from being butchered). I much prefer these somewhat smaller scale, Harrow-focused, stories to the grand mythological tales of the last few issues but we'll see how that develops as we head into the back half of the series.
The art by Tyler Crook is excellent as always but guest artist Carla Speed McNeil does some really good work on the first two issues as well (minus one-or-two dodgy looking faces for Emmy). I really liked her depiction of the Family a lot, especially Hester, for example.
Overall, not my favourite volume down to how it's focused a lot on expositing about mythology over being centred on character and horror but still fairly solid, and most likely essential to the upcoming back half of the Harrow County series.
Timewyrm - Genesys - 1/5
Enough has been said about how awful this book is, here and elsewhere. John Peel takes the idea of “adult” Who and decides that means a pervy old man gaze which cannot let a page go by without some mention of Gilgamesh feeling up women and girls as young as 13, that the priestesses of Ishtar have their tits out, or that Ace is being either objectified or sexually assaulted by Gilgamesh (with the Doctor famously victim-blaming her for “not understanding that that's just what happens when you go to Ancient Mesopotamia”, fuck off you arsehole). It just feels like Peel saw the chance to indulge in being able to write about tits, sex, dubious consent, and underage nudity and justify it with a “well it's historical” bullshit argument. I'm in no way opposed to sex in media at all, not even in Who media, but John Peel is not the guy to do it.
Add to that the book is just boring. Ace and the Doctor wander about for a bit, there's a generic Who Historical plot about aliens wanting to “pervert the course of human history”, and then they wander around a bit more. There could've been something interesting with integrating the Epic of Gilgamesh and writing an almost Sword & Sorcery/Heroic Fantasy type novel but no, it never manages to do that and instead wants to focus on just how lecherous Gilgamesh is.
The fact that Peel obviously does not like this era of the show, namely Seven and Ace, also shines through. There's a whole bit to introduce the series which just exists to show how cool the Fourth Doctor is, and to have Ace wander around naked, and hell, at the conclusion of the book he sidelines Seven by essentially replacing him with the Third Doctor and having him do some sci-fi nonsense to kick Ishtar out of the TARDIS, and knocks Ace unconcious so Three can call her Liz, Jo, and Sarah Jane instead.
Just all around a boring, irritating, and dirty old man pervy. Read a summary instead.
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 - 3.5/5
Pretty decent! For the time they had the character was fun and the supernatural mystery/police procedural was enjoyable. I also like the alternate version of 1910s Cario Clark has built up over this and the previous 2 short stories of set in this universe that I've read. I did think it was too focused on worldbuilding at times, with passages dedicated to fleshing out aspects of that instead of the mystery or characters. I found it enjoyable enough but that's not really what I'm interested in so much. Also, as much as I did like the main characters here I was left with the impression that maybe this should've featured the main character from the Dead Djinn in Cario short story (who does turn up at the end to foreshadow the book) as I feel she would've fit more with some of the themes the story is telling and would let Clark build off of that short and lead into the novel more. Still, I enjoyed it and I'm interested in getting around to A Master of Djinn at some point!
The Mad Ship - 4/5
When I finally reached the end of The Mad Ship I was left fairly conflicted. Hobb is a master of character: she can weave their contradictions and concerns, their strengths and struggles, their conflicting and complementary relationships with each other together in such an intricate way that I've seen very few writers in the fantasy space do. Almost every character who has some of the page count dedicated to them feels multi-faceted and wonderfully flawed, ranging from the Vesirit family themselves to Kennit and his crew. Even Kyle, rightfully hated by pretty much everyone who reads this trilogy, has layers to them, hidden depths and skills that might very well make you loathe the characters more but put meat on what might be in another book just a brittle skeleton of a character, the bones of which would snap under the slightest pressure.
But the strength of Hobb's characters is what her books are always singled out for and there are several other aspects of this book I want to praise. A lot of Liveship is preoccupied with gender. This manifests itself in very direct ways, such as how Althea and the rest of the Vesirit women interact with the gendered expectations placed upon them by Bingtown society and the men they're often interacting with, or the expectations placed on Wintrow to fit the masculine ideals held by the people around him, and even in how Brashen is perceived by the world as disgraced. These books, and all of Hobb's work, are preoccupied by these questions almost constantly and, frankly, handle them both well and in interesting and engaging ways, often eschewing standard tropes many works fall into, where people inexplicably have 21st century western liberal ideas of gender and women end up girlbossing it instead of being engaged with how the world around them pushes and pulls against them. Even Amber/The Fool's genderqueerness, a topic which was just beginning to reach more mainstream circles in the late 90s, is handled shockingly well. It might never be directly in focus, partly due to Amber's general distance in the narrative, but the book handles the few vague discussions we have surrounding it well and Amber is never, well, made a Fool of because of it.
Another strength here is the focus on politicking, carrying over from Farseer. Whilst there are easy parallels to be drawn to the American Revolution, and they definitely fit, the book is still very much interested in forging its own identity from that inspiration. The manoeuvring in the Trader's Council, the struggles of Ronica, Kefferia, and Malta, with Althea joining them later on, to ensure the survival of their family and their estates, and the blind spots of the Traders and Bingtown are excellent. This also applies to the Pirate plotline, with Kennit's gradual rise and his manipulations of the people of the Cursed Shore being, whilst not quite as engaging as the Bingtown plotline, a great read too.
However, this leads me to one of my main criticisms of the book, and the series so far. This complexity of character, setting, and theme is not applied equally. Chalced and Jamaillia are ostensibly the major looming threats here, as Chalced somewhat was in the background of the Farseer trilogy. However, neither are really afforded any complexity at all. Chalced feels almost like a parody of orientalist stereotypes, but one which forgot to include anything which was critical of employing those stereotypes. Everyone we meet from Chalced, hell everyone we meet who's directly descended from a Chalcedian person, is almost universally treated as evil. They're drug-pedalling slavers who see all women as nothing more than meat to use and dispose of, whilst constantly scheming to overthrow their neighbours to the north and south. I had this same issue in Farseer but it remained at the periphery as Chalced was far less directly relevant to the story of that series, but here we're semi-regularly interacting with Chalcedian characters and its lack of nuance and development in comparison to the Bingtowners and pirates really stands out. I don't expect that same level of exploration for Chalced, they're still the least relevant compared to Bingtown, the pirates, and Jamaillia, but just a tiny bit more complexity in their depiction would go a long way in tackling my issues with them.
Jamailla does fair slightly better, with actual perspectives from within Jamaillian society, but it still comes across as a decadent, eastern-coded empire which is addled by drugs and decadence. I'd be fine with this if time was spent on it, developing out the culture and society, but it's not, instead relying on those same, if somewhat scaled down, orientalist tropes as Chalced does. Even the Jamaillian character who's PoV we do get is dismissive of the empire and it's sad to see that, compared to Hobb's careful development of Bingtown and the Traders, Jamaillia has been left behind.
Talking of the Jamaillian character, that leads into another issue I had with the novel, how it tackles sexual violence and rape. These topics are often badly handled and here it's no different. It's used, essentially, as drama and as a motivator, to make Serilla suffer so she turns completely against the Santrap. It's not needed at all, she was already turning against Cosgo and in love with Bingtown, but Hobb felt the need to draw out an extended rape scene with the character. It feels so unnecessary, and almost as if George RR Martin had taken over for writing for a moment. The same is true of the attempted rape of Althea. It's a cheap tool to use as both drama and to push her position with the crew of Paragon forward. The end results of both these scenes could've been achieved easily without resorting to cheap uses of the "rape as drama" trope.
My final issue centres around the final 150-250 pages or so. Essentially, I feel that Hobb somewhat fumbles some character changes at the very end of the book. Specifically, Malta and Wintrow who seemingly come to revelations about themselves and their relationships off-page. It's not so much that I don't see those characters reaching the conclusions they do, it's more that the book essentially cuts away from their perspective for an extended period, some characters notice the change happening, and we jump back to them after they've had their revelation. It feels somewhat unearned, like we skipped the climax of their stories in this book, and we're left without a crucial piece of their journey throughout this series. I'm sure Ship of Destiny will do a lot to explore these changes more, and the last few couple of scenes from Malta's PoV does do a lot in that regard, but it kind of feels like Hobb was running out of space for the plot and so trimmed out these character revelations so she could squeeze in the dragon hatching at the end. It's worse with Wintrow, who seemingly makes a couple of decisions (finding and freeing She Who Remembers most egregiously) because the plot needs to happen, even if narratively it feels out of left field and as if Hobb has reached into the narrative to direct Wintrow like she was Sa.
However, these long passages detailing my issues it might seem that I disliked this book more than I did. That's not the case. This book, and the series so far, was a great read. It was highly engaging in terms of character, theme and plot from start to finish and, outside of those fumbles, one of the most enjoyable books I've read this year. The book comes highly recommended!
Shredded - 4/5
This anthology was a lot of fun! This being a horror anthology the stories focus down on, well, the horrors of sport: dodgy drugs, debilitating injuries, toxic rivalries, and the occassional coach-induced parasitic and body melting infection. However, there's also a lot of emphasis on the joys of sport, of the joys of pushing yourself and your limits both phyiscially and mentally, owning the pain sports can bring, and how it can drive changes in your body that you want for yourself. It's definitely not enough to make me want to touch the stuff, personally exercise as a concept is horrifying enough without the worry of turning into a steaming pile of goo, but I did really appreciate that it wasn't an anthology solely focused around the terrifying evils of sports and fitness. Also, it's quite queer, so that's a lot of fun too.
My only major criticism would be that sometimes the stories got a little samey. For example, there are a lot of stories about drugs or steroids which are sold as helping improve your performance but which, gasp!, end up morphing someone into something horrific, and that dragged the anthology as a whole down for me. The individual stories themselves are all very solid, but having them lined up next to each other in one collection leads the whole thing feeling somewhat repetitive at times. Again, I still enjoyed these stories, I just sometimes wished for a little more variety from short to short.
Overall though a very fun anthology, and one I'd definitely recommend to all those body horror freaks out there like me.
Dragonsinger (Harper Hall #2) - 4/5
Menolly goes to school! This one's a lot of fun, feeling very slice-of-life as Menolly starts her apprenticeship at the Harper's Hall itself and deals with some grumpy professors, snotty bullies, and of course her brood of fire lizards. I enjoy the low stakes and more character-centred feel of this series a lot, it's a very different vibe from the initial Pern trilogy and works really well here. McCaffrey's prose also works for me, evoking that calming feel which Earthsea often does for me which, given that these two series were foundational in YA fantasy, makes a lot of sense.
If I had any complaints it would be these two things:
1. There's a neurodivergent character called Camo who isn't handled the best at all. I can chalk that up to the series being written in the mid 1970s and can rationalise it in-universe as another of the Pernese's cultural hangups but yeah, Camo's depiction has not aged gracefully.
2. Menolly is just too good at every task she's put to in this book. She's nearly as skilled as many of the masters of the different instruments she plays and even her skills at voice, her weakest subject, are excellent. Having Menolly struggle a bit more with at least a few of the skills the Harper's have to teach would've done a lot to ground Menolly a lot more. She is still struggling with feeling left out and isolated by the other apprentices and especially the other girls but the short timescale the book is set over (a Pern week) hurts that a bit too as she somewhat overcomes that in a fairly short amount of time.
Still, overall I really did enjoy this read. Quick and fun, definitely still worth checking out!
I Am A Dalek - 3.5/5
Including a mandatory Gareth Roberts is a transphobe disclaimer at the top here.
This is pretty decent, reminds me a bit of the first New Year's Special featuring the 13th Doctor, ‘Resolution', from 2019 (a lone Dalek crashes in the British past before being dug up in the present, with a possessed Human being used to help it escape and rebuild) but with a tie to ‘Evil of the Daleks' through the Human and Dalek Factors. It keeps the threat level of a single Dalek up to a similar level as concurrent Revival stories did and has a fun resolution to deal with the threat. It was surprisingly brutal too, with the Dalek going on quite a rampage across Merrie Olde Englande.
The short page count means the side characters don't get much but what's there is fun and Kate Yates is a pretty decent edition here, with her struggles fitting that more tied-to-Earth feel this era of the show had.
Overall, a decent read.
Tell Me I'm Worthless - 3/5
I want to start this review by saying that I agree with what a lot of the negative reviews here on Goodreads say. The book has a number of interesting comments to make on England's racism and transphobia and misogyny and fascism, how it's roots are deep inside it's green and pleasant fields and twisting inside the people who live there. We're all nurturing this ghost of Albion inside us which haunts interactions between people something inside us has deemed to be different from ourselves, people who're wrong and deviant and a threat.
But then once it's made it's point through the story or characters it keeps going, spending pages outlining what precisely the author's point is. Every sentence, every word, has to be About Something. We get pages which read like someone has fictionalised their Twitter feed into two characters so they can engage in Culture War debates across the book's pages, often in a way which feels like Alison Rumfitt just venting at us through the pages. This does feel partly intentional, the experiences of protagonists Alice and Ila have essentially morphed them into these representations of Twitter arguments, but that doesn't make reading Twitter discourse any more interesting.
The best part of the whole book is Part II when we just get to spend time with the characters for a bit, flashing back to the blooding of this fascist monolith that is The House, a bit of the complex hate-fuck that is the main character's friendship, and their first experience with the House. Whilst the books still feels the need to make every scene About Something it feels more balanced, like we're getting this commentary through the characters and their interactions, instead of being shown and then sat down and told about what it all means a few paragraphs later. We see Alice's racism, we see Ila's transphobia, we see Hannah's insecurities and fear of being a third wheel to Alice and Ila's queerness and Ila's race, before The House literally morphs Hannah into a symbol of fascism. Sure, Part III does a lot to overexplain these moments to make sure you get it, but whilst it's happening it's genuinely great to read.
Furthermore, I like how it talks about the weaponisation of race and womanhood by people who couldn't give the slightest shit about the people they're weaponising. I really enjoy how the book flips perspectives on different scenes in the character's shared past, reframing what one person might see as a happy and healthy moment as being something wholly different, and wholly worse, for another. There's also a lot of really good gross shit which I like a lot because shit, piss, vomit, blood, dismemberment and bodily disruptions are all super cool. But these aspects are all layered beneath a driving need to explain The Point, to tell you again and again that England itself is the putrefying heart in which fascism is freely sprouting, that white Albion is ready to rise above the waves, reclaim his island, and wash away the filth.
And in the end you're left with a resounding “yes, and?” There's some attempt at the end of the book to have a rallying cry against this fascism, making martyrs out of Alice and Harry who have somewhat overcome England's fascist heart, but it feels to me, well, half-hearted. We've spent the book navel-gazing and discoursing on the rotten core of England but instead of pointing any real way out we're just left wallowing in the horror of it all. I get it, it's a a horror book and all, but you've spent the whole book going “England's really queerphobic and racist and misogynistic etc” and I'm like “yeah, I know. Are we gonna actually do anything about it?” The answer just seems to be no, lets just stew in our own self-hatred and maybe some of us will find some way to pull ourselves out of this Hateful House, and it's a huge shame.
Overall, the book has a lot of decent ideas and images but it's struggling underneath the desperate need to say Something Important at all times that it becomes tiring, especially as the book also needs to outline precisely what the author means by those Important Points. I do still want to check out Brainwyrms though, because who doesn't like wyrms in people's brains?
Sidenote: I felt the depiction of trans men in this book was quite off and fairly shitty, and not in an intentional “this character is shitty” but in an unconscious way that can often affect trans men if they are represented in a work (which is sadly fairly rare). I wouldn't really want to speak on this too much though cause I don't really know enough about the experiences of trans men to talk about this with any confidence or insight, but I thought I'd just comment on the very iffy way this depiction here came across to me.
The Sandman: Overture - 4/5
The story of Overture is pretty standard Gaiman, a quest through a weird and fantastic land to solve a crisis of some kind, and I kind of doubt the statement that this was a story Gaiman was waiting 20 years to tell, but Gaiman falling back on a strong formula isn't a bad thing in itself and it doesn't hurt the original comic at all.
It does actually bring some interesting angles to it and reads at points more like an epilogue than a prequel, able to summarise and develop the idea of who Dream is and what is to come for him later on in the main series (which I guess is what an Overture does, according to the handy explanation at the start of the story). It definitely reads better as an end to the story though and not as a first step into the Sandman series as there are multiple calls forward, with some small sections even taking place after The Wake and a few references to Endless Nights.
What really stands out though is the exceptional art. J.H. Williams III's art is worth it all on it's own. It beautiful to look at, constantly upping his game with the amazing worlds and ideas and characters he can cram into every single panel. Each page is designed so well too, with interesting uses of panelling, page layout, and double-to-four page spreads. Gorgeous. I would definitely recommend a physical edition of this book though, because I can see how those design decisions wouldn't work all that well with various digital comics apps like Comixology.
Overall, really beautiful art, a decent story, and a great encapsulation of the characters and themes of the Sandman series. Well worth a read if you're a fan of rest of the series!
Tunnels of Blood - 3.5/5
Definitely the best of the series so far! Darren goes up against a supernatural serial killer whilst finding love in the city. This is where the series really comes together in terms of both it's writing style (it comes across a little more mature whilst still being aimed at younger readers) and has some genuinely really fun imagery and set pieces. The plot and relationship is very good too, even if the kids do use phrases that make them seem older than they are at times. We also get more of a look into the vampire world with some of the structure of vamp society being revealed more clearly and the introduction of the Vampaneze, I enjoyed it a lot!
The next two trilogies, Vampire Rites and Vampire War, are the ones I remember being my favourites of the whole series so I'm excited to eventually get around to them soonish. For now though I'm going to take a little break from the series.
Synners - 4/5
If the time it took me to read this tells you anything then it should tell you that this book was a bit of a challenge for me. It's so dense, overloaded with jargon, surreal sections, and just straight-up ideas, that I ironically reached information overload and had to drop the book for a good couple of months. There's a lot here that I think will need a second read to properly unpack, one that I won't break up with a string of other books.
Despite all of that I still really enjoyed this novel. The characters are excellent and far more varied than your usual cyberpunk story, ranging from your somewhat standard gutter punk kids (although still with their own spin) to older folks who're caught up in the corporate machine to varying degrees. Furthermore, unlike most cyberpunk I've read Cadigan manages to write women well! It's so refreshing to see women who aren't solely present to be the fantasy of a sexy razorgirl, with the characters who most fits that description instead being a fully formed individuals all on their own, or used to deconstruct that trope. These aspects mean the book comes together feeling almost post-cyberpunk at times, whilst not dropping that anti-authoritarian cyberpunk feel. The dialogue, and writing in general, is also exceptional, flowing really well to create some of the best noirish/cyberpunk writing I've read anyplace. It lets you ride out some of the sentences that are more jargon-filled (be that technical or streetspeak) more smoothly than you'd be able to otherwise.
And the ideas! This book remains rooted in the whole late 80s/early 90s MTV Generation and the growing fear of what the developing internet could bring, much of the story is centred around creating music videos through entering something like cyberspace/the Matrix, but it reaches forward still by touching on our modern fears about information overload and lack of context in the present. It both interrogates those fears of technology whilst highlighting just how they really haven't changed all that much in recent years, just the context surrounding them.
Overall, a really great book that I found to be quite a difficult read. It leads me to a strange situation where I often agree with both the top negative and top positive reviews I've seen of Synners, both here on Goodreads and elsewhere. Still, I'd recommend at least giving it a go, especially if you're into cyberpunk media.
The Vampire's Assistant - 3/5
Was it Darren Shan who turned me into a gorehound? I remember The Demonata series and Zom-b being pretty gore-filled, but I was not expecting as many dismemberments and disembowelments from a series aimed at a slightly younger audience than those series. Let's be clear, I'm not complaining at all, just surprised.
This was as fun as I remember, and I enjoyed it more than book 1 just because it focuses more on the weird world of Cirque du Freak far more than the first book does, and provides a few interesting insights into Vampire culture. We also get far more of Crepsley and Darren, which is great to see, and overall the writing is, whilst more angsty (Darren's refusal to drink blood feels a little silly, and it did even when I was a kid), better at engaging me than it was in book 1, even if it remains very accessible for a young reader.
I am however excited to get to book 3, and out of the earlier floundering that books 1 and 2 have as Shan tries to find what he wants to do with the series. 3 is where I really remember the series coming together more, building to the more epic tone of the later books. Still, the early stories are still fun to read, so I don't have any issues reading through them to get to the later stuff.
So yeah, a fun read with lots of blood and things.
Demon Seed - 2.5/5
It's alright. Being stuck in the mind of a creepy AI incel for the whole thing got a little tiring, even if the book was only 210+ pages. Also, whilst I think it managed to weaponise male gaze really well it would've been good to get a PoV from the female character who was being so horribly treated. It also follows some other tropes I dislike, like the mentally ill killer guy.
I did read it in pretty much two sittings though so it moved fast enough, just a little meh all round.
The King in Yellow -3/5
This collection is decent, and I can 100% see the huge influence it had over the later Cthulhu Mythos from Lovecraft and others. The sense of lingering dread, the paranoia, the pursuing almost-cults, the entities that seem to linger in places deep behind the scenes, and the cursed tome which drives its readers mad. When those elements are the focus Chambers does an great job, and he's able to portray a generic madness and paranoia better than Lovecraft or his contemporaries ever could. Also, whilst he doesn't manage to capture alien vistas or creatures as well as those later authors he still manages a few well done locations and, more rarely, monsters throughout, especially in his interpretations of Carcosa and Hastur.
However, as the stories go on much of the focus shifts towards fairly generic 1890s melodramatic romance over the strangeness, and that's just not something I'm interested in. If it had stuck with the French angle and went for a Decadent approach it may have worked well for me and been an interesting contrast with the very morally conservative and uptight Lovecraft, but it's largely maidens swooning for men and men getting far too obsessive over every woman they meet. Chambers also has a tendency to just end his stories rather abruptly. This isn't unique to him and various writers of these types of stories would do the same but occasionally he'll just write a really quick page or two to wrap up a story which has spent 15 pages building up atmosphere, leaving it feeling pretty unsatisfying. I think the atmosphere building alone is worth it, and probably why you'd read these stories anyway, but the issue with endings still stood out to me whilst reading.
So, The King in Yellow is probably more of an interesting read from a historical perspective than as a book in itself. Still, if you're interested in a foundational text in weird fiction and horror I'd definitely check the first few stories out.
Dark Allies - 2.5/5
I've finished what I'm tentatively calling Star Trek: New Frontiers season 1, or the run of books from House of Cards through to Dark Allies (10 books in total + a comic and a short story).
Dark Allies itself is decent enough, it carries on a lot of the soap opera style crew drama fairly well, even if some of it is wearing a bit thin at this point, specifically between Captain Calhoun and Shelby (although the book does a pretty good job of acknowledging the rut they're in and seems to be pushing for change in the next novel). Also, whilst the books are still weirdly horny for Trek media the creep factor has been dialled back a whole bunch from the early books, and Burgoyne especially has cooled down hir horny a fair bit (with parts of this book feeling like a response to the complaints about that aspect). I didn't love the resolution, it seemed to miss out on the whole “finding peaceful solutions” thing which Trek is usually focused on, but I can't say I wasn't happy to see the main villains of the last 3 or so books get shafted.
As for New Frontiers S1 as a whole. It's a mixed bag: I enjoy the soapy drama between the crew which lets it feel distinct from other 90s Trek (which is lampshaded well in the TNG crossover where Riker has to manage this very strange and dysfunctional Starfleet Crew), the comedy is usually enjoyable, with lots of the cheesy and absurd gags which Peter David seems to love, and the actual setup and payoff between novels and stories is surprisingly well done. Sure, it's all written by one guy but it's still fun to see a hook in book 5 pay off in book 9 or so in a tie-in series like this one. Also, whilst ideas do take a backseat to character drama there's still some solid stuff here, such as vaguely exploring the idea of gender beyond a binary with Burgoyne and their s/he and hir pronouns and how the crew reacts to that, even if it is still rooted in linking it to biology (hey, it's a Trek tie-in from the 90s).
However, Burgoyne leads me to some of the negatives about the series. It has, especially early on, an uncomfortably horny edge. Now, I'm not someone who objects to horny in books, it's fine and I can appreciate it, but old man horny is just very bleh. Burgoyne and Selar's relationship is centred on that here. Burgy is, frankly, a sex pest and should've been thrown off the ship multiple times for hir actions, and whilst s/he mellows and I do like them more as the series goes on hir presence still has that taint to it. Much of the rest of the horniness is down to standard “men writing women” shenanigans or, leading into another issue, trying to make Captain Calhoun seem like a badass.
David desperately wants Calhoun to be pop culture's idea of Kirk dialled up to 11. He's a former warlord who fights the bad guys with a sword, beds all the ladies, has a tortured soul, and is so ultra cool under pressure that his opponents all comment on it. Frankly, it's unintentionally hilarious and reads like the ultimate Marty Stu insert, even after we establish the various fuckups Calhoun has had in the past. In Double or Nothing he's playing the Bond role and it feels like a version of ‘Our Man Bashir' from DS9 which plays it straight. This is also weird in that David focuses in on comedy throughout these books and the fact he's playing his parody of Kirk so straight sits directly at odds with that. It also hurts the characters around him. Commander Shelby can never really be right because she's just not as cool as Calhoun is. All her, reasonable and understandable, complaints about him flaunting protocol and Starfleet's rules? Nonsense in the face of Calhoun's badassery! It makes her seem so much worse at her job than she is, never mind the rest of the crew.
Don't get me wrong, I largely enjoy this series (I wouldn't have read so much of it if I didn't), but these issues have niggled at me throughout. I'm going to take a good break between the end of this “season” and the start of the next, but I will eventually return to New Frontiers at some point.
Exquisite Corpse - 3.5/5
I enjoyed this one a fair bit. It is trying too hard and the edge and the angst is at times too much for me but it pulls off what it's trying to do very well, being intensely nihilistic and filled with lovingly described gore and sex.
I do think a lot of thematic stuff works really well, with it's focus on decay and death and pollution. The New Orleans Big Easy setting surrounded by the horrifically polluted bayou, filled by the HIV/AIDS epidemic which is slowly rotting away inside pretty much everyone, and littered with piles of putrefying corpses, works superbly. The imagery itself is very evocative: there's one moment when our two serial killers slice open a man and his insides are festering with polyps and cysts and it's genuinely one of the most disturbing parts of the novel.
Lets talk about those two killers. They're appropriately fucked and, when they do finally meet, their whole romance is appropriately fucked too. Large sections of the book are devoted to their killings and they're described in loving detail, complemented by the cannibalism and necrophilia. I do get the argument I've seen that the whole exercise is pointless and that what's done here is without any real purpose beyond edginess. Nothing changes, if anything they make each other worse, and everything in the world is left just all that more rotten once the book ends. I think it works, it's so heightened too that it becomes, at least to me, comically bleak, but I 100% understand the complaints people have.
My major complaint is with Tran. The exoticisation of him is frankly more uncomfortable than anything else here. I'd be fine with it if it was done solely by the characters around him as they obsessed over the Vietnamese boy for their own racist reasons but it's inbuilt into the text in a frankly horrible way. It's made worse in that he's based on a victim of Jeffery Dahmer, which leads to an icky exploitative feeling hanging over the whole book.
Overall though I would say I'm happy I read this book. It's definitely fucked in a number of ways, both enjoyably in just how stupidly dark it gets and not in how it tackles specifically Tran. I probably wouldn't rec it unless you're a definite fan of extreme horror but I did enjoy my time with it.
Oblivion - 4.5/5
So Oblivion, Series 3 of the 8th Doctor's DWM Comic Stories.
I genuinely love this series: it takes the unrestrained nature of comics and runs with it, letting the series go from meeting Frida Kahlo in 1920s Mexico to a what felt like a genuinely original Dalek story set on an ocean world, before moving on to a Gormenghast inspired sci-fi court setting with catpeople and fishfolk. But within all of that there's such a consistent commitment to focusing on character, specifically the companions the series introduces, that it feels like a dry run for the Revival in 2005, and at times works far better than that show ever has. Izzy Sinclair goes through a lot here, both in terms of personal growth and physical change (let's just say that there's a reason the strip chose Kahlo to focus on as a historical figure), that really test what a Who Companion can deal with and it comes out feeling so well done that I just love her all the more. We also see the return of Fey, reintroduced whilst fighting Nazis, and whilst she's a secondary concern for the story she gets some great material here too.
However, I do think the strip falls down a little when characterising the Doctor. Eight has always been fairly hard to characterise in expanded media, the audios are anchored in McGann's performance but the comics and books always seem to struggle to find an individual voice for him in the way the other Doctor's have, usually relying on his Edwardian Romantic look and fey style from the movie to portray him (although some of the books lean hard into the queercoding depending on the author). That's a fairly serious issue here. Eight has all the basic Doctor characteristics here and a great sense of anger at some of the things happening in this set of stories but nothing stands out as intrinsically relying on this being an Eight story. That's a bit of a worry because he'll seemingly be alone for the next few stories so I'm concerned that with no Companion he might fade a fair bit.
So overall this series is well worth checking out. It also really illustrates how the Who EU was the template for the Who revival (I know Russell was a big fan of this strip), and it's often more consistent than that revival series is, both in terms of story quality and characterisation. If you can track it down definitely do so.
I'm gonna take a break from the series for now before coming back to the fourth and final volume, The Flood.
Bad Dolls - 3.5/5
Bad Dolls is pretty good, 4 shortish stories which do very much have a Fleabag via Twilight Zone feel e.g. women in their late 20s/early 30s having a bit of a shit time but usually with some strange supernatural element thrown in. Add to that a bit of comedy and you've got a pretty good picture. They're not really scary, more vaguely unsettling and sad at times, and it relies more on the fact that the protags are all having a fairly crap time, punctuated with sarcastic humour.
Reply Hazy, Try Again
Magic 8-ball shenanigans. Shitty relationships, supressed queerness, a bit of food porn, and some unhealthy attachments. Good times all round.
Bachelorette
Those kooky bachelorette party traditions! I liked this one a lot, gets that feeling of drifting away from your old friends as you get older down pretty well.
Goblin
Probably the weakest. Deals with weight loss and the body dysmorphia around that but feels a little one note. The lil goblin guy is suitably silly and shitty though.
Bad Dolls
The longest of the collection. It's good, I like the doll and the grief and the guilt about not feeling grief and the feeling of being back in a place you swore you'd never go back to. Cake too, big fan of that.
Some Notes
1. Harrison does love Septum piercings. In each of these 4 stories it seems like every “cool woman” has one. Nothing wrong with that I just found it funny.
2. The food porn, whilst not overbearing, is definitely present. Big fan.
3. I think if I have one really serious complaint about all the stories it's that all of these protagonists do kind of feel like the same person. They're all sort of “women who want to be cool outsiders but aren't managing it and feel like shit”. They're all very sarcastic and sad, like Fleabag is, but it feels far more surface level than there. These are shorts though so there's less room to develop that out but even still, some more character work there would've been preferred.
Overall, a good read! Definitely worth checking out.
The Tainted Cup - 4.5/5
The Tainted Cup is basically a mystery similar to a Sherlock Holmes story but in a very fun biopunk world with weird plants and biological augmentations, with a big helping of Attack on Titan, all within a Roman/somewhat Ottoman style empire. Does that sound cool? It should!
The characters here are really solid. It's written in a first person style from the perspective of the Watson-style character Dinios as he investigates a murder for his very analytical boss. He's fun to follow as he faces a number of very interesting challenges over the case, both external and internal (namely trying to work with and conceal his severe dyslexia), but I mainly loved his interactions with lead detective Ana. They've got a great dynamic throughout and the scenes where he reports his findings back to her, or she interviews suspects/witnesses, are a highlight. There are a couple solid side characters too which play into their character archetypes well, from grizzled warriors and put-upon legionaries to scheming nobility, which help to carry the book along.
The central mystery is Sherlock-like so you're not really expected to have solved it by yourself, although I do think, like with Sherlock, you can if you're paying close attention to what's going on. The investigation is enjoyable though, with lots of twists, conspiracies, and foul murders to keep you entertained.
As for the world, I really like it. It never feels like worldbuilding for the sake of it, everything we learn is relevant to either the plot or the characters whilst still being cool by itself. It leads to some solid set pieces and some pretty good horror beats at times, especially with the augments and the murder weapon itself.
I do have issues. The writing feels a little sloppy at times, with some awkward word choice and dodgy sentences, where I feel it could've done with an extra draft. It's nothing egregious, but it did take me out of the book once or twice. Additionally, I do wish there was a dramatis personae, I would've found it useful when keeping track of all the different characters and their roles in the empire.
Overall though a worthwhile read! I'm super interested in seeing where future books in this series end up going.
Double Feature - 3/5
The book is made up of two stories, the novella A Travesty and the novelette Ordo. Bits haven't aged, namely the attitude towards women and the casual homophobia.
A Travesty
A fairly fun dark comedy story following a protagonist trying to coverup a murder. Nothing crazily original but solid fun.
Ordo
A more bittersweet and introspective story following and expy for Marilyn Monroe's first husband as he comes back into contact with his ex-wife. It's solid, focusing on how a person can change so completely and why they would choose to, and does a fairly good job of tackling this question. It contrasts well with the comedy crime style of the first story.
Overall, a solid double feature.